NYT: Afghan Insurgents Are Using U.S.-Supplied Weapons
We've already seen this movie, and it has the same awful ending every time. But since these things tend to benefit the disaster capitalists, we'll see it again and again. Troops will die, corruption will be identified, the public will be outraged, the politicians will hold hearings - and nothing will change. What can you expect, really, when war zones are the ultimate free-market economies?
KABUL - Insurgents in Afghanistan, fighting from some of the poorest and most remote regions on earth, have managed for years to maintain an intensive guerrilla war against materially superior American and Afghan forces.
Arms and ordnance collected from dead insurgents hint at one possible reason: Of 30 rifle magazines recently taken from insurgents’ corpses, at least 17 contained cartridges, or rounds, identical to ammunition the United States had provided to Afghan government forces, according to an examination of ammunition markings by The New York Times and interviews with American officers and arms dealers.
The presence of this ammunition among the dead in the Korangal Valley, an area of often fierce fighting near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, strongly suggests that munitions procured by the Pentagon have leaked from Afghan forces for use against American troops.
The scope of that diversion remains unknown, and the 30 magazines represented a single sampling of fewer than 1,000 cartridges. But military officials, arms analysts and dealers say it points to a worrisome possibility: With only spotty American and Afghan controls on the vast inventory of weapons and ammunition sent into Afghanistan during an eight-year conflict, poor discipline and outright corruption among Afghan forces may have helped insurgents stay supplied.
It was just a matter of time before the US weapons sales on the black markets came full circle. Ahh perpectual war and conflict to keep the Corporate/Military Industrial Complex cash cow going.
by talking up how "illegal" guns end up in the hands of criminals.
When they know damn well that those "illegal" guns were originally bought legally, with background checks. But of course have a second, third, fourth--actually unlimited lives.
There's a great Vice magazine piece on "The Vice Guide to Travel" where they go to gun dealers in Afghanistan, and guess what? All the guns from previous conflicts--mostly Russian and U.S.-- are still there, being used and reconstituted to use against our soldiers.
Being that he is dragging the party into the gutter he resigns! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/limb...
Sorry Rush, you're resignation is not accepted. Clearly the one who gets apologized to is the leader of the GOP and no one is apologizing to Powell. Leader Limbaugh, you keep the crown!
Lard-Ass, Limp-Dick is highly paid to spew Reslug lies and how much he hates America and our freedoms. The vast majority of educated people, loath him, his habitual lies and his hate monguering which makes our country less safe.
Rush is running scared by trying to blame Obama and the "Drive by Media" for his being party leader. The Corporatist have probably let Rush know if he keeps being the face of the GOP he may wind up under the 50 yard line at Giants Stadium. Flaming Gasbag my be the Leader of the GOP but even he will bow to his corporate masters. He's not that powerful.
remember, a Palin/OXY-Limbaugh ticket in 2012 is what we should pray for. if the repubs are about 21% now??? what would this do for the repub party???
i don't know about you but not ever seeing Bush's face, i mean ever, just makes this a better world.
How to justify a war when you ran out of people to tortue.I hope this video helps people to see who the real enemey is.This first link is about the weapon.It can shoot around corners,Is fitted with a video camera can weapon can be attached to a pistol or rifle and both have silencers
http://www.gunmuse.com/News/Corner%20Shot%99%...
WARNING actual video of our soldiers being murdered with the weapon.As you watch the video notice just before the soldiers is hit with the bullet the camera recoils a little to the side also notice other soldiers and pedestrians never notice a shot has been fired and other soldiers looking franticly to try to figure out from which direction the bullet came from,Iraq'insurgents can not aford this weapon and it was just produced/invented a few years ago and has only been in use a few yrs.
http://judicial-inc.biz/Israelis_In_Iraq.htm
It's time you know who the real enemy is
Didn't he crow that he wasn't going to carry water for those who didn't deserve it, but hey - it didn't take him long to pick up his water pails and start schlepping.
It never ends, this shit.
...this is surprising or something? How many convoys of U.S. vehicles were ambushed coming out of Pakistan? Does anyone think that those didn't also include weapons and ammo?
The neocons truely do hate America.
a couple soldiers, or sergeant, trading ammo for smack, all the way up to generals trading ammo for luxurious retirements elsewhere.
American Empire builders never accept boundaries.
Nation on earth. Nothing new there why not arm today's friends knowing damn well they will be tomorrows enemies works like a charm.
Yea, so? That's what we do in America, we vote for the lesser evil, and accept the rest.......That's how it works, it would be really hard to sell a war that involves killing unarmed people, not impossible just hard.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/16/nat...
^^^^ a refresher, Iran buys used Military surplus, just in the past few years. Whadya guNa dew bout it? Hu,wut?
January 30, 2001
Fraud-As-Usual at the Redstone Arsenal
Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama -- where illegal foreign arms
merchants enjoy sumptuous lobster and prime rib lunches at US taxpayers'
expense.
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol...
The Bush administration couldn't have fucked up things any better.
...we flooded the country with weaponry and now insurgents have gotten their hands on it, no way.
-BTW, Iran has tested a missile that can hit Israel and American bases throughout the Middle East:
http://yellingatthemoon.com/2009/05/20/iran-t...
Iran has tested a missile that can hit Israel and American bases throughout the Middle East:
I cannot imagine the Iranians would use it/them as first-strike weapons. They're not stupid.
If anything, it's a warning to the stupit fucking blood-thirsty Israelis NOT to pull any stupit shit...
In Iraq they got away with palates of stacked and bundled $100 bills...
These guys are a buncha pikers, as corrupt officials go...
Using "Bush Logic" (you remember, the same B.S. logic that was used to condemn Iran) Perhaps WE must be sought out and destroyed before we destroy ourselves! ... yikes... perhaps this is the stuff black-holes are made of?!
of military armaments
And "we" aren't real careful about who we sell 'em too...
Remember that 21 year-old millionaire "arms broker" a couple of years ago?
People in the pentagon seem to be blind to the humor of this situation.
who recently worked as a "contractor" in Afghanistan. he worked with americans brits and french in a remote village. he just told me nearly 100% of any loaded magazines found on insurgents had american made ammo in them.
it's as simple as this. we pay afghans 40-80 bucks a month to fight for us. they can get one buck for every round we give them. he said, "do the math".
Why is Glen Beck riding on socialist Amtrak?
.
ooops wrong thread!
Was never trying to protect America, or get binladen, or helping the Afgan people or the Iraqi people.
It was all about greed and stupidity.
republicanism is a mental illness.
Susie, I think that shock at this development is just a tad naive.
It's unreasonable to expect halfway decently organized modern nation-states to keep things like that completely locked down.
Afghanistan is still in the sixth bloody century.
Hamid Karzai is no more a "President", in the sense we think of the term, than a seventh century Frankish monarch was "King of France". Hell, he's not even functional as the mayor of Kabul.
You've seen the Youtube vid about the Marine instructors dealing with what the Afghan "government" laughingly calls an "army", not so? In that sort of environment, there's exactly zero chance that weapons we supply won't "leak".
Hell, the Taliban are probably paying a smaller price per unit than the American taxpayers did to produce the damned things, to begin with.
The bottom line is that trying to build a nation-state in Afghanistan, the way that place is laid out now and for the rest of the foreseeable future, is about as practical as trying to nail jello to a wall.
I'm shocked that the U.S. acts as if we don't know how they got there.
A former award-winning journalist and lifelong class warrior, keeping a jaundiced eye on the Washington elite.
They've got to say something.
And they can't bloody well say they expected the locals to skim absolutely everything we ship the "government" that doesn't weigh 200 tons per unit and smell like an open sewer to boot.
They might refrain from stealing a shipload of live skunks. But they could possibly find a use for cowflops.
Our Afghan "allies" started out with the Northern Alliance. RAWA told us what those were, in some detail and well in advance.
If anything, our choice of pals in Afghanistan has gone downhill from there. I'm no longer amazed that our allies of 2002 could possess a "downhill", since our lords and masters seem to have found one.
Is the CIA still trying to buy back those "Stinger" missiles they armed the Mujahadin with?
Thanks to the DrugWar, cash-flush narcos can buy anything they want - and very often, they 'Buy American!' courtesy of the corrupt Mex military and police selling US taxpayer-funded weapons sent there to 'fight' drugs.
And we want to 'fight' the DrugWar in A-stan the same way we 'fight' it elsewhere in the world...like Mexico?
Right.
How effin' dumb can we get?
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