John Tirman: Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade

John Tirman
Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade
Free Press

MOST AVERAGE CITIZENS don't suppose that they really know what goes on in the world of politics, but plenty suspect that money and war go merrily hand in hand. In Spoils of War, John Tirman, executive director of the Winston Foundation for World Peace in Washington, D.C., attributes the human-rights catastrophe in Turkey to the U.S. arms industry and the policies that allow it to export weapons to the highest bidder without much ado. It's an interesting polemic, especially in light of recent developments in the Middle East: Why does the U.S. demand to monitor the weapons industry in nations like Iraq and simultaneously refuse any scrutiny of its own?

Spoils of War gives an insightful overview of the human-rights fiasco in Turkey, where millions of Kurds are being slaughtered--with weapons and helicopters provided by U.S. manufacturers--in Turkey's attempt to eradicate Kurdish nationalism. Placed at the opening of the book, Tirman's description of a typical military maneuver--the random annihilation of a Kurdish village--is brief, but powerful.

Tirman's recommendation that the U.S. place a ban on the export of offensive weapons to countries that might abuse them seems idealistic (if not naïve), as does his contention that such a self-imposed sales restriction would convince other vendor nations (mainly France, Germany, and China) to do the same. What Spoils of War does do convincingly is link swimming pools in Texas, Connecticut, and California--the three states whose economies depend most on the weapons industry--to the bombed out villages and shattered lives in faraway countries: The fruits of the trade, it seems, stay on the near side of our shores, the scarred fields and ashes on theirs.