An issue of morals (The UK arms trade)

Member Name: northerner

Product:	The UK arms trade
Date:	27/04/01 (120 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: responsible for employing thousands of workers in the British economy

Disadvantages: no amount of money can compensate for the human suffering we are rresponsible for causing

The issue of the arms trade is one which successive governments have avoided, taking the easy option of doing nothing to prevent the export of arms to nations we know full well are going to missuse them. The first priority of any government must be to acheive full employment. The UK exports more arms per head to the developing world than any other country. The arms industry employs thousands of people, jobs which would be lost if Britain was to end arms exports. However, we must recognise that selling arms to developing countries makes us respsonible for the extreme diffficulties many of these nations are facing. British arms are being used as tools of oppression in places such as Eastern Timor. British weapons are being used to fight civil wars across Africa, resulting in ruining millions of lives and leading to widespread famine. In more developed countries, governments are spending cash on British arms that is desperately needed for improving education and health care. By selling countries arms, we are forcing their people to live in suffering. And what do we expect them do do with thses arms? It doesn't take a genius to realise that these weapons are only going to inflict more suffering on people whose plight is desperate already.

You could argue that Britain refusing to export arms to developing countries will have no effect. If we refuse to sell them weapons, then they will only get them from elsewhere a move that achieves nothign other than putting British workers out of a job. To be honest, this is the pathetic, lazy attitude that is responsible for many of the terrible problems that the world is facing. If everybody thought like that nothing is ever going to change. Its time people starting taking responsiblity. If the leading arms exported isn't prepared to take a stand, what incentive is there for other nations? Is it to unrealistic to ask the government to offer to sell the developing world books instead of guns, and to
offer to train doctors instead of soldiers?

The record of the previous Conservative administration was shocking. We were faced with the situation of figthing countries whose armies we had constructed. Many areas of Africa were being torn apart by civil wars fought using the weapons we had made. The defence secretary Alan Clarke instructed his civil servants to find ways round the governments restrictions on arms exporting, to allow Matrix Churchill to illegally export arms to Iraq. Although Clarke saved himself by slaping D-notices on all relevent files to ensure that nothign could be proved against him, directors at Matrix Churchill were given prison sentences for their actions. When Labour came to power in 1997, the foreign secretary, Robin Cook, was being foolishly nieve when he announced that this government would persue "an ethical foreign policy." Unfortunately, ethics and foreign policy are rarely mentioned in the same breath. The present government has done nothing to support its ambitious claims, actively encouraging more developing nations to buy UK armanents with government funded arms fairs.

This issue questions the whole basis of military spending not only in the developing world, but also in our own country. Should we really be spending £20bn a year on defence, the same amount as we allocate to education? Weapons of war serve no constructive purpose. They are merely tools of destruction and suffering. Imagine the impact that investing £20bn a year in the railways or the NHS would have.

In the short term, limited the export of arms would lead to job loses. However, with the desperate state of certain public services, job loses could be absorbed by increases in other areas of the economy. The country has many schools and hospitals in a dreadful state of disrepair. The economy could expand to provide poor countries with resources they need to deveop, instead of weapons that have put progress back by
decades. Very little in politics is decided on what is moraly right, but is it too much to expect people to take a stance on this issue?

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