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Garner Ted Armstrong
official govemmental postura of·
seeking a hall to the dangerous busi–
ness of manufacturing and traffick·
ing in conventional death-dealing
weapons. which generally find their
way into the hands of unstable gov–
ernments.
SPIAKS OUT!
But, behind all such ballyhoo lies
the stark fact that there is daily, con–
tinua! dealing in arms on the pan of
the United States. lronically, much
of the arms shipments are going to
countries only recently referred to, if
indirectly. by Henry Kissinger, who
said that he would not rule out the
use of force in the M iddle East if
Western powers were faced with
"strangulation."
T
he United'States is deeply com–
mitted to arms limitations,
right? No. wrong .
Shockingly, if "peaoe" were
to break out tomorrow.
war
would
surely be the resultl Why such a
paredox? Simply beoause the major
industrializad powers are so deeply
committed to their own "defensa"
programs that instant "peace," ren–
dering an such industries obsoleto,
would throw the combined econo–
mías of the world into such chaos as
to bring about drematic social revo·
lutions, rearming, and war.
lt is-the ultimate irony that, while
we
in America
seem
to be striving
toward defusing
a
dangerously
armed world, the Unitod States re–
mains the number one trafficker in
arms.
Up Service
We give lip servioe to halting arms
reces between antagonistic neigh–
bors. We philosophize about the
ancient "guns vs. b)Jtter" irrational–
ities of developing countries. We
read. with interest. of the newest
round of " SALT" (Strategic Arms
Lomitations) talks in Geneva. We
speculate about the wisdom of Presi–
den! Ford ·s recent accord wiih So–
viet Pany Chief Leonid Brezhnev
which would, in effect, slow down
funher Soviet development and de–
ployment of huge. super-booster
ICBMs. while permiuing the Soviets
to catch up with the U.S. in MIRVs
(Multip le lndependently-targeted
Reentry Vehicles), while permitting
the U.S. time to catch up with the
Soviets, who lead the U.S. in larger
booster rockets for heavoer paytoads
for ICBMs.
Remember the huge and costly
"ABM" program? lt cost billions of
dollars before being pared back. The
"antíballistic missile" system [or
" antimissile missiles" ] was hailed
as tha most advanced defensa
against the huge Soviet ICBMs. Tho
United States pushed through the
program and began to plan and de–
ploy ABM sites. Now, however,
sinos the Soviets are being allowed
to " catch up" with the U.S. in
" MIRVs" it ob\liously becomes im–
possible to deploy sufficient ABMs
14
to destroy the Soviet MIRVs. Thare–
fore, the U.S. "ABM" program will
become clearly obsoleta .
In terms of destructiva force, the
tactioians have hed to invent new
words to convey meaning to people
jaded by multi-megaton nuclear war–
heads. Today, they speak of super–
sanie bombers carrying "two world
war two's" in their bomb bays or
"three world war
two's"
in destruc–
tiva capabmty of nuclear missiles.
(This means tha explosiva force un–
leashed would equal, more or less.
the amount of explosivas utilizad by
all panicipants in World War
11.)
Actually, with " overkill " enough ·
to annihilate the whole world severa!
tim~ts,
.!tseems_sorneho)lll.obscene to–
teke cheer in the news that the su–
perpowers are thinking seriously
about ·"limiting" such destructiva
capacity - in the neighborhood of,
say, destruction of the world " only
about
7
or B times, .. instead of
20
times or more.
U.S. Arms Traffic
t
On a somewhat lesser scale, the
media continually reminds us of the
Perhaps most diHicult to under–
stand is the fact that severa! Mideast
govemments will receive sophis–
ticated weapons before U.S. defense
torces receive theml For example,
the U.S. Marine Gorps would like its
own share of the reoentry developed,
highly sophistícated antitank mis–
silos (capable of being fired by an
infantryman and proved highly ef–
fective), but the Marines are being
told they will have to wait until Oe–
cember - after the U .S. sells the
TOW antitank missiles to 14 nations
and gives them away to three
others.
Wflile
th~-U~S-
A'f('Y
mi!l~l ~tJjoy
recoiving its first consígnment of the
newly developed attack helicopters,
capable of flight in near zero visibil–
ity weather. equipped with fantastic
" search and destroy" radar and
weapons. it will have to wait about
2
years or so. while
440
helicopters
are sold to Saudi Arabia . The U.S. is
also selling Saudi Arabia a squadron
of F-4's and 26 new ships (while
many of the U.S. Navy ships are
' 'HEH
IS YC>Ua TOIM
Of
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HIEW
F-S>
ANO THl IATEST--MOOB. ATTAOC
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YOU'U
Off
ro
litAN
TO I.EAI.N TO
FlY THE F-14•. THIS
tS
THE ONLY WAY Wl CAN KI1P YOU CUIRENT ON THE I.ATfST O.$. HAR_o..
WAU .. THERFS VBY
UnLE OF
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terribly obsoleto), including torpedo
boats and missile-equipped patrol
chasers. The United States recently
sold the Shah of lran
$4
billion
wonh of weapons. including F-4
Phantoms, and the even superior F-
14 swing-wing fighter developed for
the U.S. Navy. lran is also gening
over
1,000
new tanks from Britain
1ncluding quite a number from Brit–
ain's Rhine Army supplies. and hun–
dreds more from the U .S .. thus
proving NATO members, for all their
words about the need to maintain
large torces in Europe ·as a bulwark
against Soviet aggression, are quock
to jump on the arms sales band·
wagon when quick profits can be
realizad.
Saudi Arabia has been supphed
with U.S. arms for more than 2
deoades. but by far the largest deal
was the recently approved contract
to purchase
60
F-5 (lightwoight) jet
fightors. including a large training
program· for Saudi pilots al U S. air
bases.
A State Depanment spokesman
said the sale would "contribute to
tho legitimate solf-defense needs" of
the country, end Mr. Kissinger said
he believed it would "contribute to
stability in the area."
Defense Secretary James Schles--
inger
defen~ -· ~v.olulninQu;s
·arms deals with the oil-producing
Arabs by arguing that it helps im–
prove relations between Washington
and Mideast capitals.
Naturally, there are always " rea–
sons" lor such arms sales or gi fts.
The " reasons" are usually first polit–
ical, and then economic . Govern–
ment officials defended sales of
ant itank missiles to Lebanon and
" Hawk" antiaircraft missiles to Jor-'
dan as "intended to contribute to a
climate of stability and as a stimulus
to Middle East peace negotiations
between the Arabs and Israel. "
Killed by Our Own Weapons
So, in any future war in the M id–
east, where for the past few 'rounds
it has seemed to be U.S. and French
woapons against Soviet weapons, it
may well be Jordanian-owned, U .S.
built antíaircraft missiles against
lsraeli-owned. U.S.-built F-4 fighter
bombers. against Saudi-owned.
U.S.-built
F-5
fighters, against
lsrael i -ownod, U .S.-built tanks.
against Lebanese-owned, U.S.-buil t
antitank missiles. The Egyptians will
be flying French Mirege foghters
against lsraeh-owned. French-bui lt
Mirage fighters.
But what if the U.S. is soon
dregged into an armeil conflict in
the Middle East?
Then. very likely,
U.S.
shi ps
would be attacked by U.S.-bui lt mis–
sile-equippod destroyers, while lend–
ing troops would be anacked by
U.S.-buil t hol icopter gunships (of
WEEK ENOING F'EB. 22. 1975