NY Times Report on US-Supplied Small Arms Disappearing in Iraq and Afghanistan

ordnanceguy

ordnanceguy

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Gentlemen:

I offer you today's heartburn. The NY Times has a column today by C.J. Chivers who has written extensively on military weapons in the past. He is a knowledgeable guy, much more so than what most media outfits employ, and he always looks for interesting angles.

His column today reports that roughly 1,000,000+ small arms were supplied by the US to Iraqi and Afghani forces (no exact number is known even to the Pentagon, apparently). In what will be no surprise to readers here a large proportion of these weapons have gone missing and cannot be accounted for. US supplied M-4 full auto carbines are being sold via Facebook by Iraqi posters, according to the article.

Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/m...on=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below
 
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ordnanceguy said:
Gentlemen:

I offer you today's heartburn. The NY Times has a column today by C.J. Chivers who has written extensively on military weapons in the past. He is a knowledgeable guy, much more so than what most media outfits employ, and he always looks for interesting angles.

His column today reports that roughly 1,000,000+ small arms were supplied by the US to Iraqi and Afghani forces (no exact number is known even to the Pentagon, apparently). In what will be no surprise to readers here a large proportion of these weapons have gone missing and cannot be accounted for. US supplied M-4 full auto carbines are being sold via Facebook by Iraqi posters, according to the article. The Times' ingrained leftist viewpoint is evident so that bleeds through the article. Try to ignore that spin and just go for the ugly facts.

Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/m...on=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below
Click to expand...

I figured that would happen from day one. We'll never get the truth from those in charge. I still see videos of our stuff-tanks-hummers etc-being used by the enemy.
 
One of these days the people in charge are going to figure out the "cultural" differences, maybe. What we consider corruption, illegal, and unethical, like bribery, theft, extortion, and graft, is just a way of life over there. What makes us get all indignant is met with a wink and a smile.
 
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Sounds like a repeat of "Fast and Furious" project. Somehow the gun owners of America will be blamed for this mess, and as a result more "Common Sense" gun laws will be needed!
 
Ron M. said:
The Finns used the Russian's own Mosin Nagants against them in the Second World War. You would think someone would have figured this out by now....
Click to expand...

And many of these too:
T34_2.jpg
 
The Russian T 34 tank was one of the best of WW II. Even the Germans re-used captured ones. If they couldn't use them for some reason here's what they did in at least one instance! This was a few yearsback and I believe this tank is now restored to running condition.
Jim

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOMiRsodVHk[/ame]
 
I'm skeptical of anything written in the New York Times. The entire story could be made up, or purposefully misleading in other critical ways. They've done it before and they print semi-truthful things every day, pushing their agenda. Maybe it's accurate, but I'd have to see more before I accepted anything from the NYT 100% on faith.
 
Old TexMex said:
C.J. Chivers has good credentials. He's spent plenty of real time in that part of the world. His assessment is pretty much the same. I'm inclined to believe the distribution of arms and equipment to less than pro U.S. forces is quite real.
Click to expand...

Supplying any of the ******** arms in that part of the world is risky business.
 
I have a number of comments that I would like to make, but forum rules and decorum, and the possibility of young eyes reading this thread prohibit most of them. I think that it would be permissible, however, to note that since we are determined to release terrorists that we have caught and have in custody down in Gitmo, and allow them to return to the battlefield and re-engage us in the future, we might just as well go ahead and issue them M-4s and associated kit before we send them back, and thus cut out the middlemen on the ground in the middle-east, who are supplying our own equipment to those we are fighting there.

Best Regards, Les
 
While working in Afghanistan as a police advisor, me and my guys had to oversee the distribution of a number of AKMs (Hungarian AK-47s) to various units of the Afghan police. I made dadgum sure I kept all of the e-mails relating to this gun giveaway. We didn't sign anything; the staff of the regional training center was totally responsible for the who got what rifles.
 
It's not just corruption. An awful lot of ISIS's vehicles, weapons and supplies were abandoned by the Iraqi military when they bugged out and their bases were captured by ISIS. Others were taken with them by Iraqi soldiers who defected to ISIS.

Nothing new here. The Viet Cong were largely armed with weapons they captured that had been supplied to the South Vietnamese governments by the U.S. and the French before that. After the North won, American made captured weapons flooded Asia to arm Communist movements all over.

And then there is the whole other thing of U.S. weapons sold to erstwhile "allies" like the Shah's Iran that were turned around when the Shah's regime fell. Iran is still flying F-5's and F-14's we sold them 40 years ago.

For the S&W fans here, U.S. soldiers and Marines fighting Japan in the Pacific captured handguns S&W sold to the Japanese at the turn of the century, No. 3's.
 
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