[prakruti] Fw: We're No. 1! America Leads the World in War Profits

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At 07:02 AM 5/30/07, you wrote:

>Dear Colleagues,

>

>See the notorious reputation that the United States of

>Amercia has gained in hte world. Best wishes.

>

>Kisan Mehta Priya Salvi

>Prakruti and Save Bombay Committee

>102, MAUSAM, Plot No.285, Sector-28, Vashi,

>Navi Mumbai-400705.

>Mobile: 0091 9223448857 (Kisan Mehta)

>Mobile: 0091 9324027494 (Priya Salvi)

>http://www.savebombaycommittee.org

>Email-

>kisansbc

>kisanmehta.

>***************************

>-

>

>We're No. 1! America Leads the World in War Profits

>

>By Frida Berrigan, Tomdispatch.com.

>Posted May 22, 2007.

>

>http://www.alternet.org/audits/52169/

>

>The United States is a proud nation of firsts -- among

>them weapon sales, military expenditure, oil

>consumption, CO2 emissions, external debt, private

>military personnel and more.

>

>--------------

>Frida Berrigan serves on the National Committee of the

>War Resisters League.

>--------------

>

>U.S. takes gold in arms olympics

>

>They don't call us the sole superpower for nothing.

>Paul Wolfowitz might be looking for a new job right

>now, but the term he used to describe the pervasiveness

>of U.S. might back when he was a mere deputy secretary

>of defense -- hyperpower -- still fits the bill.

>

>Face it, the United States is a proud nation of firsts.

>Among them:

>

>First in oil consumption:

>

>The United States burns up 20.7 million barrels per

>day, the equivalent of the oil consumption of China,

>Japan, Germany, Russia, and India combined.

>

>First in carbon dioxide emissions:

>

>Each year, world polluters pump 24,126,416,000 metric

>tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the environment.

>The United States and its territories are responsible

>for 5.8 billion metric tons of this, more than China

>(3.3 billion), Russia (1.4 billion) and India (1.2

>billion) combined.

>

>First in external debt:

>

>The United States owes $10.040 trillion, nearly a

>quarter of the global debt total of $44 trillion.

>

>First in military expenditures:

>

>The White House has requested $481 billion for the

>Department of Defense for 2008, but this huge figure

>does not come close to representing total U.S.

>military expenditures projected for the coming year.

>To get a sense of the resources allocated to the

>military, the costs of the global war on terrorism,

>of the building, refurbishing, or maintaining of the

>U.S. nuclear arsenal and other expenses also need to

>be factored in. Military analyst Winslow Wheeler did

>the math recently: " Add $142 billion to cover the

>anticipated costs of the wars in Iraq and

>Afghanistan; add $17 billion requested for nuclear

>weapons costs in the Department of Energy; add

>another $5 billion for miscellaneous defense costs in

>other agencies ... and you get a grand total of $647

>billion for 2008. "

>

>Taking another approach to the use of U.S. resources,

>Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz and

>Harvard Business School lecturer Linda Bilmes added

>to known costs of the war in Iraq invisible costs

>like its impact on global oil prices as well as the

>long-term cost of healthcare for wounded veterans and

>came up with a price tag of between $1 trillion and

>$2.2 trillion.

>

>If we turned what the United States will spend on the

>military in 2008 into small bills, we could give each

>one of the world's more than 1 billion teenagers and

>young adults an Xbox 360 with wireless controller

>(power supply in remote rural areas not included) and

>two video games to play: maybe Gears of War and

>Command and Conquer would be appropriate. But if

>we're committed to fighting obesity, maybe Dance

>Dance Revolution would be a better bet. The United

>States alone spends what the rest of the world

>combined devotes to military expenditures.

>

>First in weapons sales:

>

>Since 2001, U.S. global military sales have normally

>totaled between $10 and $13 billion. That's a lot of

>weapons, but in fiscal year 2006, the Pentagon broke

>its own recent record, inking arms sales agreements

>worth $21 billion. It almost goes without saying that

>this is significantly more than any other nation in

>the world.

>

>In this gold-medal tally of firsts, there can be no

>question that things that go bang in the night are

>our proudest products. No one makes more of them or

>sells them more effectively than we do. When it comes

>to the sorts of firsts that once went with a classic

>civilian manufacturing base, however, gold medals are

>in short supply. To take an example:

>

>Not first in automobiles:

>

>Once, Chrysler, General Motors and Ford ruled the

>domestic and global roost, setting the standard for

>the automotive industry. Not any more. In 2006, the

>United States imported almost $150 billion more in

>vehicles and auto parts than it sent abroad.

>Automotive analyst Joe Barker told the Boston

>Globe, " It's a very tough environment " for the so-

>called Detroit Three. " In times of softening

>demand, consumers typically will look to brands

>that they trust and rely on. Consumers trust and

>rely on Japanese brands. "

>

>Not even first in bulk goods:

>

>The Department of Commerce recently announced total

>March exports of $126.2 billion and total imports

>of $190.1 billion, resulting in a goods and

>services deficit of $63.9 billion. This is a $6

>billion increase over February.

>

>But why be gloomy? Stick with arms sales and it's

>dawn in America every day of the year. Sometimes, the

>weapons industry pretends that it's like any other

>trade -- especially when it's pushing our

>congressional representatives (as it always does) for

>fewer restrictions and regulations. But don't be

>fooled. Arms aren't automobiles or refrigerators.

>They're sui generis; they are the way the United

>States can always be No. 1 -- and everyone wants

>them. The odds that, in your lifetime, there will

>ever be a $128 billion trade deficit in weapons are

>essentially nil. Arms are our real gold-medal event.

>

>First in sales of surface-to-air missiles:

>

>Between 2001 and 2005, the United States delivered

>2,099 surface-to-air missiles to nations in the

>developing world, 20 percent more than Russia, the

>next-largest supplier.

>

>First in sales of military ships:

>

>During that same period, the United States sent 10

> " major surface combatants " like aircraft carriers

>and destroyers to developing nations. Collectively,

>the four major European weapons producers shipped

>13. (And we were first in the anti-ship missiles

>that go along with such ships, with nearly double

>[338] the exports of the next largest supplier

>Russia [180]).

>

>First in military training:

>

>A thoughtful empire knows that it is not enough to

>send weapons; you have to teach people how to use

>them. The Pentagon plans on training the militaries

>of 138 nations in 2008 at a cost of nearly $90

>million. No other nation comes close.

>

>First in private military personnel:

>

>According to bestselling author Jeremy Scahill,

>there are at least 126,000 private military

>personnel deployed alongside uniformed military

>personnel in Iraq alone. Of the more than 60 major

>companies that supply such personnel worldwide,

>more than 40 are U.S.-based.

>

>Rest assured, governments around the world, often at

>each others' throats, will want U.S. weapons long

>after their people have turned up their noses at a

>range of once dominant American consumer goods.

>

>Just a few days ago, for instance, the " trade "

>publication Defense News reported that Turkey and the

>United States signed a $1.78 billion deal for

>Lockheed Martin's F-16 fighter planes. As it happens,

>these planes are already ubiquitous -- Israel flies

>them, so does the United Arab Emirates, Poland, South

>Korea, Venezuela, Oman and Portugal, not to speak of

>most other modern air forces. In many ways, the F-16

>is not just a high-tech fighter jet, it's also a

>symbol of U.S. backing and friendship. Buying our

>weaponry is one of the few ways you can actually join

>the American imperial project!

>

>In order to remain No. 1 in the competitive jet

>field, Lockheed Martin, for example, does far more

>than just sell airplanes. TAI, Turkey's aerospace

>corporation, will receive a boost with this sale,

>because Lockheed Martin is handing over

>responsibility for parts of production, assembly and

>testing to Turkish workers. The Turkish air force

>already has 215 F-16 fighter planes and also plans to

>buy 100 of Lockheed Martin's new F-35 Joint Strike

>Fighter over the next 15 years in a deal estimated at

>$10.7 billion. That's $10.7 billion on fighter planes

>for a country that ranks 94th on the United Nations'

>Human Development Index, below Lebanon, Colombia and

>Grenada, and far below all the European nations that

>Ankara is courting as it seeks to join the European

>Union. Now that's a real American sales job for you!

>

>Here's the strange thing, though: This genuine, gold-

>medal manufacturing-and-sales job on weapons simply

>never gets the attention it deserves. As a result,

>most Americans have no idea how proud they should be

>of our weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon --

>essentially our global sales force -- which makes

>sure our weapons travel the planet and regularly

>demonstrates their value in small wars from Latin

>America to Central Asia.

>

>Of course, there's tons of data on the weapons trade,

>but who knows about any of it? I'm typical here. I

>help produce one of a dozen or so sober annual (or

>semiannual) reports quantifying the business of war

>making. In my case, the Arms Trade Resource Center

>report " U.S. Weapons at War: Fueling Conflict or

>Promoting Freedom? " These reports get desultory,

>obligatory press attention, but only once in a blue

>moon do they get the sort of full-court press

>treatment that befits our No. 1 product line.

>

>Dense collections of facts, percentages and

>comparisons don't seem to fit particularly well into

>the usual patchwork of front page stories. And yet

>the mainstream press is a glory ride, compared to the

>TV news, which hardly acknowledges most of the time

>that the weapons business even exists.

>

>In any case, that inside-the-fold, fact-heavy, wonky

>news story on the arms trade, however useful, can't

>possibly convey the gold-medal feel of a business

>that has always preferred the shadows to the sun. No

>reader checking out such a piece is going to feel

>much, except maybe overwhelmed by facts. The

>connection between the factory that makes a weapons

>system and the community where that weapon " does its

>duty " is invariably missing in action, as are the

>relationships among the companies making the weapons

>and the generals (on-duty and retired) and

>politicians making the deals, or raking in their own

>cut of the profits for themselves and/or their

>constituencies. In other words, our most successful

>(and most deadly) export remains our most invisible

>one.

>

>Maybe the only way to break through this paralysis of

>analysis would be to stop talking about weapons

>exports as a trade at all. Maybe we shouldn't be

>using economic language to describe it. Yes, the

>weapons industry has associations, lobby groups, and

>trade shows. They have the same trifold exhibits,

>scale models, and picked-over buffets as any other

>industry; still, maybe we have to stop thinking about

>the export of fighter planes and precision-guided

>missiles as if they were so many widgets and start

>thinking about them in another language entirely --

>the language of drugs.

>

>After all, what does a drug dealer do? He creates a

>need and then fills it. He encourages an appetite or

>(even more lucratively) an addiction and then feeds

>it.

>

>Arms dealers do the same thing. They suggest to

>foreign officials that their military just might need

>a slight upgrade. After all, they'll point out,

>haven't you noticed that your neighbor just upgraded

>in jets, submarines and tanks? And didn't you guys

>fight a war a few years back? Doesn't that make you

>feel insecure? And why feel insecure for another

>moment when, for just a few billion bucks, we'll get

>you suited up with the latest model military, even

>better than what we sold them, or you, the last time

>around.

>

>Why does Turkey, which already has 215 fighter

>planes, need 100 extras in an even higher-tech

>version? It doesn't, but Lockheed Martin, working the

>Pentagon, made them think they did.

>

>We don't need stronger arms control laws, we need a

>global sobriety coach -- and some kind of 12-step

>program for the dealer nation as well.

>

>OH YES The learned author missed other aspects it appears:

>

>The US and its followers in the unwarranted invasion of Iraq

>killed over650,000 Iraqis in last four years and destroyed

>one of the oldest culture of the world in the process.

>

>The US has the largest number of prisoners including undertrials

>not brought before the court hough it is not the most populous

>country in the world.

 

******

Kraig and Shirley Carroll ... in the woods of SE Kentucky

http://www.thehavens.com/

thehavens

606-376-3363

 

 

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