Praise the (War) Lord and Pass the Ammunition . . . .

Epigram

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16
אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן
Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman
All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.
More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."
Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php
Abraham Isaac Kook
"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.
Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).
Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."
Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."
Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.
Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Notes

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Author's Wish Each Friday Night
Shabbat Shalom. May our arguments be resolved through perceptive words and good deeds only; may we live another week helpful to one another in relative peace.
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Also: as of 2011, I am building a photography print-on-demand presence at Fine Art AmericaM. This is the address:

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/james-oppenheim.html

Effort in print-on-demand will not offset the production nor value of signed, limited edition prints made under my own hand. However, for very good convenience, price, and quality, print-on-demand may work out well for many fans and patrons.
Research Services
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J. S. Oppenheim's Other Blogs and Webs

March 31, 2008

Praise the (War) Lord and Pass the Ammunition . . . .

YouTube Reference URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4kxSpIBago&eurl=http://karmalised.com/.

I don't know what we're viewing, but about the conversation --

Last week, the U.S. military suspended its $300 million contract with 22-year-old Miami-based arms dealer Efraim Diveroli after discovering--err, fielding complaints from Afghani forces--that shipments of ammo from Diveroli's company, AEY, arrived aged by decades, potentially unreliable, and with origins in China, politicaly unpalatable, not to mention illegal.

While the press concentrates on who, what, why, when, and how young Efraim got his gig (and the back of the basement goods), one may wonder how much old arms stock remains in the markets (and how much new enters it as well).

Hand wringing aside, we know someone posted the above video, essentially feeding it into the global media and removing a layer of cover from a business best done quietly, whether legitimately or not, for who in the used arms market has so many millions--not tens, thousands, or hundreds of thousands, but millions--of rounds stockpiled back in the barn from some kind of good old and arms plentiful days?

Efraim Diveroli's story dovetails with another in March's arms trade coverage: the arrest of the legendary Viktor Bout in Thailand. [11, 12]

At the intersection of Bout and Afghanistan in 2002, Frontline reported, "On August 25, 1995, Agence France Presse reported that an Aerostan plane leased by Bout's company Transavia was forced to land in Kandahar, Afghanistan by a Taliban jet fighter. Taliban officials impounded "30-odd tons of AK-47 small arms ammunition" meant for government forces in Kabul." [13]

Update Bout, 2004: "Viktor Vasilevich Bout, one of the world's most notorious arms merchants with proven links to the Taliban, has become a valued partner of the US as it grapples with the insurgency in Iraq." So wrote John C.k. Daly, lowercase "k" as printed online, in the Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor and posted online at the Global Policy Forum. [14]

While combatants worldwide fret over the meaning of courage, faith, family, and honor and while governments try to control information to shield their constituents from some ugly truths--or the private agendas of the powerful or audacious--another term may be similarly suited for cultural, linguistic, and political scrutiny as well as personal introspection and insight: integrity.

Efraim Diveroli and Viktor Bout sold arms.

Leave it at that.

Afghani military and police need NATO rounds for their Kalashnikovs?

Buy and ship new.

# # #

1. "U.S. military suspends Afghanistan ammunition deal." Reuters, March 27, 2008.

2. "$298M to AEY for Ammo in Afghanistan." March 21, 2007.

3. "AEY ammunitions shutdown." The Firing Line, misc. thread posts, March 27-28, 2008.

4. Chivers, C.J. "Afghans Sent Obsolete Ammunition." The New York Times, March 29, 2008.

5. Beyerstein, Lindsay. "More on Efraim Diveroli and Michael Diveroli." Majikthise, March 28, 2008.

6. Worldwide Tactical, LLC.

7. Kiel, Paul. "Today's Must Read." TPM Muckraker, March 27, 2008.