As if there wasn't enough bad stuff going on

[teamsaint]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gb805GqFLYZZH3C1632kRGnGuHsQ?docId=N0362471315924179972A

So this is how we plan to solve the recession.

Brilliant. We and our customers are going to shoot our way out of it.

On second thoughts, it makes you proud, I suppose , that British manufacturing is leading the way out of the recession.

Who will our customers be though, now that Libya has changed hands? well, there's the new Libyan government, (whoever they are), and then there are Bahrain, Algeria etc etc. All nice places to go.....aren't they?

One certainty in all this, is that when the guns are used in anger, mostly against the government's own people, osborne, cameron, fox, clegg(and you can add some labour names if you want, cos they would have done the same) etc will be safely tucked up in their Oxfordshire estates.

What a great use of the worlds resources, and human expertise.

thank god for music.one of the few sane places left. Apart from "In Tune"!!

[Serial_Apologist]

I heard Liam Fox boasting about this. Of all this government's pronouncements I don't think any one of them has appalled my so much as this one. Fox truly is one of the unpleasantest of this thoroughly unpleasant lot. It has not occurred to me to attend one of those demonstrations at arms trade fairs - the police get really rough on them - but am now seriously contemplating doing so.

[Mr Pee]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, thousands of people depend upon this industry for their livelihoods. And also in the real world, rather than in Guardianland, defence and security are a fact of life. Are you suggesting that we put those thousands of people out of work just to satisfy your moral scruples? If we don't supply, someone else will.

[MrGongGong]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, thousands of people depend upon this industry for their livelihoods. And also in the real world, rather than in Guardianland, defence and security are a fact of life. Are you suggesting that we put those thousands of people out of work just to satisfy your moral scruples? If we don't supply, someone else will.

Using the same logic I've decided to give-up music and start selling drugs to schoolchildren. Well if I don't do it someone else will, and who needs moral scruples anyway when there's money to be made !

[teamsaint]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, thousands of people depend upon this industry for their livelihoods. And also in the real world, rather than in Guardianland, defence and security are a fact of life. Are you suggesting that we put those thousands of people out of work just to satisfy your moral scruples? If we don't supply, someone else will.

wow, I had never thought of those things.
Except that, here in the real world, resources such as capital, expertise etc, can be used for good things like agriculture,construction, transport, renewable energy etc etc.Lets face it, there is plenty to do without spending money on things that kill people.
I don't want to see anybody out of a job, having spent most of my working life in sales for british companies which make things that are actually useful, like lights and books.
The arms industry is a really bad thing, and if we absolutely have to have one, we should refuse to sell to anybody else.Easy.

[Chris Newman]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, thousands of people depend upon this industry for their livelihoods. And also in the real world, rather than in Guardianland, defence and security are a fact of life. Are you suggesting that we put those thousands of people out of work just to satisfy your moral scruples? If we don't supply, someone else will.

It is totally amoral and immoral attitudes like those expressed above that make me feel ashamed to be a member of the human race let alone British. Sod politics. Sod the Guardian. What Mr Pee said was the most immoral thing I have ever read on these boards. We should be setting examples to other nations not advertising and advocating MURDER. It is people like you that do not understand reality. We reap what we sow. Look at Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. We sell the stuff, then send our troops there to sort out the mess caused by the stuff and they get killed by the stuff.

[Simon]

It's no use Mr P. They're nice people who mean well, but of course they live in cloud-cuckoo land.

[MrGongGong]

It's no use Mr P. They're nice people who mean well, but of course they live in cloud-cuckoo land.

Is that near East Timor ?
I'm surprised that prof says seems to be advocating a rather nasty form of moral relativism ! If one is of the Christian persuasion (I happen not to be myself) then selling arms is clearly against Christs teaching but hey, who cares about morality when we can create jobs. Acting ethically costs but doing the right thing isn't that hard

[Mr Pee]

The arms industry is a really bad thing, and if we absolutely have to have one, we should refuse to sell to anybody else.Easy.

The really bad thing whose products have helped rid the world of tyrants such as Hussein, Gaddafi, and Hitler?? Or should they have been allowed to just carry on slaughtering? Welcome to the real world, people.....

And how long do you think that industry would last, I wonder??

[Simon]

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

As true now as it ever was.

[Serial_Apologist]

The really bad thing whose products have helped rid the world of tyrants such as Hussein, Gaddafi, and Hitler??

The first two of whom we armed to maintain as tyrants - in case you've forgotten.

[eighthobstruction]

I totally love those non-repressive regimes....they are all 5 star good guys....this is sustainability at it's absolute best....the only thing that could be better is organic green arms that are bio-degradable....machetes made of sugar glass at the lower end....and cruise missiles that can only be aimed at grains of sand far out in the desert that might just take out the Gaddafi's as they pass by on the way to Niger....I understand Vickers Club points are to be issued with a catalogue where you either get a mercedes or swiss francs....

[decantor]

So we should be setting an example to other nations, eh? Like with wind-farms, where we ruin our country and our countryside by erecting windmills so that the Chinese needn't feel so bad about opening another fifty coal-fired power-stations? The trouble is that the view from the moral high ground is so spectacular that it's easy to miss all the nasties crawling up the slopes to bite your ankle. Martyrs are glorious - and gloriously dead. What is needed - in politics and maybe in life - is care, compromise, and common sense, not high-minded absolutes that serve only to create the lethal warm glow of self-satisfaction.

Now whether Liam Fox (or Dave) is the best man to lead us on this tight-rope walk is another issue entirely........

[scottycelt]

The first two of whom we armed to maintain as tyrants - in case you've forgotten.

Sometimes ' in the real world' we have to choose between tyrants and ideologies. A good example is when we were allied with Stalin against Hitler. Which tyrant and ideology was worse is still a matter of some debate, though what is certain is that, interestingly, both claimed to be 'socialist' bravely waging war against the evil, foreign 'capitalist'.

Saying we shouldn't arm what we consider to be the 'lesser of two evils' would probably allow the greater evil to triumph by default.

Every decent person is against killing and wars. Unfortunately, we are always likely to have plenty of political tyrants to be forced to choose from as well.

We sometimes have to arm the police (many of whom are hardly angels) to fight the greater evil of violent crime so what's the basic difference?

Furthermore, the UK has a long and almost uniquely experienced military history, so it's hardly surprising that other countries look to us for advice and equipment and that we do business with those when we consider it appropriate?

[teamsaint]

Sometimes ' in the real world' we have to choose between tyrants and ideologies. A good example is when we were allied with Stalin against Hitler. Which tyrant and ideology was worse is still a matter of some debate, though what is certain is that, interestingly, both claimed to be 'socialist' bravely waging war against the evil, foreign 'capitalist'.

Saying we shouldn't arm what we consider to be the 'lesser of two evils' would probably allow the greater evil to triumph by default.

Every decent person is against killing and wars. Unfortunately, we are always likely to have plenty of political tyrants to be forced to choose from as well.

We sometimes have to arm the police (many of whom are hardly angels) to fight the greater evil of violent crime so what's the basic difference?

Furthermore, the UK has a long and almost uniquely experienced military history, so it's hardly surprising that other countries look to us for advice and equipment and that we do business with those when we consider it appropriate?

Maybe there is a chicken and egg situation.

stop arming the tyrants, and at least we have the moral high ground...and as I suggested, an arms industry to actually defend ourselves(should we need to) instead of one profiting out of death and destruction.

Remind me again where the moral benefit is in selling arms to Bahrain.

Its time to accept responsibility... we(and our meddling) are often the cause of trouble, and the arms business is close to the root of this trouble.