Josh Paul, who spent a decade in State's bureau overseeing arms sales, exclusively spoke with HuffPost after quitting over the U.S. approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Of course, I neither wanted to portray arms sales as just something good. Unsurprisingly, states manage to have these twisted deals in the name of national interests.
That’s nothing new. Everything is used for politics nowadays and if there is some chance to portray a decision as bad (no matter if you need to leave out details) then someone will try to do it.
We have the constant discussion in Germany about “how the spineless Green party campaigned on reducing arms exports and instantly reversed their stance once in government”. That the arms deals they wanted to reduce went to countries like Qatar oder Egypt while the increase now is going to NATO allies and Ukraine is of course never mentioned as gray areas and details have no place in the populistic bullshit political discussion has become.
Of course, I neither wanted to portray arms sales as just something good. Unsurprisingly, states manage to have these twisted deals in the name of national interests.
That’s nothing new. Everything is used for politics nowadays and if there is some chance to portray a decision as bad (no matter if you need to leave out details) then someone will try to do it.
We have the constant discussion in Germany about “how the spineless Green party campaigned on reducing arms exports and instantly reversed their stance once in government”. That the arms deals they wanted to reduce went to countries like Qatar oder Egypt while the increase now is going to NATO allies and Ukraine is of course never mentioned as gray areas and details have no place in the populistic bullshit political discussion has become.