MERCHANTS OF DEATH TRIBUNAL — PUTTING WAR PROFITEERS ON TRIAL

January 1, 2024 Buffalo Latino Village

Hola, Nos Amigos!! Como el héroe César Chávez dijo, “La historia juzgará a las sociedades y a los gobiernos, y a sus instituciones, no por su tamaño o por lo bien que sirven a los ricos y poderosos, sino por la eficacia con la que responden a las necesidades de los pobres y los indefensos” (“History will judge societies and governments – and their institutions – not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.”)

The U.S. government is failing. One basic way U.S. society and government fail to support the poor and helpless relates to weapons. Of the world’s nations, the U.S. is the #1 weapons supplier/arms manufacturer, responsible for 38.6% of world arms sales from 2017 to 2021. The U.S. also spends more than the next nine countries put together on arms and the military – all money that is not used for people’s needs. To keep an industry going, products produced must be consumed, so that the consumer will need to buy more. Otherwise, the “market” would be saturated, and the industry would dry up and fade away. If only that’d happen to weapons manufacturers! The weapons we’re talking about are designed for mass destruction and have been used for war crimes. That’s illegal.

International law declares: military responses must be proportional (not stronger and fiercer than the event responded to); civilians must be left out of it’s hospitals, medical facilities, and schools must be left undisturbed. an occupier is not permitted to bomb the occupied. war is illegal (see Kelloggs-Briand Pact of 1927/8). Moreover, the Leahy Amendment is a U.S. law that requires our government to stop weapons manufacturers from supplying weapons to a country credibly accused of war crimes.

As noted in the above map, local companies are supplying weapons in violation of the Leahy Law, and our government – rather than shutting it down – is fostering and even paying for munitions (so-called “foreign aid”). Please be on the lookout for the next steps as we trumpet these crimes and attempt civil resistance, efforts to get our government and associated parties to follow the law. Children and innocent civilians are dying in war zones and through war crimes – in Gaza, Ukraine, Congo, and Sudan. This must stop.

The Merchants of Death Tribunal is putting arms manufacturers on trial before a tribunal of international law professors and other experts. Sign up at merchantsofdeath.org and start receiving weekly videos presenting evidence. There are also monthly meetups on Zoom and a backlog of videos already released that you can access through Rumble. Illuminating the crimes of these “Merchants of Death” can help shut them down. That would thwart the slaughter of innocents and enable spending your tax dollars on meeting crucial needs rather than on massacres and state terrorism.