Weapons market still making a killing
Vehicular homicide: A humdinger of a Humvee for sale at the Middle East sales event, getting good play in the Algerian paper Ennahar.
Come to the Abu Dhabi arms fair in the United Arab Emirates and get your red-hot U.S.-made M-16 personal machine gun!
There's one place in the Middle East that is currently peaceful and in which traders are flush and enthusiastic: the region's biggest arms fair, IDEX 2009 in Abu Dhabi.
IDEX 2009 iis one of the few markets in the world in which money is freely flowing.
Despite that, the huge fair is getting practically no notice from the Western press.
The Arab world, on the other hand, is gung-ho. Media outlets like Algeria's Ennahar are running stories and pics featuring U.S.-made products.
Agence France Presse, in "Mideast's top arms show defies cash crunch," has details — this should restore your confidence that the world is still functioning:
From handheld stun and smoke grenades to fearsome armoured vehicles, a full range of deadly armaments is on display in the International Defence Exhibition and Conference on a site the size of around 15 football pitches.
Nearly 900 exhibitors from 50 countries are taking part in the biennial event which has expanded since the last time it was held, in 2007, with extra features including a newly-dredged area of quay for warships and naval craft.
The show, expected to attract some 45,000 trade visitors over five days, kicked off with a military display, including an aerial performance by UAE airforce Mirage and F-16 fighters.
Parts of the U.S. economy aren't so bad: We're still the largest arms exporter on the planet, though Brazil (of all places) is catching up.
The U.N., which sends peacekeeping missions around the globe, has no chance of stemming the arms trade, because, as Global Issues pointed out in November 2008:
