Killing People Isn't Nice (The UK arms trade)

Member Name: rtj0

Product:	The UK arms trade
Date:	04/03/01 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Arms kill lots of people

Why exactly does this country sell arms to evil dictators? For industry, so we're told, but surely we can live without industries that are designed to help nasty people kill other people. The stupidity of the situation becomes even more apparent when one considers some industries that are illegal in this country like making cannabis, the primary effect of which is to make people mellow and relaxed!

I accept that some of the arms this country sells goes to legitimate customers. By which I mean other NATO countries or reasonably peaceful countries but all too much of them don't. The main problem is lack of regulation; all that is basically required to deal in arms is an end user certificate - 'guaranteeing' that the person to whom the arms will eventually go is a legitimate user. And anyway who thinks that they are a guarantee of diddly squat is having a laugh. In many cases the certificates don't even need to be forged - the government has officially approved sales to governments like Indonesia which aren't exactly known for their fluffiness

In short the trade needs much tighter regulation. In the first place the government should be just the teeniest bit more discriminating about who it approves sales to, and in the second place their should be closer checks on whether arms actually end up where they are supposed to have been sold to. If that happened then maybe less people would be getting killed by British made weapons.

Summary: