Che Guevara Quotes
Arms cannot be regarded as merchandise in our world. They should be delivered to the peoples asking for them for use against the common enemy without any charge at all, and in quantities determined by the need and their availability.
Guevara, Ernesto "Che". "At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria." Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity, 24 Feb. 1965, Algiers, Algeria. Published in Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics and Revolution, Ocean Press, 2003, p. 343.
After the First World War, the United States and other countries were very conscious of the possibility of foreign arms sales encouraging and facilitating war and aggression. Therefore, arms shipments were very limited. The exception allowed tyrannical governments often to suppress, and often kill, their own citizens. By the end of the 20th century, the United States would sell arms to almost anyone and was the largest arms supplier in the world. Much of the flip flop of position on arms exports was caused by the fact that other nations were shipping arms and getting the jobs and profits associated with those exports and almost anyone in the world with money could buy arms. So the United States allowed its arms manufacturers to compete in this lucrative business to all but a few arms embargoed nations with whom we were having international difficulty.
While the inventor of the American M16, a weapon not as good, became a millionaire, the General got a medal but by the beginning of the 21st century was penniless. See {635786}.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.
