Huge jump in arms sales to Israel

The number of arms export licences granted for countries the government accuses of human rights abuses increased significantly over the past year, the latest official figures show.
They also show that licences for weapons sales to Saudi Arabia increased by 25% last year, to £25m. They included sales of assault rifles, riot control equipment and body armour.

Licences for British arms sales to Israel last year amounted to nearly £25m, almost double the previous year. The licences covered the export of armoured vehicles and missile components.

Quarterly annual figures appear separately on the Foreign Office website and were collated by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (Caat), which alerted the Guardian to them. They show that licences were also approved for sales of arms valued at more than £12.5m to Indonesia. Amnesty International last year reported extrajudicial killings carried out by Indonesian security forces in Aceh and West Papua. British-made armoured vehicles were reported to have been deployed against protesters in West Papua in November last year.

Israel, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are among 11 out of 20 countries described by the FO in its 2005 annual human rights report as "major countries of concern" to which the government licensed military equipment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1747892,00.html

:eyes: I'm wondering how many of those arms sold to Saudi Arabia end up in the hands of "insurgents" in Iraq? Israel? They've got enough weapons to blow the entire mid-east up several times over. I guess they've been overly influenced by our Pentagon. We can never have enough guns and bombs, even at the expense of vital social programs. There's always more money for war. It keeps the money flow pouring into the Republican coffers.

This is what we have become. Merchants of death. Specialists in killing machines.

:puke:

Defense and armaments has always been and is the largest employer of engineers (with a slight dip of its fraction during the "dot.com" boom).

My advice to young engineers - if you want to avoid defense and munitions - take as many electives as possible with "Bio" or "physiology" content.

The world is never going to run out of shit.