War on terror fuels small arms trade

Charities say 500,000 people are killed each year by the real weapons of mass destruction

Owen Bowcott and Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday October 10, 2003
The Guardian

The "war on terror" has weakened national arms controls and fuelled the proliferation of conventional weapons, a coalition of leading human rights charities warned yesterday. Launching a global campaign to regulate the arms trade, Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the International Network on Small Arms said that on average 500,000 people were killed each year by armed violence - roughly one victim a minute.


SNIP

"A new urgency has been created by the so-called war on terror," said Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty. "This is fuelling the proliferation of weapons rather than combating it. Many countries, including the US, have relaxed controls on sales of arms to allies known to have appalling human rights records.

"In the past two years, the US has increased arms sales to and Britain has followed suit. British arms sales to Indonesia rose from £2m in 2000 to £40m in 2002."

Shipments of arms had been delivered on the basis that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", despite knowing that allies could become future dangers, said the charities. In June 2003, there were thought to be 24m guns in Iraq - enough to arm every man, woman and child. The charities term small arms the true "weapons of mass destruction", which claim hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilising countries and prolonging conflicts.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,1059843,00.html

The U.S. is virtually alone in the world in its refusal to try to control international small arms trade, it of course being the world's #1 exporter of the tools of death, destruction, and mayhem.

We should start hammering home the word "weakened" every chance we get. Bush went to war to flex our muscles and instead everything he has done has WEAKENED our economy, WEAKENED our army, WEAKENED our intelligence capacity, WEAKENED our respect around the world, etc. The wingers hate weakness and they should be reminded constantly that that is what Bush has done to this country.

We love to make and sell guns to any one who has money.

...and keeping advanced arms out of the hands of terrorists.

Sigh.