Study: U.S. arms sales impede human rights

[sabra]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON — The U.S. arms trade is booming — sales reached $32 billion last year — and more than half of the purchasers in the developing world are either undemocratic governments or regimes that engaged in human-rights abuses, a private think tank reported Wednesday.

Timed to the 60th anniversary of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the report by the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan policy institute, named 13 of the top 25 arms purchasers in the developing world as either undemocratic or engaged in major human-rights abuses.

The 13 listed in the report were Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Colombia, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Morocco, Yemen and Tunisia.

Sales to these countries totaled more than $16.2 billion over 2006-07.

The total "contrasts sharply with the Bush administration's pro-democracy rhetoric," the report said.

...

U.S. arms sales grew to $32 billion in 2007, more than three times the level when President Bush took office in 2001, the report said.

Read more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008494015_arms11.html

[rfranklin]

1. No shit! And our militarism impoverishes us at home...

somehow I don't think that Obama will be able to make much of a dent in that even if he cares to.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. K&R

[proud progressive]

3. people, schmeple - stop selling arms? are you crazy? we have a bad economy here

we MUST continue to sell arms to keep the fat-cats fat and keep the people working. in fact, with the world in chaos, this is the perfect time to double-down. "more cluster-bombs, please".

[balantz]

4. One way or the other, bombs always kill babies. F**cking war pigs! n/t

[OneBlueSky]

5. during World War II, the nation's automobile builders converted . . .

their manufacturing to produce weaponry and military vehicles, in the interest of national security . . .

in the 21st century, couldn't we kind of reverse the process and convert most arms manufacturers to produce solar panels, windmills, etc. to retrofit every structure in the nation? . . . in the interest of both national and global security? . . .

just a passing thought . . .