No

by Sandi Crain

Created on: November 04, 2009   Last Updated: November 05, 2009

As of 2001, the United States was responsible for supplying 45.8% of the world's weaponry. From 1992 to 2001, the U.S. exported $142 billion worth of conventional weapons throughout the world. This is more than twice what is exported from the second largest arms supplier.

These weapons are not all sent to close allies but are often sent to both sides in a civil war, countries ruled by dictators accused of human rights violations, and even terrorist groups who support western ideals. Why should the taxpayer pay to have these weapons confiscated when those weapons came from the U.S. in the first place?

According to the CRS Report for Congress, weapons sales from the U.S to other countries from 1998-2001 are as follows:

United Arab Emirates-$7 billion

Israel-$6.6 billion

Egypt-$6.4 billion

Saudi Arabia-$4.4 billion

Taiwan-$3.9 billion

Greece-$3.7 billion

And those are just a few of the largest legal contracts. This does not include the smaller multi-million dollar contracts or the secret goings on of the CIA as it funds small groups to destabilize other countries.

There are many examples of illegal and clandestine U.S. arms sales in recent memory. Ronald Reagan's desire to fund the Contras against the democratically elected Sandanistas of Nicaragua led to the illegal sales of BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran.

At first, this sale would be done indirectly through Israel but, because Hezbollah of Lebanon didn't trust the Israelis and caused a bit of trouble for the two countries, Oliver North set up a plan in which the weapons would be sold directly to Iran with a $15 million dollar mark-up. The Iranians reluctantly accepted the price and the profits from the sale went to buy weapons for the Contras without congressional knowledge or approval.

Also in the 1980s, Donald Rumsfeld sold chemical and biological weapons to Saddam Hussein to aid in Iraq's war with Iran. Originally, the story was spun in American newspapers to say that U.S. arms manufacturers "were not as deeply involved as British companies in selling weapons to Iraq" but during the investigation it was proven that the anthrax came from U.S. companies. These types of secret weapons deals are common to the U.S. and it only takes a little research to find them.

If the U.S. desires to reduce conventional weapons worldwide, all it has to do is stop selling them. But, because arms sales is a very lucrative business, that isn't going to happen. Most politicians are heavily funded by weapons makers such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and if the government ceases to contract with them, those companies will just move elsewhere. This is not in the nation's best interest at the moment.

Ridding the world of conventional weapons will never happen because all sovereign countries have the right to defend themselves. And there is no way that the U.S. politicians can convince the American people to pay for any program that will allow them to profit from weapon sales while profiting from the people's tax money at the same time.

Although the politicians have gotten quite good at saying one thing while doing another, the American people are getting fed up with it. Using taxpayer money to reduce conventional weapons caches worldwide would be just another way to scam the American people and those people are smart enough to figure that out.

Learn more about this author, Sandi Crain.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.