Arming the Future Enemy

Some people want the .gov to take our tax dollars, buy weapons civilians couldn’t legally buy ourselves, and send the weapons to Syrian rebels. Great plan, right?

Well, in their defense, there is quite a lot of precedent.

We sent arms and advisers to Afghan rebels who were fighting the Soviets. A quarter of a century later they were used against us when we invaded after 9/11.

We sent arms and advisers to Libyan rebels who were fighting the Libyan government. Less than a year later some of those same rebels killed our ambassador to the country and several other embassy personnel.

But those were anomalies, right? Most of the time it works?

We sent arms and advisers to the Vietnamese resistance against the Japanese in WWII. They became the Viet Cong. (OK, there I’ll agree we were doing the right thing at the time – what’s the road to Hell paved with again?)

Anyone seeing a pattern here? The results vary, sure, but it never works out for us.

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more, no less. (Thank you, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates.)

If you take in a stray dog, feed it, care for it, and love it, it will not turn on you. This is the major difference between a man and a dog.

Alright, so the US has a terrible track record for the results of arming rebels. That the only problem?

Not even close.

The only thing we truly know about the rebels is that they are willing to fight their own government. But we’re willing to send them weapons that we’re NOT willing to sell to people who’ve demonstrated their loyalty to our own government. Something here is very, very wrong. Why is an Islamic fundamentalist at most one degree of separation away from a terrorist more trustworthy than an honorably discharged veteran of the US military? Why give weapons to the former but refuse to sell them to the latter?

Would US citizens even want them? Short answer: yes. Longer answer: yes, yes, yes, please! Just look at the sky-high prices pre-ban automatic weapons are sold for, regardless of their condition or utility. Those prices are high because there’s a very limited supply and, despite some truly obnoxious Federal roadblocks, high demand. There’s also a lot of people like me who can’t justify spending $5,000 for a weapon which is in current production and sells to the .gov for $1,000. And did I mention the obnoxious roadblocks? Then there’s things like SAMs, mortars, and rocket launchers (which, yes, we have sent in the past and will probably be sending to Syria soon) that are all but impossible to legally own.

But they’re dangerous!

Indeed. Rebels we’ve sold weapons to have killed a large number of US soldiers over the years. The weapons they use have proved that they are dangerous. Oh, that wasn’t what you meant? You meant they’d be dangerous here? Well, I’m not sure why US citizens dying here is worse than US citizens dying overseas, but let’s take a look.

Let’s look at our own history and see if we can find heavy weapons owned by individuals. We don’t have to go very far – in fact without private ownership of the heaviest weapons then available (cannon) our nation probably wouldn’t exist.

Of course, private weapons weren't all we fought with. The French crown sent us weapons. Then when their people rebelled against them a few years later we... generally were supportive of the rebels.

So sending weapons to rebels isn't just a problem for us.