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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 4:57 am Post subject: Amnesty International: Companies Avoiding Arms Control Regs |
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Control Arms: Global arms industry exploiting major loopholes in arms regulations
The globalisation of the arms industry has opened up major loopholes in all current arms export regulations, allowing sales to human rights abusers and countries under arms embargoes, according to a new report by the Control Arms Campaign.
The report, Arms without Borders, is launched today as the United Nations opens its annual session on arms control, in the run up to a landmark vote at the UN to start work on an Arms Trade Treaty.
The report reveals that US, EU and Canadian companies are among those able to circumvent arms regulations by selling weapon components and subcontracting arms manufacturing overseas. The report details how weapons, including attack helicopters and combat trucks, are being assembled from foreign components and manufactured under licence in countries including China, Egypt, India, Israel and Turkey.
The report shows how these or similar weapons have ended up in destinations such as Colombia, Sudan and Uzbekistan where they have reportedly been used for the killing and displacement of civilians, highlighting the urgent need for global rules to regulate an increasingly globalised industry.
"This report reveals a litany of loopholes and destroyed lives. Arms companies are global, yet arms regulations are not, and the result is the arming of abusive regimes. Europe and North America are fast becoming the IKEA of the arms industry, supplying parts for human rights abusers to assemble at home, with the morals not included. It is time for an Arms Trade Treaty," said Jeremy Hobbs, Director of Oxfam International.
The report exposes two major loopholes that allow arms companies to legally circumvent arms regulations, including arms embargoes:
You can�t sell it whole, but you can sell it in individual pieces
* The European Union has an arms embargo against China; the United States and Canada refuse to sell attack helicopters to China, yet, China�s new Z-10 attack helicopter would not fly without parts and technology from a UK/Italian company (AugustaWestland), a Canadian company (Pratt & Whitney Canada), a US company (Lord Corporation) and a Franco-German company (Eurocopter). China has previously sold attack helicopters to a number of countries including Sudan, which is under a full EU arms embargo and a partial UN arms embargo.
* The Apache helicopter, used by Israel in the recent Lebanon crisis, is made up of over 6,000 parts manufactured worldwide, including in UK, the Netherlands and Ireland. Under the EU Code of Conduct, these countries should refuse to export attack helicopters directly to Israel.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGPOL300422006 |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for posting this.
Necessary reading for all those who believe we in the west are righteous. I've shouted out this, time and time again on this board -- how this is "our" dirty little secret.
Many made right in our backyard -- meanwhile don't smoke a joint or disrespect the flag, or you'll be put away for good......
I think that with any problem, any "event" in reality, there are three main determinants.
1) the conditions or soil from which the action stems (availability / supply / demand / material itself )
2) the "ideological" or cultural conditions which allow the "material" to be used, in whatever fashion . (no thing is evil in and of itself)
3) the will of the actors themselves. The condition of individually or in a small group, being able to say No or Yes, to do one particular thing.
On the first count, many western nations do their part , to create violence, the event(s) of violence around the world.
I have been thinking (again) of violence in America, the quick use of guns by many, to kill , maim. Endemic in the culture of the U.S. and the recent spat of crazy shootings are just one more dot on this graphic graph.
Much comes from the availability of guns itself (condition 1) but also, the constant images of violence inflicted upon Americans, westerners, kids, adults alike (condition 2) . Yes, in the final moment we all have the freedom to say NO. (condition 3) But this seldom occurs, so persuasive the arguement of the former.
We in the west, throw the material at many societies, ill equiped culturally, to contain violence and the use of arms (laws, enforcement, cultural sanctions, other "rich" options to occupy their time). Yes, they can say NO, but for many , the conditions are greater than their will....
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
| Necessary reading for all those who believe we in the west are righteous... |
Ddeubel: I do not believe that anyone here (or elsewhere for that matter) claims or asserts or defends Western righteousness. Certainly I do not, nor have I ever.
This Western arrogance ("Social Darwinism," etc.) was a nineteenth-century problem that persisted only into the earliest decades of the twentieth century and was, in any case, demolished once and for all (and hard) in the 1960s. Hard to understand how people could still be so hung up on it when no one, anywhere in the West, is arguing that the West is the righteous -- and this for several decades.
The problem now, as I see it, is that the pendulum has swung so far to the other side that people are (at least implicitly) arguing for an assumed moral pureness or moral superiority for the entire nonWestern world -- which is simply not sustainable -- and do you not live in Korea, "the hub of Asia," where it is quite pronounced in the form of a kind of hyper-ethnic nationalism?
So, concerning the present thread, corporations would behave this way (and it was only several years ago, by the way, that a U.S.-based transnat, threatened with sanctions from Washington for helping a brutal South or Southeast Asian dictatorship build and maintain an oil pipeline, very easily got around this by relocating its entire copoprate headquarters to Turkey or somewhere near there, where it reincorporated itself and did not have to deal with any govt meddling in its operations) whether they were run by Harvard MBAs or Pygmies.
And speaking of Pygmies and "righteousness," surely you are aware that people who have studied their culture like Ruth Benedict have pointed out that even Pygmies have made the most ethnocentric, racist claims regarding their culture's own -- yes -- "righteousness" with respect to everyone else in the world... |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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Well...
The report suggests two rather obvious, practical responses. 1)Arms control regulations could/should be upgraded so that companies can't get away with "piece by piece" illegal exports. An analogy that comes to mind is hazardous materials/waste regulations: in most western countries companies must document and account for the source and fate of all hazardous chemicals, even if they are subsequently mixed with other substances.
2)Shareholder activism - corporations like Pratt and Whitney Canada are not going to lose THAT much money if their shareholders hold them to a better standard, in terms of business ethics. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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May seem drastic but there is precedent -- nationalize and control it.
Meaning, if the industry is only something that the state should use, let the state run and operate the business and get the profit hounds out. Guns, weaponry, ammunition, missles, should not be in the realm of profit. Just like on the other end of the spectrum, other things construed as vital and giving to life, shouldn't be. Namely health care and social programs.
Will it happen. No. Why? Because solving problems with arms, has become the way of the world. Politicians would still want the ability to do this, out of the public eye. Addicts.
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Shareholder activism - corporations like Pratt and Whitney Canada are not going to lose THAT much money if their shareholders hold them to a better standard, in terms of business ethics. |
Similar to "socially-responsible investing"?
I know financial advisors who push this (unless their clients reject it, which happens often). It could work, but if it were to work, everyone would have to be on board. That is the challenge. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:42 am Post subject: |
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Gopher,
What would you think, theoretically speaking, of an "arms export tax"? Firms that wanted to export arms, either complete or as components, would have to pay a special tax before the product left the factory. The revenue from the tax could be used to pay for, say, UN-organized demining efforts in countries like Cambodia.
Theoretically it's an intriguing idea, like some of the proposals in Canada to tax cigarettes before they left the plant. Not sure how it would work out in practice, though. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:33 am Post subject: |
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I like my friends' idea that we can educate investors that they can indeed make profits even if they stick to environmentally-friendly corporations and avoid defense contractors.
This is no quick fix and will actually be a long-haul solution. No real promise that people will go for it, either.
But I think, if the tide is turned, it will create a sea change from below. Taxes, politically problematic, only represent a superficial solution.
New advisors and finance majors coming out of universities, however, are beginning to think this way... |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
I like my friends' idea that we can educate investors that they can indeed make profits even if they stick to environmentally-friendly corporations and avoid defense contractors.
This is no quick fix and will actually be a long-haul solution. No real promise that people will go for it, either. |
Actually I'm not so sure about that. The average investor is interested in profits, but if they can make just as much money by investing in firms other than cigarette companies, I think the average investor is willing to do so. I think some - but not all - bankers and investors are mature and smart enough to realize that an investment that yields a short-term profit but negatively affects the business environment long-term (like cigarette companies and hazardous waste dumpers) should be avoided if possible.
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| But I think, if the tide is turned, it will create a sea change from below. Taxes, politically problematic, only represent a superficial solution. |
For the moment, yes. I was just thinking that maybe an analogy can be made between taxing cigarettes and taxing arms. If you tax military weapons before they leave the factory, the manufacturer has to keep the price high in order to recover the cost of the tax. So there is no inducement to "dump" cheap arms into developing countries. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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My only objection to this is that the arms industry is very much a slippery transnational one and indeed an accepted component of international relations. Even "neutral" Switzerland produces a great deal of arms and sells them to all sorts of clients.
If the U.S. govt taxed U.S. arms dealers as you suggest, the only likely effect might be to favor foreign arms dealers while harming U.S. arms dealers -- and no sane Congress would pass such suicidal laws. But, in any case, patterns in global warfare and arms trafficking would hardly be dented by this...
It occurs to me that we might not be exactly on the same page here, that is, talking about the same issue. Did my views address the question you raised? |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:46 am Post subject: |
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Yeah they did; we are on the same page, and the fact that an export tax on arms manufacturers would favor nontaxing states such as Russia did occur to me immediately also, although I hadn't mentioned it before now. I guess I'm just thinking out loud about whether 'taxation at source' might be a relevant policy instrument for the control of illegal arms exports. Have you ever seen the movie Lord of War? It piqued my curiosity about how arms exports are -- or should be -- regulated.
I have always been interested in Anthropology, and one of the interesting things I also found out recently is that there has been very little academic research done on the Anthropology of gun ownership. The only thing I was able to find on the Internet was this book review:
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Humanizing gun nuts: an anthropologist shoots down stereotypes about gun enthusiasts
Reason, Feb, 2005 by Eric Dzinski
Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's Gun Cultures, by Abigail A. Kohn, New Fork: Oxford University Press, 224 pages, $29.95
IF WHERE'S a gun in a scene, an old writer's adage says, it had better go off. As that bit of advice suggests, there are few symbols more powerful than guns. They can represent liberation from oppression or serve as a weighty physical reminder of a lurking existential threat. No matter the association, the powerful emotional responses that guns elicit are largely responsible for the stagnant and vitriolic nature of the current gun control debate.
In Shooters, anthropologist Abigail Kohn argues that both sides of the debate have become so alienated from one another that they effectively form subcultures, and she studies them accordingly. Kohn calls Shooters an ethnography, an anthropological study conducted from within a culture to gain the "natives' point of view." Rather than studying gun enthusiasts though literature and statistics, or from behind a duck blind to ensure "objectivity," Kohn spent time with enthusiasts, interviewing them, taking classes with them, and shooting with them.
Her research methods appear to be scrupulous. She confined her survey to a particular area (the San Francisco Bay area) rather than glossing the gun culture as a whole. She published her standard questionnaire as an appendix to the book, and the citations she offers to support her claims seem to come from both sides of the gun control debate. The result is a fascinating look into the world(s) of gun enthusiasm that puts real, human faces on a gun debate dominated by antiseptic statistics and abstract principles. After reading Shooters, you'll wonder why no one has done such a study before.
The omission may stem from the typical attitude toward guns among academics, which Kohn addresses in her preface. From "public health" articles proposing gun control as a cure for the "epidemic" of gun violence to highly regarded sociologists who argue that gun research should be informed by "moral principles" rather than hard facts, she confesses her surprise at the ill-informed and often tendentious research conducted by academics. Kohn's own research for Shooters, some of which appeared in this magazine ("Their Aim Is True," May 2001), elicited predictable responses. One colleague said she was performing a "social service by researching 'such disgusting people.'" Another said that unless Kohn acknowledged the "inherent pathology" of gun enthusiasm, she was disrespecting victims of gun violence.
The characters that emerge from Kohn's interviews and observations are far more complex and interesting than the "gun nut" stereotypes that such comments suggest. The shooters in Shooters are diverse, including doctors, lawyers, artists, and men and women of various ages and races. Even their political persuasions are not as predictable as you might expect. While most of the people in Kohn's book describe themselves as conservative, a few are politically liberal and say they regularly vote Democrat.
Kohn focuses particular attention on the women shooters, trying to determine what makes them want to be a part of the "boys' club" of gun enthusiasm. The women that Kohn takes shooting classes with (and from) say owning firearms makes them feel less vulnerable, less like potential victims, and more like people in control of their own destinies. While some feminist scholars argue that female gun enthusiasts just reinforce violent and aggressive patriarchal tendencies, these shooters argue that by being armed they discourage male violence without the need for aggression.
It is here that Kohn's work takes its most interesting turn. The women and minorities in Kohn's book are acutely aware of the link between gun ownership and citizenship in the United States. Several of her subjects point to historical periods when certain segments of the population--blacks in the post-Civil War South, for example--were disarmed and enjoyed fewer rights and liberties than whites who had guns. That guns can and have been used by the oppressed to ward off their oppressors suggests that they can be a tool for equality as well as freedom.
Even today, gun control has a disproportionate impact on poor people and minorities. Laws that target inexpensive guns (supposedly used more often in crimes) unfairly disarm people without the means to afford more costly firearms. Poor people are also disproportionately the victims of gun violence, meaning they have a greater stake in the right to self-defense.
The alternative that some anti-gun activists have suggested is reliance on the police, rather than guns, for protection. Shooters and gun scholars alike note that this solution is promoted by white middle-class gun critics for whom violence is not a daily reality and for whom the police are polite and responsive rather than menacing. They also note that in times of crisis, the minutes a police officer may take to respond could mean the difference between life and death. Shooters prefer the independence and reliability of self-defense.
These doctrines of self-reliance, toughness, and independence underlie a subculture that Kohn investigates thoroughly in Shooters: cowboy action shooting. More than an antique gun club, cowboy action shooting is a sport devoted to preserving the styles and ideals as well as the weapons of the Old West. Participants dress up in boots and hats and run through elaborate courses using period weapons.
Some of the most colorful characters in Kohn's book populate her chapter on cowboy action shooting. Shooters with names like "Wild Bill Hiccup" run through target courses with cigars clenched in their teeth, playing out Old West fantasies. Kohn's analysis occasionally drifts toward questionable psychosocial generalizations, such as her claim that cowboy action shooting is an attempt to reclaim a "white, middle-class identity" through Wild West reenactments, despite participation by minorities and people of various economic classes. But by and large her account of this sport is delightfully thorough, especially to readers who had no idea it existed.
The chief weakness in this otherwise excellent book is Kohn's ambitious linking of ideas. Describing a shooter who thinks the world of gun enthusiasm is not demarcated by color, class, or gender, she writes, "This belief in the inherent diversity of gun enthusiasm as it's practiced is interesting for several reasons." Here and elsewhere, she uses the word inherent to link one belief held by a shooter to a wider, more abstract idea about shooting in general. The problem is that in the world of ideas (and certainly in the world of anthropology) there is no such thing as inherent connections.
People in different cultures will form entirely different concepts around the same object. Even two people in the same culture will make different connections between sets of ideas. At least once in Shooters, one of Kohn's subjects makes the point that while shooters all share at least aspects of the hobby, they come to it from different backgrounds and for different reasons. Kohn's emphasis on "inherent" beliefs seems out of place in a book that tries to map the diversity of ideas within the gun culture.
Although Shooters is supposed to be an ethnographic study of a particular subculture, near the end Kohn leaps to conclusions about the broader gun control debate. She argues that both sides of the debate must be willing to give up some fundamental assumptions and tactics in order to make gun legislation work for everyone.
She emphasizes, for example, that guns have been an integral part of American culture at least since the nation's founding and that no amount of gun control will ever bring about the fundamental change its proponents imagine. On the other side, she argues that gun enthusiasts must give up the belief that gun control has no effect on crime, citing laws that prohibit felons from owning firearms as an example of effective gun control. (She fails to mention that those same felons can still get guns illegally.)
Although Kohn's conclusions are thought-provoking and display a wealth of research about the subject, they depart substantially from her avowed purpose. They frame a discussion more suited to a general debate about the merits of gun control than to a targeted study of gun enthusiasm.
Those weaknesses aside, Kohn paints a fascinating portrait of gun enthusiasts. Studying people who are often maligned as racist, jingoistic troglodytes, she portrays a lively and diverse group brought together by common interests in history, mechanics, and liberty. Her colleagues in academia should take her insights to heart, replacing their blind disgust with a more dispassionate understanding of citizens who see a gun as a tool, not a menace.
Eric Dzinski ([email protected]) is a writer living in Denver. |
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