Arms Dealer: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (→Tabletop Games) |
Jason taylor (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
Line 36:
== Film ==
* In [[Casablanca]] Rick Blaine was this in his [[Backstory]] in Ethiopia and the Spanish Civil War. Apparently he did it for the cause though [[Not in This For Your Revolution|he was unwilling to admit it]] and certainly had no problem pocketing the pay he got out of it. He was told, "The winning side would have paid much better and replied ambiguously. Actually of course, the winning side would not have paid at all as they would have been purchasing from reliable arms cartels, not smugglers while Ethiopians at least would have needed unconventional sources being strapped for cash.
* Yuri Orlov, [[Villain Protagonist]] of ''[[Lord of War]]'' as well as a few others shown in the film. Yuri is the nephew of one of the "Former Reds With Rockets For Sale", who helped get him into the arms business. He also has a rival/nemesis in Simeon Weisz, a corporate lobyist version who also has some political motivations (specifically support for America and Israel). Despite falling into some [[Eagle Land]] and "evil Zionist" stereotypes, Simeon ''still'' comes across as better than Yuri.
* An Israeli one features in ''[[Charlie Wilson's War|Charlie Wilsons War]]'', played [[Fake Nationality|by Scot Ken Stott]].
Line 170 ⟶ 171:
* The now famous Charlie Wilson was a U.S. congressman who used his own power - he was a member of the appropiations committee (money lenders) for black ops, as well as working with a number of CIA and Special Forces agents - to secure arms for Afghan Guerillas during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
** Even more amazing is the CIA agent he worked with, Gust Avrokatos, and the guys Gust worked with. Gust once remarked of the immense balls of the Deputy Arms Minister of Egypt. Apparently, during a meeting with Gust for weapons to be sold to Israel with money from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia with the intention of Israel handing the weapons to Pakistan who would move them into Afghanistan (yeah), the Deputy Minister was also darting in and out of two other rooms that each smelled strongly of tobacco and hashish. Apparently the minister was making arms deals with the Iranians in the room on the left, Americans in the center room, and Iraqis on the right. This despite the fact that Iran and Iraq were at war, and Egypt's attitude towards America at the time was "we'll write insulting things with our right hands while you pass cash and guns to our left."
***In both the cases of Charlie and Gust that depends on how you define the term. They were [[La Résistance|underground quartermasters\\, to be sure, but they were covered by the US government (and whatever other government was involved) and did not need to make a profit to pump their budget. They were dealing in arms so they were "arms-dealers" if you want to make a point but they were purchasers and smugglers not producers and not sellers.
***One of the problems in that operation was that for a long time the CIA was unwilling to introduce American ordinance because they wished to maintain [[Implausible Deniability|the pretense]] that America was not supplying the Afghans. That meant that while fungible cash could be gotten out of Congress, it had to be converted into hardware and transported by all sorts of convoluted and rather colorful means.
* Viktor Bout, a former Red (retired Russian GRU major) with a lot of military stuff for sale. He was supplying weapons to nearly everyone (except for people linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, or so he claims) for fifteen years, until he was arrested in Thailand last year. Nicknamed "The Merchant of Death". Also, the main character of ''Lord of War'', Yuri Orlov, was based on him.
* Norway allegedly has the world's largest export of weapons per capita. Notable because this is also the country with the Nobel Peace Price and a number of people trying to create peace in both the Middle East and South East Asia.
| |||