| Product: |
The UK arms trade |
| Date: |
30/07/02 (311 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: -
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World War II pulled the USA out of the Great Depression. War is the easy way to boost an economy. Bush and Blair know this.
So, selling lots of armaments, and having a long war on terror, could be the Bush-Blair plan for the next few years.
Let's compare the past with the present.
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1920's
GREED
In the 1920's, in the USA, taxes and regulation were slashed, monopolies were allowed to form, and the rich became disgustingly rich. By 1929 there was a glut of goods on the market.
BANKRUPTCY
Banks were failing.
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TODAY
GREED
Chief Executive Officers' pay packages rose from 42 times the average worker's salary in 1980 to 531 times the average worker's salary in 2000.
BANKRUPTCY
Financial Times 28 7 2002: "US and European banks and bondholders lent an estimated $500bn to the crippled US gas and power sector, new research commissioned by the Financial Times reveals. The figure raises fears that a further string of corporate failures in the wake of the Enron scandal would expose lenders to heavy losses...
"The banks most active in arranging finance to the sector include Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase - both under scrutiny over their role in the funding of Enron - and Bank of America."
According to Executive Intelligence Review, "Indications are growing that the top three U.S. derivatives banks--J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America--have been pushed to, if not over, the brink of "technical" bankruptcy by problems in the derivatives markets.
"(For) J.P. Morgan Chase, a loss equivalent to less than 0.2% of its $24 trillion derivatives portfolio would be enough to wipe out every last penny of the bank's equity capital. EIR believes that Morgan Chase actually collapsed in mid-2001, and is
being secretly run by the Federal Reserve, similar to the way the Fed took over Citicorp in 1989."
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1920's
CRASH!
1929 Wall Street crashes. World trade sinks.
Unemployment shoots up. Middle class living standards decline.
FASCISM
Japan, Italy and Germany become dictatorships. 1931 the UK has a right-wing national government. 1932 Roosevelt promises a New Deal. The New Deal fails to solve America's problems. Only World War II pulls the USA out of depression.
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TODAY
FASCISM
Ritt Goldstein, July 27 2002, in the Sydney Morning Herald:
"Recent pronouncements from the Bush Administration...could see internment camps and martial law in the United States."
On June 7 the former presidential counsel John Dean spoke of America's sliding into a "constitutional dictatorship" and martial law.
Eric Margolis, in the Toronto Sun, wrote, "Of all the bad ideas that have been pouring from the Bush administration- the faux war on terorrism, the Palestine mess, invading Iraq, curtailment of civil liberties... Steel tariffs- among the very worst is the dangerous proposal that US military forces be given domestic police powers."
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There is more than one way to get out of an economic crisis . We can have a war and sell lots of weapons. That would suit the friends of Blair and Bush. Alternatively, we can spend money on making the world a better place.
But, who is in charge? The arms dealers?
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1920's
THE BAD GUYS IN CHARGE.
1920's - President Hoover and the Republicans redistributed wealth towards the very rich, thereby depressing consumer demand from the non-rich.
1930's - Certain top Ameri
cans aided Hitler. Armaments spending began to increase. Some people hoped there would be war.
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TODAY
Bush's government is full of the people who have created our problems. The people who gave weapons to the Taliban. The people who armed Saddam, illegally sold chemical weapons to him, and then winked when he massed forces on the Kuwaiti border.
The BBC reported on 18/9/01 that Pakistani diplomats had been informed in July that the war in Afghanistan would begin in October, which it did. The Independent reported on 30/10/01 that secret talks with the Taliban had broken down just prior to 9/11.
San Francisco mayor Willie Brown was warned not to fly on 9/11; author Salman Rushdie received similar warnings. The military response to the 9/11 attacks was practically nonexistent until well after it was too late. Even though it was clear from early on that four planes had been hijacked simultaneously, Bush continued to read stories to schoolchildren. No fighter jets were scrambled to intercept.
There was insider trading on various WTC-connected stocks prior to 9/11, coming from banks with extensive CIA connections. The US had the 20th hijacker in custody, identified by French intelligence as an al-Qaida member, and yet no warrant could be obtained to search his computer. Frantic warnings from flight school instructors were ignored.
Bin Laden's Al-Qaida forces fought in both Bosnia and Kosovo on the same side as the US - that is, against the Serbs.
The Carlyle Group buys up defense firms and other strategic holdings worldwide, including the company that manufactures anthrax vaccine. Among the investors and consultants in Carlyle is former president George Herbert Walker Bush. And among his business partners was the Bin Laden Group. Bin Laden's sister-in-law told ABC news of continuing contacts between Osama and his family.
A book published in Fra
nce called Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth details how Bush interfered with investigations into al-Qaida terrorist activities in the US. Extensive financial ties between the Saudi royals - who backed both Osama and the Taliban - and the president's supporters in the energy industries, led to political pressure against the FBI and other agencies.
The BBC and the The Guardian (7/11/01) have reported on political pressure to quash al-Qaida investigations.
According to the Baltimore Sun on 24/4/01, in 1962, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff considered faking a series of terrorist attacks on American soil, which would then be blamed on the Cubans in order to create a pretext for invading Cuba.
We don't need to have the bad guys in charge.
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