"Weapons sales may increase again in 2002 due to the U.S. effort to arm its partners in the war on terrorism. U.S. sales and military aid is already on the rise to Colombia, the Philippines, Georgia, and Indonesia, which have redefined their long-standing insurgencies as "counter-terrorism" activities. The U.S. government has also bought into Israel's argument that it needs sophisticated weaponry to fight Palestinian terrorists, selling them 52 F-16 fighter jets and six Apache attack helicopters in 2001 despite the fact that the disproportionate use of force that goes along with the use of these weapons has led to violations of humanitarian law."b/B>
I don't see that this is much worse than the British government with its ethical foreign policy, to be honest. Unless you mean that the US has better arms than anyone else, which is almost certainly true (hedging because I don't really know much about the actual technical parts), and that it is therefore more wrong for the US to sell those arms to other people, especially its allies... which sounds a little dubious to me...
The UK certainly does its best in the international arms market. (Amazing how we managed to sell Challenger tanks to Saudi Arabia when it appears from latest exercises that they're allergic to sand.) I think the French are pretty high on the list, too.
Amazing, isn't it, how so many big arms sales seem to happen at the same time as military "aid"? But that's okay, because it gives the whole business a lovely warm charity feel.
