America Has Become the World's Arms Dealer -- But at What Cost to Ourselves and the World?
http://www.alternet.org/world/153878/america_has_become_the_world%27s_arms_dealer_--_but_at_what_cost_to_ourselves_and_the_world_/
Perhaps youve heard of Makin Thunderbirds, a hard-bitten rock & roll song by Bob Seger that I listened to 30 years ago while in college. Its about auto workers back in 1955 who were young and proud to be making Ford Thunderbirds. But in the early 1980s, Seger sings, the plants have changed and youre lucky if you work. Seger caught the reality of an American manufacturing infrastructure that was seriously eroding as skilled and good-paying union jobs were cut or sent overseas, rarely to be seen again in these parts.
If the U.S. auto industry has recently shown sparks of new life (though were not making T-Birds or Mercuries or Oldsmobiles or Pontiacs or Saturns anymore), there is one form of manufacturing in which America is still dominant. When it comes to weaponry, to paraphrase Seger, were still young and proud and makin Predators and Reapers (as in unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones) and Eagles and Fighting Falcons (as in F-15 and F-16 combat jets), and outfitting them with the deadliest of weapons. In this market niche, were still the envy of the world.
Yes, were the worlds foremost merchants of death, the title of a best-selling exposé of the international arms trade published to acclaim in the U.S. in 1934. Back then, most Americans saw themselves as war-avoiders rather than as war-profiteers. The evil war-profiteers were mainly European arms makers like Germanys Krupp, Frances Schneider, or Britains Vickers.