Arms Dealers · 4:11am Dec 31st, 2020
The worse part is this is very much true. In our world, the 5 biggest arms dealers are the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council. When they can’t sell things legally, they rely on arms dealers to do it for them to free themselves of any fingerprints.
Theoretically, it applies to my country of Indonesia as well. Officially, we have around 30 F-16s, but from the serial numbers on the fighters, people believe there should be at least 40. They could be stashed somewhere or they could be flying with identical serial numbers as another Indonesian F-16 to throw off suspicions.
Same for our PT-76s. We officially have around 170 of them, but Indonesia and Ukraine inked a deal to modernize and upgrade “300 PT-76s” which means the Soviets secretly shipped a fuck ton more of PT-76s to Indonesia.
Belgians have been quiet for a long time and then boom. Docks in Jakarta all of a sudden full of Belgian-flagged ships carrying a fuck ton of M113s, M109 Paladins, and crates of FN SCARs for Kostrad. Just all quietly handed to Indonesia to avoid fanfare.
You sound well informed.
This all sounds like an alien world to me, though. I don't claim to know everything, but you begin to realize how little you know the more you try to learn about it; and I only have a passing interest in the military. You speak of equipment and arms that I would have thought be a well kept secret, just for the sake of security.
But, when I think about it, perhaps secrets are being kept after all; what with the numbers not adding up.
As a new person looking down into the well of knowledge this represents, I am just surprised we would even be able to know about these things.
Yeah, you know who are the biggest suppliers of guns for mexican cartels? US arms dealers selling through intermediaries. There's a reason the US doesn't actually care to end the "War on Drugs".
Going off the IRL politics (besides a sidenote that it's 100% true, especially with Trump bragging about well "MUH economy" will do after pushing weapons for MBS even right after the later assassinated an opponent to his regime), I LOVE Lord of War's script, but feel that Cage is... Well, miscast.
Don't get me wrong, he's one hell of an actor, but his best roles (even for his super-serious Oscar-worthy films) feature characters with tons of emotional baggage and being volatile outlets (either for comedy or drama/horror). LOW has Cage's character troubled, but in a more somber manner (which comes less weathered and emotional than it does monotonous), with the only "Nic Cage-style outburst" being a one-off gag (i.e. The "Used Gun" bit):
Being honest, I think the role should've gone to somebody else; DiCaprio comes to mind, seeing as he played basically the exact same character in Blood Diamond:
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Nic Cage is a great actor. Heard tho that the reason he’s been going downhill is because he didn’t spend his money wisely.
DiCaprio sounds like an excellent alternative, but I think he was working on The Departed while Lord of War was being filmed.