Held in Their Arms

I just watched "Lord of War" last night starring Nick Cage. I found the movie to be filled with information about gun running and arms dealers and tackled some philosophical and moral ideas. Some of the worlds biggest arms dealers : Jean Bernard Lasnaud, Victor Anatoliyevich Bout, Leonid Efimovich Minin, Monzer Al Kassar & Sarkis Soghanalian. These men are not strictly arms dealers. They have diversified interests which are mostly tied to transporting imports/exports. Arms dealers are flying in weapons to various African Nations and exporting their resources from businesses which are mostly owned by Westerners. The documentary "Darwin's Nightmare" examines the country Tanzania and how the natural species of fish in Lake Victoria (second largest fresh water lake in the world) have been supplanted by the very aggressive river perch. These perch are packaged and frozen and shipped all over Europe by the same transport companies which ship arms into various African Nations. The effect of guns for resources has further decimated an already feeble economy with famine and disease at epidemic proportions. In the district of Mwanza in the town of Geita (pop. 40,000) it is estimated that between 10 to 15 people die every week from HIV/Aids. Many people exist on the carcasses of Nile perch left over from the fish factories. By these arms dealers importing weapons and then exporting food resources you could say that these are people who deal death and then a little more death.

The largest arms dealers in the world: United States $18.5 billion, Russia $4.6 billion, France $4.4 billion, United kingdom $1.9 billion, Germany & Canada each $900 million.

Often the small arms dealers will work with countries that export weapons especially when that entails supplying a country these governments wish to keep secret, ie. Liberia. Often times it is in a foreign governments interest to supply arms to certain factions to insure social unrest thereby protecting their access to resources. Many westerners enjoy their style of living having no idea that their government is profiting from the misfortune of others believing the aid supplied to foreign countries is a good deed. The truth is that these aid packages offer no long term relief and is a pittance to pay for the enormous profits they make by arms sales and taking of resources.