Lord of war - truth about "deceptful" UN securit council?

[Mike111 0]

Im guessing many in America have seen it already as it comes out first there, but for a film, i thought it made some extremely fair and good points, with a bit of bias though of course.

It said - UK, USA etc allow the illegal sales of arms to porr, backward countries, such as African countries and the Balklans, because it serves their interest for them to fight each other - e.g. 1980's it served the west's purpose for Iraq to fight Iran and act as a barrier so we supplied saddam Hussien with weapons and allowed him to massacre.

Yet, when they do try and ban illegal trafficking, they import twice as many more to the same people to do the same stuff, and are head of the UN security council which supposed to keep order!!!!! Bit hypocritical?

Is this just becuase of nationla self interest and the dirty games of poltiics?

Forgive me if im still a naive 17 year old, but it just seeems rather odd.

Any comments?

[Droolbaby 0]

Well, though not an expert by no means, I do understand this. According to economists, the number one way to improve an economy is to be at war. Either with your self or with another country. In the history of the world, the countries that have prospered the most have been those countries that have been in the most battles and wars. Sad, but true. Think of the savage nature of Alexander the Great on throug hthe Roman Empire. Look at the battles that took place during the medevil times and on into the current era of civilization. While war is ugly, a country at war puts valuble resources into creating a strong military type force. In recent history, look at the advances made in the world between 1900 and the end of WWI. Then look at the progress between WWI and WWII. Then lok at the significant jump in the economic situation through out the world during the Cold War. Is it in our best intrest to be at war? Sadly yes. Is it the only way? No, but until you have a significant re-education of political affairs and political insights of those in charge of our governments, we will always be at war.

...Happiness is just a drool away....mmmmm....

[Mike111 0]

I see your point, very well made and expressed.

you are right, the only way to imrpove the standard of living is to kill others in a war.

(sigh) - on with the war i guess

[SpeedRacer 1]

um, war COSTS money.

The advancement of wealth over the last century was due to a LOT of different factors. To attibute it all to war is silly. Wealth is created by improvements in technology & the production of goods and services.

There are plenty of countries that have been locked into warfare for many years that have consequently become poor as shit. ie, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc.
The goods and services and trade that constitute wealth are best generated in times of peace, not war.


Oh, and the deal with supporting Saddam vs Iran in the '80s. It was a bit more complicated than you're making it sound.

The Ayatollah Khomeini had taken power & installed a fundamentalist & violent Shiite theocracy. And he kept making speeches about how now that they've taken over Iraq, they're gonna go out & take over Saudi Arabia & other Sunni Arab states. (Actually Iran & Iraq have been hating each other since long before Islam, witness the fighting between the Persians and Arabs in ancient times)

So anyway, the Ayatollah was scaring the shit out of the Arabs. The Arab leaders were calling the USA almost on a daily basis urging the US to support Saddam's war against the crazy Ayatollah.

That is why the Arabs are strangely silent on criticizing the US for supporting Saddam during that time. Because they know that they were in on it too.


nevertheless, the VAST BULK of Iraq's weapons arms, etc came from the Soviet Union, not the USA. The American sale/donation of arms was tiny compared to that of the Soviets.

quiz question: Who was the second biggest contributor of arms to Iraq (behind the Soviets)?

Answer: France!
(source: The Stockholm Peace Research Institute)

Speed Racer
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[ViperPilot 0]

Plus lets look at the average weapons people carry around in these countries...Kalishnakovs or variants thereof. So if you want to blame someone for all the arms sales/transfers around the world, blame states such as Russia, Romania, etc. How many militant armies are running around with Colt products?

[SpeedRacer 1]

kinda weird when you hear some people on this forum arguing about how we "created" Saddam Hussein.

Speed Racer
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[ViperPilot 0]

Saddam Hussein made himself. We supported him back in the day because it supported us...made sense. No one could see into the future. So in a way maybe we helped him along to do horrible things, but it was not our intention and it was not in the slightest possible to avoid w/o being able to tell the future. So I think people who say we created the monster and started all this are not looking at the whole picture.

[mnealtx 0]

True - but being able to use today's knowledge of what he has done and the fact that we aided him 20-25 years ago makes a REALLY good stick to club the current administration with...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Botellines 0]

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So in a way maybe we helped him along to do horrible things, but it was not our intention and it was not in the slightest possible to avoid w/o being able to tell the future.

Bullshit, You guys sold him WMD and expected him to use it against your enemies.

Who are you trying to fool?

[Botellines 0]

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True - but being able to use today's knowledge of what he has done and the fact that we aided him 20-25 years ago makes a REALLY good stick to club the current administration with...

Do you realize that the U.S is judging him for the deeds that you guys expected him to do by selling him WMD.

How hipocritical!!!!

[Trent 0]

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Plus lets look at the average weapons people carry around in these countries...Kalishnakovs or variants thereof.

This is the most OBVIOUS fact that most of the "The Evil US Sells Arms To Everyone!!" type blamers overlook.When you first posted it, no one responded. I doubt many people will, because it fills their bullshit arguments with even more holes. In fact, you can go ahead to expand the point to say that you see more RPG's, Soviet designed missiles, Soviet aircraft, and Soviet armored units in war-torn regions. That MUST be proof that the US is supplying these countries and dictators.

Many of these weapons are also made in HUGE quantities by... China.

I think where most of the "blame America" crowd gets confused (not like that's abnormal), is that they look at dollar amounts of arms LEGALLY sold to other countries. Like when we sell F-16's to Spain or Japan.

Oh, hello again!

[Mike111 0]

You are correct from whta I know about it - we propped him up to buffer the Iranians and neutralise the threat.

when he became a threat/disposable, we got rid of him.

[ViperPilot 0]

Yeah, apparently it was GWB himself who supported Saddam in the 70s/80s.

[ViperPilot 0]

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Bullshit, You guys sold him WMD and expected him to use it against your enemies.

Who are you trying to fool?

I'm not trying to fool anyone. I blatantly said we provided weapons to him. It supported our needs at the time. He did use it against enemies, he just kept some and used it against innocent people later on (his own)...horrible, but not something we could have known about w/o looking into the future.

[ViperPilot 0]

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Do you realize that the U.S is judging him for the deeds that you guys expected him to do by selling him WMD.

Wrong, we did not give him WMDs saying, "hey he'll kill thousands of his own people with these. Lets do it!" We gave him WMDs saying, "good, he can stop Iran with these."

[Botellines 0]

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Do you realize that the U.S is judging him for the deeds that you guys expected him to do by selling him WMD.

Wrong, we did not give him WMDs saying, "hey he'll kill thousands of his own people with these. Lets do it!" We gave him WMDs saying, "good, he can stop Iran with these."

So your definition of good or bad is based upon who your enemies are at a given time, not by their action.

Maybe the U.S should have been more clear to SH about what those WMD were to be used for. Or maybe you guys should have just used them on Iran directly...
Oh no no no. I forgot that the U.S has the moral high ground and would never used AGAIN WMD. Better to let others do the dirty job and keep pretending you are the good guys.

When will the U.S take some responsability for its actions?

[wmw999 2,545]

That's kind of like the Los Angeles police arming the Crips, because the Bloods are on a real rampage and need to be stopped. They they get surprised when the Crips, with no need to stop the Bloods any more, find other ways to use the guns.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[billvon 3,078]

>That's kind of like the Los Angeles police arming the Crips,
>because the Bloods are on a real rampage and need to be stopped.

Come now, Wendy. The correct conservative solution would be to arm BOTH sides, and ensure that they both have sufficient firepower to deter any conceivable home invader.

[kelpdiver 2]

mike - I'm not sure what your argument is. You should proofread and make it more coherent.

Is the Security Council a bad concept - damn right. Why should the winners of WWII have a veto over the decisions of this international body? That was 60 years ago.

These nations (US, China, France, Russia, unsure about GB) have been selling weapons to the smaller countries ever since. Or even before. It wasn't a given that the US would enter WWI on the side of England and France. We supplied Germany as well, just as we did both Iran and Iraq in their 80s war. Consider also that the nation and the weapons making companies are somewhat separate entities.

[Mike111 0]

Sorry if it wasn't clear- i wasn;'t reeally presenting an own viewpoint - i don't really know too much what top make of it myself!!!!

It was just that i saw this film called Lord of war with nicolas cage - it raiesed some good points - the countries that seel arms to countries for money which then go and slaughter people with it, and the allowance of illegal trafficking because it serves their national purpose, is a bti hypocritical considering the UK, USA are members of the Un security council!!!!

Bit odd - they are supposed ot make peace yet allow such sales ot go on? just rather odd.

[ViperPilot 0]

I haven't seen the movie, so tell me if I'm wrong, but from the previews it seems that Cage is an arms dealer, correct? So, him selling arms to militants who then slaughter a village w/ those weapons has nothing to do with the US govt. The US govt can't control what an arms dealer does (practically). So unless the movie portrays US govt officials selling arms to rebels, then no, the US cannot be blamed for stuff like this.

[Amazon 7]

THe character is a Ukranian immigrant. He has ties to family back in the Ukraine who are in charge of weapons( Fromer Soviet General)

When his brother is killed in Africa he brings him back to this country with a bullet in him that is picked up on xray. The death cert does not say death by being shot. a BATF agent has been after him for a long time for arms dealing.When he is arrested a shadowy figure named Ollie South pulls him out of jail.. basically saying he does the things that the "OFFICIAL" govt will not touch but he is allowed to do because its policy somehere in black ops and he provides the weapons... and they get plausible deniability... Just like Ollie did with the Iran Contra gig in the 80's

http://imdb.com/title/tt0399295/trivia

[kelpdiver 2]

somewhere in all this we should bear in mind this is a movie, and probably not the kind that should be the basis for an intelligent conversation.

I didn't think of going after reading reviews of it as a movie, nevermind for factual merits.

[Amazon 7]

Still it is based on events that HAVE occured... not complete fiction at all. Some of the events surrounding the Iran Contra affair come realllly close to some of the stuff that is portrayed in this movie...

Its a fairly good movie with some interesting humour.. go see it..

[rehmwa 2]

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>The correct conservative solution would be to arm BOTH sides, and ensure that they both have sufficient firepower to deter any conceivable home invader.

Conservative correction: Would be to SELL arms to both sides to ensure they both have sufficient firepower hoping one side destroys the other side so they don't join up and attack us.....Use that money to make sure we have better weapons when the winner eventually turns on us - act surprised when it happens for PR reasons. Clean up mess (if we can). Everybody complains. Newspaper sales rise.

Liberal solution: Try to bribe both sides into accepting big hugs - hoping the problem will then go away during the "hide under a pile of coats" period. Later, they demand more money for every aspect of their lives, resenting us because we can't make them rich as fast as they'd like. Then, they use OUR money to buy weapon weapons from our bigger enemies then join them. Eventually we all live in a gang state - unless they join our bigger enemies, then we just all become slaves to that nation. But at least our intentions were naive - er, I mean well intentioned. Everybody complains, newpaper sales rise.

Conservative solution - eventually win, but very painful and costs us something in terms of right or wrong

Liberal solution - naive but takes a high road, doomed from the start

Practical solution - cut losses and destroy both gangs. Politically distasteful and analogous to a harsh dictatorship. Hurts a lot more than just the 'guilty'. No one willing to do it. If you do it, the rest of the world will gang up on you - as they should. Everybody complains, newspaper sales rise.

Nice lose/lose/lose situation isn't it.

My advice? - start a newspaper or a gun manufacturing business - preferably both. Live on a small island (Cuervo Island is quickly filling up)

Find people in both industries, you probably have the real "behind the scenes" powers. None of them likely politicians.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants