Society
Blair looked like Ali G impersonating Gandhi, while his ministers tried to force India to buy British guns
Published 21 January 2002
I know this might sound hypocritical, but I do so hate hypocrisy. All of us are guilty of it to some degree; it's just that some are better at it than others. Why, for example, should the reaction to Prince Harry's drink and drug consumption focus on cannabis, rather than on the alcoholic products that have his family's royal crowns of approval plastered all over them? You might have expected the royal family to have removed its approval from known health risks - from Benson & Hedges, for example, or Gordon's Gin, which was owned by Distillers (now taken over), the company responsible for Thalidomide. However, the only threat to public health that has been stripped of the royal warrant in recent years is Mohamed Al Fayed.
For governments, hypocrisy comes easily. Doing the opposite of what they proclaim should be done is probably a prerequisite for politicians. The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, will never forget how his predecessor, Robin Cook, was savagely scorned for his "ethical" pronouncements and unethical actions - which is why Straw has made no such proclamations. Straw has no wish to be known as a two-faced lying bastard, and is probably content merely to be known as a ****. (1)
For similar reasons, Tony Blair has avoided personally touting Hawk jets to India. He has toured India and Pakistan preaching peace (managing to look like Ali G impersonating Gandhi), while his ministers John Prescott and Geoff Hoon have intervened in a bid to persuade India to buy British arms. This isn't so much the political adage of "speak peace but carry a big stick". It's more like "speak peace but buy big sticks from my mates". For all Blair's talk of his Christian faith and how important it is in his decisions, politically Blair behaves like the Trotter Trading Company wing of the al-Qaeda network. Preaching peace and then flogging arms to a country on the brink of war is not Christian behaviour.
If it were, there would be a chapter in the Bible where, after the Sermon on the Mount, the Apostles offload crates full of spears and swords. Matthew would be at the back of the crowd, saying to Thomas: "As soon as he's done the fishes and loaves thing, get into the crowd shouting 'Slingshots. Slingshots. Getchya slingshots!' "
The Hawk jets are made by BAe Systems. This is the second time in the course of a month that this company and the government have been caught in a scandal involving arms exports. If they carry on at this rate, they will be flogging Tibetan monk seeking missiles to China by Christmas, and Geoff Hoon himself will be beheading Saudi dissidents at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve 2003.
Support for the arms trade doesn't manifest itself merely in the work hours of ministers and civil servants in government departments and embassies around the world. It is highly probable that the government's Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) will use our money to insure these atrocious deals. The department's budget has just been increased fourfold and, given its past history in underwriting BAe's Hawk jet sales, notably to Indonesia, it is likely to back the India deal.
The over-expensive military air traffic control system being sold to Tanzania and now the BAe/India deal have been eagerly supported by our peace-preaching Prime Minister and the arms dealers' very own John the Baptist, Geoff Hoon.
If the government put the same amount of effort into the rail network as it does into the arms industry, Britain would have world-class transport. Instead, what happens? Mussolini got the trains running on time, but he's dead - and well, John Birt wasn't doing much, so they let him have a go.
It won't come as a shock that Blair's government is not averse to lying to support the munitions manufacturers. Royal Ordnance, part of BAe Systems, sells cluster bombs, which have yet to be included in the Ottawa Convention banning anti- personnel mines. Judging by current government thinking, they won't be included in the foreseeable future. Landmine Action in Britain has been running a postcard campaign to ban cluster bombs. One supporter got a reply from the local MP which spouted the official line: "Only a limited number of cluster bombs have been used in the air campaign over Afghanistan by United States forces. All contain bomblets that detonate on impact."
This is a lie. According to those clearing mines in Afghanistan, 10 per cent of the sub-munitions dropped by the US in cluster bombs have failed to explode on impact. This leaves an estimated 24,000 unexploded bomblets lying around the country. Yet the MP doesn't say: "All contain bomblets that detonate on impact, except 24,000 of them."
On Monday 17 December, one of the Mine Action Centre's workers in Afghanistan found four children, two dead, two injured, who happened to pick up one of these bomblets. Meanwhile, Nazir Ahmad of the Organisation for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation in Jalalabad reported the following sobering fact: before Christmas, in Herat alone, 30 children were killed and 25 wounded by cluster bombs.
(1) The editor will not allow me to use the word I want to use here, just as he would not allow me to call David Blunkett a homophobe a few weeks ago
PS: Despite Landmine Action's report that proves that British army-type anti-vehicle mines could be set off by children playing, Geoff Hoon still refuses to meet the campaign group directly
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