African govts' taste for expensive weapons is impoverishing the people

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

http://allafrica.com/stories/200406230229.html

Oxfam Lifts Lid On Africa's Military Folly

>snip
AFRICAN governments' taste for expensive weapons is impoverishing the continent's people, says a report on the effect of arms purchases on development.

Against the backdrop of rising poverty and falling life expectancy, international aid organisation Oxfam says African governments continue to stockpile arms.

In its latest report, titled Guns or Growth, Oxfam says several African countries are struggling to meet the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals, with some more than likely to miss the 2015 targets in key areas.
>snip

>snip
The number of people living in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to rise from 315-million in 1999 to 404-million by 2015. Life expectancy in the region has declined from 50 years in 1990 to 46 years today. The region has, however, seen a 47% increase in military expenditure between 1995 and 2001.
>snip

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. essage "African govts' taste for expensive weapons is impoverishing the pe

essage
"African govts' taste for expensive weapons is impoverishing the people"<<

Taken a look at the U.S. lately?? Tried to afford your medications? Tried to find a job? Tried to pay your bills?? How comes we spend more than the next 14 major industrialized nations on defense and yet we fear terrorists with box cutters and plain tickets??? There's something happenin here... what it is ain't exactly clear...

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

2. This is about Africa. There are any number of threads about the US

I want to focus some attention on Africa

[jukes]

3. Chavez

you point is well taken. although clearly american tax dollars are wasted on weaponry, whilst the common man suffers here, the situ is much more bleak in africa. things we've take for granted here, such as reasonably pure water, are non-existent on the continent-we-make-darker.

add the administrations ban on contraception, thus promoting larger populations to starve & epidemic HIV, we see africa driven back to the stone-age. except for the ruling elite, w/their modern armies serving as personal body-guards and quashing any outcry or pleas from the people.

it's a matter of scale: africa is becoming unlivable. it will take @ least 4 more years for the cabal to establish their dictatorship unequivocally and spend us into african-level poverty.

TX++ for the perspective.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

4. Your welcome. I have given myself a mini-mission here at DU to raise the

level of African news stories. If I just keep throwing them out there people are going to at least get a little of what is GROSSLY under reported. I know DU as a bastion for real caring and concern for our fellow Earthmates and that's why I love this resource.

The more we know about what's going on in the non-white places of the world the better we will understand what it means to be human in this ever more turbulant present.

BTW - I love that "continent-we-make-darker" bit - too true, too true!

[stavka]

16. Any luck with the FBIS info?

I appreciate your desire to bring Africa to the DU front burner, and will do what I can to help - post colonialism in Africa and Asia is my thing, sadly this has meant in the world's eye - Vietnam, India/Pakistan, and the middle east.

Issues surrounding post White governments and puppet governments in southern Africa I think may be the next focus of European neo-fascists and exploitation. Hate has a tendency to spread if there is even a hint of truth to the propagandist's argument.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. "This is about Africa. There are any number of threads about the US"

2. This is about Africa. There are any number of threads about the US<<

Understood and agreed... what would it take for there to be as much interest for the welfare of the African people as there was for the welfare of the Iraqi people??? Just wondering why the focus isn't on a continent rather than a country the size of California....

[HuckleB]

6. Hmm. I wonder who's getting rich off these arms sales.

Who could it be?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. I bet its um..................us?

Or maybe israel but what's the diff really?

[HuckleB]

8. Well, our fellow citizens, anyway.

And yeah, probably the likes of Israel, Great Britain, Russia, and who knows who else. Folks who'd probably call me foolish, for I gave up two weeks of wages to go to Ethiopia and train health care practitioners on HIV Treatment this past January. What a dolt I am.

[stavka]

10. Guess again......

Germany (due to a big sale to South Africa) and Russia were the biggest single arms sellers to Africa in the last three years, at 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively. By contrast, Washington accounted for only one percent of sales to that continent.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

11. You're kidding. I always assume the worst. Do you have a source?

I fully believe you I just want to learn more.

[HuckleB]

13. I can't say I'm shocked, except about the US percentage.

I second the request for a source.

Wow!

[stavka]

14. Found it on a Google Search "Arms sales + Africa" ...ISP I think

Shocked me, until I thought about it. The US just doesn't have many African clients except Egypt, and I think we aren't selling them many new systems now. We still pay most of their bills, we just aren't selling them new toys.

[stavka]

15. Not my original hit, but I think same source material

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0925-07.htm

[stavka]

9. Great quote, from a Republican no less

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

-- Former U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech on April 16, 1953

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

12. That is an excellent quote from a general no less

thanks!

[Liberal Classic]

17. Check out the Foreign Affairs subtopic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=116

There are news articles in there about Africa pretty frequently.

Here's a good topical issue, Mugabe and arms purchases from China:

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040615-121213-9266r.htm

and

http://iafrica.com/news/worldnews/328857.htm

[stavka]

18. Ok - I'll take the FlaK

I think the original poster is saying - "No, this is an major important issue that belongs in the mid stream"

Why shouldn't it, but (for example) a random Howard Dean event should?

Africa is a continent - and 17% of the USA, and huge numbers of the rest of the W.Hemishpere are of African origin.

[Liberal Classic]

19. I see international news in Late Breaking, too

I don't think that there's anything *wrong* with posting them in the General Discussion section. The Foreign Affairs section is somewhat languid anyhow.