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.
Many screamed “foul!” over this, and to some degree they are correct, but it's a hypocritical platform. Israel, as most know, also have Russian weapons; they purchased $300 million worth of hardware. As far as I can tell, Israel did not use Russian weapons in Lebanon, however, they did use a substantial amount of American made hardware, which is no secret. In one case, that hardware landed them in hot water with the US State Department . It has been reported there was a type of “gentleman's agreement” between the US and Israel in the use of specific hardware that could and could not be used in civilian areas. Israel originally denied using American made cluster bombs , however, the results of an Israeli investigation confirms they did in fact employ American made cluster munitions, which could be against the law . Now Israel has confirmed the use of American made weapons in Lebanon, it remains to be seen if the State Department will do anything besides turn a blind eye.
Of course the biggest cache of weapons the United States has in the Middle East is inside Iraq. A recent audit has concluded one out of every 25 weapons is unaccounted for; there are other weapons that are not functional and it doesn't specify if this is included in the one out of twenty-five, or is a separate figure not disclosed. The official number of missing weapons
totals to 14,030, which is considered to be only four percent . If you do a little math, there should be approximately 1,403,000 assorted weapons brought into Iraq by the United States.
I could be wrong, but the United States seems to be supplying the bulk of the weapons in a very volatile region, and the CIA loves to arm and fund any guerrilla group that comes along (we won't talk about Afghanistan). It's somewhat hypocritical and disingenuous to point the finger at the Middle East when we train them to kill, give them the weapons to do so, let loose the Proactive Preemptive Operations Group to bring terrorists out in the open by our own terrorist methods , and then say, “if you guys would just come into the twenty-first century, you wouldn't be fighting all the time.”
Could the Middle East be right when they point to the United States and call us “the great Satan”? From a purely Christian point of view, we export massive amounts of weaponry for greed, pornography, try to install democracy (when we're being denied it at home through voting irregularities and rights stripping by the congress), and don't respect their value and culture systems (alcohol, sex, drugs, dating, divorce, dietary restrictions, fraud, bribery). Even from God's point of view, we export everything He abhors.
So who's selling the violence? I'm reminded of the old saying, “we have seen the enemy, and he is us.”
quazen.com articles by this writer can be found here
socyberty.com articles can be located here
relijournal.com articles are here
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