Military Industry and Weapons Manufacturers Benefiting from Bush's Continuing Militarism

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Gulf States Plan Weapons Buying Binge


Friday February 16, 2007 12:46 PM

By JIM KRANE

Associated Press Writer

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Deep fears about the war in Iraq and growing tension between the United States and Iran are driving the wealthy oil states of the Persian Gulf to go on shopping sprees for helicopters, ships and tanks, officials say.

Some 900 weapons makers and security firms from around the world, including the U.S. and Russia, will compete for those military buys at the IDEX military show that opens Sunday in Abu Dhabi. At stake are contracts predicted to soar past the $2 billion signed at the last such show two years ago.

``The shopping lists are directly correlated to the threat perception,'' said military analyst Mustafa Alani of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. ``For the past 15 years, these countries didn't invest a lot in rearming.''

But now they're rushing to upgrade . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6419847,00.html


Insurgents -- they buy American

The administration's latest memory lapse is remembering where our enemies in Iraq got their weapons.

February 16, 2007

{snip}

My fellow Americans, it is my duty to reveal to you that Iran is not the only powerful state that's arming the Iraqi insurgents. On the contrary. There's equally solid evidence that another major world power has been providing the Iraqi insurgents with thousands of new RPGs, machine guns, sniper rifles and other weapons.

Just who is behind this act of hostility? The United States — or anyway, the U.S. Department of Defense.

You heard me. According to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, about 14,000 of the weapons bought (with your tax dollars!) for distribution to Iraqi security forces got, um, misplaced somewhere between getting to Iraq and being transferred to the Iraqi army and police. Instead, analysts say, many of those weapons ended up in the hands of You Know Who.

And that's not even counting the weapons that do get delivered to the Iraqi forces but are "lost," and then reappear shortly thereafter in black market weapons bazaars, where they can be bought by the bad guys and used against our troops.

Is Bush aware that an agency of the U.S. government is providing weapons to the Iraqi insurgents? Or is he so busy with other pressing national security matters that he forgot to read the inspector general's report?

As with Iran, I suppose it doesn't really matter whether Bush knows that U.S. weapons are ending up with insurgents. He said it best himself, when discussing the Iranian government's responsibility for supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents: "Either knew or didn't know" that Iranian weapons were going to end up with insurgents, but "what matters … is that they're there. What's worse, that the government knew or that the government didn't know?"

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brooks16feb16,0,2048086.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

[Flarney]

1. What a coincidence!!!

The Military Industrial Complex should be forced to be a non-profit industry. It's unconscionable that anyone should profit from war.

[madokie]

2. with each passing day it becomes clearer to me that the real reason we are in Iraq

is the bottom line for some of the companys who btw also owns some of our news organizations. what a mess

[Laughing Mirror]

3. Which are the same companies that help elect our favorite senators & congresspeople

So the circle of unlimited power & corruption is lock stock & barrel, 100% complete.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Oh, God, will this nightmare ever end? n/t