As troops and innocent civilians continue to die in Iraq as part of the guerilla warfare which continues there, then it is quite apt we take a look at how our "civilised societies", the ones pushing hardest for the invasion and occupation of the country viewed Iraq in the past. The Scott Inquiry which looked at British involvement in supplying Iraq with weaponry before the 1st Gulf War was quite damning of the supply of weaponry, mind you, Iraq was supposedly the wests friend at the time when Washingtons "rogue nation" of choice then was Iran. The powers that be in Washington and others also continued to trade with Iraq AFTER that Halabja incident we all heard so much about before the invasion and occupation of Iraq began.
Ok, well should we take a look now at another of those "rogue nations" on Bush's "axis of evil" list? Did you know that the US sent weapons to Iran in exchange for hostage releases back in 1986? But, an investigation found that 18 US companies illegaly supplied Iran with weponry, some of these sales included spare parts for fighter jets and anti aircraft devices!
Now, you've probably heard of the so called "war on drugs", but what may or may not surprise some of us is the fact that both sides in the "war" in Mexico were supplied by the same people!
Moving to another tense situation and area of the world blighted by friction over many years, the tensions between Pakistan and India are particularly noticeable to us. We know these two countries have been at war in the past, but as both of these nations have nuclear capabilities, just who supplied them? 6 out of the 8 countries who are part of the G8 group helped both Pakistan and India to acquire nuclear technology!
It may also surprise some to know that during the "cold war", the US supplied approximately $1.5 billion worth of weaponry to African nations, many of those nations now coming under the media spotlight because their countries are devastated by strife, wars etc... helicopters, jets, missiles etc.. have all been supplied to nations such as Somalia, Liberia, Sudan etc... by a host of nations, what is particularly hypocritical however is that whilst the Bush regime and others have made military forrays, and maybe have plans for more into some of these countries, previous US regimes have played a major role in aiding dictators throughout Africa!
Of course, there are many other examples like the above. There's East Timor, supplied by Britain, the US and others. The Human Cost of the arms trade continues to mount. Developing countries continue to buy weaponry, while richer nations and so called "civilised societies" continue to supply them with the weaponry they want.
Not only are supplying these weapons to these developing countries quite immoral in light of these countries real needs, but in the long term it is a very dangerous situation, human rights abuses will be assisted by various regimes being able to stamp on any opposition by using these weapons (after all, they're not just going to buy them and keep them in a cupboard or warehouse for ever are they!) |
