posted August 11, 2006 12:50 PM              

Great movie ( we rented it on DVD ) though I cried at the end because you just know this is the way it really is and it gives you such a hopeless feeling at the time.

US WEAPONS FOUND ON WRONG SIDE

A Guardian report carries the first reference I have seen of US made weapons being used against Israel:

"Israeli forces have been astonished at the discovery of networks of bunkers and computerized weapons in Hezbullah positions, according to officials.

Troops have found air-conditioned bunkers 40 metres (125ft) below the ground and anti-tank weapons that originate in France, the US and Russia in southern Lebanon.

Many of the tactics and weapons employed by Hezbullah have neutralised Israel's military superiority and made a complete victory difficult to achieve its goals."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1842276,00.htmlI

If you go to this site to read the whole story printed in the Guardian this is the message that you get from Internet Explorer:

The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:

If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.

Open the www.guardian.co.uk home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
Click the Back button to try another link.
Click Search to look for information on the Internet.

HTTP 400 - Bad Request
Internet Explorer

Maybe this is the reason the page might have been removed:

NEWS DISSECTOR August 11, 2006

The "Mother" of All Terror Threats

OUR RED ALERT: MEDIACHANNEL.ORG WAS HACKED BY UNKNOWN PARTIES THIS MORNING.
WE ARE WORKING TO RESTORE THE SITE.

posted August 11, 2006 04:37 PM              

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Weapons Makers

Making bombs and fighter jets is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, buoyed by the Bush administration's "war on terrorism." World military spending accelerated sharply in 2002-increasing by 6% in real terms to $794 billion in current prices. It accounted for 2.5% of world Gross Domestic Product and was $128 per capita, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. For example companies like Boeing, Northrop Grumann and General Electric have made billions from manufacturing "smart bombs," amphibious assault ships and nuclear weapons.

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posted August 11, 2006 04:42 PM              

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Weapons sales are a very big business in the U.S., and U.S. weapons makers put a huge amount of effort into selling violent ways of relating to the world. The U.S. government actively aids the sales process, and weapons profits are higher because the U.S. taxpayer pays part of the sales promotion costs.

A January 4, 2002 Reuters article that was carried in numerous publications such as Yahoo! and Forbe's Magazine, Pentagon plays Afghan card to sell U.S. warplanes. [forbes.com], discusses U.S government efforts to sell weapons:

After losing bids to supply warplanes to two of NATO's newest members, the Pentagon played its Afghanistan card on Friday, reminding shoppers -- including Poland and South Korea -- of the job U.S. aircraft have been doing there and urging them to buy American.

In ways that are largely hidden, rich companies benefit from the violence of the U.S. government, and help promote it. There are people who are proud of this:

John Douglass, the association president and a member of a congressionally mandated commission on the future of the U.S. aerospace industry, said warming U.S. ties to India and Pakistan, a key ally in the Afghan campaign, may result in new export markets for U.S. military technology there and elsewhere.

"They knew all along how good we were", he said, referring to what he called a widely acknowledged U.S. lead of 10 to 15 years in military technology. "The more you demonstrate it, the more it sinks in."

The head of the U.S. government's sales department is Lieutenant General Tome H. Walters, Junior. He is director of the U.S. government's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) [dsca.old.mil, an official U.S. military site], a large organization.

One of the departments of the DSCA is the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program [osd.mil, official site]. The program "is the government-to-government method for selling U.S. defense equipment [equipment made by U.S. manufacturers], services, and training. Sales in FY98 were approximately $8.6 billion and $12.2 billion in FY99."

The Foreign Military Sales program is an ongoing, aggressive, well-staffed, and powerful organization that promotes weapons sales everywhere in the world. For example, according to a November 5, 2001 article by the Arms Trade Oversight Project of the Council for a Livable World [clw.org], Pentagon Agency Sold More Arms Abroad In 2001; Major Weapon Sales to Israel, Egypt, Italy, Greece Reached $6.3 Billion,

The value of U.S. government-to-government arms sales rose 10 percent in 2001, surprising Pentagon officials who had predicted lesser gains. Weapon deals made under the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program totaled $13.3 billion, compared with the 2000 figure of $12.1 billion, Pentagon officials said.

The sales are so numerous it is impossible to list them here. One example is discussed in a January 4, 2002 Reuters story carried by Forbes Magazine: S. Korea to buy missiles from Lockheed for $299 million. [forbes.com, title expanded for clarity]. A January 4, 2002 BBC article says that the total value of the sale is $800 million: S. Korea to buy U.S. missiles. [bbc.co.uk, periods added to title].

Those wanting a more complete accounting of weapons sales promoted by the U.S. government can read the official U.S. government documents, published September 30, 2000, DSCA (Facts Book) -- Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales and Military Assistance Facts [deskbook.osd.mil]. If you have an interest in these, you may want to download them to your computer, because the U.S. government could, at some time, remove them from public access. Note that the top line says, "Document Type: Discretionary - DoD Document". Note also that it is possible to order a CD-ROM with this information. (This document requires a browser that can display frames.)

Note that the above documents do not include the cost of the military programs that help sell weapons. Note also that the U.S. government also maintains a huge effort to buy weapons itself. The cost of this effort, and the cost of the weapons the government buys, is not included in the documents above, of course, which are about promotion of foreign sales.

There is some attempt to make the activities seem logical. There is talk of "Responsible arms sales ..." (See the above link.), but the fact that the DSCA is a sales agency is made obvious, also:

These sales also contribute to American prosperity by improving the U.S. balance of trade position, sustaining highly skilled jobs in the defense industrial base, and extending production lines and lowering unit costs for key weapon systems.

The above paragraph is a common lie that violence-minded people tell themselves: Weapons sales "contribute to American prosperity". In actuality, the foreign weapons sales contribute to the total amount of violence in the world. Sometimes the weapons sold are used for conflicts in which the U.S. becomes directly involved. U.S. weapons makers, for example, were completing contracts to deliver weapons to Saddam Hussein while there was a U.S. military build-up to fight Saddam Hussein in what is called the "Gulf War". All time and resources spent building weapons are time and resources taken away from improving the quality of our lives.

The fact that the U.S. government aggressively promotes weapons sales is not a secret from people in the rest of the world, of course. Pentagon plays Afghan card to sell U.S. warplanes [yahoo.com] was carried by Yahoo! India News. The Times of India carried the story: Pentagon plays Afghan card to sell US warplanes [timesofindia.com]. DAWN, "Pakistan's most widely circulated English language newspaper" also ran the story on January 6, 2002: Pentagon plays Afghan card to sell warplanes [dawn.com]. The article quotes General Tome:

"The first question any nation should be asking is how do we link up as tightly as we can with American air power", Walters added in remarks released by his Defence Security Cooperation Agency.

Note that the general does not say that the first question any nation should be asking itself is how to feed its people, or how to manage its resources well. According to his manner of thinking, violence is a way of life, and the U.S. taxpayer should be happy to pay to promote it.

People in countries outside the U.S. read articles like the one in DAWN, and form their opinions about the U.S. government partly from them. Some of those people are terrorists, who also believe that violence is a legitimate and sensible way of relating to other people and solving problems.

Anyone in the world who can pay to use a computer in an internet cafe can easily see, on official web sites, that the U.S. government firmly and publicly believes in promoting violence. Promoting violence is official policy. It is not surprising that others with fewer resources than the U.S. government adopt the same way of looking at the world. It is this kind of thinking that brought the violence of the World Trade Center bombing to the United States.

Note that promotion of U.S. weapons by the U.S. government is effectively just a transfer of taxpayer money to the weapons manufacturers. If the U.S. government did not maintain a weapons sales department, the weapons makers would have to pay the entire cost of weapons sales themselves.

Note also that there seems to be no security issue in promotion of U.S. weapons by the U.S. government. If they didn't buy U.S. weapons, countries wanting to relate to their neighbor counties by killing people and destroying property would presumably find some other way to do so.

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posted August 12, 2006 01:20 AM              

Here is another article regarding how the selling of arms by the U.S. has fueled the fire to the crises in the Congo and other African nations.

Also in this article we see how naive it is to believe that the Iraq war was all about removing Hussein because "he was a brutal dictator and killed his own people" when we have armed, trained and supported some of the worst dictators in the world and as in the case of Africa, we aided in overthrowing Lumumba and establishing the brutal dictator Mobutu Sese Soko who used his U.S. supplied weapons to repress his own people. Think of the genocides and what is taking place in Africa now. The U.S. is fueling that with it weapons sales.

This was dated in 2003 there have been many more millions of people killed in Africa since then and the slaughter continues.

The Democratic Republic of Congo

Described by some as Africa’s first World War, the conflict in the DRC (formerly known as Zaire) has involved seven nations.

There have been a number of complex reasons, including conflicts over basic resources such as water, access and control over rich minerals and other resources as well as various political agendas. This has been fueled and supported by various national and international corporations and other regimes which have an interest in the outcome of the conflict.
Since the outbreak of fighting in August 1998,
At least 3.3 million people, mostly women, children and the elderly, are estimated to have died because of the conflict, most from disease and starvation
More than 2.25 million people have been driven from their homes, many of them beyond the reach of humanitarian agencies.
These shocking figures would usually be more than enough to get media attention the world over.

Brief Background
More evidence has emerged that when United States president Dwight Eisenhower met his national security advisers to talk about the situation in Congo two months after the June 1961 independence he said Lumumba, the country’s first prime minister, should be eliminated.

— Derek Ingram, 40 years on—Lumumba still haunts the West, Gemini News Service, 1 September 2000

As with most conflicts in Africa, the current situation has much to do with the legacy of colonialism. From the violent 1885 Belgian imposition of colonial rule by King Leopold II who regarded it as his personal fiefdom and called it the Congo Free State (but apparently never once went there himself), millions have been killed. The murders have been grotesque, with chopped limbs and more, similar to what has been seen in Sierra Leone recently.

After 75 years of colonial rule, the Belgians left very abruptly, relinquishing the political rights to the people of Congo in 1960. However, economic rights were not there for the country to flourish.

In fact just a few months after Lumumba became head of state, he was overthrown with US and European support for a Cold War ally, Mobutu Sese Soko, (and for the rich resources that would then be available cheaply, rather than used for Congo’s own people and development.)

U.S. policy toward Mobutu was rationalized on the grounds of fighting “communism” and Soviet influence in Africa, but the U.S. was clearly more concerned with securing its own interests in the region than helping foster a stable, secure, and peaceful future for the people of Central Africa. Lying at the center of the continent, Zaire could provide the U.S. with access to important resources, transportation routes, and political favors. Over the years, U.S. rhetoric changed slightly, placing greater emphasis on democratic reform of the regime and increased attention to human rights, but in reality policy continued to focus on promoting narrowly defined U.S. economic and strategic interests.

... The U.S. prolonged the rule of Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Soko by providing more than $300 million in weapons and $100 million in military training. Mobutu used his U.S.-supplied arsenal to repress his own people and plunder his nation’s economy for three decades, until his brutal regime was overthrown by Laurent Kabila’s forces in 1997. When Kabila took power, the Clinton administration quickly offered military support by developing a plan for new training operations with the armed forces.

— William D. Hartung and Bridget Moix, Deadly Legacy: U.S. Arms to Africa and the Congo War, Arms Trade Resource Center, World Policy Institute, January 2000

Major Findings

Finding 1 – Due to the continuing legacies of its Cold War policies toward Africa, the U.S. bears some responsibility for the cycles of violence and economic problems plaguing the continent. Throughout the Cold War (1950-1989), the U.S. delivered over $1.5 billion worth of weaponry to Africa. Many of the top U.S. arms clients – Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC) – have turned out to be the top basket cases of the 1990s in terms of violence, instability, and economic collapse.

Finding 2 – The ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) is a prime example of the devastating legacy of U.S. arms sales policy on Africa. The U.S. prolonged the rule of Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Soko by providing more than $300 million in weapons and $100 million in military training. Mobutu used his U.S.-supplied arsenal to repress his own people and plunder his nation’s economy for three decades, until his brutal regime was overthrown by Laurent Kabila’s forces in 1997. When Kabila took power, the Clinton administration quickly offered military support by developing a plan for new training operations with the armed forces.

Finding 3 – Although the Clinton administration has been quick to criticize the governments involved in the Congo War, decades of U.S. weapons transfers and continued military training to both sides of the conflict have helped fuel the fighting. The U.S. has helped build the arsenals of eight of the nine governments directly involved in the war that has ravaged the DRC since Kabila’s coup. U.S. military transfers in the form of direct government-to-government weapons deliveries, commercial sales, and International Military Education and Training (IMET) to the states directly involved have totaled more than $125 million since the end of the Cold War.

Finding 4 – Despite the failure of U.S. polices in the region, the current administration continues to respond to Africa’s woes by helping to strengthen African militaries. As U.S. weapons deliveries to Africa continue to rise, the Clinton administration is now undertaking a wave of new military training programs in Africa. Between 1991-1998, U.S. weapons and training deliveries to Africa totaled more than $227 million. In 1998 alone, direct weapons transfers and IMET training totaled $20.1 million. And, under the Pentagon’s Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program, U.S. special forces have trained military personnel from at least 34 of Africa’s 53 nations, including troops fighting on both sides of the DRC’s civil war – from Rwanda and Uganda (supporting the rebels) to Zimbabwe and Namibia (supporting the Kabila regime).

posted August 12, 2006 02:02 AM              

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While the U.S. ranks number one in global weapons exports, it falls dead last among industrialized nations in providing non-military foreign aid to the developing world.

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posted August 12, 2006 12:00 PM              

Considering the amount of b!tching that goes on (and rightfully so) about the amount of weapons and money the US sends to Israel and the consequences of such a "friendship", I can't help but smile when I think of the looks on the Israeli faces when coming upon US made weapons in the hands of their enemies.

Gives new meaning to "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword".

posted August 12, 2006 12:39 PM              

It's quite obvious that we will never have peace and justice in the world as long as we continue to allow the involvement and intervention in government of the military and industry.

posted August 12, 2006 01:25 PM            

The US gave some M-16's to the Palestinian government for use by their security forces within the Palestinian area to assist them in keeping order within the territory they control.

If that government has given those weapons to Hezbollah, guess what kind of day it will be in hell before there is another US transfer of weapons to them.

Yes, I know the US "sold" some parts for F-4 Phantoms to Israel with the intent the parts would be transferred/sold to Iran...in the 80's...for help in the release of US citizens being held captive.

And yes, I know the proceeds from that "sale" were used to provide military arms to the Contras who kicked the little bast@rd Daniel Ortega's revolutionary communist ass back within the borders of Nicaragua in the 1980's.

posted August 12, 2006 01:41 PM              

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Yes, I know the US "sold" some parts for F-4 Phantoms to Israel with the intent the parts would be transferred/sold to Iran...in the 80's...for help in the release of US citizens being held captive.

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Well, well, well. Good for you, Jwhop. I'm surprised you're willing to acknowledge this little bit of treason perpetuated by a Republican administration.

posted August 12, 2006 01:56 PM            

Treason to move heaven and earth to get American citizens released who were being held captive by terrorists?

posted August 12, 2006 03:28 PM              

Tomgram: Seeing (Pentagon) stars
Frida Berrigan on the weapons trade as entertainment

Recently, we had a small, curious reminder of the fact that the United States government regularly ships weaponry all over the world. Two US-chartered A310 Airbuses, evidently carrying a shipment of 600-pound bunker-busting, laser-guided bombs the Bush administration was rushing to Israel for its air campaign in Lebanon, were denied refueling stop-over rights at the Shannon airport by the Irish government. Instead, they landed at Prestwick airport in Scotland, without, it seems, proper notification to the British government. This set off a small uproar of criticism in Britain, resulting in Prime Minister Tony Blair requesting an "apology" while in Washington last week.

On Friday, according to Alan Cowell of the New York Times ("After Rift, Britain Allows Cargo Flights for Israel"), "a British government spokesman said President Bush had apologized ‘for the fact that proper procedures were not followed.'" But wait! This is the Bush administration which never apologizes -- certainly not to Tony Blair. A "senior Bush administration official" put matters in the correct light: "The president acknowledged that while the shipment was proper, there could have been better notification and coordination." And with that non-apology apology, all's well that ends well and the weapons flights to Israel will now continue to land at British airports.

As Frida Berrigan, Senior Research Associate at the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center, would certainly point out, such flights are but a drop in the Pentagon's arms aid-and-trade bucket -- a subject about which Americans are generally blissfully ignorant. So take a moment and consider the export for which we are at least second-best known all around the world. Tom

Seeing (Pentagon) Stars
By Frida Berrigan

Oh, the stars! We're riveted by their clothes, their suntans, what they do (and don't) eat for breakfast. We're titillated when they appear too fat, disheveled, or lumpy. We're envious when they're expectably sleek, well muscled, and well coiffed. Christie Brinkley's heartbreak is front page news. Britney's baby gaffes are carefully dissected. The trials and tribulations of Jessica and Nick and Jennifer and Brad provided the tabloids and entertainment mags with months of fodder.

America exported $10.48 billion worth of film and television in 2004. The world's favorite TV show is the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. Every day, in almost every corner of the globe, people stream to movies made in the United States. They watch Halle Berry conjure up a storm with her eyes, Johnny Depp swashbuckle his way through the Caribbean, and Keanu Reeves swoon and mope in the company of Sandra Bullock. (Sorry about that last one, world!). But, in Uzbekistan, those same movie fans are denied the rights of free speech and assembly, while President Islam Karimov tightens his grip on power with an array of arms made in the USA. In the Philippines, they watch the country's debt skyrocket as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gobbles up American weaponry at startling prices and an alarming rate.

Like American entertainment, American arms are a multibillion-dollar industry that leans heavily on foreign sales. In fact, the United States exported $18.55 billion in fighter planes, attack helicopters, tanks, battleships, and other weaponry in 2005. All signs point to 2006 being another banner export year. Just as in the movie, TV, and music businesses, we dwarf the competition. Russia is the next largest arms exporter with a measly $4 billion in yearly sales. In fact, U.S. arms exports accounted for more than half of total global arms deliveries -- $34.8 billion -- in 2004, and we export more of them ourselves than the next six largest exporters combined.

Given the huge payoffs and even larger payloads delivered, isn't it strange how little attention the American arms industry gets? Maybe, in some small part, that's because the industry's magazines all have the word "Defense," or some equivalent, prominently displayed on the cover -- Defense Week, Defense News -- instead of Glamour or Allure. Maybe it's because of the Pentagon's predilection for less than magnetic PowerPoint presentations, unbearably unexpressive acronyms, and slightly paunchy, very pasty, older white men in business suits. Maybe the arms trade just doesn't seek the plush of the red carpet or the jittery pulse of flashing paparazzi cameras. Or maybe, it's a business that just loves to revel in profitable anonymity.

But don't be fooled. Like Hollywood, the arms industry has sex to spare. After all, the weapons themselves are all gleaming golden curves and massive thrusting spikes; they move at breath-robbing speed, make ear-splitting noise, and are capable of performing with awesome lethality. Just ask the Bush administration if you can't fall in love with weapons this sexy and the military that wields them. And then there are the glittery galas and trade shows like the Paris Air Show -- at Le Bourget airport north of the French capital -- where generals and corporate bigwigs with power, prestige, and incomparable sums of money rub against each other amid the scandalous whispers of corporate breakups and new mergers.

"A! Today in the Arms Trade"

It's common to say that "you are what you eat"; but, at the level of nation-states, "you are what you export" may be no less true. We think of ourselves as trendsetters and style arbiters because of our best-known export -- mass culture. But weapons are our most deadly and potent export; they help determine who controls key regions of the world and shape how those regions are governed; they create jobs, extinguish lives, and sometimes obliterate whole neighborhoods.

In the mountains of Turkey, Kurdish kids may not have a chance to drink Coke, listen to American rap, or play Street Fighter, but they do know two words of English, "Cobra" and "Black Hawk," the names of the U.S.-made attack helicopters the Turks have used to strafe their villages. We should at least know as much about the weapons our country sells as they do, and more about the arms industry as whole than we do about Lindsay Lohan's brush with anorexia and addiction.

What if we did? What if American girls grew up reading Jane's Defence Weekly instead of (or in addition to) JANE? What if Vince Vaughn and Colin Farrell labored on their craft in virtual obscurity, while Cameron Diaz and Scarlett Johansson did their own laundry after a hard shift on the film set? What if the attention these stars now get went to the arms trade? Then, Jeffrey Kohler and Robert Joseph would be household names, their every move tracked by a voracious media.

Perhaps then we would watch A! (as in "A! Today in the Arms Trade") instead of E! Of course, I wouldn't even have to write this next sentence, because everyone would already know that Jeffery Kohler is the Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) within the Defense Department and Robert Joseph is Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security -- and that the arms business wouldn't be its sexy self without them.

Under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, these are the men who help promote U.S. weapons and military technology -- as well as the companies that make them -- to the world, assemble financing packages, and facilitate weapons buys. Their decisions help to determine who our friends and foes are (and will be) and what kind of weapons they will have.

A! might start with early morning chatter about Jeff's tie choice and what that signals for future fighter-plane sales to Chile. Later, a panel would cheerily consider the excitement of Rob's recent trip to Taiwan, and how Beijing views our new technology-sharing agreements with Taipei. Any announcement from the DSCA about a major arms transfer would be headline news and the particulars of an arms deal would be the froth of early-morning talk shows, happy-talk chatter on the news channels, not to speak of the wit of late night comedy and Dave's or Jay's monologue.

The Power Treatment

Even though we know that A! will never replace E!, nor will a magazine named Power replace People in those supermarket racks, there's still plenty to talk about. It's just that you have to read Aviation Week or SeaPower (or the Business pages of major newspapers) to know about it.

Take but one relatively modest example: In March 2003, the United States and Poland inked a Pentagon-brokered agreement worth $3.5 billion with U.S. arms companies. The emerging power and new member of the European Union bought a whole new military in a box: including 48 Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter planes, Raytheon Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, Sidewinder Short- Range Air-to-Air Missiles and Maverick Air-to-Ground Missiles.

Putting aside what Poland actually needed all this firepower for, how about a Power magazine in-depth investigation on how the big U.S. arms makers tempted Poland with $6.3 billion in investments. As one of Lockheed Martin's directors explained, the deal wasn't really about selling weapons to Poland. Nope, they were interested in "enhancing Poland competitively in the global economy, creating jobs and enhancing local labor market skills." Kinda sweet, right?

So, to put this in a simple way, in order to sell Warsaw $3.5 billion in military hardware, we gave them $6.3 billion in goodies. Think about that for a moment. Isn't it just a little too much of a good thing -- like the $100,000 gift-bags movie stars get at parties after their $100 million movie premieres? Poland gets a GM plant (wait, didn't one just close in Muncie, Indiana?) and a Motorola communications system in addition to a Lockheed Martin factory and billions more in U.S. investment. As the American ambassador to Poland said, "It's the deal of the century." For Poland yes, for American workers -- like the ones who don't make Pontiacs and Caddies in Detroit and Muncie anymore -- maybe not.

Saudi Bling and Pentagon Rhetoric

In South Asia, the situation is different, but no less gossip-worthy for some future Power cover story. There, the desire to sell weapons has cast President George W. Bush in the role of a man trying to woo a new lover and placate his wife at the same time.

When the United States announced the sale of as many as 36 F-16 fighters to Pakistan, the Indian government was outraged. Though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told President Bush that he was "greatly disappointed," apoplectic might better describe the strength of the reaction; and you can see Singh's point. India views itself as a stalwart and democratic ally, one with a growing economy and a growing appetite for U.S. goods.

So, when the Bush administration inked that arms deal with arch-rival Pakistan and agreed to send Islamabad F-16 fighter planes whose only likely use would be against India, you can hardly blame the Indians for being heartbroken. Pakistan -- which would get the fighter planes with all the fixins for about $3 billion -- is more the love-'em-and-leave-'em type anyway, an impetuous, impulsive dictatorship that has, in the past, harbored al-Qaeda elements and whose intelligence services helped create (and probably still supports) the Taliban; a country which, in the past, let its nuclear "secrets" slip off to states that our President loathes like Iran and North Korea, and that refuses to crackdown on Islamic fundamentalist schools and fundamentalist training camps within its borders. India and Pakistan are, of course, the bitterest of rivals, having fought three wars and suffered countless smaller flare-ups; both have tested nuclear weapons and continue to menace each other with them.

So, given India's indignation, what did Bush do? He offered New Delhi similar fighter planes to those being given to Islamabad (twice the profits for American weapons makers, twice the power on each side to fight the next war). He then re-pledged his fidelity to India and guaranteed that country's nuclear fuel supply, while opening talks about what fighter planes would be most suitable for India's special needs. The U.S. offered the possibility of purchasing 126 of either Lockheed Martin's F-16 or Boeing's F-18 Hornet. And all of a sudden, everybody was remarkably satisfied -- except perhaps the people of India and Pakistan who might have wondered where in the world their countries were going to get the dough for these advanced weapons systems, while so many of them stand on line at the village pump, or walk three miles to the closest school, or labor long hours bent over crops, or answer requests at customer-service call centers.

If, for a while, India played the spurned spouse, Saudi Arabia has taken on the role of a diva of hip-hop proportions. When it comes to weapons systems, the oil-rich oligarchy demands the best and always pays in cash -- which is why the arms industry is just delighted with its brand new $6 billion deal with Riyadh (pending the normal Congressional rubber-stamp). Included will be a mélange of lethal toys: 24 UH-60L Black Hawk helicopters, armored vehicles, and other military equipment. Among the companies involved are Sikorsky, General Electric, General Dynamics, and Raytheon.

The DSCA claims this weapons package will help strengthen Saudi Arabia's military and its ability to help the United States fight global terrorism, not to speak of giving that country's armed forces the means to defend "stability" in a destabilizing region without perhaps having to call on an overstressed American military in a pinch. But beneath Riyadh's bling and the Pentagon's hopeful rhetoric lies another reality, worthy of one of those supermarket tabloids -- the rulers of Saudi Arabia are fickle and not at all sure whether they want to cozy up to the West or to those who have the urge to bring the West down. Most of the 9/11 hijackers, of course, were Saudis; the royal family continues to support terrorist organizations and right-wing religious schools; and the kingdom rests on a sea of oil without access to which the global economy might sink in a nanosecond.

Weapons-maker to a Grim World

While foreign arms sales are regularly edged in scandal, here in the United States weapons deals are evidently worth going to prison over! You want sex, lies, and videotape? Okay, maybe not the sex part -- and it was email, not video-tape that provided the incriminating evidence -- but there were plenty of lies in a 2003 domestic arms scandal that bilked taxpayers of millions. Boeing -- the bomber behemoth -- tried to sucker the Air Force into leasing one hundred KC-135 tanker planes for in-air refueling at a cost of perhaps $6 billion dollars, more than it would have cost the government to buy the (unnecessary) planes outright.

The scheme landed Darleen Druyun, a former Air Force weapons buyer, in a Florida prison after she pled guilty to giving Boeing special treatment on a $23.5 billion government contract in exchange for a post as Senior Vice President at the company and perks for her family members. Talk about a cheap date! As a Boeing veep, Druyun pulled in a mere $250,000 a year, while the company would have taken in billions in revenue.

Of course, to the extent that the U.S. arms industry wants attention at all, it would prefer that we focus on the good news -- all those benefits to be derived from arms sales abroad, which make for humming assembly lines at home. According to the DSCA, the United States sells weapons abroad mainly to foster relationships that promote specified U.S. interests, while building allied and friendly nation capabilities for self-defense and coalition operations. They may also mention what we get in return, especially secure access to military facilities around the world, but these alleged benefits can come at a high price.

Any PR flak could warn you about how a reputation for late-night carousing can sully a star's squeaky-clean on-screen reputation. You can't act like Paris Hilton at night and land roles for Mandy Moore the next morning. The same goes for arms sales. But the U.S. keeps trying. While boasting about democracy, security, and peace, we sell weapons to dictators, human rights abusers, and countries at war or at the edge of war (sometimes with each other).

In fact, twenty of our top twenty-five arms clients in the developing world in 2003 -- a full 80% of them -- were undemocratic regimes and/or governments with records as major human-rights abusers. All too often, U.S. arms transfers only fuel conflict, weaponize human-rights abusers, or fall into the hands of our adversaries. Far from serving as a force for security and stability, these sales frequently serve to empower unstable, undemocratic regimes to the detriment of global security.

The ways and means of America's arms trade are not going to be spoon-fed to us the way model Naomi Campbell's run-ins with the law are. Unfortunately, it takes work on our part to discover how our arms trade functions. But knowing where our weapons are going and what sort of havoc they are wreaking in our name seems worth the minor effort and inconvenience – even if it doesn't offer the promise of the perfect tan or six-pack abs!

Frida Berrigan (berrigaf@newschool.edu) is a Senior Research Associate at the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center. Her primary research areas with the project include nuclear-weapons policy, war profiteering and corporate crimes, weapons sales to areas of conflict, and military-training programs. She is the author of a number of Institute reports, most recently Weapons at War 2005: Promoting Freedom or Fueling Conflict.

Copyright 2006 Frida Berrigan

posted August 12, 2006 04:09 PM            

Germany has just attacked and overrun France, Poland, Norway and Denmark. Now, they're bombing London....forget about the V-I and V-2 rocket attacks. They're flying bombers over England and dropping bombs on the civilian population of England.

Now carma-b, do you advocate letting Hitler continue to bomb the British into submission?

Or do you advocate the land lease program instituted by the United States to supply Britain with airplanes, tanks, anti aircraft guns and the weapons to defend themselves against the attack by Hitler's Nazi Germany?

By the same token carma-b, do you stand by while Hitler overruns Russia...even though Russia had signed a "non aggression treaty" with Hitler and they were supposed to be pals?

Or do you ship war materials, food and manufacturing equipment to Russia so they can fight off the Nazis?

There are nations all over the world fighting off attacks by their neighbors, attacks from within by terrorists, fascists and communists. Some of them are more or less stable and some have democratically elected governments. Some are not so nice and fall short of the human rights stature we would find ideal. Some are trading partners with the United States.

Do you tell them all the go screw themselves?

Or do you supply them with the weapons to defend themselves from external or internal subversion and attacks?

Or, do you advocate the US declaring Pax Americana and upon the slightest provocation intervening militarily with our own military and weapons systems to protect any country or peoples under attack by others.

posted August 13, 2006 02:04 AM            

You contend Reagan did it for political reasons...to get reelected.

I think that's bullsh*t and that Reagan did it to get the hostages released.

Certainly, when the news came out as to how those hostages were released, it couldn't possibly have helped Reagan politically.

Note to Bush

posted August 13, 2006 02:10 AM              

quote:

---

"For 18 months now, we have had under way
a secret diplomatic initiative to Iran.
That initative was undertaken for the
simplest and best reasons: to renew a
relationship with the nation of Iran;
to bring a honorable end to the bloody
six-year war between Iran and Iraq;
to eliminate state-sponsored terrorism
and subversion, and to effect the safe
return of all hostages...
During the course of our secret discussions,
I authorized the transfer of small amounts
of defensive weapons and spare parts for
defensive systems to Iran....These modest
deliveries, taken together could easily
fit into a single cargo plane....
We did not--repeat--did not trade weapons
or anything else for hostages, nor will we.

--Ronald Reagan Nov 14, 1986
Speech to Nation

---

posted August 13, 2006 03:08 PM              

quote:

---

Certainly, when the news came out as to how those hostages were released, it couldn't possibly have helped Reagan politically.

---

Are you that naive or do you believe I am?

quote:

---

If TINK is ever kidnapped by terrorists and held for ransom, don't negotiate for her release.

---

Negotiating? You're not listening. Selling weapons to the enemy qualifies as acceptable negotiating??

posted August 13, 2006 04:00 PM            

White House, Washington
March 4, 1987

"My fellow Americans, I did not have sexual relations with that woman....Monica Lewdwinski"

Oh wait, wrong President, wrong speech

Let's try that again.

My fellow Americans.........

Let's start with the part that is the most controversial. A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower Board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and the original strategy we had in mind. There are reasons why it happened, but no excuses. It was a mistake. I undertook the original Iran initiative in order to develop relations with those who might assume leadership in a post-Khomeini government.

It's clear from the Board's report, however, that I let my personal concern for the hostages spill over into the geopolitical strategy of reaching out to Iran. I asked so many questions about the hostages' welfare that I didn't ask enough about the specifics of the total Iran plan.