Category: Arms Dealer

Arms Dealer

Basketball, Viktor Bout and Troubling Exchanges – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Basketball, Viktor Bout and Troubling Exchanges - The AIM Network

Singling out Bout as the cartoonish gangster who endangered US lives ignores the fact that the United States remains the world’s biggest arms exporter, thereby endangering the lives of citizens across the globe. Between 2017 and 2021, the US accounted for 39 percent of the major arms transfers globally. This was twice that of Russia, and almost 10 times what China sent its customers.

Another excruciating point is that one can only become a merchant of death if the merchandise, and the interest in buying and using it, is there. As Bout himself put it, if you were going to prosecute a figure such as himself, you might as well prosecute US arms dealers whose weapons eventually end up being used against US citizens. (The National Rifle Association, take note.) “They are involved even more than me!”

Source: Basketball, Viktor Bout and Troubling Exchanges – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Arms Dealer

France’s Weapons Industry Is Growing Rich off Dictatorships

Australia is desperate to get into the Industry

Authoritarian governments like those in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have funded a boom in France’s arms industry. Now, with war in Ukraine, it’s setting its sights on rearming Europe.

Source: France’s Weapons Industry Is Growing Rich off Dictatorships

Arms Dealer

Obscure agency handed $3.8b boost to fund Australian arms exports

A little-known government agency will move from focusing on financing Australian business exports such as wine, mining and obscure products such as “stoned crystals,” sheep placenta and kangaroo essence, to dealing with some of the world’s largest arms manufacturers as it funds the next generation of Australia’s arms exports.

In a remarkable budget boost for the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, the 100-staff-member organisation will have its taxpayer-funded “national interest” loan facility soar by 400 per cent and be cleared to approve weapons funding with risks “too high to prudently accept” for commercial purposes.

via Obscure agency handed $3.8b boost to fund Australian arms exports

Arms Dealer

US to obscure arms exports after Pentagon ‘pipeline’ to Syria exposed   — RT Op-Edge

The volume of US privately manufactured weapons that are traded around the world is already huge. Last year, the State Department granted licenses for the export of $4 billion-worth of US-made small and medium arms. These weapons included handguns, assault rifles and even rocket launchers for the more adventurist gun enthusiasts.

Source: US to obscure arms exports after Pentagon ‘pipeline’ to Syria exposed   — RT Op-Edge

Arms Dealer

Western Powers Protect Arms Markets Ignoring Civilian Killings | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

UNITED NATIONS – The West continues its strong political and military support to one of its longstanding allies in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia –- despite withering criticism of the kingdom’s battlefield excesses in the ongoing war in neighboring Yemen. A Saudi-led coalition has been accused of using banned cluster bombs, bombing civilian targets and destroying hospitals – either by accident or by design—using weapons provided primarily by the US, UK and France.

Source: Western Powers Protect Arms Markets Ignoring Civilian Killings | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

Arms Dealer, Drones

Arms dealers are setting up shop in Australia. There’s still time to reject these merchants of death Northrop Grumman, a leading US defence contracting firm, will launch a major Australian expansion next month. We’re a bigger market for arms than you might think

northrop

It’s a good time to be in the weapons business. Three of the leading US defence contractors, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, are all making unprecedented profits.

In December, Northrop will host an event at the Australian War Memorial to mark the company’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region. It will be launched by Federal defence minister David Johnson. It’s a curious location because, as Crikey’s tipster drily noted, “without the endeavours of arms companies stretching back centuries, there’d be significantly fewer Australians for the War Memorial to commemorate”.

Northrop’s US-based corporate HQ decided in the last 18 months to open a major office in Australia. In March the company purchased Qantas Defence Services, a firm that provides engine and aircraft maintenance to the Australian Defence Force and global militaries. It was an $80m deal. In September 2013, Northrop bought M5 Network Security, a Canberra-based cyber-security outfit.

Northrop appointed Ian Irving as CEO of the Australian outfit in June, as part of a plan to capitalise on the “strategically important market” of the Asia Pacific. The centrepiece of that plan is to give smaller enterprises in the defence space access to Northrop’s global supply chain. That’s nothing to be sneezed at: they’re a vital defence contractor for the US military and the company’s weapons have been used in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.

Irving explained to Australian Defence Business Review in July that he was pleased to sell the Australian government the firm’s MQ-4C Triton surveillance drones. The machines will be used to monitor the nation’s borders and protect “energy resources” off northern Australia. Northrop Grumman Australia is set to make up to $3bn from selling the drones. Countless European nations are equally desperate to use drones to beat back asylum seekers.

Despite all this, a Northrop spokesman assured me that the company’s growing presence in Australia has no connection to the Abbott government’s increase in defence spending.

As Northrop’s Australian expansion makes clear, arms manufacturing thrives in an integrated global defence space. Australia is an important market for that other military powerhouse, Israel. In 2010 leading Israeli arms company Elbit Systems sold a $300m command control system to the Australian military. In August 2013 Elbit announced the $5.5m sale of “an investigation system” to the Australian federal police that was tested in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

That’s a trend that has become commonplace since the 9/11 attacks. As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in August, “[Weapons companies] need to sell in the large international defence markets – where the products are scrutinized partly on the uses the IDF makes of them on the battlefield.”

In August pro-Palestinian activists climbed on the roof of Elbit’s Melbourne offices to protest its involvement in the recent Israeli military incursions in Gaza, after which the company’s share price soared. Amnesty International recently accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the war.

Defence contractors rarely stop with the profits from war and colonisation. In Britain, Lockheed Martin is now reportedly bidding for a massive National Health Service contract worth $2bn. In the US, Northrop was a presenting sponsor at a recent Washington DC event for honouring war veterans.

It’s rare to read about arms trading in the Australian press; even the country’s largest privately owned small arms supplier, Nioa, rarely registers beyond the business pages. Our politicians are also loathe to speak out, and are happy to have factories and bases in their electorates, and donations for their parties.

The Greens do oppose military trading with Israel. Leader Christine Milne tells me that, “given the continuing disregard by Israel of international calls to halt settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories and the disproportionate response used against the people of Gaza, the Australian Greens have repeatedly called on the Australian government to halt all military cooperation and military trade with Israel”.

Greens senator Lee Rhiannon spoke in parliament last year, saying “if any of the military equipment that Australia has sold to Israel has been used in Israel’s deplorable wars in the Gaza strip which has killed thousands of civilians, the Australian government should be held accountable for this”.

Australia, the 13th largest spender on arms globally, has a choice. We can keep embracing these merchants of death, and the botched deals and waste that they bring. Or we can reject the the rise of Northrop and its associates, and refuse to participate in an investment culture that continues a cycle of violence both at home and abroad.