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Britain/EU sell 72 fighters to Saudi Arabia
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5262120.stmSaudi Arabia has confirmed it is to buy 72 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft from the UK, in a deal that could be worth more than £6bn.
The contract, brokered between the Saudi government and the Ministry of Defence, will safeguard thousands of jobs at UK defence firm BAE Systems.
Saudi Arabia is buying the Eurofighters to replace its range of Tornado jets which were also made by BAE.
The Eurofighter was developed by BAE with European firms EADS and Alenia.
Hooray for ethical arms dealing policies!
Trebles all around!
Well done Britain & the EU.
:rolleyes:
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9008
We sell arms to a nation with no history or armed invasion, or of using planes against it's own civillians and who have only ever acted in self defence or as part of the UN and you call in unethical?
Or are we assuming here that any sale of arms is unethical?
There are, of course, other things which I wouldn't ever sell the Saudis.
Incidentally if memory serves one British expat recalled the irony of being tortured with an electric baton made in, er... Britain.
I don't think that it would be wrong for us to sell the Saudis planes to replace the Tornados which, if they really want to bomb a country, they could use anyway.
Anyway if we'd refused to sell these aircrafts to the Saudis the winners would have been US or French firms and the losers redundant British workers. Those opposing this sale must think creating French jobs is more important than safeguarding British jobs.
Good tohugh, nowt wrong with it. We sold 'em Tornados, so we should sell them replacements.
However - who will they sell the Tornados to? Or will they keep them, as they are still perfectley good Aircraft, up to date, and serve in combat well? Maybe Saudi Arabia wants a bigger airforce?
Edit: I wonder if Saudi Arabia wasn't as stingy as the UK's Government, and decided to order guns for thier pilots, so they may have a better chance should they use up all thier missiles.
I take my hat off to you sir.
Maybe they think morals should come before profit?
Why should I care? The French look out for nobody but themselves, the protectionist and illegal ban on British beef highlighted that, the French hurt our already downtrodden agricultural sector.
You can call it morals but had we refused this sale it would have been a pointless and empty gesture. The Saudis would have got similar equipment from somebody else. (And anyway since this equipment is unlikely to be used to harm anybody in the foreseeable future existing for defence purposes I'm not sure what moral qualms there are). Refusing the sale, sure it would have made middle class liberals feel good no doubt, give them the sense that they're doing something about human rights in Saudi Arabia when in reality they're not making any difference. But meanwhile the thousands of redundant British workers would be paying the price for some meaningless PR move.
Otherwise some people could be forgiven for thinking you were suffering from an acute case of hypocritus maximus
Johnny Foreigner can die but thats ok a few people get to keep their jobs. :thumb:
My objection to selling weapons to the Chinese is not because of their disgusting domestic human rights abuses - not selling them fighter jets or whatever isn't going to help Chinese political prisoners or occupied Tibetans. I would object to weapons sales to China rather because of their aggressive stance towards Taiwan and Tibet. Further, I think China already poses a much greater danger than Saudi Arabia and unless there's an Islamic revolution or something in Saudi I can't see that changing.
Who is going to die as a result of this sale?
Saudi Arabia already has the capabilities of bombing neighbours. This sale isn't going to change that. And er who are they going to bomb? Who's going to die? :rolleyes:
Quite important to the people I assume, and as previous posters have mentioned its not like the Saudi's keep popping over their borders to nobble the neighbours.
In fact as it ties Saudi closer into us (ie if they go to war and we're not happy there likely not to get any spares) it probably means Saudi is even less likely to go to war with its neighbours.
So, its ok for Saudi human rights abuses but not Chinese ones. It is also fine for Israeli Human Rights abuses and weapon sales (The Israelis love selling thier new US technology to the chinese, incidently. Hence rapid chinese military development over the last 20 years.)
Roger that, sir! Logic has left the building!
Maybe I misread something, but I though that he very specifically ruled out human rights as the reason
I think that his comment was a threat China posed to Taiwan...
ETA: In fact, one page one he says:
Emphasis mine. Now I assume that he means it's opporessive, rather than disgusting becuase it's not harsh enough...
Except it's not, optherwise very few Britons could even visit the country.
It's illegale to practice (i.e. hold a service) though... at least that is my understanding
Regardless of whether they attack their neighbours or not the Saudi regime is a pretty unpleasant lot, and one that we should not get cosy with.
Had the sale been agreed on condition that Saudi improved its human rights record, for instance, it might have been more acceptable. I doubt that wasn't the case though.
Look at those British guys accused of planting bombs a few years ago. Remember one of them giving that bizarre press conference admitting to the charges (his family said other than the physical appearence the man was a complete stranger to them- no doubt weeks or torture and/or drugs had nothing to do with it)?
And with regard to 'safeguarding British jobs', this is a pretty meaningless expression thrown around whenever someone is trying to justify a dubious deal. BAE is an extremely successful company. Were the workers about to lose their jobs if this deal hadn't come through? The hell they were.
Arms dealing is, at best, an unpleasant and just about justifiable business. If we must sell weapons to others we must at least ensure they're not oppresive regimes.
Sadly that doesn't happen. I think this particular incident here is a case of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours"
Not tommorrow perhaps, but its seems obvious to me that if a firm doesn't keep selling its products the people who work for that firm will end up out of work. They're not going to keep people on if they're not needed
I don't know much about business strategies but I'd guess few businesses after losing a contract worth over £6 billion would be able to 'carry on as usual.'
Anyway..nobody denies Saudi human rights abuses but these aircraft will not be used against Saudi civilians and Saudi Arabia is unlikely to be an aggressor in a war. Fair enough, you think we could have tied the sale to improvements in Saudi Arabia's human rights record. Putting aside the fact that by doing so we'd have given the contract to the French or the Americans - what makes military aircraft so different? Military aircraft are pretty unrelated to the appalling way that the Saudis treat women, they don't use fighter jets to abuse women...Point being, if we're going to put conditions for sale on 'essential' defence equipment like fighter jets - like an improvement in human rights should conditions for improvements in human rights be placed on the Saudis when pharmaceutical companies make deals with them? Or car manufacturers?
The project was viable already from the sales it was always going to get from the 4 European countries involved in it. The Saudi sales is a nice bonus, nothing more.
You'd be well advised to take any warning of job losses from company bosses if things don't go their way with a large pinch of salt. In the immense majority of cases is nothing more than scaremongering.