Obama the Arms Dealer

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/obama_the_arms_dealer_20110214/?ln

With the U.S. already maxing out the credit card with roughly a trillion dollars a year on defense spending, America’s weapons industry has been forced to look elsewhere for buyers. Luckily for the military-industrial complex, there’s an eager salesman in the White House.

Fortune:

As defense giants like Boeing, Raytheon (RTN, Fortune 500), and Lockheed Martin (LMT, Fortune 500) increasingly seek to peddle their wares to well-financed (sometimes by the U.S.) international customers, they have a surprising ally: the President. “Obama is much more favorably disposed to arms exports than any of the previous Democratic administrations,” says Loren Thompson, a veteran defense consultant. Or, as Jeff Abramson, deputy director of the Arms Control Association, puts it: “There’s an Obama arms bazaar going on.”

Administration officials say the boom in arms exports is simply the result of healthy demand. Indeed, American-made arms are widely considered the best and most coveted weapons in the world. But the Obama team has hustled to pave the way for big sales like the Saudi deal; the President himself recently sought to secure a pending $4 billion aircraft deal with India. Obama is also backing a massive push to rewrite the rules that govern arms exports, a process that some say will reduce oversight of U.S. weapons sales.

More at the link --

[truebrit71]

1. Love the irony that he got a Nobel peace prize...

..and then stepped up the war in Afghanistan...:rofl: :wtf:

[walldude]

2. This line kills me:

"American-made arms are widely considered the best and most coveted weapons in the world."

Is there anything else we make that is "the most coveted in the world"? Or are weapons our claim to fame?

Is this what we are? A nation of war mongers? A nation whose sole purpose is to instigate and perpetuate death and war?

We have lost our way. Badly. "Proud to be an American"? Hardly. More like embarrassed.

[Rageneau]

3. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in Mordor.

All around me, the furnaces of war flare and the sound of drums and marching boots rattle windows. Meanwhile, art, beauty, and flowers die and all public money goes for war.

Ah, well, I must remember the words of America's gentle, loving Jesus: "Blessed are the ass-kickers."

[Badfish]

4. These deals create American jobs.

We sell some transport planes to India , and it creates thousands of American jobs.