THE WAR IN GEORGIA Active Denial Systems and other new technology

The Bush regime has been using 9/11 as an excuse for the reckless sale of weapons around the globe, working $16.9 billion in new arms deals in 2006, 41.9 percent of the world's total. This compares to runners-up Russia, $8.7 billion, and Great Britain, $3.1 billion, writes Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information (CDI), which tracks such data. U.S. military aid is growing "at the same time as human rights conditions are worsening," Stohl writes and cites the example of Ethiopia, "which is carrying out a brutal counterinsurgency campaign within its own borders" and Nepal, whose security forces "opened fire on peaceful strikers and anti-government demonstrations." Uzbekistan, where the USA is also pouring millions of $'s 'aid', thousands of Muslims being imprisoned without due process and many tortured to death. One headline-making scandal, of course, is the $10 billion in US taxpayer's money Bush has paid to the Pakistan military since 9/11. Bush also signed-off the multi-billion dollar sale to Musharraf of F-16 jet fighters that can pack nuclear warheads, just as he okayed their sale earlier to India, escalating the capability of these long-time antagonists to inflict dreadful atrocities if they go to war. Since 2001, CDI has tracked skyrocketing U.S. military aid to the following 25 countries that "have a unique role in the war on terror' through the strategic services they provide the U.S. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. CDI documented U.S. aid in foreign military, and direct commercial, sales to the 25 soared 400% over the five years prior to 9/11. This despite a 2006 U.S. State Department finding of "serious," "grave," or "significant" abuses committed by them against their own citizens.