Thanks for the bit of Geography and History, and No I don’t think that Podunk WI will EVER have that kind of history, nor did it invalidate the point. OR do you prefer ‘rural’ as the moniker. IF this is going to be about semantics, then this is going to go nowhere. You say colour and I say color. Get over it.
And how the heck is Iraq a WESTERN country? You said that your comment referred to Western Countries as the cause of these kinds of problems. And then say that you referred, while not directly, the Oil for Food program. How exactly is Iraq or Kofie Annon part of a western country? He is from Africa, yes? Not really Western unless you are in India….
Well, I suppose that I again can’t refute the claims you have of your travels throughout the world. And with no reference to anything but what you are saying; I have no way to say anything about them. You are free to make anything up and say what you will of what you found, heard or viewed in your travels. Because there is no way to neither confirm nor deny the validity of your statements.
It was very convenient that you found the name plate of a GD missile, the same name plate that is on the inside of the missile’s access cover, you know right next to the high explosive charge. You do realize that the design of missiles for decades have placed any of the nameplates and electronic assemblies as close as possible to the explosive to minimize the ability to distinguish who made it and make the smallest particles so that you cant reverse engineer it. But, kudos on finding a nameplate that had the mfg and date on it. Did you keep it? Because that really was a find. I mean, no kidding, it was pure luck that he found it.
And even if you did find it... Who supplied it? Was it a different country? Like say… France, Germany, Spain or ANY one of the DOZENS of countries that were supplied with US made weapons. Nope, it had to be the US, because there are no components or fully made articles in any other country that were from somewhere else, right? Damn, I am wrong on that too. An AK-47 mfg in China is sold to say, Iraq. And then Iraq sells them to say… Al Qaeda. The Chinese are supplying the terrorists… ??? OR is this just getting too complicated? One more example; The French (Aerospatiale to be exact) sold AM-39 Ship Launched and MM-40 Air Launched Exocet Anti-Ship Missiles to the following list of people: Pakistan, Abu Dhabi, Argentina, Singapore, Brazil, Oman, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Peru. If ANY one of them sold a single missile to someone else and that someone else shot it at another country is France to blame? BUT GOD help you, the stinking identity plates will say Aerospatiale ALL OVER THEM and Aerospatiale means FRANCE . Same logic, France must have sold them directly to the ones that shot it because how else would they have gotten there? Am I beating a dead horse yet? Or should I go on? Just because you found a single plate from General Dynamics doesn’t mean anything. Neither does a conversation with some un-named Colonel at some Brit Embassy.
But, lets get into the thick of this: From the Redstone Arsenal History docs, the Stinger Program note for Financial Year 81 had this little gem in it:
FY 81 Seven NATO countries—Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Greece, Turkey, and Italy—formed a STINGER Project Group. The European group requested a letter of offer for the STINGER technical data package (TDP), the first step toward establishing a coproduction program.
So, you can look it up at the following URL:
http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/sy ... INGER.html
Toward the top middle, just follow the dates.
Or you could go to the following little blurb:
The CIA helped supply nearly 500 Stingers (some sources claim 1500) to the mujahideen guerrillas fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
So, those missiles could have been bought from the muhahideen as well.
But, even though you kept your mouth shut and your ears open, all you heard was what you wanted.
While you saw the rice being sold, You could have missed the 1390 other bags of rice were given out to the poor. You did say it was a huge shipment. And you clearly coulnt account for what happened to the rest of the rice. But, you didnt need to, you already KNEW where it went, without having a shread of proof.
You didn’t see that there could have even been some other explanation or source for a single General Dynamics Missile that could have made its way into the battle field by a hundred different ways, all you saw was it was the US that supplied them. That Colonel could have been pulling a reason out of the air, and you just sucked it up and spit it back out here. That Colonel could have been some desk jockey that wouldn’t have known an AM-39 from an AMRAAM.
Sure as hell we sell arms to people, and supply either side at one time or another. Hell for some time we supplied Iran, but not lately. The US is no saint. And I have no delusions that it is, nor ever will be. But, why is it that people can’t see past their own petty little views of the world. You don’t like the US, I don’t care why, but you don’t. I have seen that from the numerous posts you have made about this or that and how different and better it was in some other place than here. But, here you are… Still in the United States, making a fine living servicing foreign vehicles. But, you still have the view that if it can be blamed on the US then it must be the US that did it. When you found that plate, I would be willing to bet ten dollars to a donut, that you didn’t even think that the missile could have come from anywhere else but a direct supply by the US. And it is that narrow view that you cant see past that is why I cant argue.
See, the points you made were based on your own personal views and experiences. There is no way in hell I can get any documentation that you were even there at the embassy, let alone talking to the Colonel. All you pointed to were suppositions, not documentable fact as the meat and potatos of your arguments. Sure you sprinkled on some facts like the Iran-Contra Ollie North stuff, but that was like gravy on the mashed potatos. It isnt the gravy that fills you up, it is the potatos. Want an example, the whole rice sales story told. Is there any proof that it even happened?
To you the results are set, the US did it, or GD provided the missile. Even with evidence that would say without a doubt that it could have come from elsewhere. Not that it DID, but that it COULD. And that it COULD didn’t even get a single thought. That is what I meant by jaded.
