The Arms Trade
The Arms Trade is one of the world's biggest industries employing many hundreds of thousands worldwide. It involves large, rich, prosperous countries such as the United Kingdom, the USA, France and Russia selling weapons to other countries. Over 75% of the weapons sold by the UK in 1989 were sold to poor, developing countries such as South Korea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. At first, there may seem to be nothing wrong with this common practice but a closer look reveals the brutality and horror behind this industry.
As I previously said the majority of the weapons are sold to impoverished countries. In most cases these countries have a crumbling infrastructure, extremely poor public services such as health and education and in many instances the countries' inhabitants have a lack food, water, housing and basic sanitation. The many billions spent annually on these instruments of war could easily take care and provide for the many starving populations worldwide. A particularly good example of this is in Pakistan, where the government spends 34% of its money on the military every year and 1% on healthcare. These are tragic circumstances where millions of lives could be saved instead of the buying of these evil machines.
This trade also makes war possible. The only reason that these weapons of destruction are bought is to kill. They destroy whole communities and maim and murder millions of innocent civilians throughout the world. If these sales were to stop taking place the world would be a much safer and more peaceful place for everyone. A perfect example of this savage brutality is the deaths of over 30 million people in 120 wars in the 55 years since the Second World War came to an end mostly in the Third World.
In many cases, poor countries have heavy debts to repay to rich countries. These amount to hundreds of billions all over the world. It is no coincidence that it is these same rich countries that sell the weapons....
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