Behold a Pale Horse: Directed by Fred Zinnemann. With Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Raymond Pellegrin. Famous Spanish bandit Artiguez returns to his native Spanish village after 20 years in French exile but Spanish cop Vinolas is setting a trap for him.
I have to chime in on this one. Sorry if I get a little lecture-ey.
Once upon a time, back before the fall of the Soviet Union, both the U.S. and Russia were competing for the favor of South America. To curry their favor, both countries heaped gifts of money and weapons on them. AK's, M16's, F1 and Mk 2 grenades, RPG's, hell, even tanks.
The CIA would show up, and the Latin American leaders would smile and raise their arms. "We love America! We love Democracy!" and take the money. Then the KGB would arrive a week later. "We love Russia! We love Communism!"
Now these countries didn't really need all the ordinance dumped n their laps. Most of it got stuffed into warehouses and forgotten about.
Then came some entrepreneurs with ties to the Hispanic community. They knew that a lot of gangbangers in the States wanted to get their hands on some firepower, and those bangers didn't want any of the cheap semi-auto knockoff stuff. They wanted to slip that AK from semi to full and hear that unforgettable "Ka-Chunk" noise it made.
These entrepreneurs also knew how poorly the Latin American police forces were paid. A bribe here and there, and they would look the other way while crates of weapons and spam cans of ammo were hauled away.
Which is basically the story of how those weapons made it into the States. And irony being what it is, with the rise of the Cartels, the same countries that once sold the weapons are now paying premium prices to buy them back from the very same entrepreneurs that had brought them to the U.S.
Yeah, I think he was batshit crazy towards the end, BUT he was right about a whole lot of shit, like the Prozac and Bin laden. So he has a better record than the Anderson Cooper's and Wolf Blitzer's of the world as far as knowing what was going on and telling the public about it.
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