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War profiteering around the imperium
balkanalysis.com
August 3, 2006
by Christopher Deliso
What It's All About
As bombs somehow continue to kill and maim ordinary Lebanese and
Israeli civilians, an extraordinary article from Reuters has revealed
the bottom line about what forces are really at work behind America's
laissez-faire attitude toward the Israeli war on Lebanon:
"The Bush administration spelled out plans yesterday to sell $4.6bn
of arms to moderate Arab states, including battle tanks worth as much
as $2.9bn to protect critical Saudi infrastructure.
"The announcement came two weeks after the administration said it
would sell Israel its latest supply of JP-8 aviation fuel valued at
up to $210m to help Israeli warplanes 'keep peace and security in
the region.'"
Indeed, there's nothing like "peace and security." After all,
that's what the whole ideological ferment now brewing among
neoconservatives is all about, right? To create nothing other than a
new and "democratic" Middle East through sustained warfare by proxy -
a plan now adopted by President Bush and Tony Blair, his evil little
helper elf from across the pond.
Fueling the Fire: Aid to Israel and the Arabs
Behind the democratic facade, of course, is sheer and simple greed:
the desire to maximize profit for the American weapons industry,
by fueling a regional arms race. America is now using the specter of
Israeli might to scare the hell out of its neighbors. Racketeering
on an epic scale, disguised by the occasional recourse to diplomacy,
is the ugly reality behind America's Middle East policy.
The full facts recounted in the above article point to a specific
cause-and-effect relationship. Coming after its decision to rush
bunker-busting precision-guided bombs to Israel, the U.S. announcement
came as some mixture of a gesture of friendship, a consolation prize,
and a threat.
The upcoming sales are heavy on air power. According to Reuters,
$808 million of UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter gunships would go to the
United Arab Emirates. Another $400 million of AH-64 Apache helicopters
are promised to the Saudis, while Bahrain would get a $252 million
consignment of Black Hawks.
Don't worry that Arab ground forces might feel left out. They will
also have something to cheer about, thanks to the U.S. beneficence.
Steadfast ally Jordan, for example, is in line for up to $156 million
in upgrades for 1,000 of its M113A1 APCs. Saudi Arabia is to get 58
"older-generation" M1A1 Abrams tanks, which would then be modernized;
plus, the 315 Abrams tanks the kingdom already possesses "would be
improved with such things as air-conditioning and infrared sights
for the commanders as well as the gunners." Finally, little Oman is
set to pick up $48 million of Javelin anti-tank missiles.
The tactic used with all these Arab lackey administrations is something
like this: go ahead, keep (some of) your oil billions, just keep
buying your security from us. Because we have Israel on a long,
long leash indeed...
And don't the Arabs know it! A recent article from Foreign Policy
in Focus provides some statistics on U.S. military contributions
to Israel. In the decade between 1996-2005, Israel received $10.19
billion in U.S. weaponry and military equipment, "including more
than $8.58 billion through the Foreign Military Sales program,
and another $1.61 billion in Direct Commercial Sales." Some $10.5
billion was received between 2001-2005 in Foreign Military Financing,
"the Pentagon's biggest military aid program." FMF could also stand
for "Fun Military Freebies," because it describes a program devised
to give outright grants of very expensive military hardware.
The article goes on to note that "the aid figure is larger than the
arms transfer figure because it includes financing for major arms
agreements for which the equipment has yet to be fully delivered. The
most prominent of these deals is a $4.5 billion sale of 102 Lockheed
Martin F-16s to Israel." Now, taking the new crisis into consideration,
U.S. military aid for Israel from 2001-2007 is set to amount to over
$19.5 billion. Yet there are concerns that by using its American-made
weaponry offensively, Israel is in violation of the law governing
military aid.
Confronted with such staggering figures, Arab regimes can do nothing
but try to rectify their security deficit by placating Uncle Sam
through suppliant foreign and domestic policies and hard-cash
purchases. As a recent IPS report put it, "armed mostly with
state-of-the-art U.S.-supplied fighter planes and combat helicopters,
the Israeli military is capable of matching a combination of all or
most of the armies in most Middle Eastern countries, including Iran,
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia."
"Growth Markets"
It goes without saying, therefore, that the interests of politically
connected American arms dealers would definitely not be met by any
resolution of the Middle East armed conflicts. Thus the marked lack
of enthusiasm of American leaders for the proposal of UN chief Kofi
Annan and much of the rest of the world - an immediate cease-fire
between Israel and Hezbollah.
According to Reuters, the Arab aid deals are being masterminded by the
Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, "which administers
U.S. government-to-government arms sales." And the project's prime
contractor would be the Land Systems business unit of Sterling Heights,
Mich.-based General Dynamics, a mammoth defense contractor that in
2005 spent almost $5 million on lobbying alone.
Since the "war on terror" began almost five years ago, firms such
as General Dynamics have enjoyed soaring profits and unprecedented
opportunities that "growth markets" such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and
now Lebanon have opened up for them. As the Arms Trade Resource Center
recounted in October 2004:
"[C]ontracts to the Pentagon's top ten contractors jumped from $46
billion in 2001 to $80 billion in 2003, an increase of nearly 75%.
Halliburton's contracts jumped more than nine times their 2001
levels by 2003, from $400 million to $3.9 billion. Northrop Grumman's
contracts doubled, from $5.2 billion to $11.1 billion, over the same
time frame; and the nation's largest weapons contractor, Lockheed
Martin, saw a 50% increase, from $14.7 billion to $21.9 billion."
Falling Into the Wrong Hands?
Putting aside for a moment the major moral objections and economic
ramifications of such "aid," there are two other concerns regarding
this deadly profligacy. First, since terrorist attacks and other
militant challenges have been witnessed in several of the countries
on the U.S. recipient list, one marvels at the wisdom of loading up
unstable Arab states with high-tech American weaponry - states which,
at present, have no foreign power to fear except, potentially, Israel.
Really, is anyone going to attack Oman? The government there probably
won't need anti-tank missiles. Yet these are just the kind of toys
prized by insurgents and terrorists, of which the neighborhood has
many. What if corrupt elements in the armed forces of these "moderate"
Arab regimes decide to go freelance, selling to the highest bidder?
Further, an even more unsettling thought would be the complete
collapse of any of these countries' governments under the weight
of a popular revolt. "Moderate" Arab leaders have made themselves
increasingly despised among the masses for allying with an America
that is allowing Israel to kill fellow Muslims in Lebanon, even
as it abets internecine warfare and kills Muslims in Iraq. As one
young and generally pro-Western Arab put it, "so many of us are just
waiting for a new leader in Egypt, who will stand up to Israel and
the Americans - Egypt is the only country that can save us!" While
Egypt has pledged to stay on the sidelines and not get involved,
how would the U.S. react if such a large and vital country (which
also receives plenty of U.S. military aid) were to undergo a coup
d'etat that brought militant anti-Israeli factions to power?
Such a hypothetical concern does not even need to be realized for the
American "military aid" to be dangerous enough already. As the British
also know, American experts concede that it is basically impossible
to guarantee the final destination of not only the military hardware
but also, and perhaps more importantly, the knowledge needed to make
it. The hemorrhaging of sensitive weapons-design information often is
due to espionage, aided by corruption in high places and expedited
by fraudulent end-user licenses. Yet this is just one of the ways
that foreign regimes get their hands on cutting-edge American weapons
technologies.
Outsourcing Everything
There are simpler, more direct methods too. The same corporate greed
that necessitates endless wars in the first place has also willingly
allowed these technologies to go "offshore." Industry giant General
Dynamics, for example, in the late 1980s sold Turkey 160 F-16 fighter
planes - and gladly accepted that government's contractual stipulation
that the planes be mostly assembled in Turkey. Not only did the
company save money by hiring cheap foreign labor, it also gave the
buyer know-how for developing their own independent and competing
arms industry in the future.
This pattern has been repeated in many countries since. A more recent
example is of another deal between Turkey and a different company -
AM General of Indiana, for decades lavished with untold millions to
make the celebrated Humvee; this of course is the iconic APC that
has all too often proven vulnerable to insurgent bombs in Iraq,
with lethal results for American soldiers.
Now AM's longtime foreign collaborator, Otokar, "the leading brand" in
Turkey's defense contracting industry and a subsidiary of the nation's
biggest company (Koc Holdings), is making a fortune exporting their
own homemade variety of the Humvee, the Cobra, to neighboring Arab
countries. Although the company does not disclose exactly which ones,
the visit last June of Bahrain's minister of internal affairs to the
Otokar plant, a month before the company announced its largest-ever
order from abroad ($88.4 million for 600 vehicles) seems wonderfully
coincidental. (It is thus notable, perhaps, that Bahrain is going to
be receiving air, not ground, equipment according to the Pentagon's
latest military aid announcement.)
According to Otokar, the Cobra was "a joint development with AM
General of USA [which] utilizes many common parts with HMMWV [the
Humvee]." In other words, American technology was shared with the
foreign company, leading to domestic production in Turkey, and finally
the establishment of a competitive Turkish defense industry. In May,
the Otokar general manager was happy to announce that "in 2005, we
increased our export by 230 percent and accomplished an 85 percent
growth in defense industry vehicles."
As with the fighter plane deal and countless others, more jobs in
America were lost. So much for that great argument of those who defend
the weapons industry's culture of death by arguing that at least it
helps save American industry.
Case Studies: the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus
There are other aspects of the U.S. defense industry in general and the
U.S.-Israeli relationship in particular, exacerbated by the present
conflict, that have contributed to making the world a more dangerous
place. U.S. oversight legislation (ignored, in Israel's case) has it
that nations violating human rights and going on offensives should
not receive American weapons; Israel, being entitled to everything,
has thus become a conduit for interested third parties. As former
CIA officer Philip Giraldi stated about the Israeli-Turkish alliance
in a recent Balkanalysis.com interview, "the so-called 'friendly'
relationship between the two countries is very narrowly focused. It is
largely the Turkish Army's General Staff that keeps the relationship
going, because it provides access to U.S. military assistance and
weapons that would otherwise be embargoed."
Yet the Muslim Turkish population is naturally opposed to Israeli
suppression of their fellow Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon. The
outcry against the current war being felt in Turkey (among many other
places) can only feed into the inherent tensions between a secular
military and an Islamic-leaning government and population. Usually,
whenever such challenges to the secular order arise, the result is
vividly manifested in military crackdowns against the Kurds and
military provocations against Greece. The former option has the
possibility to directly affect U.S. interests in northern Iraq,
while the latter could have fateful repercussions for Turkey's EU
bid and the always dangerous discord over Cyprus (which, by the way,
has suffered from the war already due to a very costly refugee influx).
Nevertheless, the U.S. will no doubt continue arming both sides in the
Greek-Turkish conflict, as it always has, resulting in ever greater
profits for the Washington lobbyists representing the two countries'
interests and the defense contractors who stock their arsenals.
The same danger of a regional arms race is being witnessed in a
nearby region, the Caucasus. Azerbaijan, itself a strong American
and Turkish ally and pivotal export hub for Caspian Sea oil and gas,
has also seen the light and publicly voiced its desire to deepen ties
with Israel. Funny that Azerbaijan, boosted by oil riches but still
not entirely immune to human rights violations itself, is at the
same time involved in an unprecedented military buildup for possible
offensive action against Armenia, to recover the disputed province
of Nagorno-Karabakh that lies between the two Caucasus states.
Nearby, in Georgia, nationalist President Mikhail Saakashvili is
again moving toward war to recover his own breakaway provinces,
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which have sought support from
Russia. As an American client state receiving millions in military
aid and advice, Georgia is regarded as the front line in containing
Russia in the Caucasus, and also an energy corridor for the $3-billion
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that commences in Azerbaijan and
concludes in Turkey. Like Saudi Arabia, whose new military aid from
the U.S. is earmarked for protecting "critical infrastructure' (i.e.,
Western oil interests), U.S. military aid in the Caucasus will no
doubt go toward protecting the pipeline.
Another Path
The same dynamic is in place all around the world, everywhere that
money can be made on exporting the instruments of death. All things
considered, it would seem obvious that journalists might ask government
officials just why their stated devotion to peace and stability has
to go hand in hand with ever greater arms buildups. Yet all too often,
they don't.
President Bush and his officials talk about building a sustainable,
lasting peace in a new and reshaped Middle East. They talk
optimistically about a "final status" for Kosovo that will respect
and guarantee the rights of embattled minorities. They talk about
resolving the Caucasus frozen conflicts to everyone's benefit. They
plead for peace and stability between the Greeks and Turks, between
Indians and Pakistanis, even as they keep loading up their arsenals
with increasingly deadly weapons. And so it goes, all around the world.
Despite the rhetoric, there is one thing every U.S. administration
has never tried to do in any of these conflicts. It is something that
leaders have never been able to do, for reasons of their own political
survival: to make peace through peaceful means, without even a word
being spoken about arms sales. Is this really too much to ask?
balkanalysis.com
August 3, 2006
by Christopher Deliso
What It's All About
As bombs somehow continue to kill and maim ordinary Lebanese and
Israeli civilians, an extraordinary article from Reuters has revealed
the bottom line about what forces are really at work behind America's
laissez-faire attitude toward the Israeli war on Lebanon:
"The Bush administration spelled out plans yesterday to sell $4.6bn
of arms to moderate Arab states, including battle tanks worth as much
as $2.9bn to protect critical Saudi infrastructure.
"The announcement came two weeks after the administration said it
would sell Israel its latest supply of JP-8 aviation fuel valued at
up to $210m to help Israeli warplanes 'keep peace and security in
the region.'"
Indeed, there's nothing like "peace and security." After all,
that's what the whole ideological ferment now brewing among
neoconservatives is all about, right? To create nothing other than a
new and "democratic" Middle East through sustained warfare by proxy -
a plan now adopted by President Bush and Tony Blair, his evil little
helper elf from across the pond.
Fueling the Fire: Aid to Israel and the Arabs
Behind the democratic facade, of course, is sheer and simple greed:
the desire to maximize profit for the American weapons industry,
by fueling a regional arms race. America is now using the specter of
Israeli might to scare the hell out of its neighbors. Racketeering
on an epic scale, disguised by the occasional recourse to diplomacy,
is the ugly reality behind America's Middle East policy.
The full facts recounted in the above article point to a specific
cause-and-effect relationship. Coming after its decision to rush
bunker-busting precision-guided bombs to Israel, the U.S. announcement
came as some mixture of a gesture of friendship, a consolation prize,
and a threat.
The upcoming sales are heavy on air power. According to Reuters,
$808 million of UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter gunships would go to the
United Arab Emirates. Another $400 million of AH-64 Apache helicopters
are promised to the Saudis, while Bahrain would get a $252 million
consignment of Black Hawks.
Don't worry that Arab ground forces might feel left out. They will
also have something to cheer about, thanks to the U.S. beneficence.
Steadfast ally Jordan, for example, is in line for up to $156 million
in upgrades for 1,000 of its M113A1 APCs. Saudi Arabia is to get 58
"older-generation" M1A1 Abrams tanks, which would then be modernized;
plus, the 315 Abrams tanks the kingdom already possesses "would be
improved with such things as air-conditioning and infrared sights
for the commanders as well as the gunners." Finally, little Oman is
set to pick up $48 million of Javelin anti-tank missiles.
The tactic used with all these Arab lackey administrations is something
like this: go ahead, keep (some of) your oil billions, just keep
buying your security from us. Because we have Israel on a long,
long leash indeed...
And don't the Arabs know it! A recent article from Foreign Policy
in Focus provides some statistics on U.S. military contributions
to Israel. In the decade between 1996-2005, Israel received $10.19
billion in U.S. weaponry and military equipment, "including more
than $8.58 billion through the Foreign Military Sales program,
and another $1.61 billion in Direct Commercial Sales." Some $10.5
billion was received between 2001-2005 in Foreign Military Financing,
"the Pentagon's biggest military aid program." FMF could also stand
for "Fun Military Freebies," because it describes a program devised
to give outright grants of very expensive military hardware.
The article goes on to note that "the aid figure is larger than the
arms transfer figure because it includes financing for major arms
agreements for which the equipment has yet to be fully delivered. The
most prominent of these deals is a $4.5 billion sale of 102 Lockheed
Martin F-16s to Israel." Now, taking the new crisis into consideration,
U.S. military aid for Israel from 2001-2007 is set to amount to over
$19.5 billion. Yet there are concerns that by using its American-made
weaponry offensively, Israel is in violation of the law governing
military aid.
Confronted with such staggering figures, Arab regimes can do nothing
but try to rectify their security deficit by placating Uncle Sam
through suppliant foreign and domestic policies and hard-cash
purchases. As a recent IPS report put it, "armed mostly with
state-of-the-art U.S.-supplied fighter planes and combat helicopters,
the Israeli military is capable of matching a combination of all or
most of the armies in most Middle Eastern countries, including Iran,
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia."
"Growth Markets"
It goes without saying, therefore, that the interests of politically
connected American arms dealers would definitely not be met by any
resolution of the Middle East armed conflicts. Thus the marked lack
of enthusiasm of American leaders for the proposal of UN chief Kofi
Annan and much of the rest of the world - an immediate cease-fire
between Israel and Hezbollah.
According to Reuters, the Arab aid deals are being masterminded by the
Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, "which administers
U.S. government-to-government arms sales." And the project's prime
contractor would be the Land Systems business unit of Sterling Heights,
Mich.-based General Dynamics, a mammoth defense contractor that in
2005 spent almost $5 million on lobbying alone.
Since the "war on terror" began almost five years ago, firms such
as General Dynamics have enjoyed soaring profits and unprecedented
opportunities that "growth markets" such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and
now Lebanon have opened up for them. As the Arms Trade Resource Center
recounted in October 2004:
"[C]ontracts to the Pentagon's top ten contractors jumped from $46
billion in 2001 to $80 billion in 2003, an increase of nearly 75%.
Halliburton's contracts jumped more than nine times their 2001
levels by 2003, from $400 million to $3.9 billion. Northrop Grumman's
contracts doubled, from $5.2 billion to $11.1 billion, over the same
time frame; and the nation's largest weapons contractor, Lockheed
Martin, saw a 50% increase, from $14.7 billion to $21.9 billion."
Falling Into the Wrong Hands?
Putting aside for a moment the major moral objections and economic
ramifications of such "aid," there are two other concerns regarding
this deadly profligacy. First, since terrorist attacks and other
militant challenges have been witnessed in several of the countries
on the U.S. recipient list, one marvels at the wisdom of loading up
unstable Arab states with high-tech American weaponry - states which,
at present, have no foreign power to fear except, potentially, Israel.
Really, is anyone going to attack Oman? The government there probably
won't need anti-tank missiles. Yet these are just the kind of toys
prized by insurgents and terrorists, of which the neighborhood has
many. What if corrupt elements in the armed forces of these "moderate"
Arab regimes decide to go freelance, selling to the highest bidder?
Further, an even more unsettling thought would be the complete
collapse of any of these countries' governments under the weight
of a popular revolt. "Moderate" Arab leaders have made themselves
increasingly despised among the masses for allying with an America
that is allowing Israel to kill fellow Muslims in Lebanon, even
as it abets internecine warfare and kills Muslims in Iraq. As one
young and generally pro-Western Arab put it, "so many of us are just
waiting for a new leader in Egypt, who will stand up to Israel and
the Americans - Egypt is the only country that can save us!" While
Egypt has pledged to stay on the sidelines and not get involved,
how would the U.S. react if such a large and vital country (which
also receives plenty of U.S. military aid) were to undergo a coup
d'etat that brought militant anti-Israeli factions to power?
Such a hypothetical concern does not even need to be realized for the
American "military aid" to be dangerous enough already. As the British
also know, American experts concede that it is basically impossible
to guarantee the final destination of not only the military hardware
but also, and perhaps more importantly, the knowledge needed to make
it. The hemorrhaging of sensitive weapons-design information often is
due to espionage, aided by corruption in high places and expedited
by fraudulent end-user licenses. Yet this is just one of the ways
that foreign regimes get their hands on cutting-edge American weapons
technologies.
Outsourcing Everything
There are simpler, more direct methods too. The same corporate greed
that necessitates endless wars in the first place has also willingly
allowed these technologies to go "offshore." Industry giant General
Dynamics, for example, in the late 1980s sold Turkey 160 F-16 fighter
planes - and gladly accepted that government's contractual stipulation
that the planes be mostly assembled in Turkey. Not only did the
company save money by hiring cheap foreign labor, it also gave the
buyer know-how for developing their own independent and competing
arms industry in the future.
This pattern has been repeated in many countries since. A more recent
example is of another deal between Turkey and a different company -
AM General of Indiana, for decades lavished with untold millions to
make the celebrated Humvee; this of course is the iconic APC that
has all too often proven vulnerable to insurgent bombs in Iraq,
with lethal results for American soldiers.
Now AM's longtime foreign collaborator, Otokar, "the leading brand" in
Turkey's defense contracting industry and a subsidiary of the nation's
biggest company (Koc Holdings), is making a fortune exporting their
own homemade variety of the Humvee, the Cobra, to neighboring Arab
countries. Although the company does not disclose exactly which ones,
the visit last June of Bahrain's minister of internal affairs to the
Otokar plant, a month before the company announced its largest-ever
order from abroad ($88.4 million for 600 vehicles) seems wonderfully
coincidental. (It is thus notable, perhaps, that Bahrain is going to
be receiving air, not ground, equipment according to the Pentagon's
latest military aid announcement.)
According to Otokar, the Cobra was "a joint development with AM
General of USA [which] utilizes many common parts with HMMWV [the
Humvee]." In other words, American technology was shared with the
foreign company, leading to domestic production in Turkey, and finally
the establishment of a competitive Turkish defense industry. In May,
the Otokar general manager was happy to announce that "in 2005, we
increased our export by 230 percent and accomplished an 85 percent
growth in defense industry vehicles."
As with the fighter plane deal and countless others, more jobs in
America were lost. So much for that great argument of those who defend
the weapons industry's culture of death by arguing that at least it
helps save American industry.
Case Studies: the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus
There are other aspects of the U.S. defense industry in general and the
U.S.-Israeli relationship in particular, exacerbated by the present
conflict, that have contributed to making the world a more dangerous
place. U.S. oversight legislation (ignored, in Israel's case) has it
that nations violating human rights and going on offensives should
not receive American weapons; Israel, being entitled to everything,
has thus become a conduit for interested third parties. As former
CIA officer Philip Giraldi stated about the Israeli-Turkish alliance
in a recent Balkanalysis.com interview, "the so-called 'friendly'
relationship between the two countries is very narrowly focused. It is
largely the Turkish Army's General Staff that keeps the relationship
going, because it provides access to U.S. military assistance and
weapons that would otherwise be embargoed."
Yet the Muslim Turkish population is naturally opposed to Israeli
suppression of their fellow Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon. The
outcry against the current war being felt in Turkey (among many other
places) can only feed into the inherent tensions between a secular
military and an Islamic-leaning government and population. Usually,
whenever such challenges to the secular order arise, the result is
vividly manifested in military crackdowns against the Kurds and
military provocations against Greece. The former option has the
possibility to directly affect U.S. interests in northern Iraq,
while the latter could have fateful repercussions for Turkey's EU
bid and the always dangerous discord over Cyprus (which, by the way,
has suffered from the war already due to a very costly refugee influx).
Nevertheless, the U.S. will no doubt continue arming both sides in the
Greek-Turkish conflict, as it always has, resulting in ever greater
profits for the Washington lobbyists representing the two countries'
interests and the defense contractors who stock their arsenals.
The same danger of a regional arms race is being witnessed in a
nearby region, the Caucasus. Azerbaijan, itself a strong American
and Turkish ally and pivotal export hub for Caspian Sea oil and gas,
has also seen the light and publicly voiced its desire to deepen ties
with Israel. Funny that Azerbaijan, boosted by oil riches but still
not entirely immune to human rights violations itself, is at the
same time involved in an unprecedented military buildup for possible
offensive action against Armenia, to recover the disputed province
of Nagorno-Karabakh that lies between the two Caucasus states.
Nearby, in Georgia, nationalist President Mikhail Saakashvili is
again moving toward war to recover his own breakaway provinces,
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which have sought support from
Russia. As an American client state receiving millions in military
aid and advice, Georgia is regarded as the front line in containing
Russia in the Caucasus, and also an energy corridor for the $3-billion
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that commences in Azerbaijan and
concludes in Turkey. Like Saudi Arabia, whose new military aid from
the U.S. is earmarked for protecting "critical infrastructure' (i.e.,
Western oil interests), U.S. military aid in the Caucasus will no
doubt go toward protecting the pipeline.
Another Path
The same dynamic is in place all around the world, everywhere that
money can be made on exporting the instruments of death. All things
considered, it would seem obvious that journalists might ask government
officials just why their stated devotion to peace and stability has
to go hand in hand with ever greater arms buildups. Yet all too often,
they don't.
President Bush and his officials talk about building a sustainable,
lasting peace in a new and reshaped Middle East. They talk
optimistically about a "final status" for Kosovo that will respect
and guarantee the rights of embattled minorities. They talk about
resolving the Caucasus frozen conflicts to everyone's benefit. They
plead for peace and stability between the Greeks and Turks, between
Indians and Pakistanis, even as they keep loading up their arsenals
with increasingly deadly weapons. And so it goes, all around the world.
Despite the rhetoric, there is one thing every U.S. administration
has never tried to do in any of these conflicts. It is something that
leaders have never been able to do, for reasons of their own political
survival: to make peace through peaceful means, without even a word
being spoken about arms sales. Is this really too much to ask?