War is big business, a business of death and destruction where no matter what side, you can always count on the weapons manufacturers to come out on top. And boy oh boy, is this ever true for Raytheon. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has just signed a deal worth $1.6 billion to obtain new weapons.
The top Pentagon contractor has been implicated in war crimes in the Gulf area by Amnesty International investigations. Apparently Raytheon is transferring Western weapons to militia groups in the region who are not accountable for how they use them. But, it's not like Raytheon gives a shit anyways, as the CEO John Harris, simply justified his actions as "we don't make policy".
The ingoing slaughter in Yemen has been aided by the smuggling of these weapons, as arms control and human rights researcher at Amnesty International Patrick Wilcken says:
"Emirati forces receive billions of dollars' worth of arms from Western states and others, only to siphon them off to militias in Yemen that answer to no-one and are known to be committing war crimes."
"The ongoing carnage against civilians in Yemen—including at the hands of the Saudi Arabia and UAE-led coalition and the militias it backs—should give serious pause to all states supplying arms. Emirati forces receive billions of dollars' worth of arms from Western states and others, only to siphon them off to militias in Yemen that answer to no-one and are known to be committing war crimes."
Amnesty is calling for a stop to arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE and their coalition allies. Since 2015, they've aided in killing an estimated minimum of 60 million Yemenis, uprooting millions and leaving millions more in starvation.
As the Agence France-Presse reported:
The United Arab Emirates announced Monday it had signed deals worth more than $1.6 billion for the purchase of Patriot missile launchers from U.S. arms giant Raytheon, state media said.
The deals, inked on the second day of an international military exhibition in Abu Dhabi, come a day after the UAE announced it would buy $353 million worth of Patriot missiles from Raytheon.
Some $3.2 billion in deals have been signed between the oil-rich state and western companies at the expo, set to run through Thursday, state-run WAM news agency said.
The Amnesty report clears up what happens to some of the weapons supplied by Western powers:
While China, the USA, the U.K., France, and other European states have rightly been criticized for supplying arms to Coalition forces, and Iran has been implicated in sending arms to the Huthis, a new threat is emerging.
As the ground war evolves, weapons are not only being used by UAE forces in Yemen, but are also being passed on to completely unaccountable Coalition-allied militias, some of whom stand accused of war crimes.
The House recently voted on a bill to end the U.S.' involvement in the War on Yemen. The Senate is expoected to vote on it's version of the bill within 30 days. Despite calls from some politicians to "stop selling weapons to help Saudi Arabia and the UAE continue to perpetuate this disastrous war", will companies like Raytheon budge? Not likely. It's all about the Benjamin's for them. CREAM - cash rules everything around me.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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