Want to know who we’ll be asked to fight in a few years? Find out who’s buying our weapons now!

Tags

chemical weapon, civil war, Coalition, Conservative, Contra, David Cameron, Democrat, fighter, government, Iran, Iraq, jet, Kuwait, Labour, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, nerve gas, Nicaragua, Parliament, people, politics, potassium fluoride, rebel, sale, Sarin, sell, sodium fluoride, Syria, Tories, Tory, Typhoon, United States, USA, Vince Cable, Vox Political

There is an easy way to stop wars with foreign countries: Stop selling them weapons!

If there’s one thing that all politicians believe, it seems, it is that history will teach us nothing.

That’s the only explanation possible for Vince Cable selling the ingredients to make chemical weapons to Syria, 10 months into that country’s civil war.

Does he not remember how the United States gave money, weapons and training to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war – then launched its own war against Iraq after that country got too big for its boots and invaded Kuwait? Does he not remember the 16 British firms that suppled weapons to that country?

The sale of weapons to foreign countries is always a bad move. Look at the Iran-Contra affair – again involving our good buddies the United States. Weapons were sold to Iran – so America was funding both sides of the Iran-Iraq war – and the proceeds used to fund the Contras in Nicaragua – another war!

Now we have a Tory-led Coalition government that wanted to get into that morally-dodgy but lucrative weapons-selling action, it seems.

So in January 2012, 10 months after violence erupted in Syria, Vince Cable licensed the exporting of potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride to the Syrian government – both chemicals being ingredients of nerve gas.

The chemicals were sold under licences that specified they should be used for making aluminium structures like window frames – but the government has refused to identify the licence holders. Dodgy!

Sarin, the gas thought to have been used in an attack last month that killed nearly 1,500 people, can be made from such ingredients.

This means that, in the same way as the United States with Iraq, it is entirely possible that the Coalition government wanted British troops to attack Syria in response to a situation that the Coalition government created!

And then, when Labour – along with Tory and Liberal Democrat rebels – actually put a stop to this insanity, some of these people actually had the front to try to steal the moral high ground, accusing them of perpetuating a war that was killing children!

Remember when Vox Political published an article last November, about David Cameron selling arms and aircraft to countries in the Middle East? It seems this is what comes of that sort of thing.

On that occasion, he was selling Typhoon jet fighters to Middle East nations. How long before we’re told we have to go and shoot down however many of them he managed to sell?

Syria: The right decision for the wrong reason?

Tags

Afghanistan, aid, attack, BSkyB, chemical weapons, China, claim, David Cameron, destruction, Ed Miliband, expenses, humanitarian, Iraq, Labour, Leveson, mass, Michael Meacher, Middle East, murdoch, non-combatant, Parliament, recall, report, Russia, Saddam Hussein, security council, Syria, un, united nations, war, weapon, weapons inspector, WMD

A statesman emerges: Ed Miliband’s decisions on Syria have revealed courage and determination to do what is right. They show he has the potential to be a great British statesman.

It looked as though we were all heading for another pointless adventure in the Middle East, but a day in politics really is a long time, isn’t it?

On Tuesday evening, there seemed to be consensus. The leaders of the main UK political parties had met to discuss the situation in Syria – in particular the evidence that an attack involving chemical weapons had taken place – and had parted in broad agreement that military action was warranted in order to discourage the use of such devices.

But then Labour’s Ed Miliband changed his mind. It seems likely he held a meeting with members of his own party who helped him devise an alternative plan.

In his blog on Tuesday, Michael Meacher laid down several reasons for delaying any new military adventure:

• The UN weapons inspectors currently working in Syria have not had enough time to find conclusive proof of chemical weapon use. Attacking on the basis of the evidence we currently hold would be reminiscent of the attack on Iraq, where we were assured Saddam Hussein held weapons of mass destruction. We later discovered – to our shame – that he did not;
• Where 100,000 citizens have already been killed by conventional means, it seems extremely odd to use the deaths of 1,000 by other means as an excuse to wade into the fray; and
• What about international law? How would Russia and China react if the UN Security Council, on which they both sit, rejected military action but the UK – along with the USA and others – went ahead with it anyway? And wouldn’t this light a powder keg in the Middle East, kicking off a larger, regional conflict – the outcome of which cannot be predicted?

Mr Miliband concluded that it would be far better to wait for stronger evidence and he notified David Cameron that he would be tabling an amendment on Syria when Parliament is recalled today (Thursday). This would insist that a vote should be taken only after the weapons inspectors have delivered their report. He said Parliament should only agree criteria for action – not write a blank cheque (for those who want war).

This writer was delighted – the decision was almost exactly what I had suggested when I responded to a poll on the LabourList blog site, although I had added in my comment that the only decision open to Parliament was to offer humanitarian aid to non-combatants affected by the fighting between the different Syrian factions.

The decision indicated not only that Labour had learned its lesson from the Blair-era decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, but that Mr Miliband had also paid attention to the will of the British people; those opposing another war outnumber those supporting it by around two to one.

Mr Cameron was now in a very difficult position as, without Labour’s support and with only limited backing from his own party, it was entirely possible that he would be defeated if he suggested military action in the Commons today.

Defeat in a major vote is, of course, something that no government voluntarily provokes. He had no choice but to change his mind, and now Parliament is being recalled to approve humanitarian aid and agree to the course of action put forward by Mr Miliband.

So now all my wishes appear likely to be granted.

It is the correct decision. But it was not the decision Cameron wanted. He wanted war.

It is also a decision that has been clearly dictated by the actions of the Opposition leader. Let’s make no bones about it, Ed Miliband called this tune and David Cameron danced to it.

Let’s look at what Michael Meacher had to say about this. It is illuminating because it comes from a backbencher who has been outspoken in criticism of Mr Miliband in the past. He wrote in his blog: “It singles out Ed Miliband as a man of inner strength and integrity who can take the gritty decisions when they are most needed, and this is undoubtedly one of those times… The hardest thing for a Leader of the Opposition to do, bereft of any executive authority, is to challenge the prevailing structure of power and change it or even overturn it. No other Opposition Leader has succeeded in this as well as Ed Miliband.

“We have already seen him take on Murdoch over BSkyB and stop the biggest concentration of media power in UK history in its tracks, and then almost single-handedly block the press counter-attack against Leveson which would have left newspapers as unaccountable as ever.”

So it seems we will see the right decision taken, albeit for the wrong reasons – thanks to the courage, leadership and statesmanship of Mr Miliband.

There’s just one further question: If the big decision is being taken after the weapons inspectors report back, and they are unlikely to do so until Monday (we’re told)… That’s after MPs were scheduled to return to Parliament. The emergency recall is therefore an unnecessary extravagance.

I wonder how much MPs will be allowed to claim for it on expenses?

(Note: This has been written while events continue to develop. All information was accurate at the time of writing.)

Cameron – corrupt corporate whore, according to Meacher

Tags

alcohol, branding, BSkyB, cigarette, Coalition, commercial, Conservative, contempt, corporate, corporation, corruption, credibility, David Cameron, evidence, fear, fracking, international, Labour, law, Lynton Crosby, Michael Meacher, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minimum, money, Packaging, Philip Morris, power, price, prostitute, prostrate, rebel, Rupert Murdoch, Syria, union, Vox Political, whore

A corporate whore servicing one of his clients: Apparently they’re normally called ‘Johns’, but in the high-paid corporate whoring world they’re known as ‘Ruperts’. Both of them. Silly Ruperts.

It seems opponents of the Coalition have realised its degraded claim to be a government is worthless and have decided to pour contempt on it at every opportunity.

I mention this after seeing Michael Meacher’s excellent column on David Cameron. The fake Prime Minister’s instincts, according to Mr Meacher are “that there is no such thing as the rule of law, and that the only things that ultimately matter are power, fear and money”.

These words should come as hammer-blows to Cameron’s credibility. It is to his credit that Michael Meacher has written them – but also to the shame of the Labour front bench that none of them had the guts to come out with it first.

Mr Meacher supports his claims by laying out a wealth of evidence that, while the comedy PM crows on and on about Labour’s (non-existent) pandering to the unions, “there is almost nothing… that Cameron won’t do, no commercial interest he will disdain, no policy he will refuse to alter if it will ingratiate himself with the sources of money and power… He has prostrated himself before a wide range of commercial interests by changing government policy to suit them in order to recruit their money and power for himself and his party in the lead-up to 2015”.

He supports his assertions as follows:

1. Cameron was determined to hand BSkyB to Rupert Murdoch, in exchange for support for the next general election (he failed in this attempt).

2. He ditched plans to remove branding from cigarette packaging. It has emerged that his advisor Lynton Crosby’s company lobbies on behalf of tobacco giant Philip Morris International.

3. Soon after Crosby was hired by Cameron, the government dropped plans for a minimum alcohol price. Crosby’s Australian company has represented an alcohol industry group campaigning heavily against similar plans in that country.

4. Crosby’s company also represents an oil and gas lobby group that campaigns aggressively for fracking, so now the UK government is encouraging fracking with tax breaks for the companies involved.

5. Crosby’s UK company represented rebel forces in Syria for six months, which may explain Cameron’s decision to send weapons to the rebels (but again failed in the attempt, thanks to a rare outbreak of sanity in the House of Commons).

The government will no doubt try to counter these arguments but there is no credible way of doing so. We are able to judge our politicians by what they do – not what they say – and the evidence is available for all to see.

So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s change the pitch of news reporting this summer. Instead of the usual ‘silly season’, let’s make it open season on Cameron and his cronies. Let’s get all the evidence against them together and make it clear to the general public, via all possible avenues, what a craven cadre of corrupt corporate prostitutes they all are.

It shouldn’t be too hard.