Risky Business: Warning- Selling Arms to Dangerous Countries

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The risks of big arm sales to the Saudis by the USA:

https://www.cato.org/publications/polic ... olicy#full

It gives me pause for thought to see outfits like the Cato Institute issuing warnings, and one wonders which group the very right wing think tank is trying to warn....

The reckless POTUS? His White House lackeys? His supporters?
Things seem to be rapidly accelerating into chaos in the USA now.

The article begins:

S. arms sales policy is out of control. Since 2002, the United States has sold more than $197 billion worth of major conventional weapons and related military support to 167 countries. In just his first year in office, President Donald Trump inked arms deals at a record pace, generating hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of potential sales.

Though the president trumpets each deal as a victory for the United States, an analysis of American arms sales since 2002 reveals that the arms trade is a risky business. The United States has repeatedly sold weapons to nations engaged in deadly conflicts, and to those with horrendous human rights records, under conditions in which it has been impossible to predict where the weapons would end up or how they would be used. On repeated occasions, American troops have fought opponents armed with American weapons.

(The "safest" country to sell arms to as researched by the Institute? New Zealand..)

What do you think the nations. It currently at war want military weapons for? It’s not for peace.

John Ralston Saul had some really interesting thoughts on this in Voltaire's Bastards. He talked about France, the UK, and the US primarily in the 1980's having a market for arms somewhat economically reminiscent of the illegal drug market in that they're producing weapons for themselves but the weapons aren't capital goods hence they have no return on investment and the way they'd skirt the cost of creating bullets, bombs, etc. was selling a portion of what they made at a markup to cover costs. Passing that cost off on someone else is a large part of why they were willing to sell to just about anyone with a pulse. Quite likely not enough has changed in the last thirty or forty years to change that dynamic.

You are right Sly! The Saudis are using their current USA supply of weaponry and bombs to murder children and their families in Yemen, even as I write this reply.

So did the Soviet’s, iran, iraq, Syrians(Obama did it for free)
Russians,China, europe(really big arms supplier) what’s odd is Iran/China and Russia are all on the human rights council, Russia and China veto members of the un all while the feed most the worlds conflicts not for money mind you but for political gain i dont know what’s worse. Russia has provided the world billions of ak47s for free. Tanks etc
Personally I don’t think we should sell anyone anything but old small arms. M16 is ok, selling them our modern tanks and anti air stuff is stupid. Everyone does it though. Germany and us are big arms suppliers. Behind ak47 h&k weapons are a lot out there and then FN(Belgium) sig(Switzerland, always neutral making hefty profit off wars and genocide) not a lot of nations want our small arms. Fn actually makes our small arms. Italy until recently provided our sidearms. They made here sure but by foreign companies who work side by side with their governments back home. The fn fal and h&k g3 are right behind the ak47 and still used in conflicts all over the world. Heck some stg44s from ww2 are still used today all over, one guess who sold all the Germans arms off to anyone who’d take them? USA/ultimate/France and Russia. We sold them to both sides in the Middle East. Jews used nazi guns and tanks to fight nazi guns and tanks.
Humans sure do like to kill each other and as long as we do their be nations and companies profiting off it.
So what we have in the USA is us buying guns from Germany and Belgium and selling them at a loss to other nations. There’s amsongst the western powers an agreement to not cross each other’s territories. Asia is big sales area where the USA and Europe and japan compete for military contracts to provide small nations the weapons to fight each other in arms race.

Agains I’d rather we not, let Europe and Russia fight it out in arms trade. We often take a loss and the more we spread our tech out the more likely our enemies get it and figure ways to defeat it.

There was a movie where arms traders sold the missiles to humas and the system to stop the missiles to Israel

The trouble is that the OP is failing to make any real point.

So we sell arms to Saudi Arabia.

So what? That is not something we just started doing yesterday.

We have been arming the world since FDR promised that the US would be "the arsenal of democracy" at the start of WWII almost 80 years ago. Armed many countries. And we didn't just now start arming the Saudies. Weve been arming them for decades. It didn't start whenTrump took office.

We arm them right now because they and Israel are tacitly allied in a regional cold war against Iran. Both are allied to us and both Israel and SA presumably face an existential threat from Iran and its allies.

So what course of action should the US take if not to sell arms to the Saudies?

.

Arming the thugs in Saudi Arabia is only part of the USA's overall collusion with them. The USA - remember the Navy Seals incident? - is actively involved in the war on the Yemeni Sunnis, and this is known throughout the Middle East, reinforcing the overall perception of the USA as a war monger, war criminal, using its power to recklessly abet and collude with thug states for American monetary gain. The perception is that the Americans view Arab lives as cheap, expendable, including children. The USA created this adverse perception of itself, especially during and since the invasion of Iraq, though Trump is reinforcing and confirming these adverse perceptions beyond anything before.

If you can't see the dangers, then you can't see them. They are part of the big picture, as the arms sales are one intrinsic feature of it.

Did anyone else read the title and think

Well...

Now Trump can ALSO boast about how we Americans can now export replacement limbs (for folks of all ages) to Yemen too!

Iran a threat? Hahaha. They haven't attacked anyone for hundreds of years. The US, Israel and the Saudis are the threat to the region.

Hmm; Speaking of 'A Devil':

"A Force Deeper Than Blood"; Should Be Obvious what that is for Human Beings; but Sadly Human Beings have become
more of all their Tools as Science Shows Humans Definitely Can and Will and Do Do in all the Ways Human Tools have
become 'more' as Human Machines including their Machine Parts of Electronic Devices and Guns; and yes even Nuclear
Bombs on the Macro-Human Level of Nations become to be as Machine Nations too, which is rather redundant as
Overall every Tool of Culture is a Machine at some Level in Effect as Tool from the Written Word at Start of Larger
Cultures moving to the State of Out-of-Balance. Trump is the 'Status Symbol' of Red-Alert Status that We are
way, way out of Balance in the United States; and that Similar 'Status Symbol' is Evident in other Countries too.

I suppose what's really Good about the continuing Rise of the 'Dark Star', Lord Trump, for now at least; is the
'Dark Empire' is no longer Undercover. The Dark has become Adventurous now and is No longer Afraid in Hiding;
In Yes, Stuff like Pat Robertson; Just another one of the Dark Lord Trump's 'Right' Hand Men Vaulting this Money
of Arms Sells to the Saudis, beyond the Value of a Human Life for the Right To Free Speech to Work Safely in this
Country for a Major News Paper in Championing the Rights for Freedoms around the World; even including places
like Saudi Arabia, where Human Rights come to the Bottom of the Barrel of Human Love; including Empathy,
Sympathy, Compassion, and the Cognitive Empathy that even Women are Human too; and yes, Folks of
Different Sexual Orientations; and Folks with Mental Disorders who do need help, too; among OTHERS.

What the DSM really needs is a New Disorder Classified as "Trumpian Displays of Ignorance Away from Love";
And yes, of course they already Have Several Disorders that fit 'him' well enough; but one is not enough.
The Thing is; Love Can and will get Lazy and Apathetic if it doesn't Have an Enemy Like a 'Dark Lord'
And a 'Dark Empire' to fight against too. We Have the Biggest one Yet in the United States as
far as Tsunami-Like Magnitude away from the Real Bread of Love; the Water of Happiness;
And the Light of the World that is Love that Flourishes when Humans Live in Balance.

Bottom Line; we are out of balance when Arms become more valuable than Arms;
More Specifically, Fingers and Heads as removed by Truly Lost and Evil Human
Beings from a Force much Greater than Blood. Bottom Line here for a Democracy
at least; is to vote the "Dark Empire" out of all the Offices they control and Vote the
Force
of Love
In All that
Comes Back
Now to the Rule of Love;
Yes, the Law of Love; the Grade
of Love; and the Currency of Love too;
Yeah; i know 'Fat Cat Chance' of that Happening
for a while; but it's A One Vote per Head Challenge.

Not sure why you're rolling your eyes.

You're running on the assumption that Trump - or Obama (same thing, in policy terms) genuinely CARE about the interests of the United States or, even more laughably, about human rights.

These men are devoid of all sense of values except the values they're told to hold by the corporations that own them.

not so much the corporations that own them but rather... the neoliberal framework that basically assumes that all countries are equal players and fine customers for any kind of good, as long as they stick to global capitalist rules.
which are written in cooperation.... with corporations.

dammit. you're right. it's not direct ownership of the potus, but ownership of the global economic system that sets the groundrules of playing potus.