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
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:54PM
Possibly the worst proof-read summary I've ever seen, even if it is a quote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:15PM
The warlords also stole the sense-checker.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:46PM
I am working on a more in-depth UN story which I will write myself -- using the same sources -- rather than copy/pasting.
I do appreciate this summary is not the easiest to read and has not been proof-read to a reasonable standard but the information contained within is more important than that. The ICP is essentially one person doing the only critical reporting of the UN, actually on the ground asking the questions when possible.. When the 'press meetings' are not closed to non-accredited reporters... ICP used to be an accredited UN journalist, but for reasons yet to be explained he was evicted from his office and stripped of his credentials. There will be more on this in my original submission coming soon.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:15PM
The ICP is essentially one person doing the only critical reporting of the UN
I read the summary earlier, but this time I skipped straight down tho the comments and immediately forgot what the acronym meant [youtube.com] in this context. I bet they could do a pretty good video for this, though.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:45AM
I didn't think the ICP [stars-without-makeup.com] would be any good at investigative journalism, what with the way they stick out from the crowd.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:08PM
Separating the world into "good guys" and "bad guys" has proven to be mostly futile. We should stop being shocked when they switch or change stances.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:31PM
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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:30PM
USA?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Spook brat on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:07PM
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]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:06AM
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
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
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]
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:32PM
I'm confused as to the scale. Thats about the right amount of loot for a medium to large sized street gang in Detroit. The problem this corner of Africa seems to have is entire armies of lunatics killing each other, not "some gang broke in to the armory and looted an insignificant amount of stuff". I mean, hundreds of thousands of refugees and stuff like that, not two dozen guys got pistols and rifles.
Like add about three zeros to the end of those missing goods and you have something logistically important to a bush war.
A glock 9mm, OK wonder if its an old G17 or a new G43. Don't matter much. Your local police officer probably has one on his belt. Its not exactly a star wars blaster. I remember when they were rolled out to replace .45s and there was a lot of complaining that its not big enough, but extensive practice by American police officers show a 9mm is quite effective at killing people of African descent so I guess that answers that old question.
The G36 is interesting. First of all its a real assault rifle. Usually assault weapon means stupid gun grabber BS, but it actually a pretty decent close quarters short range high rate of fire heavy and controllable as hell rifle. The kind of thing you'd clear a building with, not so much deer hunting. The "sniper mode" just means they stuck a scope on it which is pretty stupid for a rifle that doesn't really work controllably past 100m or so. Maybe a night vision scope makes minimal level of tactical sense. The G36 is funny because politician idiots like to totally slander the thing as a piece of shit not knowing they're describing what a freaking assault rifle actually is. Lots of bitching and moaning about how its not a 50cal or M2 designed to fire belt fed rounds for 45 minutes straight or not a "real" sniper rifle capable of hitting things 300M away like a M16 can. It is full auto so it gulps down ammo unlike a modern M16A2, exactly what you need in an assault rifle. Its basically a full auto shotgun that shoots really little slugs that sometimes hit a barn door if you're close enough, but the point is having a multi-man fire team so there's plenty of lead in the air and then its pretty decent when clearing buildings or discouraging someone at close range.
10K rounds isn't shit. I used to work in what amounts to an ammo dump when I was in the army and that's a bit more than 5 crates. In basic training I shot probably 2K or so rounds and every six months qualification takes (well, a quarter century ago, took) 40 rounds per try and most people shot off a pair of magazines before trying to verify zero and practice a bit, and I was a pretty good shot although I missed qualifying expert by one round, and some people take a few tries to zero and some take a few tries to qual so 200 rounds per soldier makes a barely REMF qualified soldier for a year, so 10K rounds will keep a fat platoon of REMFs minimally qualified for about a year. I would imagine infantryman 11B a platoon could burn thru 10K rounds in two battles. Figure 500 mags, 50 dudes, two battles, thats 5 mags of ammo per dude, which isn't really all that much during an attack. Again from a logistical standpoint 10K is about 5 crates and that will very easily fit in a car trunk.
The ammo count reminds me of "fake news" about FEMA or whatever buying 1e6 rounds of ammo implying they intent to shoot 1e6 civilians in the back of the head, but it really means more like 50 rounds every quarter for qualification thats 200 rounds per year that 1e6 rounds is 5000 person-years of peacetime ammo, it don't mean nutthin. 10K rounds is nothing.
From memory a crate of M16 ammo is not a significant weight unless you drop it on your foot or have to stack them all day or hold it over your head as punishment. Ammo is very financially valuable per pound, a crate of MREs is going to weigh "about the same" yet be larger and worth less than a tenth as much money.
Everything stolen probably would fit in one pickup truck.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:16PM
Just because it's not the largest weapons theft in history doesn't mean it's not relevant or important.
I'm not OK with saying it's acceptable or should be seen as inevitable that the UN of all organizations to have lower standards of security and inventory control than a small business does with it's stock of staplers.
When the weapons markets are full of old and poorly maintained soviet surplus, a few well maintained rifles and good quality ammunition is valuable. Unless of course we're acknowledging coalition forces routinely 'lose' and 'mis-allocate' large amounts of weapons in the region to level the playing field. And the more direct cases of 'arming the rebels' through allocations to Libya and Turkey.
10k rounds isn't a lot when they're being used at a shooting range or whatever, but in countries like Iraq and Sudan that are quite literally in the midst of civil war... The people who do end up with these weapons and ammunitions are not going to be using them for sport.
If the peace-keepers of the world lose a pickup truck load of weapons every so often, it's something that should be reported on. There should be more effort to hold the UN accountable and place their operations under scrutiny rather than the framing that they are an overly-bureaucratic organization that has some reasonable intentions in their mission statement. They do make actions and those actions have consequences, like bringing cholera to Haiti, which coincidentally killed 10,000 people without using any ammunition.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:42PM
Unless of course we're acknowledging coalition forces routinely 'lose' and 'mis-allocate'
I agree that drives the story, if this is one armory once, vs if it happens every month at every site.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:23AM
Ooga-boogas aren't exactly accurate or precise warriors. They spend ammo like they spend their EBT and welfare -- all up-front and as fast as they can. If they get their ashy hands on a full-auto capable rifle and ten goat-horns* full of ammo, they're gonna use full-auto and run through all ten goat-horns just to take down one or two dudes at close range, and just waste all their ammo without any kills at medium range.
* "Cuernos de chivo" in Mexican
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Codesmith on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:45PM
The G36 is interesting. First of all its a real assault rifle. Usually assault weapon means stupid gun grabber BS, but it actually a pretty decent close quarters short range high rate of fire heavy and controllable as hell rifle. The kind of thing you'd clear a building with, not so much deer hunting. The "sniper mode" just means they stuck a scope on it which is pretty stupid for a rifle that doesn't really work controllably past 100m or so.
Odd that'd you'd look at it that way. With the caveat that I never handled one (I left the service about the exact time Germany was bringing them in) a friend of mine who stayed in trained with them on several occasions. He felt they were equivalent to the C7s we used, but he disliked the folding stock and the higher mount scope. He easily requalified out to 300m with one, and felt that if they flat-topped the receiver like the C7A2, it would be an excellent piece of gear. (I was not aware of the full floating barrel until I read the wiki article, nice!)
In basic training I shot probably 2K or so rounds and every six months qualification takes (well, a quarter century ago, took) 40 rounds per try and most people shot off a pair of magazines before trying to verify zero and practice a bit, and I was a pretty good shot although I missed qualifying expert by one round, and some people take a few tries to zero and some take a few tries to qual so 200 rounds per soldier makes a barely REMF qualified soldier for a year, so 10K rounds will keep a fat platoon of REMFs minimally qualified for about a year.
We budgeted 800 rounds per person for Basic, and 1500 for rifle on the Infantry course. Requals varied depending on the length of time we had the range, but 250 to 500 rounds yearly. Please note that we probably expended another 2000 or 3000 on live fire exercises, and I'm not including support weapon counts at all.
When I joined up, we were still firing 7.62mm, so you certainly felt it after a 250 round day.
Pro utilitate hominum.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:24PM
For those not in-the-know:
C7 and C7A2 are Canadian-made Colt versions of the AR-15/M16.
"7.62mm" is referring to 7.62x51 mm aka 7.62 NATO. Last of the full-power battle rifle rounds. That would have been used in the C1, Canada's version of the superb FN FAL battle rifle. That also means we know Codesmith joined the Canadian forces prior to 1988.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:22PM
You expected something better from the UN under that weasel?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:54PM
Unrelatedly, plutonium amounting to "more than 600 pounds, and possibly several times that" went missing from U.S. inventories between 1996 and 2004 (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/LOS-ALAMOS-Plutonium-could-be-missing-from-lab-2591846.php [sfgate.com]) and there have been other instances of missing plutonium:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140420214927/http://thebulletin.org/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-united-states7056 [archive.org]
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-security-iaea-idUSBRE95R0BV20130628 [reuters.com]
If someone has misappropriated it, such amounts could be enough to construct 10,000s of thousands of rounds of plutonium-coated ammunition in addition to the 10,000s of thousands of rounds of conventional ammunition. With a little Clostridium botulinium toxin on the tip, such ammunition could be deadly! The 25 missing guns make this even more worrisome. An army wielding those guns and ammunition could kill or injure 10,000s of thousands of innocent people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:10PM
*up to 10,000s of thousands