The Blade by Ron Schenone, MVP
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Stolen Military Items Being Sold On eBay & craigslist

by Ron Schenone on April 11, 2008 at 4:35 am · Comments
Categorized by Blogroll, General, Internet, Technology / Related Information

Over at CNN there is an article referencing stolen military gear that was being sold on eBay and craigslist. Items such as military uniforms, body armor, night vision goggles plus other military equipment was also being sold. But there was one item that was being sold that seemed odd to me. It was parts for the F-14 fighter aircraft.

Now that wasn’t interesting in itself. It was the following statement I found alarming:

Two F-14 fighter jet components. The United States has retired its fleet of F-14s. Only Iran is currently using them.

Does anyone else think that it is strange that the US has sold jet fighters to Iran? I recall that we seem to be at odds with the Iranians because of their position on possessing nuclear weapons. So why would we then sell them our aging jet fighters?

I look forward to your comments.

CNN article is here.

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What do you think?

Dick Krohn - April 11, 2008 @ 5:38 am

We sold F-14’s to Iran when the Shah of Iran was in power. A long time ago.

I used to train Iranian military students in the early 1970’s. That all ended when the Ayatollah took over and we had our 444 day hostage situation during the Carter presidency.

Pepijn - April 11, 2008 @ 8:14 am

Same strange yeah :O

Mr_Drillo - April 11, 2008 @ 8:55 am

are you sure it was the US that sold the f-14 to iran? we are not the only country that had them available to sell them to iran. did you ever think it involved a third party?

Ron Schenone - April 11, 2008 @ 9:57 am

Thank you Dick. That seems to clear up who sold what, when. Reminds me when we supported Saddam during the Reagan years. It would be interesting to know how much hardware we sold him to fight Iran. :-(

Dick Krohn - April 11, 2008 @ 3:34 pm

I’m pretty sure it was the U.S. that sold them to Iran. I know Grumman got the money and contract since they were doing the support and training using tech reps sent to Iran for that purpose. Some pretty amusing stories came out of that (mis)adventure.
Of course, who the middle man might have been, (sliding a few bucks into their pocket) I can’t know. But the U.S. had to approve the sale since it was pretty high tech stuff back then. I don’t recall too much but I don’t think they were sold with the AWG-9 RADAR or Phoenix missile system. Just the Sparrow/Sidewinder missiles and a “Lite” version of the AWG-9 RADAR. Thanks for a chance to remember those days.

Ron Schenone - April 11, 2008 @ 5:10 pm

Hi Dick,
Thanks for your recollections.

What are your thoughts?

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