Uncle Sam, weapons supplier to Mexican Cartels?

[Bob Hubbard]

- A M26A2 fragmentation grenade used against a U.S. Consulate in Mexico in 2008
- Explosive projectiles and 21 grenades found during a raid in Guadalupe
- An unexploded grenade and pull ring used to attack a TV station in Monterrey
- Automatic weapons, including U.S.-made M16s found at a cartel crime scene in May 2009

- U.S. military-issued ammunition found in a cartel raid in Reynosa in November 2008
You can't buy this stuff at a U.S. gun store. So where do the cartels get it? According to leaked diplomatic cables, there are three sources.
1. U.S. Defense Department shipments to Latin America, known and tracked by the U.S. State Department as "foreign military sales."
2. Weapons ordered by the Mexican government, tracked by the State Department as "direct commercial sales."
3. Aging, but plentiful arsenals of military weapon stores in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/28/americas-war-arming-mexican-cartels/

I didn't think you could pick up RPG's at the fair grounds.

Considering a good number of the cartel gunmen are moonlighting Mexican Army, driving their duty vehicles, it makes sense they'd bring their duty weapons too.

 

[granfire]

I think there has been a good flow of stuff since the late 1970s...even though Ollie North forgot all about it

 

[Empty Hands]

The US is the largest arms manufacturer, exporter and supplier in the world. No surprise then that the cartels have some of our toys too.

Remember this scene from Egypt?

 

[RandomPhantom700]

The US is the largest arms manufacturer, exporter and supplier in the world. No surprise then that the cartels have some of our toys too.

Remember this scene from Egypt?

I don't mean to sound naive, but isn't there a significant difference between various baddies getting their hands on U.S.-made weapons and the U.S. directly supplying them? Or is it all wink-wink, nudge-nudge for the same "supplying"?

I mean, just being a layman on the topic, I'd be a lot more worried to hear that we were directly supplying drug cartels as opposed to hearing that they'd found a way to get U.S. weapons. Not that the latter isn't concerning...

 

[Empty Hands]

I don't mean to sound naive, but isn't there a significant difference between various baddies getting their hands on U.S.-made weapons and the U.S. directly supplying them? Or is it all wink-wink, nudge-nudge for the same "supplying"?

There is some of that. The US has used backdoor channels and front groups to supply weapons to prohibited groups for some time now. Really though, you don't even need to resort to that to explain it. The US dominates the market, so most of the re-selling, middlemen, wholesalers and so on are going to involve US weapons and are going to have far fewer scruples about whom they sell to. Not that the US tries very hard to regulate the secondary market, or even the primary market in many cases.