This Could Never Come Back To Bite Us

The NY Times ran an article on Friday saying that the U.S. sales of military weapons are up since 9/11.

According to the article, we're selling more, and we're selling to more countries (some of whom had previously been barred from such sales, until that policy was changed).

This has been done, the article says, at least in part to try to help secure new allies in the war on terror... but guess what? It's really a very bad idea. There are lots of reasons why, but let me give two of them:

1) During the Cold War, we were terribly concerned about the Soviet Union, and so without directly provoking them (and possibly starting a nuclear war), we funded and trained a number of smaller groups that were fighting the Soviets. One such group was headed by someone whose name is now infamous: Osama bin Laden.

2) During the last Islamic government of Iraq, we gave support to rebels who wanted to overthrow that government. We had a hand in the new government, one Saddam Hussein.

These two examples alone should show that, as a country, we've shown incredibly poor judgement in choosing those we support, or have been short sighted, trading future problems for quick solutions to current problems.

In 20 years from now, I very much hope we're not then fighting the brutal dictatorship of Hamid Karzai or Jalal Talabani. I hope we're not regretting our decisions as Pakistan or Uzbekistan fall out of favor and start fighting us with our own weapons.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Wonderful.

Copyright (c) May 29, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net