Our Industrial Policy Needs to Do More than Arm Dictators

[Donnachaidh]

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/01/31/our-industrial-policy-needs-to-do-more-than-arm-dictators/

Spencer has a useful catalog of all the war toys Egypt buys with our military aid.

Whatever Egypt’s military does next, chances are they’ll do it with American weapons.Al-Jazeera showed M1A1 Abrams tanks carrying Egyptian soldiers through Cairo in what its correspondents called “a show of force.” Those iconic American tanks have been co-produced in Egypt since 1988; the Egyptians have about 1000 of them. As was endlessly re-tweeted, canisters containing tear gas that the police used on protesters — before the hated police melted away over the weekend — had “Made in America” stamped on them. (Our colleagues at Ars Technica take a look at what’s inside the Pennsylvania-manufactured tear gas.)

On Sunday, fighter jets flew low over a Cairo crowd, turning on their afterburners to deafen their audience. Most likely they were part of Egypt’s fleet of 220 F-16s.

Most of the $1.3 billion that the U.S. annually provides to Egypt in military aid goes for weaponry to defend Egypt against foreign assault, like Patriot air-defense missiles, Multiple Launch Rocket System rocket pods and TOW anti-armor missiles. That’s not particularly relevant for crowd control against protesters.

More at the link --

[ixion]

1. Oh, we arm more than dictators...

I figure we arm pretty much everyone who is interested in arms, to some degree.