Guns or Words?

William Hague and  Guido Westerwelle have written to Catherine Ashton calling for 'a series of EU responses tailor-made for the circumstances of each country currently going through popular uprisings.'

There, that trio and their action  should sort things out in Libya.

Or perhaps the Berlusconi method is more effective?

Sold to Tripoli at the end of 2009 after Berlusconi welcomed the man whose hands he publicly kissed (shades of Andreotti) to Rome: made by  Beretta, "7.500 pistole, 1.900 carabine e 1.800 fucili" (Fatto Quotidiano) all in the hands of the head of Public Security of the Comitato Popolare - ie., in the hands of Ghadaffi's   janissaries.  Of course they were exported under licences for 'arms not specifically for military use ' together with 11,000 other weapons including hundreds and hundreds of M4 Super 80 - a weapon designed for use in war, produced in Urbino by  Berretta.


Fatto Quotidiano  reports too that included in the arms consignment were 'le pistole PX4 calibro 9 semiautomatiche, con un peso ridotto di soli 800 grammi e un caricatore di 10 colpi che con un elemento supplementare può arrivare a 15. E poi le carabine CX4, anche queste calibro 9, su cui possono essere montati sistemi di puntamento ottico e laser .' [you can all read that for yourselves,  not what you'd call hunting rifles are they? ed.]