IN 2015, POPE FRANCIS directed a provocative question to the U.S. Congress: “Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society?”
As the source of roughly 36 percent of the world’s military exports, the United States is the largest weapons supplier in the world. According to data released last spring by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. exported arms to at least 98 countries in the past five years. These deliveries often included advanced weapons such as combat aircraft, short-range cruise and ballistic missiles, and guided bombs.
Ten of the 25 countries buying the most weapons from the U.S. are NATO members or part of other U.S. security alliances. In 2017, the U.S. set a record of $75.9 billion in weapons sales in a year, pursuant to congressional approval. Saudi Arabia is the biggest recipient of U.S. arms. In August 2018, the Saudi military used a 500-pound, MK 82 guided bomb built by Lockheed Martin, a U.S. weapons manufacturer, to destroy a school bus in a market in the Yemeni town of Dahyan. They killed more than 50 people, including 40 children. One of the victims, Ali Mohammed Hassan Da’i, was 10 years old. Another, Ali Zaid Hussein Tayeb, was 9 years old.
In September 2018, two Yemeni children were killed in another bombing by the Saudi-UAE allied forces, with logistical support from the U.S. After sifting through a bombed home, rescue workers found the bodies of 3-year-old Nabil and newborn baby girl Sumood.
Imagine if these children were members of our own families: How would we feel?
In concert with arms contractors, the U.S. is engaged in military intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. The U.S. continues its military support for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The U.S. is proceeding with its military “pivot” in the Asia-Pacific in order to threaten and contain China. The U.S. wages drone attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Moreover, the U.S. continues with plans to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years to “modernize” its nuclear weapons arsenal instead of eliminating it.
Why are these weapons of destruction made and sold? “For money—money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood,” said Pope Francis.
Every September, the Air Force Association hosts more than 12,000 members of the defense industry at a weapons exposition near Washington, D.C. More than 149 exhibitors, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, met this year to display military drones, space missile guidance systems, high-energy laser weapons, and more.
“In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade,” concluded Pope Francis to Congress. For more than 40 years, the Campaign to Stop the Arms Bazaar, a community of Catholics and other religious groups, have held a public witness at this event, to pray for peace and nonviolently resist the arms merchants who meet to make a killing in profits. War should always scandalize Christians—war profiteering should scandalize us all.
Art Laffin is a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C., and editor of Swords into Plowshares.
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