What’s a Weapon or Two
I am aware that Joe already posted about this news, but I thought it might be of interest to offer a somewhat different perspective.
It is news like this that gives me a severe headache:
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.
The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
These weapons fall into the hands of terrorists of all stripes, but especially the PKK. The Turkish army is fighting against the PKK every day. During those fights, the Turkish army found American weapons in the hands of PKK terrorists. Turkey complained to America, now its complaints and anger are validated: the PKK is indeed using American weapons. Because of America’s uncarefulness, Turks are dying. Cernig comments:
It has been a long held belief of mine, supported by a good deal of evidence, that pretty much any nation state, criminal organization or shady businessman with access to spare small arms and platoon level infantry weaponry is selling weapons either directly or indirectly to the Iraqi black, gray and white markets. One of the larger foreign suppliers of arms to the Iraqi black market is the United States government. These actions were not intentional, just part of the cluster of amazing incompetence and unnaccountability of the Heritage Foundation jokers who were the ‘best and brightest’ the GOP could find willing to go to supply sider heaven.
It might be unintentional, but Turkish soldiers get killed by the PKK nonetheless. From Turkey’s perspective it does not matter much whether the arms are sold intentionally or unintentionally to the Kurdish workers organization. The result is the same: Turks die.
This is a major problem which has to be solved. It should also encourage the US to – finally – take the threat the PKK poses to the stability in the region seriously. Of course, I have been saying this for months but not much has changed since then. If the US does not act, it will not take long before Turkey acts. The MHP (a nationalist party) has won a lot of seats during Turkey’s elections in July. It will call for military action – and the Turkish people will support it (and the CHP) in this regard.
Of course, not only are these weapons used by the PKK, they are also used by other terrorist groups who kill Americans with them: American weapons kill Americans because the American army is not careful enough.
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11 Responses to “What’s a Weapon or Two”
An interesting post. Also, slightly off topic, your recent posts and photos from Turkey have been fascinating, Michael. I look forward to reading more of your insights.
Regards,
Jeb
MvdG – It appears your trip to Turkey has tainted your opinion. Remember all the bluster about Iranian weapons in Iraq. This report now makes it appear that the US is now a arms supplier to insurgents. What is missing from the narrative is corruption and sectarianism. One has to wonder, has the US dragged it’s feet in arming and training the Iraqis police and army because we don’t trust them. What no one will address, when we leave the Iraqis need heavy weapons to defend themselves. Will the US deny the Iraqis armor, artillery and attack helicopters because we can’t trust them to use the weapons against each other and US TROOPS?
Hmm, what happened to your story on this topic, Jeb? I really hate wasting time and efforts on a comment to a posting that is withdrawn after only a short showing…
I have to head out the door, but his post should be there. Very few posts on tmv are pulled and that’s only when the writer decides maybe he/she should have done it differently. I also don’t pull posts others do. You should find it by scrolling down. If it’s not there, then just go to the archives and you’ll find it there. OR you can do a google news or google web search. It’s the nature of blogging that all posts eventually go lower on the page and eventually into archives. But his post should still be there.
I scrolled back two days, nothing, and the search engine in the upper right corner doesn’t produce anything, too. It’s not that important, but maybe Mike will check if the server somehow screwed up. Thx for looking, Joe!
Just a quick heads-up, Michael. It was my co-blogger Fester who wrote the Newshoggers post, not me. That said, I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Regards, Cernig
Actually, no one who is noticed by the MSM has addressed this, but Robert Dreyfuss, writing in the Washington Monthly discusses exactly why we should not arm them:
sorry about the big font. it must have copied over from the source.
Gray,
Thanks for checking up on that. To be honest, I am not quite sure what happened to it either. I did some editing to make it a bit more clear (as per your suggestion) but now it isn’t on the main page. Whatever the case, I may repost it later today if it doesn’t show up. Sorry about the confusion!
Michael, it seems like you’re really buying into the Turkish kool-aid over there.
Jeez. I wonder how many Kurds, errr, sorry “mountain Turks” you have spoken to. I have absolutely little to no sympathy for the PKK, but let’s not all pretend the Turks are innocent angels in this particular scenario. They have been ruthlessly brutalizing the Kurds in all sorts of various ways, ya know, little things like destroying entire villages, mass murder, rapes, torture, the fun kind of stuff, for the better part of 80 years.
Perhaps when the Turks actually start behaving in a more civilized manner towards their own citizens, especially the minorities within their borders, then I will actually give a shit about what weapons the PKK have supposedly gotten from America. As it stands, they deserve each other and were made for each other.
The Turks want Kirkuk and Iraqi Kurdistan. They believe that it is a Turkish province that belongs to them. The PKK is a beautifully convenient scapegoat for them to use as a pretext for them to chase the “terrorists” all the way into Northern Iraq. All they’re looking for is the right opportunity. The threat doesn’t really come for the PKK, but from the Turks themselves and their enormous paranoia. Perhaps you should pay more attention to what the nationalists and even some of the Islamists are actually saying.
Our government can’t account for a lot of it’s own equipment – it does not surprise me at all it is unable to account for weapons it has given to a foreign government in a civil war. Talk about impossible to track. Who knows if the 30% figure is even accurate – it’s not like auditors can roam the country to keep track of such minutiae.