This may be as good a time as any for a tour
d'horizon of American hypocrisy about weapons around the world. During the Cold War, we
became accustomed to the fact that America got in bed with what seemed to be every fascist
kleptocrat on Earth. We were perennially arming monstrous dictators and backing tyrants
who abused and stole from their own people.
All this was justified in the name of the great Realpolitik of stopping communism. Those of us who objected to arming nun-rapers and bishop-killers were patted on the head and told, tut-tut, it was all being done in the name of democracy, and the only dictator we needed to be upset about was Fidel Castro.
The Cold War has been over for almost nine years now. Some of the old dictators have died of natural causes: Mobutu Sese Seko, one of the most remarkable thieves we ever helped keep in power, is gone at last after three decades of raping his country.
But here we are with our knickers in a twist because India and Pakistan have just "joined the nuclear club" (such a curious euphemism). And who do you think helped get them there? We did, with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms sales. And now we're all concerned that India and Pakistan will go to war.
Ditto Cyprus, where peace talks are unraveling and the United States scrambles to sell jet fighters, tanks and missiles to both Turkey and Greece. Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Central Asia, you name it--if there's a trouble spot in the world, we're busily profiting by selling arms to all sides.
According to Luke Warren of the Council for a Livable World, since the Cold War, the United States has become the world's largest arms dealer, selling, on average, $16.6 billion per year since 1991. And mind you, this trade is supported by taxpayer subsidies; last year, U.S. taxpayers provided $7.8 billion in corporate welfare to arms manufacturers to sell overseas.
William Hartung, an authority on global arms sales with the World Policy Institute and author of "And Weapons for All," has documented the presence of U.S.-supplied weapons in 39 of the world's 42 ongoing ethnic and territorial conflicts.