From Don in Berlin:
"Last year there was
a short lived discussion in German media and political circles, if the country
really should sell tanks to the house of Saud. It was a surprise that this was
discussed at all, because such weapon deals are usually kept secret and
discussed and approved without Parliamentary control by the Federal Security
Council.
Now, after an
parliamentarian request for information by the socialist party Die Linke, it
turned out that Germany doubled its weapons export to the gulf states in 2012.
Best customers and partners in democracy are the GCC countries
Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman,
Saudi Arabia etc.
Saudi Arabia alone bought
hardware for 1.2 Billion Euros! Unfortunately there are no details on what
exactly was sold to Bahrain, but sales also increased there. Another exemplary democracy profiting from increased weapon
deliveries was Algeria..
The story was broken
by the Süddeutsche Zeitung
Hypocritical Germany is still the third
largest exporter of weapons in the world."
