Meet The Victors Of The War On Terror

By Cernig

If there is one group who can claim to be the clear victors in the war on terror, it is arms companies and their shareholders.

Take Raytheon for example:

Raytheon Co., the world's largest missile maker, said first-quarter profit rose 15 percent on increased revenue from weapons such as gatling guns for the U.S. Navy, and higher international sales...Raytheon is expanding weapons sales to U.S. allies in Asia and the Middle East. Chief Executive Officer William Swanson said in February that missile-defense work in Japan alone may be valued at $3 billion over 10 years...Future potential foreign defense orders for Raytheon, maker of the Patriot air defense system, include missile-defense systems for Japan and Taiwan, and border security gear for Saudi Arabia and the U.K.

Others, like Lockheed and Northrop Grumman aren't exactly hurting either:

Lockheed Martin Corp., the world's largest military contractor, said Tuesday first-quarter earnings jumped 17 percent because of higher sales at its technology unit and one-time gains...Lockheed Chief Financial Officer Christopher Kubasik said the higher outlook was due to a combination of the first-quarter gains of 21 cents a share and expected strength companywide, including programs such as missiles, government satellites and F-16 sales.

...Reporting separately on Tuesday, Northrop Grumman said its first-quarter earnings rose 8 percent on increased sales. But the results missed Wall Street estimates.

Net income climbed to $387 million, or $1.10 per share, in the January-March period from $358 million, or $1.02 per share, in the year-ago period. Sales rose 4 percent to $7.34 billion from $7.09 billion.

US arms companies overwhelmingly donate to Republicans. With that kind of conflict of interest, is it really surprising that the Bush administration was the only national government to vote against an arms control treaty at the UN in December? Yet the vast bulk of weapons sold by the US and other nations go to fuel arms races, existing war and into the hands of non-government groups - all driving instability and terrorism worldwide.

About 40% of Asia's $8 billion worth of weapons came from the US in 2005, with Russia supplying 24%, France 17%, Britain 7% and China 3%. In the Middle East, which got $12 billion of arms in the same year, the US supplied 46%, Britain 27%, France 11%, Russia 4% and China 0.8%.

Nearly half of all weapons sold to developing countries come from the US, compared with 15% for Russia and 13% for Britain.

A study by the World Policy Institute found that the United States had transferred weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved in an ongoing war, while more than half of the buyers were defined as undemocratic by the US State Department's annual Human Rights Report.

Washington usually justifies the sales as part of its "war on terrorism", though many suspect it has a deeper goal of checking the expanding military power of China.

Significantly, the Pentagon is selling the F-16 fighter jet - a weapon that is regarded as having a strategic role in arsenals and is usually made available only to close allies - to both Pakistan and its bitter rival India.

"F-16s with advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles are not for fighting al-Qaeda. They are for fighting India," Wade Bouse, research director at the Arms Control Association, said after the Pakistani deal went through. "We are creating our own market by selling to both sides of regional conflicts."

...Tellingly, only a third of the weapons in circulation are being used by armed services or law-enforcement agencies in the countries that buy them.

As many as 6.4 million weapons are in the hands of militants, including terrorists, with some put to use in the two dozen conflicts under way throughout the world, including ethnic strife in Sri Lanka, the Indonesian archipelago and Myanmar, and insurgencies in the Philippines and southern Thailand.

The main victims are civilians: Oxfam, a British NGO, has estimated that at least 300,000 people a year are killed by portable weapons such as handguns, rifles, grenades and bombs.

"We are at a point in history where many of these sales are not essential for the self-defense of these countries and the arms being sold continue to fuel conflicts and tensions in unstable areas," Daryl G Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said in a 2006 report.

"It doesn't make much sense over the long term."

American arms companies and the Bush administration aren't the only culprits, there are many up-and-coming new companies from India, China and others who likewise aren't too fussy about how they make a buck. Yet US firms are still the market leaders by a long measure - and profits keep rising.

What a way to fight a war.