World leader in sales of weapons? Do not ask, do not tell - it is US!

$55 billion is real money - do you think some of the wrong folks end up with the weapons? Do people die, just so Boeing, Northrup, General Dynamics, Blackhawk (Xe) can make some bucks?

clipped from www.tomdispatch.com America’s Global Weapons Monopoly Don’t Call It “the Global Arms Trade” By Frida Berrigan In 2008, according to an authoritative report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), $55.2 billion in weapons deals were concluded worldwide. Of that total, the United States was responsible for $37.8 billion in weapons sales agreements, or 68.4% of the total “trade.” Some of these agreements were long-term ones and did not result in 2008 deliveries of weapons systems, but these latest figures are a good gauge of the global appetite for weapons. It doesn’t take a PhD in economics to recognize that, when one nation accounts for nearly 70% of weapons sales, the term “global arms trade” doesn’t quite cut it.