America: Arms dealer to the stars!

POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Sunday, September 13, 2009 02:36
VIEWED: 2559
PAGE 1 of 1

NIKI2

Thursday, September 10, 2009 10:28 PM

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/09/09/notes09090
9.DTL&type=printable
Who's the number one weapons broker in the world, again? Take a guess

And then along comes one of those stories that makes you cringe down to your very core, that makes you see our semi-fine nation and the world around it through a bleak and unforgiving lens indeed. No matter how hard you try and how you spin the story and flip it around and try to forcibly shape it into something less slightly nauseating, all you can do is realize that sometimes ugliness and violence win the day, the year, the planet.

So it is that a new report has just emerged, announcing with a sort of drab and bitter capitalistic glee that America is once again the number one weapons dealer in the world. It's true: We sell more guns, more major weaponry, tanks and rocket launchers, fighters and Gatling guns and all sorts of brutal devices specifically designed to destroy human life and induce fear and dread and all manner of sadistic horror, than any other developed nation on the planet. By a long shot.

But that's not all. Despite the bleak economy, despite what you might expect to be a major downturn in such transactions, sales of American-made guns and weapons of mass annihilation worldwide are actually way up. As far as U.S.-made weapons are concerned, it appears to be a boom time for war and death and conflict. Isn't that fun to swallow with your hopes and dreams for a peaceful and calmly evolving future?

So far ahead in weapons sales to the world are we, it's not even a contest. We own the game. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, while overall weapons sales were indeed down due to global economic blight, sales of U.S. weaponry rose more than 50 percent in a single year, totaling about $37 billion, up from $25 billion the year before.

Translation: the U.S. now owns a whopping 68 percent of the arms games worldwide. We're just like Wal-Mart, if Wal-Mart sold Browning M2s and Stingers and flamethrowers. Isn't that reassuring?

Sure, you can water it down a bit, maybe propose to your exhausted soul that we only sell said weapons to our friendly, peace-seeking allies so they may protect themselves from various evildoers and swarthy terrorists whom we also detest and wish death and hate upon, or you could tell yourself that most of said weaponry is really for defense and for shielding babies and puppies and virgins from the darker nature of man.

You can even go so far as to suggest that our arms deals are not promoting war, per se, but actually promoting peace, in that inverse, bad-is-good, multiple-wrongs-make-a-right sort of way. It's the classic, ridiculous NRA argument: if everyone owns a few thousand warheads, no one will shoot anyone simply because they don't want to get shot themselves. It's pathetic nonsense, but hey, whatever gets you through, right?

Sad fact is, capitalism trumps all rational arguments, all notions that we are out only to promote good in the world, and we will sell weapons to just about anyone anywhere short of Al Qaeda itself. Guerrillas? Dictators? Drug lords? If they somehow serve our global agenda, hell yes. We sell billions in arms to our pals in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, for example, regimes second only in oppression and totalitarianism to the Taliban. We buy their oil, we turn around and sell them fighter jets and grenades and sniper rifles. It's a win-win, where everybody loses.

Of course, it's all nothing new. America has always been the world's foremost arms dealer. Who can forget one of the classic hypocrisies of all time, Bush's pathetic wail that we must stop the development of weapons of mass destruction in countries we do not like, when of course the United States owns more WMD than any developed nation on the planet? We argue it's all about intent, all about protecting our vital interests. Which may be partly true. The other truth is, it's also all about profit, ethics and morals bedamned.

I can't help but recall that cute little scene in Iron Man, when Ro

WULFENSTAR

Thursday, September 10, 2009 10:31 PM

You know how you counter that?

The Constitution.. yeah, I can hear the groans from here.

We should never go to war, or finance war, without approval from Congress. Written in over 200 years ago for this very reason.

AG05

Friday, September 11, 2009 3:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:

So it is that a new report has just emerged, announcing with a sort of drab and bitter capitalistic glee that America is once again the number one weapons dealer in the world. It's true: We sell more guns, more major weaponry, tanks and rocket launchers, fighters and Gatling guns and all sorts of brutal devices specifically designed to destroy human life and induce fear and dread and all manner of sadistic horror, than any other developed nation on the planet. By a long shot.

But that's not all. Despite the bleak economy, despite what you might expect to be a major downturn in such transactions, sales of American-made guns and weapons of mass annihilation worldwide are actually way up. As far as U.S.-made weapons are concerned, it appears to be a boom time for war and death and conflict. Isn't that fun to swallow with your hopes and dreams for a peaceful and calmly evolving future?

Glad to see SOMEBODY's makin' money these days.

Quote:

Translation: the U.S. now owns a whopping 68 percent of the arms games worldwide. We're just like Wal-Mart, if Wal-Mart sold Browning M2s and Stingers and flamethrowers. Isn't that reassuring?

Flamethowers? Really? I haven't heard of a flamethrower in use since WWII. Napalm, maybe. But a flamethrower? That's just overly dramatic nonsense

BTW the Browning M2 (I'm betting no more than 5% of Chronicle readers know what an M2 is) entered service with the US in 1921. Only 1 other weapon system has been in service with the US longer (1911). It's also a Browning design.

Quote:

Sure, you can water it down a bit, maybe propose to your exhausted soul that we only sell said weapons to our friendly, peace-seeking allies so they may protect themselves from various evildoers and swarthy terrorists whom we also detest and wish death and hate upon, or you could tell yourself that most of said weaponry is really for defense and for shielding babies and puppies and virgins from the darker nature of man.

We sell mostly to people who want better quality than a worn-out AK, but aren't willing to pay H&K prices. Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Columbia, all big buyers. Hell, next time we go to war, we've got a better chance of fighting against F-16's than we do against MiG's and Mirages.

Quote:

You can even go so far as to suggest that our arms deals are not promoting war, per se, but actually promoting peace, in that inverse, bad-is-good, multiple-wrongs-make-a-right sort of way. It's the classic, ridiculous NRA argument: if everyone owns a few thousand warheads, no one will shoot anyone simply because they don't want to get shot themselves. It's pathetic nonsense, but hey, whatever gets you through, right?

Or you could suggest that Susie Barrel Fitter at the FN plant in South Carolina has a job and can afford to buy her kids new shoes for school, thanks to various countries unwillingness to buy Chinese stamped-metal AK's.

Quote:
Sad fact is, capitalism trumps all rational arguments, all notions that we are out only to promote good in the world, and we will sell weapons to just about anyone anywhere short of Al Qaeda itself.

Actually DOS is quite picky about who you sell guns to. The same is true of dual use technologies like IR sensors and nightvision and such

Quote:
Guerrillas?

Contras and the Muji's back in the '80's, not sure who we're talking about now

Quote:
Dictators?

Yep

Quote:
Drug lords?

See "dictators"

Quote:
If they somehow serve our global agenda, hell yes. We sell billions in arms to our pals in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, for example, regimes second only in oppression and totalitarianism to the Taliban. We buy their oil, we turn around and sell them fighter jets and grenades and sniper rifles. It's a win-win, where everybody loses.

And then we sell the same stuff to the Israelis, who then modify the shit out of it until it's as good as the weapons we keep for ourselves.

Quote:

Of course, it's all nothing new. America has always been

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FREMDFIRMA

Friday, September 11, 2009 5:06 AM

Annnd folks, this shows Golden Gong goes to Ag05, for a truly outstanding demonstration of the Sarcasmalodeon!

Let's hear it for the snark pipes, yes?
*cue applause sign*

-F

KWICKO

Friday, September 11, 2009 5:13 AM

Don't worry, AG, I've never taken you seriously. Not about to start now, especially with your insinuation that the AK series is somehow inferior to American-built weapons.

Refresh my memory - who was it that won the Vietnam War, with little more than AKs and a strong will, in the face of the most mighty military the world had ever seen?

Yeah, what a shitty rifle that AK is.

Mike

"It was already blue when we got here!"

AG05

Friday, September 11, 2009 12:53 PM

Quote:
Don't worry, AG, I've never taken you seriously. Not about to start now, especially with your insinuation that the AK series is somehow inferior to American-built weapons.

Refresh my memory - who was it that won the Vietnam War, with little more than AKs and a strong will, in the face of the most mighty military the world had ever seen?

Yeah, what a shitty rifle that AK is.

Mike

The Romy in my gun case would agree with you.

But it does beg the question: why pay US prices for AR's and M240's when you can get AK's and PKM's at much better prices? I'm willing to bet that it's because of the other perks of buying American. We'll not only sell you guns, we'll sell you Humvees, MANPADS, and all sorts of stuff, along with the training to learn how to use it.

Not that it guarantees victory or anything. Ask Georgia about that one. (And yes Mike, thats another AK win over the M16. I know.)

Mercy is the mark of a great man.
Guess I'm just a good man.
Well, I'm alright.

NIKI2

Friday, September 11, 2009 5:07 PM

Wulf: Right on, only it doesn't work (how many wars have we been in since WWII which were never "declared" or approved by Congress?). Sigh...

AG: Of course it wasn't meant to be taken seriously (or, totally seriously)--he's a political satirist columnist. I just like the way he writes, his sense of humor, and agree with more than half of his politics!

Quote:
We'll not only sell you guns, we'll sell you Humvees, MANPADS, and all sorts of stuff, along with the training to learn how to use it.

--you forgot "and give you money to fight the war..." Wonder whether what we give "freedom fighters" equals whatever we get for selling the weapons? Wonder if that even occurs to anyone? Also wonder if it ever occurs to anyone that what we sell to these "freedom fighters" sometimes ends up used against us?--certainly doesn't seem that way!

________________________
Together we are greater than the sum of our parts

KWICKO

Friday, September 11, 2009 5:10 PM

Quote:
Posted by ag05:

Glad to see SOMEBODY's makin' money these days.

I'm sure you wholeheartedly approve of Hugo Chavez's recent buying spree in Russia, then, right? He's rumored to have ordered a half a billion bucks worth of military armaments. Thank goodness that man is trying to contribute to the global economy and keep people working!

Mike

"It was already blue when we got here!"

KWICKO

Friday, September 11, 2009 5:13 PM

Quote:
Hell, next time we go to war, we've got a better chance of fighting against F-16's than we do against MiG's and Mirages.

You say that like it's a good thing...

KWICKO

Friday, September 11, 2009 5:14 PM

Quote:
Wulf: Right on, only it doesn't work (how many wars have we been in since WWII which were never "declared" or approved by Congress?). Sigh...

Ummm... ALL OF THEM?

Just a wild-ass guess.

WULFENSTAR

Friday, September 11, 2009 5:17 PM

Yep.

And how have they worked out?

Lol.

Its all been so stupid.

AG05

Friday, September 11, 2009 5:30 PM

Mike

Re: Chavez. You're taking me too seriously. I'm just sayin that Smith and Wesson stock is doing fine right now. And that's not entirely bad. (It'd been better if he'd bought American, but I guess we DON'T sell to anybody after all)

Quote:
Hell, next time we go to war, we've got a better chance of fighting against F-16's than we do against MiG's and Mirages.

You say that like it's a good thing...

Does make FoF training easier, don't it?

Mercy is the mark of a great man.
Guess I'm just a good man.
Well, I'm alright.

GEEZER

Friday, September 11, 2009 10:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

I'm sure you wholeheartedly approve of Hugo Chavez's recent buying spree in Russia, then, right? He's rumored to have ordered a half a billion bucks worth of military armaments.

Get your facts straignt, Mike. It's $.5 billion for the tanks alone. The total purchase was around $4 billion.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

GEEZER

Friday, September 11, 2009 11:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AG05:
But it does beg the question: why pay US prices for AR's and M240's when you can get AK's and PKM's at much better prices?

Most of the stuff folks are buying from us are fighter aircraft, air defense systems, missile defense systems, and such high-tech stuff. We're just about to sell $7.8 billion worth of Patriot missiles and launch and support equipment to Turkey. We're doing $15 to $20 billion in naval modernization for the Saudis. $6.5 billion for an air defense system for the UAE. $2.1 Billion for fighters for Morocco. $2 billion for attack choppers for Taiwan.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

PIRATENEWS

Friday, September 11, 2009 11:05 PM

How much of Made In USA is actually Made In China?

Govt Motors used the bailout to move factories to Brazil and Commie China. GM is one of the largest military contractors.

Boeing also moved factories to China.

DREAMTROVE

Friday, September 11, 2009 11:52 PM

John has a point.

Also, it's a national security issue. If top US defense contractors make US defense systems overseas it doesn't matter if we have the competitive design edge, because the locals will learn soon enough. This is what always happens. There's some economic crunch and someone like GE lets 4500 workers go, and those guys start up a factory in brazil making the same anti missile system. Not that I care if the US succeeds or fails, but I can't really credit the feds with that much stupidity, so I have to figure the whole thing is hypocrisy, and they never intended these weapons systems to defend america in the first place, let alone create american jobs.

KWICKO

Saturday, September 12, 2009 1:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

I'm sure you wholeheartedly approve of Hugo Chavez's recent buying spree in Russia, then, right? He's rumored to have ordered a half a billion bucks worth of military armaments.

Get your facts straignt, Mike. It's $.5 billion for the tanks alone. The total purchase was around $4 billion.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

My apologies, Geez - I was using the figures you quoted in another post. I guess I wrongly assumed you had YOUR facts straight. I can see now that that was an error on my part. I'll make sure to never trust your "facts" again. :)

On the plus side, $4 billion will keep a lot of workers employed, right? So Chavez is now a good capitalist, yes?

Mike

"It was already blue when we got here!"

KWICKO

Saturday, September 12, 2009 1:25 AM

Quote:

Re: Chavez. You're taking me too seriously. I'm just sayin that Smith and Wesson stock is doing fine right now. And that's not entirely bad. (It'd been better if he'd bought American, but I guess we DON'T sell to anybody after all)

Just imagine how much easier the training would be for our guys if we could get Chavez buying OUR rifles and howitzers, eh?

By the way, the Israelis would like to remind you not to ever assume that the person who buys your old fighter jets has any plans to use them in the same fashion YOU thought they were designed to be used.

Izhmash (Kalashnikov) stock seems to be doing pretty well, too. They've just gotten a new rifle caliber into the U.S. - the AK-74 style Saiga chambered in 5.45x39mm. Rifle's cheap, ammo's even cheaper.

Mike

"It was already blue when we got here!"

GINOBIFFARONI

Saturday, September 12, 2009 1:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AG05:
Quote:
Don't worry, AG, I've never taken you seriously. Not about to start now, especially with your insinuation that the AK series is somehow inferior to American-built weapons.

Refresh my memory - who was it that won the Vietnam War, with little more than AKs and a strong will, in the face of the most mighty military the world had ever seen?

Yeah, what a shitty rifle that AK is.

Mike

The Romy in my gun case would agree with you.

But it does beg the question: why pay US prices for AR's and M240's when you can get AK's and PKM's at much better prices? I'm willing to bet that it's because of the other perks of buying American. We'll not only sell you guns, we'll sell you Humvees, MANPADS, and all sorts of stuff, along with the training to learn how to use it.

Not that it guarantees victory or anything. Ask Georgia about that one. (And yes Mike, thats another AK win over the M16. I know.)

Mercy is the mark of a great man.
Guess I'm just a good man.
Well, I'm alright.

sell?

I though a fair chunk of it was simply given away through Military assistance programs, or at least subsidized with foreign aid dollars.

So the tax player gets dinged twice over... once to give them the equipment...then later to take it away.

" I don't believe in hypothetical situations - it's kinda like lying to your brain "

" They don't hate America, they hate Americans " Homer Simpson

Lets party like its 1939

AG05

Saturday, September 12, 2009 2:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

Just imagine how much easier the training would be for our guys if we could get Chavez buying OUR rifles and howitzers, eh? By the way, the Israelis would like to remind you not to ever assume that the person who buys your old fighter jets has any plans to use them in the same fashion YOU thought they were designed to be used.

Izhmash (Kalashnikov) stock seems to be doing pretty well, too. They've just gotten a new rifle caliber into the U.S. - the AK-74 style Saiga chambered in 5.45x39mm. Rifle's cheap, ammo's even cheaper.

Mike

"It was already blue when we got here!"

Rifles and arty, no. What rifle a bad guy uses really doesn't make a whole lot of difference, nor does the particular type of artillery (although range, projectile type etc. probably matters to somebody, but hell, incoming is incoming) Tanks, radar, comm equipment, aircraft, etc? Yes, it does matter to a degree. Id personally would rather be fighting against a weapon system I was familiar with (and had used before myself) than one who's capabilities are unknown to me. Unless, of course, I know enough about the bad guy's weapons to know that they're crap. I'm not sure what Chavez bought, but he can have all the T-72's and MiG-29's he wants.

Is Izhmash traded on the US market? If so, that fucking awesome! Ronald Reagan would piss himself today if he knew Americans could buy stock in a Russian company that manufactures AK's.

Mercy is the mark of a great man.
Guess I'm just a good man.
Well, I'm alright.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:33 PM

(WHOOP! WHOOP! RANT ALERT! RANT ALERT!)

Quote:
but hell, incoming is incoming

No shit, and friendly fire... ain't.
(And why, oh WHY do the last two ALWAYS fall SHORT, I ask you!)
*grumble*

Quote:
Id personally would rather be fighting against a weapon system I was familiar with (and had used before myself) than one who's capabilities are unknown to me.

*insert long profane rant about Kolchuga I'm just too lazy to type*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolchuga_passive_sensor

And then when they NEEDED somebody who COULD operate for long periods of time, autonomously, without having their hand held by command over every little thing on the radio cause every ounce of self-reliance had been ground out of them...

When they NEEDED someone so un-military that they honestly PREFERRED to be left the hell alone, someone willing to make decisions rather than wait for instruction like a good little robot, and couldn't justify assigning it to special forces cause the job in question was getting supplies to units where air or convoy resupply would be suicidal...

They had to pull his ass out of the brig, where he was put (supposedly) not for refusing an illegal order, but for (supposedly) being "insubordinate" and "disrespectful" in his MANNER of refusing it, yeaahh riiiiiight.
(Although telling a Lt Col to "pound sand" was perhaps not justified, true.)

And then ASK, not order, but ASK him, to take on a mission profile he was unqiuely suited to - and the Major was a smart, smart guy compared to the LTC.
"Private, you're an asshole, but my question is whether you're willing to be an even bigger asshole to the enemy then you are your own command ?"
Talk about an offer you can't refuse...

Anyhows, if we had a better idea of the capabilities and limitations of Kolchuga, it would not been so much of an issue that they needed to hand the crazy guy a truck full of rations with no radio and a shielded ignition.

We don't lose out cause of the equipment, we lose out cause we still train to 1st and 2nd gen warfare, for crying out loud we still train to dress right after volleys and for bayonet charges, did you know ?
AND thanks to the lack of initiative and decision making among enlisted troops, who not only require, but are TRAINED to require, every single decision to be made "upstairs", we need a nine-to-one force ratio in order to fight it out on equal terms straight up, and our units go to pieces a lot quicker when things get nasty, and almost instantly once radio contact is lost.
Hell, more than half of special forces training is trying to put BACK the initiative that Basic drummed out of them, and the folks that retain it in spite of every effort to do so wind up kicked out or in leavenworth anyways.

What's worse is that some of these idiots are now three and four star generals, who's whole idea of tactics is hey-diddle-diddle-straight-up-the-middle, which works no better today than it did for Grant the Butcher at Cold Harbor, and has been outright SUICIDE ever since the advent of the machinegun, but what do they care, it ain't their friends and sons doin the dying, it's all those social 'undesireables' the world is better off without anyway (one reason Johnson deliberately prolonged vietnam) and a good scourging of the deadweight is good for a society, right ?
*SNARK*

That's why we had to pick some ramped up petty dictator we KNEW was talking shit he couldn't back (Saddam), and then make SURE he was as defenseless as possible by getting the UN to confirm it before charging in there willy-nilly, cause we'd have about zero chance against anyone halfway competent and even despite doing it that way and massive technological advantage combined with complete unchallenged air and arty superiority, they're STILL hanging in there, a lot of em, just waiting for us to lose patience, say fuck it and go home - it worked for Victor Charlie, didn't it ?

*shakes head* Morons.

That said, the M16/M4 is a piece of shit, no amount of redesign in the world is going to change the fact that it blo

PIRATENEWS

Saturday, September 12, 2009 4:53 PM

GO TEAM!

GEEZER

Saturday, September 12, 2009 11:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
My apologies, Geez - I was using the figures you quoted in another post. I guess I wrongly assumed you had YOUR facts straight.

They were. Your reading was in error.

Quote:
While there for the singalong Pres Chavez also ordered half a billion dollars worth of tanks, plus other sundries such as submarines and armored personnel carriers, to fight off the Americans in Colombia...

"Keep the Shiny side up"

AG05

Sunday, September 13, 2009 2:36 AM

Quote:
Anyhows, the reasons folk buy our equipment in the first place often has jack shit to do with it's quality so much as political points, although we *do* have some nice stuff here and there - damned if I ever got to play with any though.

And much of the good stuff we have now (in terms of small arms at least) comes from the sneaky bastard Belgians. Ol' JMB knew what he was going when he signed on with FN. I've never heard anything bad about the quality of the 240 series GPMG's (apart from the fact that they're a bitch to carry), and very little complaint about the 249 (apart from the weight and the round it fires). I personally would love to see the SCAR or the Magpul Masada on the front lines, but I'm afraid the M4/M16 will be around for quite sometime.

We should have just adopted the FAL from the get-go.

Personally, I prefer the M4's ergonomics over the AK, but there's just no contest in terms of simplicity and reliability. 2 for 1 value doesn't hurt either.

Mercy is the mark of a great man.
Guess I'm just a good man.
Well, I'm alright.