An excerpt from, "President Obama's Lesser-Known Legacy: "Arms Dealer in Chief"" By Owen B. McCormack, Truthout, March 23, 2016:
Ironically, amid all of the sanctimonious finger-pointing, a critical detail has gone relatively unnoticed: President Obama has discreetly brokered and authorized the sale of more arms to foreign governments than any other US president since World War II. How has such a critical detail gone relatively unnoticed by media seemingly fixated on the United States’ “culture of violence”?
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Arms are purchased by an array of “politically stable” governments such as Turkey and Taiwan. They are also purchased by corrupt, weakened and “unstable” governments such as those of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where there is little to no accountability in terms of who is utilizing or selling the weapons. During President Obama’s first five years in office, new agreements under the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales program — the largest channel for US arms exports — totaled over $169 billion. According to William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, in an interview with Democracy Now!, the volume of deals authorized by President Obama has exceeded the amount approved by President George W. Bush throughout his tenure by nearly $30 billion.
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Each time President Obama morally admonishes the National Rifle Association and its supporters or implores Americans to “politicize” gun violence, we should be challenging him to come clean about his administration’s role in spreading weaponry worldwide.
