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why do we need the arms fair?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5227590.stm
i will be hoping to join the protest later this week, though i do risk arrest just going near the place...
the policing of the event comes straight out of the local council tax bill, and the arms fair does not bring anything to the local community but chaos, as there are more police taken off their beat, roads are closed ect...
i really don't think it should be there...and i'll be taking my feelings to the local mayor's question time...
why are these things even legal?
i will be hoping to join the protest later this week, though i do risk arrest just going near the place...
the policing of the event comes straight out of the local council tax bill, and the arms fair does not bring anything to the local community but chaos, as there are more police taken off their beat, roads are closed ect...
i really don't think it should be there...and i'll be taking my feelings to the local mayor's question time...
why are these things even legal?
0
Comments
why aren't the organisers paying for it?
Maybe there should be.
pubs and clubs do
to make money. a bit like a grad recuitment fair but more macabre
"but why does my council tax have to go to policeing it?"
hippy loons
A more realistic goal in the short term would be to ensure no land mines, depleted uranium ammunition or cluster bombs are marketed at such events. Or even better that any firm manufacturing such weapons is banned from attending.
I thought the sale of those was banned at arms fairs, certainly UK ones (apart from depleted uranium, IIRC very depleted stuff is still used in most bullets).
Then again, IIRC the UK was shamefully using plenty of DU ammuntion during the Iraq war so obviously they're not too concerned about it.
That's because we want our shells to penetrate tanks, not bounce off them.
Most of the evidence suggests its off no harm to humans (well apart from those in the exploding tank).
Tina
Well fair enough. Just don't complain when someone you sell them to wants to, I don't know, actually use some of them. Maybe even for a purpose you don't agree with.
at least they're not selling torture equipment there this year, 2 firms have been removed for selling too restrictive leg shackles
How reassuring must have been for those British citizens who were arrested and tortured in Saudi a few years ago that the electric batons they were being tormented with were made in Britain
That's fine - we cut off the spares...
If we sell weapons to France and France invades Germany a) we know lots about the capabilities and flaws of our own weapons we can tell the Germans and b) we can cut off the spares, so France quickly finds it has lots of broken down tanks on the road to Berlin.
If the Russians sell weapons to France we don't have that leverage.
France is going to buy weapons anyway, so we might as well get some money and some political leverage.
:rolleyes:
I think the livelihoods of thousands of people in this country and the welfare of their families is important. Pointless moralising about arms sales - that has absolutely no effect whatsoever other than to put people out of work doesn't make sense.
Some of the world's biggest tobacco companies are British. They too employ thousands of people and put billions of pounds into our economy. Since smoking can seriously harm people's health should the likes of Imperial Tobacco be banned from selling cigarettes all over the world? Or can you see that doing just that would just help Philip Morris and other foreign rivals create loads of jobs and bigger profits at the expense of British jobs and British profits?
In any case the much touted cry of "thousands of British jobs will be lost" is almost always invariably bollocks. Certianly in the case of BAE, an extremely successful company with £50bn worth or orders in their books, and which was suddenly going to collapse and go bankrupt if it wasn't allowed to sell Eurofighters to the extremely unpleasant theocracy of Saudi Arabia. Yeah right.
You'll be better off protesting to governments who want to buy these weapons - rather than those who sell them. Restricting the supply will only force it 'underground' and then who knows what will be sold.
Weapons will always be made and traded, you can't stop it, you can only hope to change the way people think so that one day nobody will want to buy them.
That's kinda what I was thinking as well - Maybe the protesters should be contributing to the police bill ..
I don't think the Original poster does herself any favours by choosing the cost of local policing as the main focus in this case ..
Better to stick to the main issues instead .. as per the title of this thread.
all industries are like that, if there was no demand they'd go out of business.....
if protecting jobs is that important, why is our own government trying to find a way to avoid buying the last 88 eurofighters of our order, most of the parts being made by BAE or EADS
if we made good enough fighter planes, we could avoid selling to nasty regiemes as other democracies would purchase them off of us
i don't see the americans, home of capitalism, flogging their F22s and other numerous advanced bombers either
i ask you, should we sell chemical/nuclear weapons to other countries to whom we sell conventional weapons?
but i also see the huge security implications of having thousands of weapons on display so near to central london...
and what i dislike most is the fact that may nations that we have shunned for their practices are being allowed to come to this fair...hypocritical?
I doubt the stuff they're bringing actually is active - i.e. they left the gun powder at home and only showing you empty shells.
Were you selling or buying?