Capitol Calling Party: Arms Sales & Transparency

On Tuesday, December 21, join CODEPINK Congress as we learn about the hidden ways the U.S. is arming the world.  Most arms sales have been conducted through the State Department until recent years – now, “small” arms sales have been moved to the Department of Commerce. The two departments have different rules for how to conduct sales, and the shift has led to less transparency in the U.S. arms trade. Our guests will focus on how the U.S. sells weapons, and how the shift to the Department of Commerce has made it easier for military contractors to profit from global weapons sales.

SPECIAL GUESTS:

John Lindsay-Poland coordinates the Stop U.S. Arms to Mexico Project of Global Exchange, and works for police demilitarization with the California Healing Justice Program of the American Friends Service Committee in Oakland, California. He has written about, researched and advocated for human rights and demilitarization of US policy for more than 35 years. His research has focused on U.S. foreign military assistance and military bases and respect for human rights, and he produced the documentary and companion report, Where the Guns Go: U.S. Policy and Human Rights in Mexico. From 1989 to 2014, he served the Fellowship of Reconciliation, as Latin America program coordinator, research director, and founder of its Colombia peace team. He studied as an undergraduate at Harvard University. He is author of Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama (Duke University Press, 2003) and Plan Colombia: U.S. Ally Atrocities and Community Activism (Duke University Press, 2018).

Danaka Katovich is the Middle East and Peace Collective coordinator for CODEPINK. Danaka graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science in November 2020. Since 2018 she has been working towards ending US participation in the war in Yemen. At CODEPINK she works on youth outreach as a facilitator of the Peace Collective, CODEPINK’s youth cohort that focuses on anti-imperialist education and divestment.

Also featuring SPECIAL HOSTS:

Rushi Sen is a third year student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She lives in Minneapolis and is in CODEPINK’s Peace Collective.

Aidan Cross is an Americas correspondent for The London Globalist and a member of the CODEPINK Peace Collective. He is an undergraduate studying International Relations and Chinese. His main fields of interest include China’s engagement with the developing world, the Belt and Road Initiative, changes in the global order, and America’s image and influence in the world.

 WHEN

December 21, 2021 at 5:00pm – 6:00pm (PST)

 WHERE

Zoom

 CONTACT

Marcy Winograd · marcy@codepink.org

Can we count you in?