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Opinion

Arms expos disguise death with words

Sousan Hammad
Opinion Columnist  

Every two years, at conference halls in London and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, thousands of military delegates and arms consumers from more than 50 countries join the world's leading weapons manufacturers to view, discuss and purchase the latest military technology. As these military exhibitors colorfully market their instruments of death, morality is left to linger at the doors of these convention halls, making their death tools seem benign.

The Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition, which will take place in London later this year, and the International Defence Exhibition, which was held last week in Abu Dhabi, claim to display a "multitude of defense equipment and systems" and say they are not "promoters of war" but of "defense." 

One of the official supporters of IDEX is the U.S. Department of Defense. 

According to Control Arms, a campaign run by Amnesty International, IANSA and Oxfam, in 2005 the U.S. earned more income from arms sales to developing countries than it gave in aid.

In 2005, IDEX earned $2 billion through commercial deals. The exhibitors, delegates and other IDEX partners are also "honorably" invited to a "breathtaking" gala dinner and ceremony at the Emirates Palace Hotel at the end of the five-day exhibition. Nothing marks a profitable deal better than having a glass of wine with other braggarts and businessmen to celebrate the smell of steel and money.

Exhibitors at the event, such as Lockheed Martin, which manufactures many of the missiles used by Israel against Arabs in Palestine and Lebanon, demonstrate the new and upgraded armaments to potential buyers with live firing and mobility demonstrations, sometimes using video games to demonstrate how well they can kill the "enemy." The reality of what these weapons are used for -- war and death -- is never mentioned in the brochures, however.

When Robert Fisk, a British journalist for The Independent, covered the 2001 IDEX in Abu Dhabi, he described how the "bazaar was decorated with tea stands, flowers, purple and gold and green in the early spring heat, as the merchants of death banned the word ‘war' and replaced it with ‘defence'" as they hawked their newest tanks, fighter jets and missiles. 

Fisk even mentioned the Americans' choice of names when it comes to weapons -- Apache helicopter, Arrowhead navigation system, Kiowa multiple launch platform, Hawkeye infrared sensors. American Indian heritage has become the face of death in a sickening appropriation brought to you by manufactures such as Boeing-Vertol, Bell, Hughes, Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin.

The United Kingdom's DSEI is referred to as the "world's most prestigious defense exhibition." The exhibitors provide arms for "defense" -- the word is easily used more than 100 times on DSEI's Web site and brochures -- with no mention of the deaths of the anonymous people who will be killed by the weapons that are on sale.

The arms industry would not flourish without war. It thrives on the leaders of countries to create mythological scenarios -- "security concerns" -- as reason to invade countries that are developing destructive weapons in secret.

The ethical disregard to humanity is apparent in the sterility of the language used to describe these arms exhibitions. The appropriation of certain terms and making their weapons seem like toys is what the sellers of the instruments of death are so good at.

Hammad, a communication junior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu