War is good business

If not our own, then somebody else's. Robert Silvey of Rubicon:

Frida Berrigan of the World Policy Institute has details at TomDispatch. She points out that, among all nations on this planet, we greedy, militaristic Americans are:

• first in oil consumption
• first in carbon dioxide emissions
• first in external debt
• first in military expenditures
• first in weapons sales
• not first in automobiles
• not even first in bulk goods

But then she comes back to our real economic strength—weapons sales—and breaks it down. We are:

• first in sales of surface-to-air missiles
• first in sales of military ships
• first in military training
• first in private military personnel

That's what keeps the economy humming, all those profits in wars, our own and other countries'. When the US is not starting a war or exacerbating an existing war, we're making it easy for others to start their own.