| Author | Message | | Fishy | | Posted: Tue May 28, 2002 3:45 pm Post subject: How Do We Stop This????????? |
| Are we all supposed to just sit here while our governements kill off everyone? How long before these weapons are used against us?
Daily Mirror
May 27, 2002
HOW BRITAIN'S ARMAMENTS FUEL WAR AND POVERTY
By John Pilger
WITH nuclear powers India and Pakistan on the edge of
war, the role of the Blair government in fuelling the
conflict has been critical.
In the year 2000, the Government approved nearly 700
export licences for weapons and military equipment to
both countries. These had a total value of £64million.
India, which gets the great majority of British
weapons, is building under licence Jaguar bombers that
are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
In January, as the two countries prepared for war,
Tony Blair arrived in the subcontinent on what was
called a "peace m
ission." In fact, as the Indian press
revealed, he discussed the opposite of peace - a
£1billion deal to sell India 60 Hawk fighter-bombers
made by British Aerospace. "The issue of India
acquiring the Hawks," reported the periodical Outlook
India, "was raised by Prime Minister Blair with Prime
Minister A.B. Vajpayee, defence minister George
Fernandes said today."
Three weeks later, the British High Commission in New
Delhi threw a party for a group of British arms
salesmen in town for a major weapons fair called
Defexpo, whose organisers made no secret of their aim
to exploit the "recent developments taking place in
the south-east Asia region" - in other words, the
conflicts in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
So keen has the Blair government been to exploit this
opportunity of war that a British official has the
full-time assignment, in New Delhi, of "defence
supply". He works wi
the Defence Export Sales
Organisation (DESO) in London, an arm of the Ministry
of Defence, whose sole aim is to sell weapons to
foreign armies. A secret list of 22 "highly valuable
priority markets" targeted for British arms sales has
India and Pakistan near the top. British missiles,
tanks, artillery, howitzers, anti-aircraft guns, small
arms and ammunition are all available on
buy-now-pay-later terms.
But the prize is the 60 Hawk fighter-bombers, coyly
described as "trainers". Trade and Industry Secretary
Patricia Hewitt was yesterday reported to have
"banned" this deal. It has not been banned; the
delivery date has been simply put back - which was the
tactic the Blair government used in delaying the
shipment of Hawks to Indonesia when the dictatorship
in that country was attempting to annihilate East
Timor.
INDIA and Pakistan have millions of impoverished
people without basic services. According to the
Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the price of one Hawk
bomber is roughly the amount needed to provide
1.5million people with fresh water for life.
Arming both sides is, of course, as British as pith
helmets. In the horrendous war between Iraq and Iran
in the 1980s, Britain did just that in company with
other Western countries. At least a million people
were killed.
The usual hypocrisy and double standards are even more
spectacular under this government. Soon after New
Labour came to power in 1997, the then Foreign
Secretary Robin Cook announced an "ethical dimension"
to foreign policy. He said that the Government "will
not issue an (arms) export licence if there is a
clearly identifiable risk that the intended recipient
would use the proposed export aggressively against
another country" or if there was a threat to "regional
stability".
He might have been talking about India and Pakistan,
whose long- running dispute over Kashmir is, according
to Cook's successor Jack Straw, "potentially more
dangerous than the crisis in the Middle East".
From the day it took office, veiled by Cook's
"ethical" nonsense, New Labour embraced the arms
business. In his first few months as Prime Minister,
Blair approved 11 arms deals with General Suharto's
genocidal regime in Indonesia under cover of the
Official Secrets Act.
He has since maintained this country as the world's
third biggest arms trader, selling more lethal weapons
in New Labour's first year than the Tories. More than
two-thirds of sales are to governments with appalling
human rights records. Britain's biggest customer is
Saudi Arabia, the most extreme Islamic regime on
earth, where apostates are beheaded. Women have no
rights; it is illegal for a woman even to drive a car.
CHERIE Blair, who with Laura Bush, wife of the
American President, denounced the "brutal oppression
of women" in Afghanistan by the Taliban and demanded
their emancipation, has remained silent on the
medieval treatment of Saudi women in the spiritual
home of al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia has most of the world's
oil.
The results of an investigation by the National Audit
Office into the £20billion Al Yamamah (The Dove) deal
between the Saudi princes and the British arms
industry, believed to be the biggest in history, were
suppressed first by the Tories and, since 1997, by
Labour. The reason is that the report almost certainly
describes "commissions" paid on the sale of Tornado
fighters - £15million on one aircraft is said to have
been the going rate.
Under Blair, taking his lead from Margaret Thatcher's
obsession with the arms industry, sales of weapons and
military equipment have become the most heavily
subsidised sector of the UK economy apart from
agriculture. This means that taxpayers underwrite
loans-for-arms to dictators oppressing their people.
The argument that the Government is "protecting jobs"
is demolished by the writing-off of billions of
pounds, which could create jobs in peace-time
industries.
This was how Hawk fighter-bombers were "sold" to the
Suharto dictatorship. One of the first things Robin
Cook did when New Labour came to power was to fly out
to Indonesia and shake the mass murderer's hand.
Indonesia was then crushing the life out of East
Timor, using British Aerospace's finest products: Hawk
aircraft and Heckler and Koch machine guns.
For two years, with the help of lobby journalists
"briefed" by lying Foreign Office officials, Cook was
able to deny that the Hawks were being used in East
Timor - until the Indonesians grew tired of the
subterfuge and made a fool of him by sending Hawks in
menacing passes over Dili, the East Timorese capital.
The making and selling of arms is crucial to the
post-September 11 "war on terrorism", which is not a
war on terrorism at all but a justification for the US
to consolidate and extend its global supremacy.
Indeed, most Anglo- American weapons go to client
regimes that promote terrorism; Saudi Arabia, home of
most of the September 11 hijackers and tutors of the
Taliban, is the prime example.
Arms sales and the development of multi-billion dollar
warplanes, ships and missile systems, have an
essential place in the "global economy". They
invariably lead to an American economic "boom" or
"recovery" which influences the economies of Europe
and much of the world.
In 1960, President Eisenhower called American
capitalism a "military- industrial complex" powered by
arms and other military-related contracts. Forty cents
in every dollar ends up with the Pentagon which, in
the financial year 2001/2, will spend a record
$400billion on its war machine. Not surprisingly, war
ensures the industry's prosperity. Following the Gulf
War and the Nato attack on Yugoslavia, both American
and British arms sales leapt. When the New York Stock
Exchange re-opened after September 11, the stocks of
arms companies were almost alone in showing an
increase in value. Raytheon, the missile maker and
contributor to New Labour, was one of them.
TONY Blair's close links with Israel - many of them
forged by his friend, the deal-maker Michael Levy,
whom he made Lord Levy - are described as "the
Government's tireless efforts to bring peace and
stability to the Middle East." The opposite is true.
As on the Indian sub-continent, British arms policy
has actually fanned the flames in a region in deepest
crisis. In the first 14 months of the Palestinian
uprising against Israel's illegal military occupation
- when the Palestinians' main weapon was the slingshot
- the Blair government approved 230 export licences to
Israel for arms and military equipment. The licence
categories these covered included large-calibre
weapons, ammunition, bombs and almost certainly vital
parts for American-supplied helicopter gunships. These
Apache gunships have been frequently on the news,
firing missiles at civilian areas.
While British weapons and parts were being shipped to
the Israeli military machine, Amnesty International
investigators reported "human rights violations and
grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions which, over
the past 18 months, have been committed daily, hourly,
even every minute by the Israeli authorities against
Palestinians".
Foreign Office mouthpieces, also known as junior
ministers, routinely tell Parliament that they have
"an assurance that British equipment will not be used
in the Occupied Territories". This is clearly false.
As reporters witnessed recently, Israeli armoured
personnel carriers have a chassis made from
British-supplied Centurion tanks.
Business is business, and it never stops. On September
11, at an arms fair in London's Docklands, there was
not even a respectful silence in honour of the victims
of the Twin Towers. The Israelis had a whole pavilion;
one Israeli company, Rafael, was here to sell the
Ministry of Defence the Gill-Spike Anti-tank missile,
a weapon distinguished by its history of use against
civilians in Palestine and Lebanon.
At last year's Labour Party conference Blair, playing
the Christian imperialist, promised "the most positive
involvement" in Africa that would attack poverty and
under-development and heal "a scar on the conscience
of the world".
One of the main causes of poverty in Africa is the
amount spent on arms by regimes offered a variety of
enticements by Western business and governments.
Three months after the Prime Minister's heartfelt
words, the value of British arms sales to Africa was
revealed to be a record - four times that of the
previous year. It was also disclosed that Blair had
given his personal backing to the sale of a
British-made military air traffic control system to
Tanzania, one of the world's poorest countries.
THE deal was worth £28 million to the arms firm, BAE
Systems. This is just what is needed in a country so
poor that half the population have no access to
running water and children die from preventable
diseases.
All over the world 24,000 people, mostly children, die
from poverty every day. This is the true terrorism,
and it is aided and abetted by politicians from rich,
privileged and powerful countries who, in the cause of
profit and feigning respectability, are salesmen of
death. Their victims, and the rest of us, deserve
better.
John Pilger's latest book, The New Rulers of the
World, is published by Verso. | |  | | Anglo Thug | | Posted: Tue May 28, 2002 4:26 pm Post subject: |
| I should point out that the above message is copyright The Daily Mirror or John Pilger (one of the two) and is used here for non-profit and fair use only.
Fishy, there's a debate on this in Parliament today. I'll let you know how the government manages to square this totally outrageous policy away. | | | | Fishy | | Posted: Tue May 28, 2002 7:00 pm Post subject: |
| | Anglo Thug wrote: | I should point out that the above message is copyright The Daily Mirror or John Pilger (one of the two) and is used here for non-profit and fair use only.
Thank you pointing that out, Anglo. I should have mentioned this. :wink:
Fishy, there's a debate on this in Parliament today. I'll let you know how the government manages to square this totally outrageous policy away. |
I'll be very interested in what comes out of the debate. Does anyone but us realize what the cataclysmic consequences of a nuclear war between Pakistan and India would be? Would China step in? Madness. | | | | Libby | | Posted: Tue May 28, 2002 7:24 pm Post subject: |
| | Quote: | | I'll be very interested in what comes out of the debate. Does anyone but us realize what the cataclysmic consequences of a nuclear war between Pakistan and India would be? Would China step in? Madness. |
I saw on a news report on Sunday, that the threat of a Nuclear war
would be far greater if the worlds Nuclear stockpile were to be reduced.
Countries that do not have a strong economy, would then be forced to
sell off these weapons, most likely the buyers would be terrorists, who
have a beef with the west..especially America.
An ex-commandant with the Russian Army, who worked in Nuclear
armaments( He now works for greenpeace) also showed the lax in
security, in Russian facilities where Nuclear weapons were stored
(that were considered..'non-active') He broke into this compound
and made it all the way to where the weapons were stored. That
is scary as well.
China..didn't I read on here somewhere that they have building a
road to the Kyber pass? China would have a lot to gain, but who's
side would the take? Just their own. | | | | msteffan1 | | Posted: Tue May 28, 2002 8:02 pm Post subject: Re: How Do We Stop This????????? |
| http://www.goatchurch.org.uk/prots/dsei/dsei.html
Good description of the arms fair demonstrations on the 11th.
Fishy The Hawks are indeed training aircraft, although can be fitted with machine gun and other weapons pods..Ideal for limited operations..more against insurgents than an army or air force.
I would think anyone buying this sort of aircraft if not using for design use as a trainer would be looking at using them against own people.
On the selling side we have in the UK the Royal Air Force display team the RED ARROWS, who use this aircraft in displays....Look at their tour schedule in future to see where the next weapons sale push from the UK will end up.
Business is business, and it never stops. On September
11, at an arms fair in London's Docklands | | | | Anglo Thug | | Posted: Thu May 30, 2002 12:42 am Post subject: |
| Fishy,
Our government has recently done the decent thing and banned all arms sales to India and Pakistan, in the light of the current situation there. Apart from a $1billion order for Hawk 'training' aircraft. These aircraft fill a close support role in reality. Our government sees no contradiction whatsoever with this policy. So everything is perfectly all right now, as you can see.
Regards
AT | | | | Fishy | | Posted: Thu May 30, 2002 4:34 am Post subject: |
| Good description of the arms fair demonstrations on the 11th.
That's an amazing site, M. I knew there was an arms fair on that day, but I never knew about the protesters. Good on em. | | | | msteffan1 | | | | Fishy | | Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2002 10:08 pm Post subject: |
| Tony wants you to know he dont care what you think.
I've figured this out. His evil twin over here doesn't care what I think, either. I'm used to it. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2002 9:52 pm Post subject: |
| GOOD DESCRIPTION OF THE ARMS FAIR DEMONSTRATIONS
I think that was a piss poor excuse for a demonstration. Seems the whole thing was choreographed by the police. Were those kid gloves they wore?
Takes me back to Wits University in the 70's. Police with dogs, sjamboks, truncheon and pistol on the belt. No riot shields, no water cannon, they didn't even wear helmets. When they charged you ran. One female student stayed seated on the tarmac of Jan Smuts Avenue and was beaten about the head with the stock of a sjambok - a type of whip traditionally used on ox-wagons.
Yes your English affairs are pitiful. At least at Wits we exposed the police and government for what they were. Here in England the police are two steps ahead of you thus stealing the wind out of your sails. Oh yes there were one or two Brit expats - the nephew of Sir Alec Douglas-Home was there. Sadly he could not attend as he was under house arrest for lampooning B.J.Vorster - ran a caption competition; little girl gazing into the toilet: "Excuse me are you the Prime Minister?"
Which brings me to the whole sickening back-slapping ego massaging polical-correctness-preening which passes for dissent in this country. Knowledge without Power is Nothing. Once you've found out what is wrong you have to be prepared to do something about it. You have to confront the government and make your POINT. The picture of that young woman with blood streaming all down her face made it onto the front page of the international press. Being a coward myself I ran. But at least I participated (briefly) in a real demo - not this piss-willy-crap you have in England. That affair at the Docklands makes me VOMIT.
So why doesn't somebody organize something REAL that actually pisses somebody off. That affair at the docklands was an advertisement for the government's skill in managing a demonstration rather than a show of anger against arms sales.
<HUGE SIGH> I guess you British are too phlegmatic for demo's. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
