Why are we buying Kalashnikov knock-offs to distribute to the Afgan and Iraqi men?
Russian arms officials say that no other nation has a valid license to make the AK-47 and its many derivatives and clones, and that to defeat insurgents and terrorists, Washington has been encouraging violations of intellectual property rights. Russia is suffering losses in income, jobs and damage to the Kalashnikov name, the officials say, and would like the United States to shop for the weapons directly from here.
Aside from intellectual property issues, it's just bad money management.
Congressman have asked why American forces did not save money by reissuing to friendly forces the thousands of Kalashnikov rifles confiscated in both wars.
(Last spring, journalists from The New York Times watched United States marines collect tens of thousands of mint-condition Kalashnikovs in a cache in a hospital in Tikrit. The weapons were still in their original packing crates.)
The Commissar has something to say about this as well.
