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posted by on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the gun-control dept.

The day after Inner City Press asked both US Ambassador Samantha Power and UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the UN Mission in South Sudan giving automatic weapons to warlord James Koang, who killed civilians, a new UN outrage was brought to the attention of Inner City Press and after its publishing and asking about it (video here), was confirmed by the UN.

Since the UN covered up its arming of South Sudan warlord Koang, and refuses to answer written questions including about its use of public funds, we published this report on this we'll follow up:

The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, UNAMI, under the authority of the UN Department of Safety and Security (DSS), have "lost" 25 weapons from their armory in their base in the Green Zone in Baghdad.

The loss includes 18 Glock 9mm pistols, 5 G36 assault rifles, and 2 G36 sniper rifles. Sources say that 10,000s of thousands of rounds of ammunition are also missing.

DSS only discovered or internally acknowledged this months after the fact and cannot account for their loss. The UN's Fijian Guard Unit have had to start patrolling inside the base.

Source: Inner City Press
Related: Small Arms Survey Sudan [PDF]

Washington Post: Report: U.N. gave arms to South Sudan rebels later implicated in massacre


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Spook brat on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:07PM

    by Spook brat (775) on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:07PM (#444498) Journal

    This wouldn't be problem if people weren't forced under the threat of violence to hand over their resources to sociopathic thugs with guns.

    How do you propose we accomplish that?
    * rid the world of sociopaths?
    * rid the world of weapons?
    * Provide sufficient deterrent to the sociopaths with guns that they no longer want to take others' resources via threat of violence?

    It can be argued that the UN and other peacekeeping forces are attempting strategy 1 and doing a poor job of it. Really, that's a global genocide scale project that you'd need a sociopath to lead for it to be effective. Is the project leader expected to put a bullet in their own skull at the end? A nightmare scenario in all cases.

    Strategy 2 is also a non-starter, since to a physically imposing sociopath any heavy object at hand (and perhaps even their own bare hand) counts as a weapon sufficiently persuasive as a threat of violence that a civilian will hand over their resources. Also, this is the favored strategy of the gun-control crowd.

    Strategy 3 is the "good guy with a gun" theory, not very popular among the gun-control crowd. I'm not certain that having every homeowner armed would really be a solution here, either, since if an army showed up at my door I'd give them my stuff instead of attempting a shootout. In a non-failed state it's usually the police or Army keeping roving gangs of sociopaths in check. It's arguable that this is the role the UN peacekeepers are supposed to be fulfilling, and also failing at. This also presupposes that the UN isn't made up of sociopaths, a fact which is not in evidence. [duckduckgo.com]

    For what it's worth, my vote on how to accomplish this via option 3; arm civilians on an individual level to resist individual sociopaths, and organize the community sufficiently to drive out aggressive gangs of sociopaths (i.e. police, army, "well-regulated militia", etc).

    --
    Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:06AM (#444598)

    You already understand that it's usually a very bad idea for one organization to develop a monopoly on some aspect of society, so why can't you see that it's probably a bad idea to give one organization a monopoly on violence? Indeed, that's the worst sort of monopoly.

    As always, the key is competition; that's why the most "successful" governments are founded on at least some idea of a separation of powers, or even the opposition of powers (hell, disparate governments are kept in check by their mutual opposition). This idea just needs to be taken to its logical conclusion: A free market on the enforcement industry.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:57AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:57AM (#444679)

      so why can't you see that it's probably a bad idea to give one organization a monopoly on violence? Indeed, that's the worst sort of monopoly.

      The worst sort of monopoly except for the others. Your "successful" governments all have a monopoly on violence. The difference is they have a separation of entities in deciding on how and when to use that violence.

      If a country's government does not have a monopoly on violence and there are many other entities going around killing people and getting away with it then it's not a successful government at all.

      If a government cannot maintain a monopoly on violence it means it is not really in power. There are various degrees of course as there are various degrees of being in power.

    • (Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:02PM

      by Spook brat (775) on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:02PM (#444699) Journal

      What did I write that makes you think I disagree with you? I'm all for distributed access to violence as a solution, all the way down to the individual. My post was getting a bit long, and I figured it wasn't the time for a treatise on my preferred style of government organization as well.

      Besides, "sufficiently organized community" covers a LOT of ground, and leaves ample room for different communities to come up with solutions they feel comfortable with. A corporate "enforcement industry" is an intriguing concept, one that there's certainly space for. Just be careful to make sure that it's not the only game in town - corporations like to grow, and frequently attract sociopaths to leadership positions. I imagine that a sufficiently-sized corporate security firm would be barely distinguishable from a private army, and in the wrong hands could quickly get back to the "taking resources by threat of violence" model we're trying to get away from.

      The other AC who responded to you [soylentnews.org] seemed to have the right idea, and I wouldn't mind having them on my team for rebuilding society after an SHTF calamity.

      --
      Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]