One would think that a president who wins the Nobel Peace Prize would have the conscience to speak truth to power and say, "No more shipments of arms to Egypt.” When American weapons overthrow democratically elected leaders and murder citizens in the streets of Cairo, America loses the moral credibility to condemn regimes like Iran and Syria.
But Obama cannot speak truth to the power of the weapons manufacturers because they dominate our economy. U.S. weapons sales top the next 10 leading arms-selling nations combined.
In 1961, Republican President Eisenhower warned, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence... by the military-industrial complex.” We were once the breadbasket of the world. Now the web of weapons contractors extends through Boeing, GE, Raytheon, Honeywell, ITT Corp, much of the Fortune 500, half the research universities in the nation, and countless small electronics firms. (See Link 1, 2)
If what Jesus said be true - that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword - then what fate awaits our nation, whose economic livelihood chiefly consists in supplying the world with instruments of war?
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