From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Tue Aug 13 2002 - 20:50:28 MDT
On Tuesday, August 13, 2002 3:50 PM Mike Lorrey mlorrey@yahoo.com wrote:
>> http://www.lewrockwell.com/glaser/glaser16.html
>
> But what are the actual quantities?
Good question. I don't have time to google this tonight. I know the US
State Dept. has a database online with some of the figures.
http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/ provides some statistics, but you
might think they're biased.)
> It's not dollars
> that kill, it's bullets and guns
Or bombs and tanks...
> (oh no, not people?
> Well, yes, but they are a dime a dozen).
Some of these people get trained by the US government too. Also, some
are trained with subsidies from the same. After all, weapons don't
typically fire themselves -- not yet for the most part, at least.
> An M-16 is far more expensive on the world market than an
> AK-47, and an F-16 or F-15 is far more expensive than a Mig, while the
> Chinese SA-4, a rip-off of the Stinger missile, is about a tenth of
> it's American parent's price. So it might help to look at the actual
> quantities of weapons being sold.
I don't disagree here and you bring up a valid point. I bet the PRC
does less subsidies, but I also reckon you're right. Their product is
cheaper.
There's also the matter of who the weapons get sold to and what they're
used for. Here, the US has a mixed record, though I agree the PRC and
some other arms selling countries probably have a worse one. This
doesn't, as I mention in another email, make US policy here okay.
Also, we should beware the positive feedback loop between an
interventionist foreign policy and arms subsidies which is practiced by
the US. This only guarantees a trend of upwardly increasing sales and
subsidies.
> I think you'll find that over 90% of
> the amounts the US sold went to three customers: Israel, Afghanistan,
> and Taiwan.
My guess would be Israel, Egypt, Columbia, Saudi Arabia, and then
probably Taiwan.
Later!
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
See "Dialectical Objectivism: An Answer to Ronald E. Merrill" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Dialecti.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:04 MST