Enabling Hostilities

The world armaments industries have always done a booming business.  Countries that face difficulties in affording basic necessities for their populations always seem to be able to find the wherewithal to purchase arms and ammunition, planes and armoured vehicles.  And those countries whose arms industries help raise their GDP have no hesitation in extending credit to those whom they wish to encourage to continue buying their war machines.

It is always the countries whose backgrounds are those of threatening their neighbours who seem to be most fully invested in arms purchases, in stockpiling weaponry, in training their military, and feeding and supporting their military machine while exploiting the resources of their countries to afford their weapons of choice.  In the process having no difficulty in making the choice to ignore the needs of the civilian population.

North Korea presents as the most extreme of these instances, given the state of hunger in that country as people perish through lack of food and medical treatment while the ruling elite and their immense military machine are assured of rations and luxuries denied the common man.  The deterrent effect of being known to be in possession of the latest technology in ballistic missiles, in flirting with nuclear warhead production instills fear in the neighbours of Iran.

The arms-producing and -exporting countries of the world don't seem to be the least bit troubled by doing business with tyrants whose treatment of their vulnerable population is recognized as abusive, even though selling advanced technological machines of war may imperil countries in the near distance.  Libya and its terrorist-supporting, international-meddling leader Moammar Gadhafi a case in point, welcomed in England, France, Italy, the United States for lucrative trade deals that could be gained.

The invasion of Iraq by the United States and the "coalition of the willing', unseated a murderous dictator infamous for his penchant for unsettling the balance of power in his region.  His removal as a firm-handed tyrant who kept the vicious antipathy of sectarian and tribal and ethnic adversity under control unleashed a deadly bloodbath between the opposing Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, complicated by the incursion of foreign terror groups.

Just as occurred in Rwanda, with one tribal element encouraged by a colonial power to maintain control over another, eventually leading to a deadly confrontation and the mass annihilation of tribal members, in Iraq the minority ruling Sunnis were overtaken by the majority Shia.  The coalition government of Shia, Sunni and Kurds presented a working facade as long as the Americans guided the new administration.

With the withdrawal of the Americans the veneer of co-operation collapsed as the Shia-prominent "democratic" government lost no time in estranging their Sunni counterparts, charging them with crimes punishable by death.  But Iraq is now 'democratic', a duly elected government as it were, and whatever it does it can insist that it is playing by Western rules, Arab-style.

And the United States, never willing to miss an opportunity to extend its hegemony, particularly taking the advantage away from Russia or China, is now selling F-16 fighter jets to Iraq, anxious to re-build its air force to the state it represented under Saddam Hussein when it had one of the larges air forces in the Middle East, their airplanes supplied by the Soviets.

Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has increased his order of U.S. supplied fighter jets.  "Iraq intends to have equipment which is more developed than neighbouring countries have", according to the deputy head of Iraq's parliament's security and defence committee.  A situation which reflects Iran's drive to nuclear possession of warheads designed to stir fear in the hearts of its neighbours.

The president of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, Masoud Barzani, has articulated the unease of Iraq's neighbours, in their deep concern over the receipt of those jet airplanes.  "I feel Kurdistan's future is in severe danger because of (Maliki)", said Mr. Barzani.  "F-16 (jets) should not reach the hands of this man."