Arms and The President
Are the children to receive the arms race from us as a necessary inheritance?
- Pope John Paul II, 1979 U.N. Speech
Contrary to popular belief, there are some things of which you can never get enough and helping to satisfy that seemingly insatiable need is something someone like George Bush can do when traveling to foreign countries hoping to make a good impression. As his mother taught him, there is no better way to make a good impression than to bring a “bread and butter” gift to your host. Of course what to bring can be a bit of a problem since it is not always easy to know what the host might like, especially if he or she is one of those people who seems to have everything, like Saudi King Abdullah.
During Mr. Bush’s recent trip to the Middle East he probably took presents to each person he visited but the one that made the biggest splash was the present he had for King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia. Actually, it was not a present so much as an opportunity and for the man who has everything, an opportunity can be more welcome than a present.
When Mr. Bush arrived in King Abdullah’s kingdom he gave the king the great news that Mr. Bush’s kingdom was prepared to sell King Abdullah’s kingdom $20 billion worth of weapons. Included among the weapons were 900 precision-guided bombs that could be used to attack countries that are within their range like Israel, although for obvious reasons, Mr. Bush would be distressed if that is what they were used for. He’d like for them to be placed on the country’s Eastern border where they could be used against Iran, a prospect Mr. Bush finds maniacally irresistible.
The king was thrilled to receive the present since it helps Saudi Arabia maintain its lead in the world as an arms importer. According to a Congressional Research Service report issued in September 2006, Saudi Arabia imported $22.5 billion of arms from the United States from 1997 through 2004. Looking at it from a different perspective, a September 2007 Arms Control Association report says that that country’s overall all imports of arms since 1998 came to $50 billion making it the largest arms importer in the developing world. Anything Mr. Bush can do for the Saudis that helps them keep that privileged position is greatly appreciated by them more especially when it also adds to the enormous pleasure they get from the pride of ownership.
Although Mr. Bush’s present was a really good opportunity to set before a king, it was not unexpected since it had been talked about since the summer. It was also not Mr. Bush’s only arms deal in that part of the world, another having preceded his visit by a few months.
In August 2007 the administration signed a deal with Israel in which it agreed to let Israel acquire $30 billion in arms aid over the next 10 years. At the time that deal was announced it was described by R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs as being “an investment in peace, in long-term peace . . . .” Everyone knows that the more heavily armed countries there are in the world, the less likely there is to be a war. It’s the same principle, on a much larger scale, of course, as the principle that the more heavily armed U.S. citizens are, the more the crime rate will decrease since criminals will fear to ply their trade lest they get shot by well-armed peace loving citizens.
Of course, making the world safe through arms’ sales gives the United States a great opportunity to maintain its lead as the biggest arms supplier in the world. The transactions with Israel and Saudi Arabia almost guarantee that the United States can maintain its lead in arms sales. According to a report from Reuters, at the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington at the end of 2006, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kohler, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said he projected sales for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007 of roughly $20 billion. That, according to the report, was double the amount sold in the preceding fiscal year. According to the Congressional Research Services Report entitled “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nation, 1999-2006″ issued in September 2007, during the 2003-2006 period the United States bested Russia in three out of four years in the value of arms transfer agreements. With the most recent agreements George Bush will sleep well secure in the knowledge that in his last year in office he outstripped his good friend, Vladimir Putin, in their friendly competition to see who can sell the world the most arms. The rest of us should sleep so well.
Christopher Brauchli
brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu
For political commentary see his web page http://humanraceandothersports.com
If this were a Hollywood movie, we would accept it as fiction as only Hollywood can make it.
Wasn’t WW I started by the countries in Europe, armed to the teeth, each showing larger and larger armies until the thing exploded?
Too bad we NEVER listen to our predecesors, why should we, we’ll do it better!
Hey! If we can outsource some of those defence contractor jobs to India, Indonesia, whatever…we can make a nice profit. How about setting up a few arms manufacturing plants in Tibet? I hear they could use the work.
I look forward to Brauchli’s understated, sophisticated human in columns posted every Saturday on C.D. This one adds a human element to the devastating details revealed in a scholarly article done by Chalmers Johnson a few days ago.
The sum total of these indictments on US fiscal priorities suggest the influence of an archetypal aspect of human nature and history that has become ascendant and as a result holds all the counterbalancing equally divine attributes hostage. Martin Luther King eloquently related that every dollar spent on weapons adds to the bankrupcy of our nation. Ralph Nader exposed the state of America’s schools, roadways, bridges and basic infrastructure. Some astute contributors to CD have articulated irrefutable analogies between the fall of Rome and other imperial societies and our own. It all comes down to distorted values. Militarism alone cannot make or sustain life. It is good for one thing only, the power of destruction. Since most religions see God as CREATOR, the inversion of human wit, invention and resources to instead DESTROY is blasphemy, not to mention equivalent to a policy of collective suicide. The great and grave irony is the fact that so many citizens who go along with this course of diabolical action think they are religious. Can you imagine what Jesus, Buddha, Moses or Allah would have to say about this waste of life, treasure and intelligence?
Lately I find reading the many sins operating as business as usual almost too heavy to take in. It’s like standing still and watching not one train wreck, but many, while one’s cries to STOP go unheard and unheeded.
Oops.. I meant humor, not human! (Freudian slip?)
Hunter killer man is winning instead of civilized man. Human evolution is moving in the wrong direction and will lead to more wars and probably to human annihilation in a world of weapons of mass destruction.
one thing after another.
wanna there to be peace?
provide enough weapons to make mars blush.
want to end drug use in america?
outlaw the drugs so they become more profitable for the cartels.
makes perfect sense.
The run away corporate powered plunder train
a club house of cards still pumping gain
built on inflated debt and paupers sweat
is riding on the rails again
The levers on the levers couldn’t check
the long drawn out impending wreck
till the ghost conductor 29 called out
next stop is you ain’t seen nothin yet
“to set before a king,”
I love writing this way . Sneak in a poignant line or too from a nursery rhyme , novel or broadway musical :” …are there no prisons ? ” or ” It takes a woman to carefully plan ; to mold him and change him to her kind of man ”
Thanks for the subtle humour in an otherwise sobbering essay.
The gun lobby in this country maintain we will all be safer if everyone has plenty of firepower, including concealed guns and even assualt weapons, which would kill an elephant. If they are right, does it not follow that the world will also be safer if all countries have weapons of every kind to use to keep the peace? That must be progressive thinking as it is certainly a new concept. On the other hand, maybe it is regressive, as in the wild west days when quick-draw was the favoured method of keeping the peace. As for world affairs, we will be back in the dark ages again if we continue as we are heading now.
Kernel,
I think we are already in the New Dark Ages. With bush selling 30 billion in arms to both sides it’s clear he wants world war. But to compare personal residential defense with an worldwide arms buildup is ridiculous. Don’t confuse the Bush Crime Family’s long history of arming both sides of a war with our rights as citizens to collect firearms that will give Blackwater goons pause. Yes, I want elephant guns that will make the Redcoats decide it’s not worth the risk to ransack my home on a fishing expedition since “the Crown” says they no longer need to worry about a warrant.
Overarming regional nations to fulfill a crazy Christian prophecy and keeping the citizens right to bear arms intact are completely different things. Wouldn’t you agree?
The Rothschilds and the Walkers (Bush’s Grandfather in law) were and are Bankers who lend money to opposing governments for wars that they instigate and worse, also privately control OUR Federal Reserve Bank (where every worthless dollar in your wallet comes from.)
I recommend CDer’s in the bible belt like Rose, go out with their redneck neighbors to the indoor target range and blow off a few boxes of ammo. It’s very fun and safe & you might even buy one; and with a firearm in a locked box under your bed, you will sleep much better at night. At the same time, you can breach the common ground that will save our nation: The Bill of Rights.
Something every redneck hillbilly has heard of, but probably has never read, since they don’t know how to read. Copy a list of the first ten amendments of the constitution and give it to him. He’s going to like it right away, because the second amendment says he has the right to his gun. Then ask him: “How come the gov is breaking most of these other rights?”
That is the secret of Common Ground. We all believe in being Americans if we will just allow the other side to cherish the rights that they value.
And half the founding fathers of our nation didn’t like guns or war either, but they sure as hell didn’t want gov turds to be the only ones armed in the town.
Forget about safety. We’re way past that now. Every hood on the street is buying a taser that looks like an ipod. None of us are safe.
This generation has been so conditioned by the “Cops” culture of police door kick downs and calling-911-will-solve-everything-syndrome that if society breaks down, they are sitting ducks just like the poor people of New Orleans were.
Don’t wait for this to happen in your city. Times have changed. You can’t count on the government to save you. Police budgets and staffing are dwindling. Progressives need to arm themselves in their homes so that if it ever does come down to a flooded city or civil disorder you will be able to fire a warning shot at a looter (changing his mind; or a shot over a rapist head making him go to another house.)
And the day they come to tattoo a DHS barcode on your forehead you will thank old paranoid pacplyer as well.
pac
“just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean ‘1984′ won’t happen”
PAC: I hope I never have to TOUCH a gun in my life. I dated an attorney a while back who said if I bought one statistics implied it had a greater risk of being used on me, or in a fatality IN my home. I sleep fine at night. It’s called “do unto others.” To my knowledge, I don’t have any enemies and I live in a low key area with mostly lower income retirees. Sure keeps the boom boxes away and as far as I’m concerned, that and the trees, birds and beautiful springs are well worth the isolation.