I’m proud to be an American, cuz at least I know I am arming the world for battle:
WASHINGTON — Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study.
The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before.
Italy was a distant second, with $3.7 billion in worldwide weapons sales in 2008, while Russia was third with $3.5 billion in arms sales last year — down considerably from the $10.8 billion in weapons deals signed by Moscow in 2007.
The growth in weapons sales by the United States last year was particularly noticeable against worldwide trends. The value of global arms sales in 2008 was $55.2 billion, a drop of 7.6 percent from 2007 and the lowest total for international weapons agreements since 2005.
The increase in American weapons sales around the world “was attributable not only to major new orders from clients in the Near East and in Asia, but also to the continuation of significant equipment and support services contracts with a broad-based number of U.S. clients globally,” according to the study, titled “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations.”
Isn’t that special?
You know, it might just cross some non-American’s mind to resent this situation.
You could also count farming, both survive supported by the government.
Farming does fine without government support. It’s the living history museums known as independent small farmers that would collapse without massive welfare payments. Considering who those museum curators normally vote for, maybe we should let them collapse.
You are referring to the past: The subsidies that help small farmers have dwindled while the agri-business share has grown hugely. Or, perhaps, when you refer to “welfare payments,” you mean the assistance small farmers get because their income is below the poverty level?
For what it matters, I resent it. A lot. We can’t reform health insurance because it would be too expensive. We have money for a Wall St. bailout, a health insurance/drug company support bill and an arms maker subsidy policy. Or fill in the blank with any other high priority social program. We have money for the large corporations that do little for the average American and but a lot for their top management and stock holders
yes, I too resent it.
Always have money for the things that hurt people but never for the things that help people.
We have these nice new rifles for the military, but no use for them?
We’ll sell the old ones to corrupt regimes so we have someone to shoot at.
We have these nice machine guns for the military, but no real use for them?
We’ll sell the last batch of rifles to corrupt regimes so we have someone to shoot at.
We have these great new rocket launchers, but no real use for them?
We’ll sell some of our old tanks to corrupt regimes so we have someone to fire them at.
We have these awesome jets, but absolutely no use for them for another 25 years?
Think if we sell enough f16s we can justify having them sooner?
If we can’t find an enemy strong enough to create a lasting threat in order to justify limitless military budgets, we can always build one.
al Qaeda… Meet your maker.
To top it off, we often give the corrupt regimes the money to buy the weapons from us in the form of humanitarian aid.
It’s virtually the only industry we have left. It is the only industry in which we are globally preeminent.
It’s the nature of empires. The only thing they do well is conquest. And yes, we are not doing so well lately. That’s the sign of an empire crumbling.
america, masters of war, bob dylan, c. 1963.
and the reichwingers want you to believe they hate us for our freedom when one of our primary exports is weapons of death and destruction?
Another proud first for America. < coughing >
We used to be anti-war, but then there was all that profit to be made.
It bothers me that these articles fail to mention our local weapon producer – Alliant – still happily building those land mines and other vital things.
To keep my comment brief, I won’t even talk about Monsanto. I am very resentful.
‘Resentful’. If I didn’t know better, I’d accuse you lot of exercising the gift of British Understatement.
‘Resentful’. Can I be massively impolite about a worldview that views – or doesn’t – our undoing on a multitude of fronts and says it’s ‘Resentful ?’
Here’s a revelation – one of many ‘around’
HOME Project 2009 – Join the movement – Watch The Movie
http://zenhappens.com/home-project-2009-join-the-movement-watch-the-movie/
That’s the lead of http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/08/environment-sickening-practices.html
I have farming contacts with mind-blowing intel.