Militarization of the Middle East

'Tinderbox - U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism'
Published in 2003 by Stephen Zunes, professor at the University of San Fransico.

This website contains excerpts from his book. Since we enjoy the denial of ignorance, I highly encourage you to take a look, scan through the website and borrow a copy from your local library...or buy it...everybody needs to eat.

Pay special attention to Paragraph 41...I'll quote it here - "The significance of U.S. arms transfers to the region becomes apparent in looking at the figures: For Fiscal Year 2003, 72% of U.S. foreign aid allotted to the Middle East was military as opposed to just 28% for economic development. The $3.8 billion in military aid is well over 90% of what the United States gives the entire world. Even more startling is that, on top of this aid, there is the far larger sum of arms purchases, totaling $6.1 billion in 2001, over half of the world's total. The United States gave or sold more arms to the Middle East than all other arms exporters combined, totaling more than $90 billion since the Gulf War. Weapons and their delivery systems are America's number one export to the Middle East, totaling nearly one-third of all exports to the region."


Sounds like we're planning on getting out...doesn't it?


or this - "The triumph by U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War was heralded initially as a major advance for American security interests in the Middle East. Yet there is reason to believe that the conduct of the United States before, during and subsequent to the war has contributed greatly to the rise of antiAmericanism in the region, and particularly to the establishment and growth of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. Indeed, it has been the ongoing U.S. military presence in the Gulf that has been cited as being the primary motivation for Osama bin Laden's dramatic shift from an ally of the United States during the anti-Communist war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan to its most notorious adversary."

or as our great leader says , "why do they hate us?!!!" (weep, weep) "why do they HATE us?!!" (sob, sob)

Actually, he knows damn well why...in fact he's counting on it!


There is no enemy anywhere - Lao Tse

Well, there is "aid" and there is "aid", and what would be interesting to measure is the impact of this form of "aid" on the beneficiary as well as the impact of this sort of "aid" in terms of the domestic beneficiaries of crony capitalism in the unique situation that makes up the US industrial-military complex.

Q. How does the US know that (Country A, B or C) has (Weapons X, Y or Z)?

A. It kept the receipts.

Well said.
The US military complex has a nice setup..they benefit on both ends. Selling the munitions to enhance the problems and selling the munitions to "fix" them.

its like supporting a culture that enhances ADD in children and then selling medication to "fix" it.
Or supporting a culture that enhances depression in adults and then selling medication to "fix" it.
or supporting a culture that enhances unemployment, poverty and slums and then owning the prisons that get the same labor at 1/10 of the cost
or say blowing up american property, blaming the enemy and then profiting from the ensuing war (disclaimer: I'm of course referring to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, what were you guys thinking?)
or say militarilly supporting the corrupt and brutal Saud regime to enhance american corporations and ....................

wait, I forgot where I was going
..
..
ah yes, enlightment.

Authority is an illusion in the mind of govenors - Lao Tse