Creative Destruction-Welcome to George W. Bush's moral gutter

[kpete]

Creative Destruction
Welcome to George W. Bush's moral gutter

By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services

August 16, 2007

Heckuva job, fellas!

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Consider the boondoggle of the 190,000 missing weapons — rifles, pistols, machineguns, grenade launchers. They’re not really missing, of course. They’re all over the Middle East, in the hands of religious fanatics and run-of-the-mill criminals; and, of course, they’re mostly still in Iraq, where U.S.-distributed weapons guarantee that anyone with a grievance, including a grievance against American troops, can add bodies to the carnage. Our timetable for bringing democracy to Iraq may be lagging, but Ledeen’s “creative destruction” is in full flower.

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“The (U.S.-distributed) weapons are easy to find,” the New York Times reported from Baghdad at the end of last year, “resting among others in the semihidden street markets here, where weapons are sold in tea houses, the back rooms of grocery kiosks, cosmetics stores and rug shops, or from the trunks of cars. . . . ‘Every type of gun that the Americans give comes to the market,’” an Iraqi official said.

A Baghdad arms dealer told Times reporter C.J. Chivers: “In the south, if the Americans give the Iraqis weapons, the next day you can buy them here. The Iraqi Army, the Iraqi police — they all sell them right away.”

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Italian anti-Mafia investigators shadowing possible drug traffickers last year searched a suspect’s luggage as he boarded a flight to Libya and found, not narcotics but helmets, bullet-proof vests and a weapons catalogue. The investigation that followed led to the thwarting of a $40 million “black channel” deal between Italian arms merchants, a Bulgarian supplier and. . . the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

Welcome to the moral gutter. This is where the Bush vision has dumped us. Let’s remember how we got here.

more at:
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col409.htm

[groovedaddy]

1. Destined for failure from the start

Is this just another version of "friendly fire?"