America’s Global Weapons Monopoly Don’t Call It “the Global Arms Trade”

Tomgram: Frida Berrigan, Pimping Weapons to the World
By Frida Berrigan
Posted on February 16, 2010, Printed on March 5, 2010
From TomDispatch.com


On the relatively rare occasions when the media turns its attention to U.S. weapons sales abroad and shines its not-so-bright spotlight on the latest set of facts and figures, it invariably speaks of “the global arms trade.”

Let’s consider that label for a moment, word by word:

*It is global, since there are few places on the planet that lie beyond the reach of the weapons industry.

*Arms sounds so old-fashioned and anodyne when what we’re talking about is advanced technology designed to kill and maim.

*And trade suggests a give and take among many parties when, if we’re looking at the figures for that “trade” in a clear-eyed way, there is really just one seller and so many buyers.

How about updating it this way: “the global weapons monopoly.”

In 2008, according to an authoritative report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), $55.2 billion in weapons deals were concluded worldwide. Of that total, the United States was responsible for $37.8 billion in weapons sales agreements, or 68.4% of the total “trade.” Some of these agreements were long-term ones and did not result in 2008 deliveries of weapons systems, but these latest figures are a good gauge of the global appetite for weapons. It doesn’t take a PhD in economics to recognize that, when one nation accounts for nearly 70% of weapons sales, the term “global arms trade” doesn’t quite cut it. More...

Why Foreign Policy?

A vital element in the road to the creation of a Peace Economy is the development of levelheaded and Peace-Oriented foreign policy. Indeed, at the Peace Economy Project, we define peace as such: “Peace is not simply the absence of violence, but an environment free of the very factors that inspire violence.” Whereas all citizens seek to be free from violence (which is not exclusive to military action), we must understand what motivates violence and seek to find appropriate policies to solve these problems before they escalate into unnecessary violence.

The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan
Black Sites in the Empire of Bases

Received as Tomgram: Nick Turse, America's Shadowy Base World
By Nick Turse
Posted on February 9, 2010, Printed on February 22, 2010

In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used by British forces. In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling facilities. In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the next round of foreign occupation. On its grounds, a new military base is expected to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered across the country.

Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.

Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan. More...

Uncle Sam's War-Mart

From The Times of India
Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
February 7, 2010

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

Some months before Bob Dylan wrote these lines about the US weapons industry in the song Masters of War, outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower coined the term ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ in his 1961 farewell address. He cautioned against its “total influence... economic, political, even spiritual...felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government”. As a former general and war hero himself, Eisenhower recognized the imperative need for military muscle powered by domestic industry. Yet, he warned, “We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications....In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Half a century later, the influence of the now notorious ‘mil-ind complex’ remains not just undiminished, but has expanded enormously. Successive American presidents, including professed pacifists such as Jimmy Carter who took office after the Vietnam War promising to curb arms trade, have been unable to staunch its rampant growth. Contrary to popular perception that this monster grows mostly during Republican administrations, even Democratic dispensations have bowed before its clout. Galloping to vulgar proportions during the Reagan years, when the so-called toilet seat scandal (in which the Pentagon paid $600 for each toilet seat and $3,000 for a coffee pot in examples of procurement system run amok) erupted, it did not end even after the Cold War. The Clinton administration continued to feed the beast. And then there was 9/11... and Iraq...and Afghanistan...and Pakistan. Today, the beast is casting its shadow on India.

‘Pentagonized Society’

The idea that there are ‘masters of war’ whose bottomline is benefited by conflict is not really new. Decades ago, in an essay titled ‘El Pentagonismo, Sustituto del Imperialismo’ (Pentagonism, Substitute of Imperialism), Dominican writer-politician Juan Bosch called the US a “Pentagonized society” where international policy is not controlled by the civil government, but by “Pentagonism” that needs frequent wars anywhere so it can generate wealth by creating industries, and jobs by bagging arms contracts. In his 2003 novel Scarecrow (also made into a movie), Australian writer Matthew Reilly depicts a group of leaders of a worldwide military-industrial complex, who engineer wars for profits. In 2005, Nicholas Cage played lead role in Lord of War, a movie endorsed by Amnesty International that highlighted arms trafficking by the ‘mil-ind complex’. More...

Will Today's U.S.-Armed Ally Be Tomorrow's Enemy?

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Who's Next?

Lessons from the Long War and a Blowback World
By Tom Engelhardt

Is it too early -- or already too late -- to begin drawing lessons from "the Long War"? That phrase, coined in 2002 and, by 2005, being championed by Centcom Commander General John Abizaid, was meant to be a catchier name for George W. Bush's "Global War on Terror." That was back in the days when inside-the-Beltway types were still dreaming about a global Pax Americana and its domestic partner, a Pax Republicana, and imagining that both, once firmly established, might last forever.

"The Long War" merely exchanged the shock-'n'-awe geographical breadth of the President Bush's chosen moniker ("global") for a shock-'n'-awe time span. Our all-out, no-holds-barred struggle against evil-doers would be nothing short of generational as well as planetary. From Abizaid's point of view, perhaps a little in-office surgical operation on the nomenclature of Bush's war was, in any case, in order at a time when the Iraq War was going disastrously badly and the Afghan one was starting to look more than a little peaked as well. It was like saying: Forget that "mission accomplished" sprint to victory in 2003 and keep your eyes on the prize. We're in it for the long slog. More...

Memories of the dinner table and the words of Dr King remind me to hold onto hope for Peace in the Middle East

Andrew Heaslet
Jan 13, 2009

My brain hurts. My brain hurts because my heart is throbbing with pain. My heart throbs with pain because, across the globe, rockets, bombs, and missiles are raining down on human beings, some militants and many innocents.

My head hurts because of my peers asking why people are only speaking up now that violence in Gaza has reached a critical point.

“Where were you when Gazans were suffering because of the blockade?” my pro-Palestinian friends ask.

“Where were you when mortars were indiscriminately being lobbed into Southern Israel?” ask my Pro-Israeli pals.

Battle lines seem to have been drawn, making it difficult to simply say, “Palestine. Israel. I want peace for you both.”

Finger pointing in the holy land can go back millennia and despite Israel’s desire to end the “Hamas problem” once and for all, they will ultimately have done little to stop the mortars once this campaign ends. It reminds me of the phrase, “Fighting for Peace is like Engaging in Coitis for Virginity.” More...

With White House Push, U.S. Arms Sales Jump

By ERIC LIPTON
Published: in the NY Times September 13, 2008


WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to rearm Iraq and Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies.

From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005. More...