Dear anti-war movement Stop the War Coalition,
Weapons, explosive devices, missiles, mortars, tanks, air-fighters and warships are manufactured to help politicians organise and carry out wars – for killing people and destroying families and buildings. But you accept the name ‘Defense Industry’ instead of calling it by its real name, ‘Attack’ or ‘Death Industry’.
Stop the War Coalition still believes in the fallacy that Armed Forces are necessary for Defense. Whist this idea prevails, you, Stop the War Coalition, are unwittingly conspiring with Benjamin Netanyahu, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Until any of you in Stop the War Coalition – Lindsey German, Jeremy Corbyn, Tariq Ali and others – realised that if you were right now the Prime Minister of Israel, you, too, would be talking of Annexation; and if you were the British Prime Minister, you would also be accepting the sale of weapons to murderous Saudi Arabia, as well as all the Commonwealth countries, to fight non-stop.
And don’t come to me with ‘it is the Conservatives’ for you all know history and know how a Labour Government invaded and helped destroy Iraq and Afghanistan. You also know that the long and bloody Civil War in Sri Lanka was overseen by both Labour and Conservative Governments.
If you really wish to succeed in ‘challenging Britain’s complicity in these wars’, you must first challenge the Military Industry. Unless we stop manufacturing machine guns, grenades, bombs, rockets, rocket launchers and interceptors, tanks and Apache attack helicopters, talk of Britain’s non-involvement in wars worldwide, is an oxymoron.
BAE’s website describes the Hawk fighters that they produce and sell to the British Government and several foreign Governments as the airship used for training as well as for low-cost combat flights.
The cost of human lives does not come into consideration. Politicians’ logic is ‘why spend more, when we can kill people without spending so much?’.
Two years ago exactly, on 16 July 2018, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson proudly announced the manufacturing of the Tempest at the Farnborough Airshow as part of the Combat Air Strategy. Tempest will be a sixth-generation jet fighter incorporating several new technologies.The new programme, he said, will ‘initially’, cost £2 billion!
It’s a waste of time criticising Government and saying ‘how many hospitals and houses they could build with all that money’, because the system under which we live prioritizes War over Peace. The innocent, ignorant, gullible, fearful and patriotic populations accept BAE’s claims with pride – THE FUTURE OF COMBAT AIR. Tempest will be a sixth-generation Combat Aircraft, operating at the cutting edge of technological innovation, and securing the UK’s position as a global leader in Combat Air.
Unless the British people demand an end to the military or Death Industry, all talk of Peace, in Britain and the world, Justice, Equality, is simply a waste of time, effort and money.
Alberto Portugheis
HUFUD President
