By World BEYOND War and RootsAction.org, September 11, 2024
While U.S. weapons shipments to Israel violate numerous laws, so do its arms shipments elsewhere — and nowhere is there a moral case for them. The weapons business accounts for over a half million deaths per year on average, as well as some 40% of corruption in all trade. The U.S. accounts for over a third of the global arms trade, all of it running through the U.S. government’s Foreign Military Sales program, making the U.S. the top weapons supplier to most regions and most types of governments, including brutal dictatorships.
Most areas of the world with wars manufacture few if any weapons of their own. Most wars have weapons on both sides made by the same companies. Western companies were supplying Libya with weapons up to just days before the 2011 NATO war on Libya.
The U.S. Committee to Expand NATO that moved NATO eastward to Russia’s border was chaired by Lockheed’s vice president, as Lockheed promised NATO membership to governments if they would buy its often malfunctioning weapons, while Lockheed’s executives dumped millions of dollars into the 1996 U.S. elections, and subsequent elections. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the CEO of Raytheon declared it good for business.
Candidate Biden promised no more weapons to Saudi Arabia, but the weapons are flowing.
Enough is enough. No more weapons shipments to Israel, or Saudi Arabia, or United Arab Emirates, or anywhere else!
Let’s provide something useful to the world instead.
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