This recent (26 October 2023) dispatch is from Europe's largest arms fair - the London-based biennial Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI)- where tanks, missiles, and guns are on the market and highlights how this fair epitomises the corruption, war crimes, policy influences and straight out profiteering that the current war industry generates and promotes with heavily marketed products (many of them illegal) purchased using taxpayers' money with the intention and outcome of killing human beings - too many of them innocent civilians including children.
Some salient facts from the article:
- the arms trade of today is an artificially inflated industry with an unnaturally close relationship to government marked by extreme corruption
- The United States remains the largest military spender in the world; last year, its annual defence spending increased by $71 billion, to a total of $877 billion. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), total global military expenditure increased by 3.7% in 2022, reaching a new high of $2240 billion. Between 2013 and 2022, global spending grew by 19% and has risen every year since 2015 — a stark contrast, to say, healthcare expenditure (estimated 6% growth) during the pandemic. In 2020, at the height of Covid-19, the UK boosted its defence budget by $21.9 billion, the largest rise in spending since the end of the Cold War.
- Today, the United States is the largest supplier of arms worldwide. The symbiotic relationship between governments and arms companies, particularly in the United States, was cemented during George W. Bush’s presidency. He stacked his cabinet with former defense contractors, especially ex-employees of Haliburton and Lockheed Martin; those companies were the two biggest beneficiaries of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2005 alone, Lockheed Martin received $25 billion in taxpayer money — more than the GDP of over 100 countries. Lockheed Martin had a sizable pavilion at DSEI, and on display was a small-scale version of the F-35 jet, the subject of the world’s costliest weapons system, totalling $1.7 trillion of US taxpayer money. It is supposed to replace the F-16, the main fighter jet for three branches of the US military, and it barely works. Its mission capable rate is 55%, well below the Pentagon’s goal of 90%.
- Studies have suggested that corruption in the arms trade contributes roughly 40% of all corruption in global transactions. “A number of systemic features of the arms trade encourage corruption, of which two are particularly important. First, its deep and abiding link to matters of national security obscures many deals from oversight and accountability. Second, the rubric of national security facilitates the emergence of a small coterie of brokers, dealers and officials with appropriate security clearances,” a 2011 report from SIPRI found. “These close relationships blur the lines between the state and the industry, fostering an attitude that relegates legal concerns to the background.”
- Feinstein, a former politician in South Africa, as gone on to record 502 violations of UN arms embargoes around the world; only two have resulted in any action. When companies are orchestrating deals worth billions of dollars, even a fine of several hundred million is a drop in the bucket.
- In past years, DSEI exhibitors have hawked weapons that are banned under international law, including cluster bombs. This year, ten of the 74 invited countries, including Pakistan, Iraq, and Israel, are on the UK’s list of Human Rights Priority Countries, a designation that signals particular “concern about human rights issues, according to the government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are both in attendance, with dozens of vendors and enormous pavilions. Israel has one of the largest pavilions at DSEI; its occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal under international law, and its bombing of Gaza constitutes war crimes, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
- Elbit is the largest manufacturer of weapons for the Israeli government and one of the largest growing defence contractors in the world; they have six subsidiaries and nine factories in the UK. Best known for their unmanned armed drones, Elbit has been accused of testing their weapons on civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. [In April 2021, the Australian Army decided that Elbit's battlefield management system be withdrawn from use by 15 May 2021. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that this action was taken due to concerns about the system's security An Australian Financial Review columnist stated that the security problems comprised "a “backdoor” security vulnerability reportedly uncovered by the Australian Signals Directorate". The Australian Defence Magazine also reported that the system had failed two security milestones during 2020. Elbit denied that the system posed any security risks.]
When reading that dispatch I was reminded of" War Pigs" which is an anti-war protest song by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, released in 1970. It is the opening track from the band's second studio album Paranoid (1970). I was lucky to hear Black Sabbath perform it live in Sydney in 1974 and again in Melbourne in 2016. Still very pertinent today.
Generals gathered in their massesJust like witches at black massesEvil minds that plot destructionSorcerer of death's construction
In the fields, the bodies burningAs the war machine keeps turningDeath and hatred to mankindPoisoning their brainwashed mindsOh lord, yeah!
Politicians hide themselves awayThey only started the warWhy should they go out to fight?They leave that role to the poor, yeah
Time will tell on their power mindsMaking war just for funTreating people just like pawns in chessWait till their judgement day comes, yeah!
Now in darkness, world stops turningAshes where their bodies burningNo more war pigs have the powerHand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgement, God is callingOn their knees, the war pigs crawlingBegging mercy for their sinsSatan laughing, spreads his wingsOh lord, yeah!"
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