Hypocritical or Not?

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Its common for people, at least it is for me, to associate the Middle Eastern countries with severe violence. When I think of excessive weapons, I usually think of the Middle East. So far, Tony Horwitz’s novel has proven this generalization to be not extremely far from the truth. Most of Horwitz’s chapters have mentioned the sale of weapons, especially his chapter regarding the culture of Yemen. According to Horwitz, if the weapons are not being sold, then they are being carried or used. This cartoon represents these issues of violence. In this cartoon, a Palestinian and an Israeli are drawn and said to be carrying different types of explosives. The drawing is representative of the conflict between Palestine and Israeli, but upon seeing it, I couldn’t help going back to the issue of the Middle Eastern weapons issue. What I find interesting in this issue is the stand that the United States has on it. Obviously, the issue of smaller arms like rifles and machine guns in the Middle East is shocking to Americans, because no sane person would dare walk through a United States city openly holding a rifle. The production of larger weapons, such as nuclear bombs raises a different question for me. I have extremely limited knowledge on this subject, if any at all, but does it seem hypocritical that the United States can have whole nuclear arsenals yet our country doesn’t allow another country anything? I am completely against the production of nuclear weapons anywhere, but I always question this issue.
BD