arms trade

Video: The shift in global arms trade

by News Sources 02.19.2013
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U.S. more than doubles previous record in global weapons sales

by News Sources 08.27.2012

In the last two years, American arms manufacturers have profited massively from increased tension between Gulf states and Iran, thanks in large part to repeated threats of war emanating from Israel. The New York Times reports: Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to [...]

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The Obama administration has torpedoed the arms trade treaty

by News Sources 08.03.2012

Amy Goodman writes: What is more heavily regulated, global trade of bananas or battleships? In late June, activists gathered in New York’s Times Square to make the absurd point that, unbelievably, “there are more rules governing your ability to trade a banana from one country to the next than governing your ability to trade an [...]

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Why is the U.S. selling billions in weapons to autocrats?

by News Sources 06.25.2012

Zach Toombs and Jeffrey Smith write: Every May and June, different branches of the State Department paint contrasting portraits of how Washington views dozens of strategically significant countries around the world, in seemingly rivalrous reports by its Human Rights and Political-Military Affairs bureaus. The former routinely criticizes other nations for a lack of fealty to [...]

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Lockheed Martin goes to bat for oppressive regime

by News Sources 01.05.2012

Justin Elliot reports: A top executive at Lockheed Martin recently worked with lobbyists for Bahrain to place an Op-Ed defending the nation’s embattled regime in the Washington Times — but the newspaper did not reveal the role of the regime’s lobbyists to its readers. Hence they did not know that the pro-Bahrain opinion column they [...]

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Arms suppliers urged to halt transfers to the Egyptian army

by News Sources 12.21.2011

Global arms suppliers must halt the transfer of small arms, ammunition and other repressive equipment to the Egyptian military and security forces, Amnesty International said today after the army again violently dispersed protests in Cairo. The organization condemned the excessive use of force against protesters and called for a cessation of all transfers of small [...]

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Britain unites with smaller countries to block U.S. bid to legalise cluster bombs

by News Sources 11.26.2011

The Guardian reports: A coalition of countries including Britain on Friday defeated an attempt by the US, Russia, China and Israel to get an international agreement approving the continued use of cluster bombs. The weapons, which have been used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon scatter “bomblets” over a wide area, maiming and killing civilians, notably [...]

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Egyptian military using ‘more dangerous’ teargas on Tahrir Square protesters

by News Sources 11.23.2011

The Guardian reports: Egyptian security forces are believed to be using a powerful incapacitating gas against civilian protesters in Tahrir Square following multiple cases of unconsciousness and epileptic-like convulsions among those exposed. The Guardian has collected video footage as well as witness accounts from doctors and victims who have offered strong evidence that at least [...]

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Arms trade: Business before human rights?

by News Sources 10.23.2011

Al Jazeera reports: Earlier this year, as mass popular uprisings spread through the Middle East and audiences across the world sat transfixed by images of unarmed citizens confronting iron-fisted security forces in the streets of Arab capitals, powerful governments from Russia to the United States were forced to begin accounting for the weapons they had [...]

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U.S. awaits inquiry ahead of Bahrain arms deal

by News Sources 10.19.2011

Al Jazeera reports: The US has said that it will consider a special investigation of alleged human rights abuses in Bahrain before moving ahead with a $53m arms deal to the Gulf kingdom. In a letter to Ron Wyden, a US Democratic senator, and in public statement, the state department said on Tuesday that it [...]

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Weapons sales to the Arab world under scrutiny

by News Sources 04.04.2011

Der Spiegel reports: The revolutions in the Arab world caught British Prime Minister David Cameron off guard. For some time, diplomats had been planning a trip for Cameron that would take him to several countries in the Middle East. In fact, it was meant to be more of a trade mission, with Cameron’s delegation consisting [...]

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Arming democracy’s opponents

by News Sources 02.24.2011

The Daily Telegraph reports: Facing budget cuts at home, western arms firms are desperate for a share of the lucrative Middle East market. “The post-financial crisis reality,” said Herve Guillou, president of Cassidian Systems, a subsidiary of European aviation defence group EADS, “is that today it is clearly the Middle East that is seeing the [...]

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When corporations choose despots over democracy

by News Sources 02.04.2011

Amy Goodman writes: Egypt has been the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid for decades, after Israel (not counting the funds expended on the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan). Mubarak’s regime has received roughly $2 billion per year since coming to power, overwhelmingly for the military. Where has the money gone? Mostly to [...]

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Lockheed Martin: the shadow government

by News Sources 01.08.2011

Yahoo Tech Ticker reports: Too big to fail? That’s been the key question asked of Wall Street’s biggest banks since the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, which sent shock waves through the global financial system and led to the worst recession this country has seen since the Great Depression. But, there is another firm [...]

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The corrupt system that turns American generals into war profiteers

by Paul Woodward 12.26.2010

When corruption has become systemic, it no longer gets called corruption. When America’s decorated military elite believe that retirement means that it is now their turn to line their pockets by profiting from the United States’ profligate arms spending, we are witnessing what the Boston Globe refers to with the blandest of euphemisms: a routine [...]

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Obama desperate to please Netanyahu

by Paul Woodward 10.08.2010

How much is a two-month extension in the West Bank settlement slowdown really worth? The Obama administration is pursuing this paltry prize as if it was staving off another economic meltdown — even as hundreds of building projects have already been started. The Los Angeles Times reported: The U.S. has been wooing Netanyahu for weeks [...]

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Squeeze Israel by cutting US aid? Not likely

by Paul Woodward 03.22.2010

At the AIPAC conference in Washington on Monday, Hillary Clinton said of US-Israeli ties: “Our countries and peoples are bound together by our shared values of freedom, equality, democracy, the right to live free from fear, and our common aspirations for a future of peace, security, and prosperity.” But the most important tie is the [...]

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Why the defense and oil industries must be in love with Iran and al Qaeda

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2010

The Obama administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid to thwart future military attacks by Iran, according to former and current U.S. and Middle Eastern government officials. The initiatives, including a [...]

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An American world of war

by Paul Woodward 01.04.2010

An American world of war By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse, TomDispatch, January 3, 2010 … let’s pause a moment as the New Year begins and take stock of ourselves as what we truly are: the preeminent war-making machine on planet Earth. Let’s peer into the future, and consider just what the American way of [...]

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Despite slump, U.S. role as top arms supplier grows

by Paul Woodward 09.07.2009

Despite slump, U.S. role as top arms supplier grows By Thom Shanker, New York Times, September 7, 2009 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 [...]

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NEWS: War profiteer hauled off in handcuffs

by Paul Woodward 10.28.2007

One down: Obscenely decadent war profiteer hauled off in handcuffs By Sarah Anderson, AlterNet, October 26, 2007 America’s most ostentatious war profiteer is no longer a free man. In a long-anticipated move, FBI agents arrested bulletproof vest maker David H. Brooks in his Manhattan apartment at dawn on Thursday. In the tradition of Al Capone, [...]

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NEWS: U.S. threatened by its own weapons

by Paul Woodward 10.14.2007

U.S. military technology being exported illegally is a growing concern By Robin Wright, Washington Post, October 14, 2007 Pentagon investigators thought they had discovered a major shipment of contraband when they intercepted parts for F-14 Tomcat warplanes headed to Iran, via FedEx, from Southern California. Under U.S. sanctions since its 1979 revolution, Tehran had been [...]

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ANALYSIS: Selling death and destruction

by Paul Woodward 10.11.2007

Arms sales: How the U.S. is not winning friends By Zia Mian, Asia Times, October 12, 2007 The United States sells death and destruction as a fundamental instrument of its foreign policy. It sees arms sales as a way of making and keeping strategic friends and tying countries more directly to US military planning and [...]

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