I remember seeing a documentary while I was in France about Islamists in the jungles of Indonesia. It was really a terrifyingly intimate account of the lives these men lead hidden away.
Though the whole thing was generally very unsettling, there was one part that really got under my skin. During a diatribe about how they would do all that they could to bring down the west and what not, they picked up their guns and held them up to the camera, laughing and pointing to the “Made in the USA” engraved on their rocket launchers, their machine guns, etc.
I want to know some stuff about how it actually happens that the US actually disseminates weapons around the world. Large and small. Yeah, I seriously doubt these men bought their weapons from a legitamate dealer, but when a newspaper says the US gave a country weapons, does that mean the US government, or an American company like Lockheed Martin sold them weapons?
Or does the US do it through a company like Lockheed Martin?
Are US weapons companies aloud to sell weapons to anyone with the funds to buy them? I remember, vaguely, a 60 minutes peice a while back on a guy in, maybe, Tennessee who had invented one o’ them big ole’, heavy duty machine guns (anti-tank, maybe) and had made a killing off selling them. Turns out, a lot of them, if I remember correctly, had ended up in the hands of less than savory people. Maybe, the people who want to kill our soldiers.
Anyone know more about this?
What responsibility to weapons manufacturers have to make sure that their weapons are not going to get in the hands of the wrong people (which, I know, is very hard to qualify).
I put this in GQ because I want to know how these issues stand right now, not how they should be.
If someone wants to ask if I’ve seen Lord of War, I haven’t. Maybe I should.