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Flood the World with Weapons: Get Warfare
By maudeaster on 2016-01-29 12:04:04
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i US floods the world with more weapons than any other country. Washington claims to favor
negotiations over military action, but arms from top US arms exporters are now in the hands of combatants on every side of
years, gave the green light to over $169 billion in arms sales, $30 billion more than Bush approved in his whole 8 years. Is it
any wonder that armed conflict is accelerating? US Weapons Swamp the Middle East William Hartung, director of the
Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, explains in a Democracy Now interview : “The majority
(of US weapons sales), 60 percent, have gone to the Persian Gulf and Middle East”. and within that, the Saudis have been
the largest recipient of things like U.S. fighter planes, Apache attack helicopters, bombs, guns, almost an entire
ae they’ve purchased just in the last few years.” In Saudi Arabia is Killing Civilians with U.S.
Bombs_human rights lawyer Marjorie Cohn describes how the US is continuing as the primary Saudi weapons supplier
despite an international outcry about the civilian deaths and displacement caused by the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. “In
November 2015, the U.S. sold $1.29 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia. It included more than
10,000 bombs, munitions, and weapons parts manufactured by Raytheon and Boeing, as well as bunker busters, and laser-
guided and ‘general purpose’ bombs. A month earlier the United States had approved a $11.25 billion sale of combat ships to
Saudi Arabia.” Arms Switch Sides on the Battlefield US weapons launched into conflict zones also often change sides.
Just last week, Jeffrey Gettleman reported in The New York Times that a US-supplied Kenyan army base had been overrun
by the Shahab which made off with military equipment including several America-made armed Humvees. Max J. Rosenthal
reported in Mother Jones in December how ISIS seizing US weapons during its takeover of Mosul was part of a much larger
pattern: "That very spectacular looting in 2014... was just the endpoint of a very long history of hemorrhaging of supplies
AMNESTY
that started in 2003," says Patrick Wilcken, a INTERNATIONAL London-based arms control researcher for Amnesty.
"That has made the whole issue of weapons proliferation incredibly serious in Iraq and spilling over into Syria, and has
armed not just the Islamic State but many other armed groups." During last June alone, according to the UN Security
Council, ISIS captured enough weapons, ammunition, and vehicles to arm three Iraqi divisions, or 40,000 to 50,000
soldiers.” William Hartung describes_ the absurd lack of control over these unleashed " weapons: “We
don’t know the full numbers, but in Iraq the security forces abandoned large amounts of the weaponry to ISIS. U.S.-armed
rebels in Syria, armed by the CIA, went over to join ISIS. There’s $500 million missing of weapons in Yemen. Some think
it’s gone to the Houthis. Some think it’s gone to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Of course, there’s arms on both sides,
because the government and the forces have split in this war. So it’s quite possible every side of that war in Yemen may have
some level of U.S. weaponry. So it’s really gone, you know, haywire. It’s sort of what I call the boomerang effect, when U.S.
arms end up in the hands of U.S. adversaries.” New Arms Trade Treaty Offers Some Hope One bright spot in this picture
is the Obama administration’s signature of the new UN Arms Trade Treaty which establishes common standards for the
international trade of conventional weapons and seeks to reduce the illicit arms trade. Although well-financed lobbying
opposition from US arms merchants and in the Republican Senate has prevented the US from formally ratifying the treaty,
President Obama has pledged to live up to its standards. Think about Yemen, and it’s clearly past time for the US to apply
this commitment to Saudi Arabia -- since the treaty prohibits arms transfer authorizations
to states where items would be used in attacks directed against civilians or other war crimes. William Hartung points out that
the US also needs to bring arms sales review back under the purview of the State Department after an ill-advised decision to
transfer this decision-making to the Commerce Department “which has historically been more associated with arms-export
promotion than arms-export control.” Wisdom from Pope Francis The Pope posed the question well when he addressed the
US Congress in e September: “Being at the service of dialogue and peace also
means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world,” the
pope said. Then he asked the critical question: “Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold
suffering on individuals and society?” He answered it himself: “Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money:
money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to
confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.” If you agree, join me in putting one of Women Against War’s new
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