US capitalism: arms dealer to the world

Source: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

I posted a blog a while back titled,  "Starvation Poverty and Disease areMarket Driven" and, like I do on occasion, posted it to another blog I contribute to.  And, as often happens, anonymous took issue with it; there’s a lot of anonymouses in this business.  This anonymous, obviously perturbed that I was criticizing capitalism wrote in response

"One Christian Capitalist country, the United States of America put more food stuffs on the ground in third world countries than any other country in the history of the world. What happened to them when they hit the ground was governed by all manner of dictatorships, local war lords and thieves."

Leaving aside that the US is not technically a "Christian" country although I know many Christians consider it so-----like many openly religious people they're tolerant of other religions as long as they remain in the minority in numbers and political and economic power------US capitalism actually gives very little aid in the form of what is useful to the average person.  Most of the money it gives to the various thug regimes and dictators throughout the world is in the form of military hardware and death devices.  In some cases the US supplies opposing sides always ensuring each side can never get too much of the upper hand so they always need refreshers.

The largest OECD Aid contributor by volume in 2009, or what is known as Official Development Assistance (ODA) was, and generally is, the US. In 2009, the US ODA figure was $28.7 billion. The net ODA figure for the entire continent of Africa that year was $27 billion, about half of what Bill Gates is worth.

In 2011, the US spent $73 per American on aid and $1,763 per American on defense, what is in actuality, offense. Israel is the largest recipient of US military aid receiving an average of $3 billion a year in grants annually since 1985, about two thirds of it military hardware.  At the same time, the US was propping up its proxy across the Sinai, Hosni Mubarak with about $2 billion a year.

Israel though is special as “ unlike any other recipient of U.S. aid, Israel is not required to account for its expenditures. Israel, thus, is free to spend U.S. aid as it sees fit, including in ways that contradict U.S. policies - as in the building of settlements in the Occupied Territories.” source.   As they shut down our schools, fire stations and savage public services and jobs, our tax money, in the form of weapons and heavy equipment is used to bulldoze Palestinian homes and drive them from their land in order to settle foreigners, religious fanatics from the US, South Africa and other counties because god demands it.

In 2011, the Pentagon spent more on war than all 50 states combined spent on health, education, welfare, and safety according to Business Insider.

War is a racket as the retired Major General Smedley Butler once said.  It’s good for business though.