PROMOTING FREEDOM OR FUELING CONFLICT?
U.S. Military Aid and Arms Transfers Since September 11
(I beseech you to read this report)
A World Policy Institute Special Report
by Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung, with Leslie Heffel
June 2005
Sickness at the over consumption spells still more buried bodies!
Link given twice as I want certain ne one hops me out for not giving credit to or plagerizing anything or anyone.
- http://www.worldpolicy.org/...
- http://www.worldpolicy.org/...
Among the key findings of this report are the following:
Despite having some of the world’s strongest laws regulating the arms trade, almost half of these weapons went to countries plagued with ongoing conflict and governed by undemocratic regimes with poor human rights records. In 2003, $2.7 billion in weaponry went to governments deemed undemocratic by the U.S. State Department’s Huma n Rights Report, in the sense that citizens of those nations "did not have a meaningful right to change their government" in a peaceful manner.[3] Another $97.4 million worth of weapons went to governments deemed by the State Department to have "poor" human rights records.[4] See TABLE I: Human Rights Records of Top 25 U.S. Arms Recipients in the Developing World for more information.
Weapons at War
For many, war is synonymous with Iraq or Afghanistan, but our research enumerates 25 ongoing conflicts throughout the world. In the last decade, the U.S. has transferred some $8.7 billion in arms and military services to these war zones, $970.5 million in 2003 alone. During that year (the last year for which full data is available) the United States transferred weapons and military hardware into 18 of 25 conflict zones. This is despite the fact that these transfers appear to violate the spirit (if not the letter) of the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act, which bar the transfer of U.S.-origin military equipment into active areas of conflict.
Acceleration of Weapons Sales and Changes in the Rules
Prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 27 countries were banned from purchasing U.S.-made military equipment, including Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Sudan, Syria, and Tajikistan.[6]
In the aftermath of terrorist attacks, bans on security assistance to many of these countries have been lifted or suspended, giving the President broad power to provide military aid and weapons to nations contributing to the war on terrorism.
Restrictions on U.S. arms exports to undemocratic and repressive regimes were painstakingly crafted over the last 40 years, and should not be discarded even in the interest of building a coalition to fight terrorism. As Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), observed, "We now have a floating coalition. We can’t have floating arms."[10]
Ignoring History: Role of Arms Trade Boomerang in Fueling Terror
A close reading of recent history would have warned the Bush administration against a policy of offering weapons, military aid and training to new allies in the war on terrorism. The last half-century is full of examples of allies becoming adversaries and political circumstances shifting much more quickly than weapons arsenals can be destroyed.
AFRICA
"This isn’t target practice! This is about killing people!"
U.S. military trainer in Niger, April 2005.[15]
Overview of U.S. Arms and Aid to Africa
In the wake of September 11th, and in keeping with its interest in securing access to oil and other key natural resources, the Bush administration has been rapidly expanding U.S. military involvement in Africa. While most recent increases in U.S. arms sales, aid and military training in Africa have been justified as part of what the administration refers to as the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT), oil has been a major factor in the administration’s strategic calculations from the outset.
In his first few months in office, President Bush’s first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, stressed the need to improve relations with oil producing nations like Nigeria and Angola. Similarly, the report of Vice-President Cheney’s Energy Task Force stressed the importance of gaining and maintaining access to African oil resources, which U.S. intelligence assessments expect to increase to as much as 25% of U.S. oil imports by the year 2020.[16]
Beyond oil, U.S. military officials have cited "a growing terrorist threat" in northern and sub-Saharan Africa to justify a program of stepped up military engagement in the region. General James Jones, head of the U.S. European command, has suggested the need to create a "family of bases" across Africa that would range from forward operating locations that would include an airfield and facilities to house 3,000 to 5,000 U.S. military personnel to "bare-bones" bases that U.S. Special Forces or Marines could "land at and build up as the mission required."[20]
These new facilities would not be considered "formal" bases like the growing U.S. base in the Horn of Africa in Djibouti, which has a regular deployment of 1,800 to 2,000 troops stationed there. While new basing arrangements are being worked out, a major increase in U.S. military exercises and training missions throughout Africa will be used to sustain a regular U.S. presence
Transparency and accountability are major missing components with respect to current U.S. military operations in Africa. There is no single source that summarizes U.S. exercises or Pentagon-run training missions like the Joint
Oil Wealth: Not Trickling Down
Angola has huge oil reserves, providing the United States with more oil than Kuwait. Despite pumping more than a million barrels a day, the country’s oil wealth does not trickle down. According to Oxfam, 78% of the rural population lives in "deep poverty," and 80% of Angolans have no access to basic medical care.[43]
The United States is Angola’s largest trading partner, purchasing about 50% of its oil exports and providing public income that was promptly diverted away from development to sustain the long war.[44] In a 1999 report, Human Rights Watch documents how the Angolan government paid for arms purchases with bank loans, oil profit remittances and mining concessions. Hundreds of millions of dollars were generated when the Angolan government offered oil exploration concession blocks to multinational oil companies like BP-Amoco, Exxon, and Elf. Those funds were then used to purchase weapons.[45]
According to a January 2004 updated, HRW found more than $4 billion in Angolan oil revenues were missing and had been squirreled away into private offshore bank accounts or used to purchase military hardware.[46]
U.S. Legacy: Support for Brutality
In 1986, President Reagan welcomed rebel leader Jonas Savimbi to the White House. He expressed his hope that the leader of UNITA, a rebel group backed by U.S. and white-ruled South Africa as a bulwark against Soviet interests in Africa, would win "a victory that electrifies the world and brings great sympathy and assistance from other nations to those struggling for
I beseech you to read this report!