FOSTERING PEACE? US NUMBER ONE IN ARMS SALES

[Zlatko Waterman]

(AP article)


Published on Thursday, September 1, 2005 by the Associated Press


U.S. Sells the Most Weapons to Developing Nations
by Lolita Baldor

The United States is the largest supplier of weapons to developing nations, delivering more than $9.6 billion in arms to Near East and Asian countries last year.

The U.S. sales to the developing countries helped boost worldwide weapons sales to the highest level since 2000, a congressional study says.

The total worldwide value of all agreements to sell arms last year was close to $37 billion, and nearly 59 percent of the agreements were to sell weapons to developing nations, according to the Congressional Research Service report.

The weapons being sold range from ammunition to tanks, combat aircraft, missiles and submarines.

As economic pressures led to a worldwide decline in weapons orders — from about $42 billion in 2000 to $37 billion last year — competition is forcing the U.S. and European countries to forge agreements to develop weapons jointly.

The CRS report released Monday said worldwide arms deliveries to developing nations rose from $20.8 billion in 2003, to $22.5 billion last year. Agreements to sell weapons, meanwhile, shot up from $15.1 billion to nearly $21.8 billion last year. China, Egypt and India were the heaviest buyers of the weapons.

Last year, for example, the U.S. completed agreements to sell helicopters and other weapons to Egypt, radar systems to Taiwan, helicopters to Brazil and Israel and other weapons systems to Oman and Pakistan.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack explained the transfers as "a very serious national security and a foreign policy matter" carried out under "a very rigorous set of rules and regulations and laws."

"And just as we exercise restraint in our own transfers, we encourage restraint by other countries," including the European Union, which McCormack said should reconsider its decision to resume arms shipments to China.

Developing countries are the weapons' primary buyers. And the U.S. has been the most active seller for the past eight years, resulting mainly from agreements made in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. The U.S. was responsible for more than 42 percent of the deliveries to developing nations in 2004.

Russia, which ranks second, sells mostly to China and India, as well as a number of smaller, poorer countries.

The CRS study, which is done each year, was written by national defense specialist Richard Grimmett. He said in the study that developed nations have tried in recent years to emphasize joint projects rather than simply buying the weapons from each other, so they can preserve their own industrial bases.

© 2005 Associated Press

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[Zlatko Waterman]

Y'know, Still:

The world still expects the US ( because of a lingering mythology--Ellis Island period, no doubt . . .) to be the "last best hope" of humankind, and holds us to a high, perhaps the highest, standard.

Abu Ghraib ( a judge is still dithering over whether to release 87 new photos and three videotapes of torture-- the records seem to affirm that high-ranking commanders ordered the abuse . . .), the lack of preparedness in New Orleans, the cultural chaos fostered by the US invasion in Iraq that may have contributed to the recent disaster among Shia pilgrims-- and on and on.

These disasters cannot be blamed exclusively on "President" Bush, much as I would like to pin them there. Americans, with their cheap gasoline, neglect of their own ( and planetary) infrastructure and greedy, self-willed ignorance of the rest of the world ( and I include myself in this as a guilty party) have contributed to their own ruin.

Even sainted Cindy Sheehan ( and I am a very big fan of hers) was somewhat slow to come around until her own flesh and blood was the target.

We are like that, just like everyone else.

But we are slow to consider ourselves not exempt from unwholesome human vicissitudes.

We were stunned when the US basketball "dream team" lost at the Olympics:

http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/d ... 367690.htm


And we call it "The World Series", but Japanese teams don't take part, even though many American pro baseballers are employed by the Japanese. Bobby Valentine, a veteran manager and player in the US with considerable experience in Japan, comments:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8379659/


I apologize for these trivial sports analogies. Everyone should know that corporate sports franchises, like everything corporate, have to do with vast exchanges of money before any other consideration.

I simply use these examples to point out that we aren't nearly as exempt from failure, bad management and electing poor "leaders" as we imagine we are.


--Z

[stilltrucking]

Malcolm X (I wish I could remember his real name, I don't mean Malcolm Little, I mean his name given when he renounced the black racism of the nation of islam and embraced the true faith) He took a lot of heat after the JFK murder for saying "the chickens have come home to roost' I am just saying we need to concentrate on this administration, I am pretty sure Bush will go down as the worse president the united states has ever had, I am pretty sure that this administration will be known as the most corrupt in our history. Worse than harding, worse than grant. I think it is an ill wind that blows no good. Maybe the american people will see what is on the end of their fork, as jimbo said there is a difference between democratic lackeys of corporate greed and neo con facists. I do not think your sports analogies are trivial at all. It could happen nothing I long for as much as a world serries between baltimore and Osaka. I deleted (ok doreen sorry) one here maybe you caught it. Europe is in shock I heard about what is going down here.