tinyjo | Hypocrisy

Listened to a very interesting interview on the World at One yesterday with a representative of India's defence ministry. Nick Clarke was asking him about his understanding of whether Britain was prepared to sell arms to India and whether he didn't think it was a bit odd for us to be trying to calm things down on one hand and selling weapons on the other. He replied 'Oh, everyone's doing that. All the western nations who are demanding we cool things down are rushing over here to sell anything they can'. It's just so annoying - I knew it would be like that but it's depressing to have it confirmed somehow. Our position on arms sales seems ridiculous to me - we have a policy where we won't sell them if we think they're going to be used for external aggression or internal repression. So what do we think they are going to be used for? Fly-pasts? We want the cash but we also want to pretend that we don't have the moral responsibility (as we did with the "training" jets we sent to Indonesia to use in East Timor) so that we can be pious and preachy when situations like this blow up.

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Saw an Indian govt representative on Newsnight last night saying of course they'll have peace negotiations with Pakistan - just as soon as they've "stopped terrorism". So in other words, never. Terrorism is the big excuse for every govt in the world right now to crack down on anything they see fit, wage war, and generally set the clock back 500 fucking years.

I think I'm going to be an anarchist again...

Terrorism is the big excuse for every govt in the world right now to crack down on anything they see fit

Yeah - I've noticed that. Almost straight after the US attacked Afghanistan everyone who want's an excuse to hit someone else is crying "Terrorism!" It's like they think we're stupid or something (oh wait.. they have to deal with Bush don't they).

It's not only that, either. The US and everyone else is ignoring human rights & democracy in their own countries (not that that's new, exactly - otherwise Bush wouldn't be president in the first place - but it's gotten a lot worse)...

It's one of the many things which makes me uselessly angry when listening to the news. For some reason, inconsistancy is something which really really annoys me so I always want to shout at the radio when American spokesmen go on about "free and fair elections" in other countries. They only do it when they want to get something else out of the country or they don't do everything America says - after all, not only do America not have "free and fair elections" they've supported toppling more than one govt which did!

Trouble is, no-one is allowed to critise America at the moment without being accused of being on the side of Bin Laden. It's like Israel - "if you don't agree with everything we say you're just like Hitler!"

I know what you mean. For example, that it's not ok to bomb Dublin but it's ok to bomb Kabul?

Getting rid of the Taliban may turn out to be a very good thing (although I reserve judgment till I see their replacement) but the whole campaign still worries me.

One use for arms and armies which is neither external aggression nor internal repression is to pile them up in heaps near your borders so that your crazy neighbours don’t get any funny ideas about invading you.

And of course the government gets to define ‘aggression’ and ‘repression’ to suit its own requirements. External actions that Britain approves of don’t count as aggression, so from their point of view their rules on arms sales are consistent enough.

At least India is a democracy, and not a military dictatorship like Pakistan.

Hypocrisy

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Inconsistency

What are they going to be used for?