The Figures Speak For Themselves

21May07

Another excellent article by the British historian, Mark Curtis.

‘Reviewing British arms exports for the ten-year period under New Labour, the figures speak for themselves:

- The UK has exported £45 billion worth of arms around the world since 1997.

- Over £110m of military equipment has gone to Israel, throughout a period of offensive operations in the occupied territories and war with Lebanon

- Iraq has again become a large British arms market; over £130m have been exported since the invasion in 2003.

- Half a billion pounds worth of military and ‘other’ equipment has gone to China, which is under an EU arms embargo. Arms have also gone to Hong Kong, controlled by China.

- Indonesia has used UK equipment for repressive purposes on at least a dozen occasions in the Labour years.

- The UK continues to arm many of the world’s poorest countries. South Africa, for example, has received over £400m worth of UK military equipment in the Labour years. Nearly £150m of arms have gone to Nigeria under Labour, including armoured vehicles, rifles, shotguns and small arms ammunition.

Britain’s arms exports industry has been thriving under Labour, not because of the economic benefits to the country – the evidence is overwhelming that arms exports cost the taxpayer more than they generate, given the level of taxpayer subsidies. The major reason is that arms exports are a key part of UK foreign policy, especially in enhancing relationships with repressive regimes and elites, and because a small number of big corporations wiled major influence over government policy; in fact help set it.’

Read the rest here. A particularly chilling stat:

‘In the three years from 2004 to 2006, for example, arms exports were approved to 19 of the 20 countries identified by the Foreign Office in its annual human rights report as ‘countries of concern’.’

See also this interview Curtis did for the Socialist Worker back in 2003:

‘Never before has the British government committed itself to so many military interventions in such a short space of time as under Blair. In the 80s even Margaret Thatcher did not commit British troops to Central America to support Reagan. She did not commit UK jets to help bomb Libya in 1986. Thatcher was sceptical of the US invasion of Grenada in 1983.

Now Blair is supporting the US in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, in Iraq and so on. There are two other areas where foreign policy under Blair is worse. One is support for Israel. They try to say they are being even-handed between the Palestinians and the Israelis. I think a lot of people have bought that line, including many NGOs (non-governmental organisations).

But Britain is still supplying arms to Israel. Britain has been the lead nation in blocking European Union moves to pressure Israel. Blair has acted as Israel’s de facto apologist more than any other EU nation. That is going beyond Thatcher. Under Thatcher the Foreign Office was always quite sceptical about committing itself in public to Israel for fear of upsetting “our” Arab despots.

The other area where New Labour is even worse is to do with globalisation and its fanatical support for trade liberalisation. These people are completely committed to trade liberalisation. That is in the face of all the evidence about the impact free trade has…

Their agenda is very clear- support corporations, allow corporations to get access to overseas markets. That’s the fundamental goal of British foreign policy.’


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8 Responses to “The Figures Speak For Themselves”  

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  1. 1 mirth on May 21, 2007 said:

    This post extends what we know to be true, that the US and GB are complicit in Israel’s crimes of apartheid against the Palestinians, to the scope of GB’s arms exports. It informs clearly and explicitly. This is why I read blogs.

  2. 2 Jamie Stern-Weiner on May 21, 2007 said:

    Oh, we’re more than complicit. The U.S. is responsibile to the level of a partner. For a good round-up of Britain’s involvement in last year’s Lebanon war, for example, you can’t get much better than this article by David Wearing (whose excellent blog is here).
    We’re also complicit (surprise, surprise!) in the recent internecine fighting in Gaza – I wrote a post about it fairly recently. It’s not even a civil war – a U.S.-backed coup is a far more accurate description. Yup, it’s safe to say we’ve been screwing the Palestinians for a long, long time – since Balfour, we’ve never looked back.

    As for Mark Curtis – yeah, he’s always excellent. If you haven’t read them yet, I highly recommend his books ‘Unpeople’ and ‘Web of Deceit’.

  3. 3 D-day on May 21, 2007 said:

    For those of us on the left side of the pond who don’t know what a British pound is worth, it’s basically double that of an American dollar.
    £45 billion worth of arms = $90 billion worth of arms.
    Over £110m of military equipment has gone to Israel = Over $220m of military equipment has gone to Israel.
    Just to give us Yanks a little perspective. :-)

  4. 4 Jamie Stern-Weiner on May 21, 2007 said:

    Whatever it is, it’s a helluva lot!

  5. 5 W Dean on May 22, 2007 said:

    From a speech by Robin Cook on May 12 1997

    “Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves.”

    Oh, the irony!

  6. 6 Jamie Stern-Weiner on May 22, 2007 said:

    Yup. As I noted in the post below this, in the very same year Cook made that speech, Blair used the Official Secrets Act to approve no less than 11 arms deals to Indonesia. The whole “ethical foreign policy” thnng was a fraud from the beginning.

  7. 7 Jamie Stern-Weiner on May 22, 2007 said:

    Fit for the Letters page only:

    Sir: Amid the media’s love-in over Tony Blair’s departure, an almost-consensus seems to be that he will be remembered above all for Iraq. But while much of the media tends to portray the decision to invade a defenceless country as a kind of miscalculation or tragic mistake, the anti-war movement and many international legal experts have always maintained that these actions were a war crime, and that a strong case against Blair could be made if he were ever to come before the International Criminal Court.

    The United Nations Charter, agreed in 1945 to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, makes it clear that even if Iraqi WMDs had existed, the large-scale bombing of cities and subsequent military occupation of the country would have been wholly disproportionate. Going to war was in clear breach of Article 51 which permits “individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations”, but not under lesser circumstances. Pre-emptive self-defence is justified only when the threat is instant, overwhelming and leaving no other choice or time for deliberation. It was to protect the world from wars of aggression that the UN Charter was drawn up in the first place.

    At the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, the American chief prosecutor Justice Robert Jackson said: “War of aggression is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Since the invasion of Iraq, the US-led coalition has committed many documented human-rights abuses and breaches of the Geneva Conventions, from Abu Ghraib to the numerous massacres of civilians in towns, villages and cities.

    Blair, a major player in the assault on Iraq that made such atrocities possible, will probably never face trial at The Hague, and instead go on to his “inter-faith foundation” and a lucrative career on the lecture circuit.

    MICHAEL BENTLEY

    EASTBOURNE, EAST SUSSEX


  1. 1 An Ethical Foreign Policy at Facts On The Ground

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