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From 1968, when its production of cluster bombs first captured the public's attention, through 1990, when it spun off its weapons production division as a separate company (Alliant Techsystems), Honeywell was one of the world's most visible arms merchants. This was primarily because of the campaigns of the Minneapolis-based Honeywell Project, whose fiery protests against Honeywell's land-mine manufacturing overshadowed the company's many commercial products. But even though the high-profile weapons are gone, Honeywell's control systems have kept it an arms export player. In fact, as its promotional literature suggests, Honeywell is all about control. Honeywell's control systems range from benign (air conditioners and thermostats) to predatory (avionics systems on fighter jets). To produce the latter, Honeywell frequently subcontracts to giants such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, both of which sell extensively to foreign customers. Even though Honeywell is primarily in the controls business, its rocket launchers are still making the rounds. In the Clinton era the Excess Defense Article (EDA) program has sent Honeywell rocket launchers to eager allies such as Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. Under the EDA program, obsolete technology the Pentagon doesn't want is "recycled" (meaning, given for free) to today's friend (who, like Iraq, may be better armed as a future enemy). Weapons, components, and spare parts -- whatever the Pentagon has lying around is fair game. Your tax dollar spans the globe, bringing you the constant variety of war. This conservationist approach ensures that the sun never sets on U.S. arms. Under President Clinton, the EDA program has been seen primarily as a kind of loss-leader program, getting not-so-chummy countries with not-so-great cash flow into the habit of receiving American sales and service. In addition to supporting our allies, EDA arrangements promote the manufacturer. Refusing, for example, to send such weapons to Turkey would cost no jobs, as the weapons are already made and have no direct effect on America's cash trade balance. Yet our addiction to arming the world means that EDA deals get done anyway, all in the name of getting future arms salesmen's feet in the door. Thus, in July 1994, the Pentagon sent Greece a Honeywell ASROC antisubmarine rocket launcher as an EDA item (along with spare parts for an A-7E jet, a Phalanx trainer, and two AN/SPS-52 radars -- EDAs tend to be grab-bag deals, much like an office's Christmas party gift exchange). Two months later, the very same model Honeywell ASROC rocket launcher went to Greece's nominal enemy, Turkey, along with a HAGAN trainer, a Phalanx maintenance trainer, and 88,000 rounds of 40 mm ammunition, all free from Uncle Sam. Within two years, the two countries were on the verge of war with one another over Cyprus, both brandishing many of the same made-in-the-U.S.A., NATO-standard weapons. Clinton's zest for closing the deal is characterized by this sort of willingness to arm both sides in regional conflicts; as in the case of Peru's struggle with Ecuador; India's with Pakistan; Taiwan's with China; and Israel's with every Middle Eastern oil-soaked country. It has, incidentally, also been marked by a flagrant disregard for human rights, as with Turkey, Egypt, and Zimbabwe. -- Geov Parrish | | |||||||||||||
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