Thursday, February 12, 2009

On donating guns to the bad guys


Afghan President Hamid Karzai looks at an artillery piece during a ceremony of U.S. military arms donation to Afghanistan's army on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007. AP photo by Musadeq Sadeq

Oh great -- the U.S. is arming the Afghans who are shooting at our troops there. Or so it seems likely.

American military officials failed to keep complete records on about 87,000 rifles, pistols, mortars and other weapons — about one-third of all light arms the United States sent to Afghan soldiers and police officers from December 2004 to June 2008, auditors from the Government Accountability Office found. Further, American military trainers kept no reliable records on 135,000 more weapons donated by 21 countries, including Hungary, Egypt, Slovenia and Romania.

New York Times,
February 11, 2009

Where have we heard that one before? Oh yeah, just about 18 months back, in Iraq.

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

Washington Post
August 6, 2007

It's a misuse of the U.S. Army to send it to occupy countries that don't want us with no clear mission. Yet that's what empires do and we seem addicted to it. Then we pass out the guns to shoot our own troops with.

It would be easy to conclude we need to get out of the empire business.

1 comment:

Darlene said...

You said it well. Remember when Saddam Hussein was our buddy and we armed him to the teeth? How many of those weapons were used to kill our young men and women?