We Arm the World! US Dominates Global Arms Sales

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/08/27



U.S. arms exports tripled and reached a record $66.3 billion last year or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, the New York Times is reporting Sunday night.


The US military-industial complex sold 78 per cent of the world's arms in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with just $4.8 billion in weapon sales.

In a June 2012 conference call to journalists, Andrew Shapiro, US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs said: "Today, I can confirm that this is already a record-breaking year for foreign military sales. We have already surpassed $50 billion in sales in fiscal year 2012," which ends September 30. Shapiro said it was too early to predict whether 2013 would see a further increase in foreign military sales.

Despite the global domination by the United States, on Saturday the neo-con editors at the Washington Post headlined an article claiming China an Emerging World Arms Exporter.

"China... has transformed itself from the world’s largest importer of arms to a major producer, with domestic production exploding by 95 percent from 2002 to 2006 and from 2007 to 2011, making it the sixth-largest arms exporter in the world."

[MadHound]

1. Well of course we do, and have been for decades

We sell others our old model weapons so that later we can come in and beat them up with our new models.

Merchants of death, each and every one.