During the peanut salmonella scare, were the vendors or the producers at fault for the resulting deaths? According to everyone, the producers, and perhaps rightly so. But then a logical problem arises when, yesterday, the legendary Syrian arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar was found guilty of selling instruments of death to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), for which he surely should have been. However, without extant conflicts and existing weapons, arms dealers would not have such booming businesses, if any at all. So why are anti-war resources being diverted to treating inevitable symptoms from curing evitable diseases?
When a person sells large quantities of weapons to anyone but their or a friendly state, they are a criminal; when a business produces them for their or a friendly state, they are trusted partners in protection and vital contributors to the economy; and, when anyone but a state or its friends uses them, they are threats to national security or terrorists. Al-Kassar, known as the "Prince" in the Spanish town he calls home, was busted in a sting operation to sell $1 million in arms to FARC, having been a longtime supplier to (among others since the 70s) Palestinian Liberation Front and clients in Nicaragua, Bosnia, Croatia, Iran, Iraq and Somalia.
Keep in mind, though, that the five largest arms producing countries in the world are also the five members of the U.N. Security Council, as noted in the compelling film Lord of War depicting an arms dealer played by Nicholas Cage. Lockheed Martin makes about $42 Billion in annual revenues, and uses this strikingly euphemistic (pun intended) language on its website:
CUSTOMER BASE: As a global security and information technology company, the majority of Lockheed Martin's business is with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. federal government agencies. In fact, Lockheed Martin is the largest provider of IT services, systems integration, and training to the U.S. Government. The remaining portion of Lockheed Martin's business is comprised of international government and some commercial sales of our products, services and platforms.
The criminality of individual arms dealers lies in exacerbating and perpetuating conflicts outside of established channels, but they are not always their causes. Then what of that of other arms and conflict industry participants? If anything, dealers like al-Kassar are really small though spiky thorns in the side of the very big boys with much bigger sticks, jealous because as "respected" CEOs, engineers and politicians with a unillustrious lust for military oligopolies they cannot live their clandestine competitors often lavish lifestyles (and not for lack of funds). Being unable to see the forest for the trees, in arms dealing and its double standards or otherwise, remains an unsightly current event creating the future.
