Not new... goes ALL THE WAY BACK to WWII and the OSS.
On 8/14/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >A group of corrupt businessmen with ties to the Italian Cosa Nostra > was discovered to have arranged for the shipping of 100,000 > sophisticated machine guns to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, > allegedly to be supplied to the police in al-Anbar Province. The > [Ministry of the Interior] was supposed to inform the US military > about any such purchases, in accordance with America's colonial role > in Iraq. It did not. The deal was worth $40 millon. Since the US has > heavily armed the al-Anbar police, it is not plausible that they would > need massive numbers of machine guns. The special police commandos of > the Ministry of the Interior were largely recruited from the Badr > Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. It is likely > that the weapons were for them and their friends on the outside in > Badr. Since a intra-Shiite civil war is building between Badr and its > rival, the Mahdi Army, and since Badr corps are targeted by Sunni Arab > guerrillas as "Iranian" agents, Interior may have felt it needed to > give its special commandos and the Badr an advantage in fire power. > Since the Iraqi government was essentially bolstering a militia, and > the US wants to repress the militias, it could not let the Americans > know about the deal. Italian investigators accidentally turned it up > while trying to catch Mafia drug smugglers. They forestalled the deal > from going through. This time.< > -- Juan Cole > > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own > way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. >
