tagged w/ EMIPRE
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As the world marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a new report from The New America Foundation finds that U.S. arms transfers are undermining human rights, weakening democracy and fueling conflict around the world.
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/u_s_weapons_war_2008_0
The report finds that of the top 25 U.S. arms recipients in the developing world during 2006/07, more than half (13) were either undemocratic governments or regimes that engaged in major human rights abuses. Transfers to these countries totaled more than $16.2 billion in 2006/07.
In addition, of the 27 nations engaged in major armed conflicts in 2006/07, more than two-thirds (20) were receiving arms and training from the United States.
U.S. arms transfers are undermining human rights, weakening democracy and fueling conflict around the world. U.S. arms sales reached $32 billion in 2007, more than three times the level obtained when President Bush first took office.
War, Terror, Catastrophe: Profiting From 'Disaster Capitalism'
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/profiting-disaster-capitalism
"It does not matter if the war is not real, or when it is, victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous, the essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor. A hierarchal society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. The war is waged by the ruling group against its subjects, and its object is not victory, but to keep the very structure of society in tact." - George Orwell, from 1984
WAR PROFITEERING
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=War_profiteering
Cheney, Halliburton and the Spoils of War
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6288
War Profiteering Starts at the Top
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=7308
The 10 Most Brazen War Profiteers
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/41083/
"Not only has the Bush administration been arming questionable regimes, but they have been using our tax dollars to make it possible," During the Bush years, the United States disbursed over $108 billion in security assistance funding, nearly $40 billion of which was for programs that did not even exist when George W. Bush took office in 2001. All of these new programs are authorized and implemented by the Pentagon, and all of them are markedly less transparent and accountable than traditional security assistance programs supervised by the State Department.
Amongst the U.S. arms clients profiled in the report are:
• India and Pakistan, which are in an increasingly tense standoff over the role of Pakistani nationals in the recent terror attacks on Mumbai;
• Georgia, whose ongoing tensions with Moscow in the wake of Russia's recent invasion will be a top issue for the incoming Obama administration;
• Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of small arms destined for the country's security forces have gone missing;
• Israel, where the use of U.S.-supplied cluster bombs in its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon has sparked controversy;
• Nigeria, where recent violence between Christians and Muslims in the north of the country claimed over 400 lives;
• Thailand, which is engaged in a longstanding war against separatist movements in its southern region even as it has undergone its third change in government in three years; and
• Colombia, where State Department claims of improvements in human rights have been belied by an ongoing campaign of murders against trade unionists and human rights activists.
"We must repudiate the structure of economic privilege and the tyranny of war makers" - George McGovern 1975
Meanwhile...
"We are watching a poorly staged rendition of Wag the Dog , interpreted for the morbidly stupid and performed by the criminally insane." - Jules CarlysleAs the world marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,... more
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