Posted on 12/11/2006 2:30:16 PM PST by atomic conspiracy
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq: The Kurdish security contractor placed the black plastic box on the table. Inside was a new Glock 19, one of the nine-milimeter pistols that the United States issued by the tens of thousands to the Iraqi Army and police force.
This pistol was no longer in the custody of Iraqi Army or police officers. It had been stolen or sold, and it found its way to an open-air grocery stand that does a lively black-market business in police and infantry arms. The contractor bought it there.
He displayed other purchases, including a short-barreled Kalashnikov assault rifle with a collapsible stock that makes it easy to conceal under a coat or fire from a car. "I bought this for $450 last year," he said of the rifle. "Now it costs $650. The prices keep going up."
The market for the American-issued pistol and the ubiquitous assault rifle illustrated how fear, mismanagement and malfeasance are shaping the small- arms market in Iraq.
Weapon prices are soaring along with an expanding sectarian war, as more buyers push prices to levels several times higher than those that existed at the time of the American-led invasion nearly four years ago. Rising prices, in turn, have encouraged an insidious form of Iraqi corruption — the migration of army and police weapons from Iraqi state armories to black-market sales.
All manner of infantry arms, from rocket-propelled grenade launchers to weathered and dented Kalashnikovs, have circulated within Iraq for decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Actually they are.
Take a look at any college "How2 Gradiate" (sic) guide and count how many majors require you to actually have even an intro level economics class to get a degree.
I'll save you some time -- that would be 2. Business and (of course) economics.
The truly sad part is that not only are the brain dead journalist grads and their english lit degreed editors that stupid, 90% of their audience is also.
The USA is a nation of economic illiterates.
Boy, if anything really steams the media, it's the lack of affordable, readily-available firearms.
Do you really expect the Communists in the media to understand economics?
Brilliant comment.
LOL, so true. People can't afford a Glock, Bush's fault!
Turns out the IHT's DC "office" is at the Washington Post. I called and asked about that point.
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