British NVG Kit found in Hezbollah Bunkers

[ORAC]

British NVG Kit found in Hezbollah Bunkers (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2321555,00.html) Since they have the serial numbers, it should not take more than a few hours to confirm if they were part of the consignment supplied to Iran or not.

[thelynxeffect]

No big deal, probably got them off ebay!! :)

[green granite]

When the export was agreed, Mike O’Brien, then Junior Minister at the Foreign Office, told the Commons: “The goods are for the use on the Iran-Afghanistan border against heroin smugglers.” He said there was “no risk of these goods being diverted for use by the Iranian military”.

What sort of cloud cukoo land does that guy live in?

[ORAC]

Why not email (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/mike_o%27brien/north_warwickshire#votingrecord) him and ask... :E

[Champagne Anyone?]

I have just sent him an email.... I will post the reply if I get one!

:cool:

[Runaway Gun]

Hi, I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out. He's a very busy guy and can't be bothered with your type of people. :rolleyes:

[TheInquisitor]

British NVG Kit found in Hezbollah Bunkers
Explains why I can never get any from the squippers....:}

[Grandpa]

Do we need any serial numbers?

[Load Toad]

I think it was Bill Hicks who said it best:

* "You know we armed Iraq. I wondered about that too, you know. During the Persian Gulf war, those intelligence reports would come out: 'Iraq: incredible weapons – incredible weapons.' How do you know that? 'Uh, well ... we looked at the receipts.'"

* "I'm so sick of arming the world and then sending troops over to destroy the ******* arms, you know what I mean? We keep arming these little countries, then we go and blow the **** out of 'em. We're like the bullies of the world, you know. We're like Jack Palance in the movie Shane, throwing the pistol at the sheep herder's feet: 'Pick it up.' 'I don't wanna pick it up mister, you'll shoot me.' 'Pick up the gun.' 'Mister, I don't want no trouble, huh. I just came down town here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don't even know what gingham is, but she goes through about 10 rolls a week of that stuff. I ain't looking for no trouble, mister.' 'Pick up the gun.' Boom, boom. 'You all saw him. He had a gun.'"


If a 'Junior Minister' was that naive - well he wasn't was he? A few years ago - I heard a Minister saying that selling Hawk aeroplanes to Indonesia was perfectly OK and they would not be used to bomb people in East Timor or such because Hawk jets are training aircraft.....

It gets so you just give up.


Heroin is such a big problem isn't it? All these heroin addicts running around - planting bombs and such.........

[FormerFlake]

I think it was Bill Hicks who said it best:

* "You know we armed Iraq. I wondered about that too, you know. During the Persian Gulf war, those intelligence reports would come out: 'Iraq: incredible weapons – incredible weapons.' How do you know that? 'Uh, well ... we looked at the receipts.'"
The Brittish government had tons of receipts for all the Migs, Mirrages, SAMs, HIPs, Hinds, AK47s, ZSUs, Roland etc it sold to the Iraqis. Or are you talking about the Hunters we sold them donkey's years ago?




We did sell Iran Rapier though, that could come back to haunt us.

[The Helpful Stacker]

The Brittish government had tons of receipts for all the Migs, Mirrages, SAMs, HIPs, Hinds, AK47s, ZSUs, Roland etc it sold to the Iraqis. Or are you talking about the Hunters we sold them donkey's years ago?




We did sell Iran Rapier though, that could come back to haunt us.

Does 'SAMs' include the Rapiers we also sold Iraq?

I'm sure we sold them a few tanks and helicopters as well.

[sixbarrelldiplomat]

I know 22 Merlins not doing much. One careful owner

[ORAC]

This old canrd keeps coming up. I think yoou`ll find the vast majority were from Russia, China and France. A handfull of US civil helicopters are in there, but no British. You´ll also find that all the latest generation ATGM, rockets and other minitions used by Hezbollah - who are, by the way, recognised by the UN as a terrorist organisation, not a state, NGO or charity - are Russian built and were sold to Syria and Iran........

The point here is that the UK NVG equipment was provided to Iran, through the UN, for peaceful customs/anti-drug purposes. It ended up in the hands of a terrorist organisation on the Israeli border. I, for one, would be interested to known how and if the UN is going to do anything about it....

And yes, that is little old Denmark up ahead of the USA and even Switzerland ahead of the UK.....

http://www.solport.com/resources/Iraqi%20Weapons.JPG

[Maple 01]

Orac you'll only upset people posting such propaganda, everyone knows we sold Iraq all the so-called Soviet and French tanks, planes and missiles as part of a Zionist plot in association with the Anglo-Saxon military-industrial complex to discredit the peace loving governments of France, Iran and Russia

Thanks for saving me from the effort of finding the chart again - Bill Hicks? Who he?

Ohh, oooh, not only did we sell them Hunters back in the mists of time, but Furies too! Shame on you!

[BenThere]

It's a complex problem.

You know that if you don't sell the weapon systems, the Chinese, Russians or French, who have no scruples on the matter, will. Then you've lost the sale, the follow on sales, and access to the customer nation's military.

In addition, by selling your own weapons, you are better able to counter tactics if they're ever used against you, have control over performance configurations, and can limit the capability to what you intend to transfer. I also like the idea of embedded technology that can render performance degrades in case they become hostile.

[Load Toad]

Just remind me which countries are on the UN Security Council again - the permanent members if it is a hard question.

We must sell weapons because if we don't sell someone else wil and we'll lose the sale. We must fight drugs because drugs are illegal. We must back 'our' sympathetic friends in these difficult places until it's time to change our allegances to whatever is important this year.


Don't worry - you can tar me as some kind of left wing liberal fudge packer if it suits you but it won't alter whats happening.

[green granite]

Have a radio receiver in them so that if they're used against you you press a button and they turn round fly back and destroy the launcher :E:E

[N Arslow]

And the Saudis will remain our friends forever.

[SASless]

Considering the amount of oil under their feet....we best hope they do.

[Two's in]

:confused: Either some incredibly naive people in this world, or everyone thinks we still play the "keeping both sides armed without getting shot" game by Harrow and Eton rules. Alternative headlines are:

"Merchants of Death" embarassed to be labelled as "Merchants of Death", Minister says 'we didn't know they would be used by the bad guys'; in other news, Joe Public is surprised that Britain PLC sells arms and munitions to anyone with a cheque book.

[ORAC]

How about, "We sell it to you with conditions, we have you by the short and curlies when you break them".....

Particularily when we ain't mates....

[nigegilb]

House of Lords

Iran: Arms Embargo and UK Exports

All Written Answers on 21 May 2003
Lord Desai (Labour) Hansard source asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether any goods subject to the national arms embargo have recently been approved for export to Iran.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Minister of State (Trade), Department of Trade and Industry) Hansard source

The Government have recently issued a licence for the export of night vision goggles which are of military specification. These goods are for use on the Iran/Afghanistan border against heroin smugglers, and the export is funded by the UN Drugs Control Programme (UNDCP). The UN offices in Vienna have confirmed that this application is legitimate. Her Majesty's Government are therefore satisfied that these goods would only be used for the end-use stated, and there is no risk of these goods being diverted for use by the Iranian military.

[Letsby Avenue]

Can't we just buy the poppy crop? Ship it back here and burn it... :} Sure beats fighting the Taliban until we get bored and move on to something else... (some people might call killing all those Taliban ethnic cleansing)

[IrishSarBoy]

I think it's a brilliant idea to sell British arms to small countries, just don't sell them a support and maintenance deal as well. In six months they'll have a lot of expensive scrap to play with and UK PLC will make a killing (not literally).:}

[Tuned In]

Load Toad

If you look at the graph it shows the permanent members in red and green, depending on their votes on the Iraqi liberation. Except for Britain of course, as it sold too few weapons to Iraq for the colour to show. However you should see China, Russia and France pretty clearly. Only you really are not kean to look at that graph, are you?

[Baron rouge]

It's a complex problem.
You know that if you don't sell the weapon systems, the Chinese, Russians or French, who have no scruples on the matter, will. Then you've lost the sale, the follow on sales, and access to the customer nation's military.
In addition, by selling your own weapons, you are better able to counter tactics if they're ever used against you, have control over performance configurations, and can limit the capability to what you intend to transfer. I also like the idea of embedded technology that can render performance degrades in case they become hostile.

Don't worry UK has far less scruples than those you named, it is still the third arm dealer of this world, at least was in 2004 just behind The US and Russia

Britain was third in arms transfer agreements to the developing world in 2004, signing contracts worth $3.2 billion, while Israel ranked fourth, with deals worth $1.2 billion. France followed with $1 billion.

[ORAC]

Which would seem to indicate that, on average, we sell to the good guys, and that France, Russia and China do not.

I expect the profit margin is better with less questions asked..... :hmm:

[Baron rouge]

Which would seem to indicate that, on average, we sell to the good guys, and that France, Russia and China do not.


Can you try to explain how you came to that brilliant conclusion ? It must be a great comfort to feel so much better than the others, whatever you do:}
Brainless "the Sun" reader's syndrome maybe.

[LXGB]

[/URL]British NVG Kit found in Hezbollah Bunkers (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2321555,00.html) Since they have the serial numbers, it should not take more than a few hours to confirm if they were part of the consignment supplied to Iran or not.


Found this after a short google for the "ThermoVision" system described in the BBC report:

FLIR Inc (http://www.flir.com/imaging//Security/Applications/BorderSecurityDHS.aspx)

[Maple 01]

Can you try to explain how you came to that brilliant conclusion ?

I can't speak for Orac, but I can speak as an ex-int Analyst

Russia, France and China have historically armed anyone who would pay or failing that, subsidied nations who's client status would increase their influence

The UK and US persued simular policies during the Cold war, but tended to at least atempt ethical sales policies (notice I said atempt) subsiquently much tighter constraints have been in place (no, really) unlike the big three above that were busting UN sanctions from the word go.

If you want proof check-out the US find of Roland III reloads in crates dated 2003 at an airfield during GW2 - how could they have got there?

[precession]

So who supplied the Israelis with the Cluster bombs they used in the last two days of this conflict, in direct contraventon of their appropriate use, as dictated by both the USA and International Law ?

a few NVG units that may have help knock out a number of armoured units which were badly deployed, badly led, and badly crewed is neither here nor there.

[Maple 01]

a few NVG units that may have help knock out a number of armoured units which were badly deployed, badly led, and badly crewed is neither here nor there.

To your mind maybe not, me? I'd object strongly. Anyone (Baron rouge perhaps) want to disprove my claim about French sanction busting to Iraq in contravention of UNSCRs?

[Selac66]

I fail to see your point Maple. If France, Russia and China see it as in their own interest to supply arms to people they will do it - as the US/UK have done in the past. Without a clean record in this department we can't go whinging when our own tactics are used against us - as a former ex-int analyst you'd know that it's more complicated than that.

[BenThere]

Not to mention the Osirak reactor before that.

France is in a league by itself. The tradition of US, UK, Russia and China has been to arm their allies. France likes to arm the enemies of its 'allies'.