Who’s Selling The Violence?
by A report has been released stating the United States is the number one seller of military hardware to developing countries. The same report also states Russia is number three on the list in the same market. Is US foreign policy skewed in the Middle East because of our arms sales?
The other day I came across two stories about two weeks apart from each other, but they are intriguing. They accidentally begged the question, “Who’s selling the violence in this world?” Most people know the world is a violent place but few ever stop to question where it is coming from. We glumly point to the Middle East and with a broad stroke brush, say things like “”If the damned terrorists would stop this (bleep) we wouldn’t be in this mess!” If it were only so clear-cut!
Take for instance a report from United Press International that states 46% of all arms sales in the world are from U.S. companies. That’s a significant figure. The report also suggests that due to the flooding of the developing countries with weapons, the U.S. is also fueling the violence instead of providing an option for defense. It concludes by delicately mentioning the reason why an over-saturated market continues to be fed is simple: corporate greed.
One curious note in the report also pointed to Russia being the next most competitive arms market, with 15% of sales in the developing countries market. I wouldn’t think much of this, except there was another story pointing to who Russia’s client list included: "The principal purchasers of Russian arms were: Iran [$1.7 billion], Syria [$800 million],Yemen [$500 million], Libya, and Israel [$300 million each]."
The story as reported on the worldtribune.com site, made mention of a congressional report called the “ Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1998-2005 ”, so I searched for it online. There was a unique difference between the Russian and the American arms numbers; they differentiated between arms sales deliveries (US) and arms sales agreements (Russia). This accounts for the difference between the reported figures in the worldtribune.com article and the congressional report. It’s one thing to make an agreement to sell a weapon, and it’s another thing to actually ship the product. Russia seems to have trouble finalizing the deals, and I suspect that may be a cash flow problem on the part of the customer.
These two still wouldn’t be much of a story on their own, except how they connect to the bigger picture. In the case of Russia, it sold arms to Iran, who in turn funneled them to Hezbollah during the Israeli-Lebanese war. To prove their case further, Israel sent pictures to Moscow, showing the weapons in question. "Some of the missiles were still in their original packaging, which identified them as having been manufactured in Russia," a military source said.
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