(Updated: Originally published November 13, 2006)
Let's take back the curtain a bit and see how the promoters of Peace, Democracy and Freedom is enacting those wishes upon the world at large.
"US is top purveyor on weapons sales list; Shipments grow to unstable areas" by Bryan Bender/Boston Globe November 13, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The United States last year provided nearly half of the weapons sold to militaries in the developing world, as major arms sales to the most unstable regions -- many already engaged in conflict -- grew to the highest level in eight years, new US government figures show.
So George is pumping out the weaponry in order to advance peace, huh?
Highest level in EIGHT years!
According to the annual assessment, the United States supplied $8.1 billion worth of weapons to developing countries in 2005 -- 45.8 percent of the total and far more than second-ranked Russia with 15 percent and Britain with a little more than 13 percent.
Arms control specialists said the figures underscore how the largely unchecked arms trade to the developing world has become a major staple of the American weapons industry, even though introducing many of the weapons risks fueling conflicts rather than aiding long-term US interests.
It's called WAR PROFITEERING, and its been going on forever!
And read what it says!
It says we are doing this for short-term gain because it's a "major staple of the American weapons industry," -- it's the only thing we sell the that the world wants -- "even though introducing many of the weapons risks fueling conflicts rather than aiding long-term US interests."
Aww, the hell with you and me and the country's long-term interests!!
As long as the guys down at Brown & Root and Halliburton cashiered a big check, hell I'm as happy as, what... a Gitmo detainee?
You know, if it looks like it, walks like it, and stinks like it, it probably is:
This whole scheme a way to keep wars going endlessly, and who will benefit from that?
The next "enemy" surely trained and armed by us, like Osama, like Saddam, like Iran-Contra, like 'em all!
The report was compiled by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
So much for the left-wing propaganda angle. It's a GOVERNMENT report!
Daryl G. Kimball , executive director of the nonpartisan Arms Control Association in Washington:
"We are at a point in history where many of these sales are not essential for the self-defense of these countries and the arms being sold continue to fuel conflicts and tensions in unstable areas. It doesn't make much sense over the long term."
The United States signed an estimated $6.2 billion worth of new deals last year to sell attack helicopters, missiles, and other armaments to developing nations such as the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Developing nations are designated as all those except in North America, Western Europe, Russia, Australia, and New Zealand.
In addition to weapons already delivered, new contracts for future weapons deliveries topped $44 billion last year -- the highest overall since 1998, according to the report. Nearly 70 percent of them were designated for developing nations.
Many of the US sales are justified by American officials as critical to the war on terrorism or other foreign policy goals such as checking an emerging China. One such example is the recent decision to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.
Yup, FOMENTING WARS ALL OVER THE PLACE!
And read carefully: Sales are justified by US officials because of the "war on terrorism or other foreign policy goals such as checking an emerging China."
Yeah, well, your war on "terror" is a fraud, a false-flag operation to advance PNAC goals of world domination, and as for China, they are not a threat.
And I am not going to sit by silently and let these Neo-Con fascist nutcakes take us into a completely unreasonable and unnecessary war with China.
Check China? How about COOPERATING with China?
And checking the good ole U.S. of A?
Piece now gives you a glimpse of history:
The United States has long relied on arms sales to prop up allies or enhance collective defense arrangements.
"For decades, during the height of the Cold War, providing conventional weapons to friendly states was an instrument of foreign policy utilized by the United States and its allies," according to the report, titled "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations."
"This was equally true for the Soviet Union and its allies," the report said.
Yeah, and millions in the "developing" world were killed during the titanic struggle between Communism and Capitalism.
Paying the price then, paying the price now. (Sigh!)
Yet there is growing evidence that the sales are increasingly more about dollars and cents for the US military-industrial complex and other major military economies. The trend began after the end of the Cold War, when American, European, Russian, and other defense industries were forced to consolidate and competition for foreign sales heated up.
"Where before the principal motivation for arms sales by foreign suppliers might have been to support a foreign policy objective, today that motivation may be based as much on economic considerations as those of foreign policy or national security policy," said the congressional report, which detailed both arms deliveries, or weapons actually delivered to customers, and arms agreements, or contracts signed for future deliveries.
Washington's desire to maintain the status quo was on display at a meeting at the United Nations on Oct. 26, when a UN panel voted to study whether a new treaty might be possible to regulate the sale of conventional arms. The United States was the only country out of 166 to vote no, though China and Russia were among a handful of countries to abstain.
So blunt with the admission: it's about ECONOMICS, not SECURITY!
Starting to wonder about the "Terrorist Threat" now? And how many times will the Great Deceiver tell us that and the world are speaking with one voice to North Korea, Iran, et al?
And if I ever hear that damn liar mouth that horseshit out of that rectum he considers a pie-hole, shove this unanimity down that hole "a UN panel voted to study whether a new treaty might be possible to regulate the sale of conventional arms.
The United States was the only country out of 166 to vote no." But the WORLD is with US!
Powerful interests in the global arms industry have long stood in the way of controlling the arms flow to the developing world.
After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, for example, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, Russia, France, Britain, and China -- pledged to limit the sale of arms to the volatile Middle East, attributing the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to the region having been awash in high-tech arsenals.
More than a decade later, those pledges have gone unfulfilled.
I always wonder why the five permanent, veto-wielding members of the SC -- charged with securing piece in our world -- are also the five biggest arms dealers on the face of the planet.
Promoters of Peace who Benefit from War. Isn't that an oxymoron?
Moscow inked major deals to sell missiles, warships, and other hardware to such potential trouble spots as Iran and China, according to the report, which is considered the most authoritative breakdown of the global arms trade. China also agreed to provide weapons to trouble spots such as Iran and North Korea, while major Western European suppliers, such as Britain and France, also concluded large orders with developing countries.
If I didn't know better, I'd almost believe that the whole world is united.
Because looking at this situation with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, it's almost as if the world is united... AGAINST US!!!!!
The United States that by far remains the top purveyor of high-tech arms to areas where analysts believe the likelihood of armed conflict remains highest. A study last year by the progressive World Policy Institute found that the United States transferred weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved in an ongoing war.
"From Angola, Chad, and Ethiopia, to Colombia, Pakistan, and the Philippines, transfers through the two largest US arms sales programs [Foreign Military sales and Commercial Sales] to these conflict nations totaled nearly $1 billion in 2003," the report found.
Meanwhile, more than half of the countries buying US arms -- 13 of the 25 -- were defined as undemocratic by the State Department's annual Human Rights Report, including top recipients Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan.
The agreement last year to sell F-16s to Pakistan underscores the larger trend, according to Wade Bouse , research director at the Arms Control Association.
"F-16s with advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles are not for fighting Al Qaeda," Bouse said. "They are for fighting India."
And India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan, is considering a US offer to sell the country F-16s. "We are creating our own market by selling to both sides of regional conflicts," Bouse said.
Yeah, that way we can get those dark-skinned people to annihilate each other, just like we did with Iran and Iraq in the 80s.
NONE of this about TERRORISM; all about MAKING A BUCK!
Playing BOTH SIDES against EACH OTHER!
Question: How is that PROMOTING PEACE?
My opinion: These bastards in the MIC, making this weaponry, risking the survival of the planet, are SICK, SICK, SICK, including foremost the Great Deceiver!
With more such lucrative deals in the offing, there is little sign that the United States -- or other major suppliers -- wants a treaty to control the sales.
"The US would be significantly affected if there was an arms treaty that took into account human rights abuses and conflict areas," added William Hartung , director of the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute in New York. "The US government still wants to be able to do covert and semi-covert arms transfers. And a certain amount of it is simply keeping factories running in certain congressional districts."
This world going nowhere but down the tubes if this rampant WAR PROFITEERING off the pushing of this FALSE MILITARISTIC NATIONALISM is not ended IMMEDIATELY!
