PRESS ROOM

Over the past five years, Western countries' exports made up the bulk of weapons delivered to the Middle East and North Africa, according to a report published this week by the Washington-based Center for International Policy (CIP). Small arms and other military aid have played a role in perpetuating conflict but major weapons systems have visited massive destruction on the region, said William Hartung, the report's author and director of CIP's Arms and Security [Program].

Steve Poikonen, host of Slow News Day and co-host of the Free Assange online vigil series, joins us for a discussion on all things Julian Assange. We discuss Steve’s view of NAFTA-driven neoliberalism in his childhood home of Elwood, IN, how the fallout from Chelsea Manning’s leaks made life better for all whistleblowers, even if just on paper, and of course, on the importance of Julian Assange’s actions as a publisher and how important unvarnished views of government activity are to activists who call out government criminality.

The recent announcement by the U.S. Air Force that it will award Northrop Grumman $13.3 billion to develop a new intercontinental ballistic missile raises more questions than it answers. First and foremost: what’s the rush? The move greatly complicates the ability of the next administration – whoever wins the election in November – to rethink the Pentagon’s $2 trillion nuclear modernization plan in light of other demands both within and outside of the department’s budget.

Lobbyists for Al Jazeera are laying the groundwork for a potential challenge to the Donald Trump administration’s demand that its AJ+ online news channel register as a foreign agent. “My thought is that this reeks of [the Foreign Agents Registration Act] being used as a political weapon and a bargaining chip in an international negotiation,” said Ben Freeman, the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy.

Mark my words: an American soldier will soon die for next to nothing in Syria. Here’s a mission that takes all the absurdity of America’s post-9/11 wars of choice to their logical conclusion...amidst a whole range of post-Russiagate alarmism, an Afghan "bounty" scandal that wasn’t, and in response to the (gasp!) Russian “ramming” of an American party three weeks ago, Washington is sending in reinforcements to buck up that US military non-mission in Syria.

William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy, says that while Trump and Biden’s approach to arms control is like “night and day,” the differences in actual defense spending are less clear. Biden himself has indicated he isn’t planning major military spending cuts.

“This seems to have been an extremely political process that borders on using [the Foreign Agents Registration Act] as a political weapon,” said Ben Freeman, director of the Center for International Policy’s Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, in an email. He added, “It’s extremely troubling if the Department of Justice weaponized FARA at the request of a foreign power.”

William Hartung, the director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy, explains that this spike in African terrorism incidents shows that the U.S. militarization response toward Africa was wholly unsuccessful in quelling violence in Africa as it was intended to do. He adds that fighting violence with violence may be aggravating the issue, instead of helping.

For the past several decades, the United States has been the world’s leading producer of major weapons systems and the leader in global arms sales. More of these sales have taken place in the globe’s most volatile region, the Middle East, than in any other region of the world. There has never been a more important time to debate President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning about the insidious economic, political, and even spiritual effects of what he called the “military-industrial-congressional complex.”

The American Army’s invasion of Mexico was justified by a lie, overtly aggressive, and unnecessary. In that sense it bore striking resemblance to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Yet, even more so than the Iraq occupation that followed, the conduct of large segments of the U.S. Army in Mexico was exceptionally ruthless throughout the two-year campaign.

"William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Program at the DC-based Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera arms sales were an ""important factor"" in the agreements.

The UAE has long wanted F-35 fighter jets, Hartung said, and larger drones, which the US was unable to sell because of its commitment to Israel's military advantage."

According to William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Program at the Centre for International Policy (CIP) in Washington DC, the sale of arms has been an “important factor” in the historical accord.