Thank you note for Belgians.

RE: Thank you note for Belgians.

I think these weapons took more lives than saved them. There was only one official costumer outside the EU who bought those weapons, the Mexican police, but the Belgian gov’t thwarted the deal, because they feared these weapons were not always going to be used against the ‘bad guys.’ The Majority of costumers are gangsters, terrorists, arms dealers … not something to be that proud on.

RE: Thank you note for Belgians.

Tomel,

“I would be proud if my nation can produced weapons that may
have saved 1000s of lives.”

The other side of that statement of yours is, of course, that those weapons have also taken thousands of lives. There’s always two ways of looking at these these things.

It’s interesting to think that the arms race started not in the last Century but thousands of years ago. You can gaurantee that as soon as man came up with the club it wasn’t long before somebody set themselves up in business selling “new, improved clubs.” Someone created the bow and arrow, at last you could kill your enemies at range. So, armour was invented to destroy the dominance of the bow and arrow. Then comes the armour piercing arrow to punch through plate and mail. More up to date comes the atomic bomb. It’s use against Japan saved countless thousands of allied lives, but at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives over a period of fifty years. And still the race goes on…

The only certain conlusion to be drawn from this is that there are only two winners, the arms manufacturers and the arms dealers. And apparently that puts Belgium pretty high up the leaderboard.

Regards,

kev35

RE: Thank you note for Belgians.

I would be proud if my nation can produced weapons that may have saved 1000s of lives.Most of the FN HERSTAL guns were used by the armed forces/police-with the exception of the old HP ,the rest is a bit to expensive for the bandits.They would prefer the cheaper AKs /M16s anydays.Half of the UN peacekeepers used Belgian made guns-as i said before,a very good know how for such a small nation.Beside -you guys are not producing nukes/weapons of mass destruction/tanks /fighters or something like that.Even the proud US forces -changing their home made weapons for a Belgian ones.(M249,latest being M240 which is based on the trusted GPMG):-)

RE: Thank you note for Belgians.

And if you saw where these weapons are built… The place is a bit gloomy, in a suburb of Liège. The city really grew around the factory, and due to that, the streets are chaotic. And when I see my country (and province) cited as #1 arms builder, i am not proud of living here…

RE: Thank you note for Belgians.

Well, our federal gov’t wants to limit the export of arms, because we all know it are not only armies, but also terrorists who get these weapons. I don’t know which weapon it is, but the one that can fire through 9 bullet proof vests: scarry, especially because our gangsters had the weapon even before the SIE had (Special Intervention Esquadron, the SWAT-team of our federal police).

But the gov’t of Wallonia doesn’t want to hear about that, because it is probably Wallonia’s most important business, now all the mines are closed. So I guess in the near future, the export of belgian side-arms will continue.