The Law of Unintended Consequences

[J.T]

Bad news in America’s five-year-old proxy war (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-struggle-threatens-u-s-outsourced-somalia-war/) against al-Qaida-allied Somali insurgents. Half of the U.S.-supplied weaponry (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/new-bird-of-prey-hunts-somali-terrorists-raven-drones/) that enables cash-strapped Ugandan and Burundian troops to fight Somalia’s al-Shabab terror group is winding up in al-Shabab’s hands.


The kicker: it’s the cash-strapped Ugandans who are selling the weapons to the insurgents.
...


The problem is, the Ugandan army withholds most of the peacekeepers’ $550 monthly paychecks, keeping the money in bank accounts in Uganda accessible only by the troops’ families. Considering “limited shopping opportunities for embattled AMISOM troops, you would think that makes sense to keep their money at home,” Pelton wrote. “Except that the AMISOM payment debacle leaves thousands of troops surrounded by tons of weapons with no way to buy even ’small small’ things like personal items, sweets or mobile phone recharges to call home.”


So the Ugandans sell their excess weaponry to intermediaries who then sell it on to al-Shabab. And to keep up their racket, the peacekeepers make sure to shoot at every opportunity, burning through “an extraordinary amount of ordnance” to justify continued arms shipments from Washington.





http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/u-s-weapons-now-in-somali-terrorists-hands

And nobody foresaw any problems with this?

[Little-Acorn]

A typical example of "Unintended Consequences" is:

Congress raises tax rates, with the expectation that the government will get more money as a result.

Businesses find they have less money to pay people, buy raw materials, etc. So they reduce production and lay off some employees, while reducing the hours of others. While taxpayers start paying a greater percentage of their incomes due to the tax rate increases, they have less income to pay a percentage of, so government's revenue increas isn't as high as they expected. And some people are no longer taxpayers, having been laid off, so government's revenue falls further. And corporate income goes down due to shrinking production and profit margins, so government's revenue shrinks further, sometimes becoming an overall decrease in revenue.

This decrease is called an "unintended consequence", since it's not what Congress expected to happen... and it happens virtually every time government raises tax rates.

But the next time Congress decides to raise taxes again, they will call the result "unexpected" again.

And the next.