UK Arms Dealers Cash In on Arab Spring

August 29, 2011 10:42 by

The Times of London (paywall) reports that UK arms sales to the Mideast — primarily to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Libya (!?) — jumped 30 percent during the Arab Spring. We’re talking about £30.5 million worth of weapons sold between February and June:

Weapons exported include those capable of being used for internal repression, such as small-arms ammunition, sniper rifles, shotguns and submachineguns. The revelation has prompted fierce criticism of the Government, which has been accused of having “no coherence” to its arms policy . . .

As details continue to emerge of atrocities committed by supporters of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, defence companies will meet British diplomats attached to other unstable regimes, such as Yemen and Eritrea, next month, to pitch “export opportunities”.

Despite the atrocities, care to guess which country the British BDS movement prefers to stop arms sales to?

Category: Backspin Tags:, ,
Leave a Comment

You may also like:

  1. Arab Spring Sprouts More Mea Culpas
  2. Israel and the Arab Spring: Quote Unquote
  3. Why Israeli Housing Protests Don’t Parallel the Arab Spring
  4. Why Naqba Protests Have No Connection to Arab Spring
  5. HR’s Israel Spring Mission

Leave a Reply

More in Backspin (260 of 5769 articles)


The Washington Post says Israel is giving more weight to Egyptian public opinion. Here's one indication of where Egyptians are ...

View in: Mobile | Standard