Just how American bullets make their way into Bahraini guns, into weapons used by troops suppressing pro-democracy protesters, opens a wider window into the shadowy relationships between the Pentagon and a number of autocratic states in the Arab world.
In July 2007 the General Accountability Office (GAO) found that nearly 200,000 U.S. weapons were unaccounted for in Iraq. The GAO blames poor accounting and distribution records for the missing weapons, and other reports have revealed that U.S. weapons have turned up in the hands of Iraqi insurgents and criminals. A month later, U.S. General David Petraeus urged the United States to increase U.S. weapons sales as soon as possible. For the Bush administration, this illogical policy makes sense as a piece of its larger strategy for the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Since Sept. 11, 2001, the administration has supplied billions of dollars worth of weapons and military assistance to countries it is calling its allies in the “war on terror.
On June 4, 1989, the world watched in horror as the Chinese government’s crackdown on student protestors took a deadly turn. As Chinese soldiers fired their weapons indiscriminately and Chinese tanks rolled through Tiananmen Square, an unknown number of students and soldiers were killed. The Chinese military continued its campaign of terror throughout the summer of 1989, drawing strong international condemnation.
The global market and technological advancements have the ability to transform the world with remarkable speed. Not many would be surprised to hear that the computer I am using to write this article may be comprised of components from at least 10 different countries. The monitor may come from Singapore, the processor from Israel, the software designed in India, and all assembled in Tennessee. We are becoming so accustomed to this phenomenon, that we don’t even blink an eye.