Picture of the Day - 2
(NYTimes) "The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers."
(No Iraq in that list? I guess they're not really "signing agreements.")
(Bigger picture if you click it.)
posted by mikevotes at
7:53 AM
6 Comments:
Iraq's not on the list because this is a chart of sales. We're giving away weapons like party favors in Iraq. No receipts. No serial number. No tracking. No clue....
By
-epm, at 1:16 PM
I realized that as I was driving around this morning.
By
mikevotes, at 1:32 PM
The real surprise I found from the chart were Venezuela, Brazil and Algeria.
Is there something we should take away from the apparent massive arms investment by South American countries? I assume Brazil's arms are coming from the US. But Venezuela investing as heavily as Saudi Arabia?! That's raising an uneducated eyebrow on this New England rube.
Algeria is the unreported hot-bed of fundamentalist extremism. Americans don't know Algeria from Albania, and yet this could be where the next wildfire of extremism flares up. Two billion dollars worth of weapons can spill an awful lot of blood... and how advanced are the arms being purchased?
By
-epm, at 1:54 PM
From my understanding, a good chunk of that money is being (mis)spent setting up these local reserve citizens units or whatever they are.
Chavez, convinced that the US may again try to invade or overthrow is equipping kind of a citizens army with the tools they would need for disorganized street fighting or insurgency.
(How that will play out later is uncertain.... Giving caches of arms to the population rarely ends up well for a strongman. But at the same time, insurgency is really his only credible threat if he believes the US might invade.)
They've also been buying helicopters if I remember right.
I don't know about Brazil, but I would guess the sales to Algeria are to the government as part of a keep the zealots down plan.
I don't know the bill of lading, but I would guess it's the standard Columbia package, helicopters, small arms, RPG's, machine guns, etc. without some of the coordinating and logistics technology leaving the US in good control of the loop as the connector through AWACS planes or satellite communications.
Just a guess, though.
By
mikevotes, at 2:21 PM
But is it the US or Russian that's selling to the Algerians?
Interesting insights into Venezuela. I had no idea. What you describe a reserve civilian army to be exactly the definition of Bush's "unlawful combatant." Hmmm.
By
-epm, at 5:02 PM
I would frame the Venezuelans more as a civilian reserve because they're receiving gov't weapons caches and the neighborhood officers at least are getting uniforms. (saw a photo.)
And, I had assumed that it was the US selling to the Algerians, but I don't know. Frankly, previous to this, I didn't know they were buying on this scale.
By
mikevotes, at 6:26 PM
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