Seed Gun: America Reaps its Kalashnikov Harvest

Written by Chris Floyd
Friday, 06 July 2007
Some interesting facts plucked from a Daily Telegraph review of a new book about the history of the Kalashnikov (via Angry Arab):
In 1982, the Israelis gave the Kalashnikovs they had captured from Palestinians to the CIA, which shipped them via Pakistan to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Russians. Osama bin Laden's first AK was a Palestinian gun supplied by the Israelis and given to him by the Americans.
From little seedlings great oaks grow, as they say. And how heartening to see this bravura display of globalization in action: an international consortium of security organs uniting across barriers of race, religion and ethnicity to provide guns to violent Islamic extremists. So what's all this talk about a "clash of civilizations"? It's obvious that we can all work together, if we really want to.
And here's another fascinating tidbit from the review, unearthed all by our own selves after the steer from AA:
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US military neglected to guard the arms dumps and the entire stock of the Iraqi Army's AKs was stolen, available soon afterwards on the street at less than $100 each, and universally prized as "a flamboyant symbol of masculinity".
There's your unfettered free market for you! There's an admirable example of what President Bush calls "the single sustainable model of national success": Cheap guns that make you feel hard. An outcome well worth the murder of a million people, we're sure you'll agree.

Link Here