[mrbeast]

Originally Posted by Steel_Tomb

Russia is playing a dangerous game with its arms exports, I don't say the UK is clean as a whistle either I was strongly against the arms deal recently signed between Sadi Arabia and BAE Systems. I recall (I may be wrong) that Russia was in the process of selling Skyval's to Iran of all places!!! I can understand selling some arms aborad, nothing wrong with that... but Russia is selling their arms to all the wrong people, I think its pretty obvious the troubles that are occuring near Venezuela and now Russia is going to throw a couple of modern subs their way?! I don't know why Russia would sell more arms to North Korea either, especially with the state North Korea is in. Surely Kim Jong Il should be concentrating on improving the welfare of his own citizens instead of his armed forces. Typical behaviour of autocratic regimes, sell arms to make the world a more unstable place .

Countries have a right to defend themselves I suppose, even ones we might not like very much, but to single out Russia is unfair seeing as they aren't doing things any differently to anybody else. Also its not the autocratic regimes that are the biggest arms exporters either its the US and UK and were not too fussy to who well sell to. US miltary aid to Israel ran at some 2.76 billion dollars in 2003. Israel is the most beligerant state in the middle east and the US even concedes that its human rights record is poor in occupied palestinian territories, and thats not the worst of it.

http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/p...ticle_17.shtml

The UK has a very shady past concerning arms deals:

The UK is the second largest arms exporter in the world (after the USA) and has, according to government figures, exported over £27 billion of military equipment in the past five years alone. For decades the UK Government has had a policy of promoting arms exports, seemingly at any cost. The result of this policy is that the UK continues to arm repressive regimes around the world. In 2000, the UK licensed military exports to 30 of the 40 most repressive regimes in the world and British weapons are being used in most of the world's current conflicts.

http://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/she...t/briefing.php

The UK government has an inclusive attitude to DSEI: regimes who abuse human rights are happily allowed in. Previous guests included Indonesia, Libya, Israel and of course Saudi Arabia - the tyranny of choice for the UK's largest arms company BAE Systems. India and Pakistan both attended DSEI in 2005 - where they could buy weapons to aim at each other. While this year's guest list is still to be released, we can be sure that despotic regimes are likely to return.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/...unrunners.html

Countries identified by the government as having poor human rights records have been invited to the arms exhibition which opens in London's docklands today.
They include Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Colombia, Algeria, Jordan, and Indonesia, whose human rights records have been criticised by the Foreign Office. So, too, have two of the west's new allies - Libya and Iraq.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/se...tics.armstrade

Looks like we supply quite a few of the 'wrong' countries too.