Reply #5: Arms & Libya: Where East Meets West

[tabatha]

Let’s be clear. Colonel Qaddafi amassed huge arms stores, and most of what he piled up came from Russia, China and the former eastern bloc. But the West was in the arms-sales game in Libya, too. Spanish cluster munitions, French mortar rounds, American recoilless rifles and artillery pieces — these, too, have been in the stores. Along with these Belgian bullpups with their grenade launchers underneath. And let’s not expect intellectual consistency. Guns and minds often don’t work that way. Some of the rebels were dismayed today by the F2000, but they have taken a fondness to the American recoilless rifles they have seized, and also to their stocks of FN FALs — another Belgian design from the same firm that makes the F2000.

When this war is finished, there will be work for many researchers for many months or years, putting together a study of how good sense or scruples or vigilance (label it as you will) seemed to be suspended by East and West alike to arm a family and a military that would turn these weapons on their own. Those who track arms will likely watch the Libyan collection drift around Africa in the decades ahead. Was it all for the seduction of an oil-state’s easy cash?

Today the rebels were happy, because of scenes like this one, below, of the departure terminal at the airport, freshly cleared of Qaddafi soldiers. And they were pleased and proud of themselves as they took custody of many new weapons, to point back at the army of their country, which has been shelling their homes.

http://cjchivers.com/post/5401976501/arms-libya-where-east-meets-west

"putting together a study of how good sense or scruples or vigilance (label it as you will) seemed to be suspended by East and West alike" - this is my question. Arms are the US's biggest export, and in many of the countries, they are being used on civilians. Are we a country of blood for money? Gaddafi should never have been able to acquire the arms he has - given his long documented history of killings.