Following her Saudi Arabian trade junket, Theresa May, as the Independent put it, ‘staunchly defended selling arms to Saudi Arabia despite the country facing accusations of war crimes, insisting close ties “keep people on the streets of Britain safe”.’
Britain is the second biggest arms dealer in the world, the USA being number one, two-thirds of which have been sold to Middle Eastern countries since 2010.
Following this weeks bombing in Manchester Theresa May raised the UK threat level from severe to critical for the first time since July 2007 and has deployed military personnel to be present at public events and key sites under police command. In what way is an escalation in armed protection a reflection of Britain’s streets being safe? Would tanks make our streets even safer or a militarised curfew safer still?
The converse of all this is that if Britain ceased trading in arms completely, would people on the streets of Britain be less safe?
Let me ask a very simple, some might think naive, question. Where does anybody ultimately get arms supplies from if not from arms manufacturers and exporters like Britain? After all, guns don’t grow on trees, doncha know. Perhaps we are supposed to think that ‘terrorist’ groups have secret arms manufacturing facilities churning out weapons. If so, I have yet to hear of any military strikes against them, although I do read of drone strikes against arms dumps and depots, which, keen observers will note, are not quite the same thing.
The UK’s BA Systems sold $25.7 billion of arms in 2014, though reports vary, but what is very clear is that the arms trade is huge and, of course, very profitable. It’s big business and, dare I suggest, of far more importance to Theresa May and her government than keeping people on the streets of Britain safe.
Ah, but someone might observe, these terrorists manufacture bombs. Yes, and I probably could too with a bit of diligent Googling or ferreting around on the dark web and maybe a week or so in a desolate desert camp in some war ravaged (courtesy of the West) Middle Eastern nation, and then put a lethal device together on my fucking kitchen table and took out my local bus shelter. A threat to world peace it ain’t. The news vultures would doubtless report a neighbour saying that I was a quiet guy who kept himself to himself, as the Bomb Squad, if May hasn’t cut them, removed a bag of sugar, some carpet tacks and weed killer from my shed. I’d probably get labelled a mass murderer by the Scum newspaper if I took a few innocents with me, disregarding entirely that the greatest mass murderers on Earth are governments.
If Britain is so safe in Theresa May’s hands why am I even bothering to write this? What more pointless exercise could I indulge in than observations about the so called leader of this country from this safe little town in Somerset, were it not that Theresa May is the actual real and present danger to Britain’s and my town’s security? If I ever see armed police or the military at some event here in Somerset I think my spleen will explode on sight and if I am told that they are only here to keep us all safe, my head will swiftly follow.
Despite the mealy mouthed assertions of May and her Government, the world is not a safer place as she fronts for the arms trade as an arms dealer. Theresa May keeping people on the streets of Britain safe? Is that before or after I count the thousands of deaths procured by her government with their filthy cuts and the DWP’s vicious attacks on the poorest and most vulnerable and the despicable sanctions regime?
Theresa May is mocking us and taking every single one of us for fools and she is also mocking our dead.
Someone commented the other day, ‘Better red than dead’, not an expression I have ever used, nor would, but it made perfect sense to me. It could become a Tory mantra.
KOG. 27 MAY 2017
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3175716/drone-footage-ammunition-depot-explodes-missiles/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-air-strike-idUSKBN17T0GU
