Arms spending hits record high

Soldato
Joined
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I read this disturbing article this morning in the Metro newspaper:

Arms spending hits all-time high

The key points:

Global spending on arms has hit a record high, swelling to 17 times the amount earmarked for alleviating world hunger.

This year, £561billion will be used to buy weapons – more than the £547billion spent at the peak of the Cold War.

The figure dwarfs the £32billion set aside for international aid and is more than double the total debt of developing countries.

The leading 100 arms companies have seen sales increase by almost 60 per cent from £83billion in 2000 to £142billion in 2004. Spending on arms in some of the world's poorest countries has soared while their citizens starve.
So after reading this I though well who the hell is still selling all these arms to developing countries?

A quick google turned up this Observer article from last year:
British arms sales to Africa have risen to record levels over the last four years and have reached the £1 billion mark, The Observer can reveal.
Analysis of official figures shows annual weapons sales almost quadrupled between 1999 and 2004.

Campaigners and MPs called the increase 'obscene' and 'unacceptable' at a time when the government is putting so much political capital into relieving poverty in Africa.

Many exports approved by the Department of Trade and Industry involve selling arms to some of the most deprived states and to countries with poor human rights records.

Among the most controversial exports since 2000 discovered by The Observer are:

· More than £30 million of military equipment sold to Angola, including armoured vehicles and body armour.

· Export licences granted by the DTI last year to sell £3.6m of military equipment to Malawi, one of the least developed nations in the world.

· Licences for military exports granted to Eritrea, Ethiopia, Algeria, Sudan, Zambia, Uganda, Namibia and Somalia.

· Arms sales to South Africa that trebled last year to £114m, including components for combat aircraft, missiles and radar.

· UK arms sales to Nigeria up tenfold since 2000 to £53m, including armoured vehicles and large calibre artillery.
Obviously there are much bigger player in the arms world selling a lot more than the UK but the Labour government (especially Gordon Brown) have been telling us they want to ease third world debt over the next few years and help developing nations. But behind the scenes in the last four years they have sold increasing numbers of arms to these nations.

What does this increase in world spending say about the direction the world is heading in?
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What are your views on UK arms sales, should we be concerned? who should be responsible for policing what can be bought and sold in the global arms market?
 
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The arms trade is one of the most dispicable, corrupt (both ethically and morally as well as financially) businesses on earth.

Pedlers of death, hiding behind a shield of commercial freedom, parasites leeching off human greed and violence.

Id have no problem at all if some of those morally bankrupt <expletive deleted>'s were to be on the receiving end of some of their 'products'.
 
I have a different take on this.

It is all to do with supply and demand. If we didn't supply arms, someone else would anyway.

The UK is the 2nd largest arms exporter in the world, second to the US.

Stopping the sale of arms would do nothing to aleviate "third world" poverty.

Also, what you are suggesting regarding countries such as the UK beiong able to give more if we didn't supply arms is nonsence. THe UK government are not paying for the arms being exported, the buyers are.

Mal
 
Over Clocker said:
I have a different take on this.

It is all to do with supply and demand. If we didn't supply arms, someone else would anyway.
That's like saying it's okay if I supply drugs to kids because if I didn't, someone else would anyway... :)
 
It is all to do with supply and demand. If we didn't supply arms, someone else would anyway.

with that arguement, lets get out the marijuana, coke, heroin etc etc. lets not blame the coloumbians, afghans, morrocans etc
 
its no surprise tho is it? we've seen a huge increase of war in the last 6 years i think. not to mention better tech = more money needed.

after all we all like to help our old colony's :(

you can also see it as intresting that the goverments of these countrys would rather arm than feed their people. is it time to rethink aid packages? its a harsh and cruel choice but if they do not and are not going to improve their own country and rely on aid packages to feed their population whilst they use their money to buy arms is it time to get tough?

also i know people will say " well if we didnt sell them the arms they would spend their money on food."
rubbish. they would just find a different supplier or buy through another country.

also i dont think you can blame this on labour. the tories and probably even the lib dems would allow this to happen. there is a ever decreasing gap between the partys with concerns to morality and actions.


~edit~ yes it is like saying that. if the kids have asked you for drugs. if you say no they will go elsewhere. its not going to stop them taking the drugs. we arnt supplying for the kindness of it. we are supplying when they ASK us to.
us stopping selling would do nothing apart from make them fund the illegal arms dealers.
 
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Over Clocker said:
It is all to do with supply and demand. If we didn't supply arms, someone else would anyway.

So? Let them. WHy should we sully this country's good name by selling arms to despotic regimes? Are we really that much in thrall to money that moral considerations come way down the pecking order?

What ever happened to having a sence of moral decency? When did having ethics become too expensive?

The UK is the 2nd largest arms exporter in the world, second to the US.

You almost sound proud.

Stopping the sale of arms would do nothing to aleviate "third world" poverty.

Possibly not, but it certainly wouldnt increase it, through dodgy dealings such as Credit Export Guarantees adding to the 3rd worlds already huge debt mountain.

Also, what you are suggesting regarding countries such as the UK beiong able to give more if we didn't supply arms is nonsence. THe UK government are not paying for the arms being exported, the buyers are.

Mal

Not true. The aforementioned CEG's mean that, in effect, the UK government pays for the arms and adds the cost to the country in question's 'tab'. Otherwise the risk for UK arms companies would be too high, in terms of being able to be certain of receiving payment.
 
Over Clocker said:
Also, what you are suggesting regarding countries such as the UK beiong able to give more if we didn't supply arms is nonsence. THe UK government are not paying for the arms being exported, the buyers are.

Mal
I didn't suggest that, I simply suggested that selling to countries that are in debt is irisponsible, if we are trying to remove their debt.
 
Over Clocker said:
The UK government are not paying for the arms being exported, the buyers are.

Figures from the Export Credit Guarantee Department might cause you to change that viewpoint.

Because of the nature of arms sales and the people they sell to, particularly in the developing world, many of the deals are defaulted on. These deals are underwritten by the UK Govenment at below market rate, thus depriving the insurance sector of business.

When the buyer fails to pay, we cough up to the arms company and, if the buyer is a country, the cost is added to their natioal debt to the UK.

Consequently, we do pay for it from our taxes, it does add to third world debt and if it wasn't for this kind indirect government subsidy it wouldn't be profitable either.
 
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im not fussed.. i suspect it goes much deeper than just arms.. most of these weapons deals probably have other things attached to them, more important things, for instance, rights and access to natural resources.. now thats an important issue for the country
 
Rosbif said:
im not fussed.. i suspect it goes much deeper than just arms.. most of these weapons deals probably have other things attached to them, more important things, for instance, rights and access to natural resources.. now thats an important issue for the country

Are you saying it's possible to justify in your mind lowering the standards of peoples lives in developing nations if it goes towards improving ours?
 
MookJong said:
Are you saying it's possible to justify in your mind lowering the standards of peoples lives in developing nations if it goes towards improving ours?

If anything it's probably the likes of BAe pressing the UK government to appeand arms deals to other services rather then the otherway round. The UK government is the arms lobby's unofficial salesrep, or bitch, if you will.
 
MookJong said:
Are you saying it's possible to justify in your mind lowering the standards of peoples lives in developing nations if it goes towards improving ours?

possible? lol.. we do it everyday.. everyone plays ignorant at how we obtain our lifestyle.. oh its just turns up in the shops and the supermarket..

we arent going to give up the lifestyle we have become accustomed to.. when resources become tight we are going to fight for them.. and when push comes to shove no one really cares how we get them just as long as we get them
 
Rosbif said:
possible? lol.. we do it everyday.. everyone plays ignorant at how we obtain our lifestyle.. oh its just turns up in the shops and the supermarket..

we arent going to give up the lifestyle we have become accustomed to.. when resources become tight we are going to fight for them.. and when push comes to shove no one really cares how we get them just as long as we get them

Speak for yourself I don't play ignorant at all, I could not help being born in the West, just like those could not help being born into the developing world.

It doesn't stop me feeling guilt for the injustice and trying to help.
 
Rosbif said:
possible? lol.. we do it everyday.. everyone plays ignorant at how we obtain our lifestyle.. oh its just turns up in the shops and the supermarket..

we arent going to give up the lifestyle we have become accustomed to.. when resources become tight we are going to fight for them.. and when push comes to shove no one really cares how we get them just as long as we get them

True...up to a few decades ago, governments around here did everything possible to ensure improving the life standarts on its citizens and now things are turning in such way that governments should be thinking of the well-being of both their countries and the third world.
 
Besides the ethical side of things, which I can see heading a little off topic, the UK might be the second biggest arms exporter in the world but it's cost to the UK is greater then what it brings in, so why do we do it?

Kinda makes the 'somebody else would' and the moral arguments surrounding it a bit pointless.
 
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The arms industry must just love Mr Bush ;)

A few loonies in planes kill and handful of people (in real terms compared to people that die of starvation everyday) and we now all live in fear and have our liberties erroded.

Not to count the human cost of the retaliation of the U.S. on those that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and posed no real threat to the West (Iraq)

HEADRAT
 
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the benefit of us selling arms to other countries is simple.in a few years/decades when we start an illegal occupation for resources, we will know what they are fighting with and we will have the technology to knock out their weaponry. Recent history is full of these examples.
 
Mr Mag00 said:
the benefit of us selling arms to other countries is simple.in a few years/decades when we start an illegal occupation for resources, we will know what they are fighting with and we will have the technology to knock out their weaponry. Recent history is full of these examples.

I like it :D
 
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