Killing For Peace?

The New York Times informs us here that…

The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers.

The global arms market is highly competitive, with manufacturing nations seeking both to increase profits and expand political influence through weapons sales to developing nations, which reached nearly $28.8 billion in 2006.

That sales total was a modest drop from the 2005 figure of $31.8 billion, a trend explained by the strain of rising fuel prices that prompted many developing states — except those that produce oil — to choose upgrading current arsenals over buying new weapons.

I’m honestly not trying to single out Times reporter Thom Shanker here, since this is good factual reporting on an issue that is vastly under-reported as far as I’m concerned.

But assuming our goal is to aid forces legitimately trying to fight for Democratic reforms (a huge, dumbass naïve assumption, I know, made even more ridiculous when you consider what’s going on in the countries who are our biggest buyers), wouldn’t a rational person think that we should be taking a look at the effect of our actions here?

(It’s so discouraging to see how even our somewhat intelligent corporate media mindlessly lapses into the mode of “let’s focus on the numbers and percentages and the other countries doing what we’re doing and how much better we’re doing versus them,” when reporting on stuff like this – I guess we’re supposed to imagine little chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A” in our heads like it’s a goddamn football game or something, as Frank Overton bellowed in “Fail-Safe” – going waay back for that movie reference.)

Fortunately, however, William D. Hartung of TomPaine.com provided some much-needed context here for a virtually identical news story from about a year ago…

While the U.S. hangs its foreign policy on preventing the spread of “weapons of mass destruction” (a worthy goal, however grossly the Bush administration goes about achieving it), it continues to ignore a more immediate threat—the proliferation of small arms and light weapons—that deserves serious attention as well. These low-tech arms have been described as “slow motion weapons of mass destruction,” because they are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths over the past dozen years, from the genocide in Rwanda to the ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet yesterday, the United States, the world's largest arms supplier, voted against an historic United Nations proposal to curb traffic in arms.

The United Nations vote was the culmination of the work of a network of prominent individuals and diverse non-governmental organizations. They set out to address the problem of small arms and light weapons—as well as larger systems like tanks, fighter planes and attack helicopters—by putting forward a proposal for an Arms Trade Treaty. The thrust of the proposed treaty is to curb arms transfers to major human rights abusers and areas of conflict. It would also urge weapons suppliers to limit weapons sales that are likely to undermine development in poor nations.

Other elements of an arms treaty could include the creation of common international criteria for assessing particular exports, and movement toward global enforcement mechanisms such as licensing of the arms brokers and shippers who are all too often at the center of illegal deals that have fueled conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola and Rwanda.

As a first step—by a vote of 139 to 1 with 24 abstentions—the U.N. General Assembly agreed yesterday to create a two-part process aimed at pursuing such a treaty. The United States was the only vote in opposition to the resolution.

…

So, the question remains, why is the United States opposed to taking measures to stop this deadly trade? The first answer is strategic. The executive branch wants to preserve its “freedom of action” to arm U.S.-allied groups like the Nicaraguan contras, the Afghan mujahadin, Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA movement in Angola, the Iraqi National Congress and groups opposed to the current regime in Iran. Even if one accepts the right of the United States to attempt to overthrow governments that oppose its short-term political or economic imperatives—which this author does not—the short-term “benefits” of these arms-supply relationships are inevitably outweighed by the long-term costs to U.S. and global interests. Unfortunately, short-sighted policymakers in Washington—of both parties—have failed to understand or accept this fundamental principle.

…

A second factor in U.S. opposition to any substantial measures to curb the weapons trade is the role of the domestic gun lobby. Both the National Rifle Association and its allied organization, the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities, have gone on record against an Arms Trade Treaty. National Rifle Association propaganda has made the false claim that a treaty would lead to the confiscation of guns owned by U.S. citizens.

So you can thank the profligate greed of our weapons manufacturers operating under the cover of a professed desire by our government to ensure democratic reforms for helping to perpetuate gun carnage engulfing the world, as well as the National Rifle Association for continuing to ensure that it engulfs this country right along with it.

And I suppose that no one is supposed to report on the extent to which these instruments of death find their way into the hands of those who seek to do harm to our military (or, if someone does, it’s not supposed to affect our official policy on supporting “democracy” abroad).

But hey, at least we found something we can do better than the Russians or the Brits, right?

U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A…

And by the way, speaking of war (which this post is ultimately about anyway), please note the headline from this AP story, which is…

Iraqi Deaths Fall by 50 Percent

However, in the story, we read the following…

"The Iraqi death count is considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported."

Can someone please tell me what journalism school teaches these abysmal methods of performing one’s job when reporting the news?