Newsweek Misleads on Who the World’s Arms Merchant Is

(This is a piece by Jim Naureckas, reposted from www.fair.org)

Mac Margolis, Newsweek‘s right-wing Latin America correspondent (Extra!, 1/10) has a small piece in the latest issue (3/1/10) that misleads in a big way. Under the headline “A Killer Deal for Russia,” Margolis declares:

Russia’s campaign to balance U.S. power and prestige around the globe has found a new and willing partner–Latin America–and Washington may be the unwitting facilitator…. Moscow is cutting deals across the region, selling the latest hardware, from rifles to fighter jets, in exchange for influence and access to the area’s plentiful oil and gas reserves.

And the United States has only itself and its pesky ethics to blame:

Ironically, one reason for the budding East/West axis may be Washington’s own rigid security agenda. The U.S. has imposed restrictions on arms sales to many nations suspected of being soft on terrorism or roiled by internal conflict. So, many on that watch list have turned to Moscow, which asks no questions. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, for example, has snapped up some $4 billion in Russian weapons in recent years.

Reality check: The United States is by far the world’s largest arms dealer, making $37.8 billion in arms deals in 2008–68 percent of the world’s arms traffic for that year, according to the Congressional Research Service (New York Times, 9/6/09).  Russia was a distant third with $3.5 billion.

And the United States did not actually limit its weapon sales to peaceful nations.  Among countries “roiled by internal conflicts” that have bought U.S. arms in recent years are Colombia, Morocco, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, Armenia, Azerbaijan…. The list goes on.  Apparently unlike Moscow, Washington does ask questions–like, “Is your credit good?”