New arms trade inter-library loan recommendation

[Tony Gosling]

The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade by Andrew Feinstein: review
'The Shadow World' is an incisive exposé of the weapons trade
By Justin Marozzi - 8:00AM GMT 01 Nov 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8848716/The-Shadow-World-Inside-theGlobal-Arms-Trade-by-Andrew-Feinstein-review.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shadow-World-Inside-Global-Trade/dp/0241144418/
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=159351#159351

If there is one book unlikely to appear on the 
Christmas reading lists of the former defence 
secretary Liam Fox and his self-professed adviser 
Adam Werritty, one suspects that this is it. The 
sorry case of Dr Fox and the mystery 
chum-cum-lobbyist amplifies what critics of the 
defence procurement industry – Feinstein prefers 
the racier “global arms trade” – have long 
argued. To put it mildly, and in a nutshell, it 
is not known for its transparency. Nor, for that 
matter, its ethics and integrity.

“I hope that you might ask whether we, the 
bankrollers, should not know more, far more, of 
this shadow world that affects the lives of us 
all,” Feinstein challenges the reader at the 
outset. “Whether we shouldn’t demand greater 
transparency and accountability from politicians, 
the military, intelligence agencies, 
investigators and prosecutors, manufacturers and 
dealers, who people this parallel universe.”

It is a measure of his incisive reporting, 
admirable research across several continents and 
sustained sense of outrage that by the end of 
this gripping volume many readers will agree with 
his central argument that a stiff dose of 
sunlight is the best disinfectant for this shadowy world.

There is an impressive historical sweep to the 
narrative. Feinstein, founder of Corruption Watch 
and one-time ANC Member of Parliament, gives an 
absorbing portrait of Basil Zaharoff, the world’s 
first flamboyantly high-living arms dealer, 
“godfather of the modern BAE”, a man who once 
boasted of starting wars in Africa so he could sell weapons to both sides.

Zaharoff was the model for George Bernard Shaw’s 
Andrew Undershaft, “a profiteer in mutilation and 
murder” in Major Barbara, and was famed both for 
the ubiquity and size of the bribes he paid to secure business.

Bribes are a depressingly constant feature of The 
Shadow World, whether it is the £40 billion Al 
Yamamah arms deal between BAE and Saudi Arabia, 
“arguably the most corrupt transaction in trading 
history”, or the illegal payments made by arms 
dealers like Ukrainian-Israeli Leonid Minin, who 
supplied Liberia with weapons worth millions of 
dollars in return for diamond and timber 
concessions. The cast of arms dealers like Minin 
is unsavoury but thoroughly riveting. They range 
from the superficially glamorous (Adnan 
Khashoggi) to the downright callous (Yoshio 
Kodama, “The Monster”, a Japanese war criminal) 
and the opportunistic (Viktor Bout, the “Merchant of Death”).

The United States and Britain occupy centre stage 
in this exposé, joined by the kingdom of Saudi 
Arabia, the author’s native South Africa, Sierra 
Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. BAE Systems is the 
arch-villain of the piece, although the American 
giant Lockheed Martin, together with those US 
companies like KBR, Halliburton and Blackwater 
that work closely with the arms industry, run it close.

Feinstein is tough on Washington’s notorious 
“revolving door” of people and money between the 
public and private sector. He notes that, within 
a year of taking office, President George W Bush 
had given more than 30 arms industry executives 
and lobbyists senior positions in his administration.

Feinstein has little time for those who argue 
that the arms business plays a vital economic 
role. He claims the numbers of those who work in 
it are routinely exaggerated and that their jobs 
require significant state subsidies. The issue of 
corruption, which is never far from the surface 
and is able to flourish under the cover of 
national security, further dents the industry’s 
credentials. He cites one study that estimates 
that the arms trade accounts for over 40 per cent 
of corruption in all world trade.

If the US and Britain come in for swingeing 
attacks, the less developed world, where checks 
on the arms trade are weaker, does not emerge 
with great credit either. Feinstein notes that in 
the early days of South African democracy, the 
country spent $6 billion on weapons at a time 
when the president said it was too poor to 
purchase antiretroviral drugs required to keep 
almost six million living with HIV and Aids 
alive. Over 355,000 died, apparently needlessly, 
over the next five years. One could blame this on 
poor governance writ large rather than the arms 
industry per se. India, the developing world’s 
largest arms purchaser, is currently seeking to buy weapons worth $42 billion.

Occasionally, Feinstein lays it on a little 
thick, for instance when he refers to Margaret 
Thatcher’s “fundamentalist free market ideology”, 
undermining a powerful thesis with a criticism worthy of an angry teenager.

He holds out little hope for the forthcoming 
international Arms Trade Treaty. For the 
foreseeable future at least, his desire for a 
“coherently regulated, legitimately financed, 
effectively policed and transparent” arms 
industry seems a distant prospect indeed.

The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

Andrew Feinstein

Hamish Hamilton, £25, 541pp
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"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic 
poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
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Fear not therefore: for there is nothing covered 
that shall not be revealed; and nothing hid that 
shall not be made known. What I tell you in 
darkness, that speak ye in the light and what ye 
hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:26-27

Die Pride and Envie; Flesh, take the poor's advice.
Covetousnesse be gon: Come, Truth and Love arise.
Patience take the Crown; throw Anger out of dores:
Cast out Hypocrisie and Lust, which follows whores:
Then England sit in rest; Thy sorrows will have end;
Thy Sons will live in peace, and each will be a friend.
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