TRAKNAT

We have written a number of letters to the Richmond and Twickenham Times and The Guardian recently. Here are three of them.

Local MP and Business Secretary Vince Cable is responsible for licensing weapons exports from the UK. This week an influential committee of MPs, led by Sir John Stanley, revealed that Vince Cable’s Department is licensing exports of to Russia of sniper rifles, night sights, components for air-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns, combat helicopters, depth charges and rocket launchers, small arms ammunition, gun mountings, body armour and military communications equipment. A total of 251 licences worth at least £132m remained in force, it said and went on to reveal that there has been an increase of 52 per cent in arms exports to Russia during the last 12 months despite Britain’s increasingly strident criticism of Russian support – including the supply of arms – for Ukrainian separatists, who have now been blamed for the killing of 298 people on board flight MH17.

In opposition Vince Cable voiced concern about UK exports to repressive regimes. Now he is part of a system that actively encourages them. Just what will it take to stop him being a pawn of arms dealers and stand up for his principles.

170,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war so far. Most of them were civilian. In the UK/US invasion and destruction of Iraq the medical journal Lancet stated that about 655,000 people died. The vast majority were civilians. What has this particularly got to do with the citizens of Richmond and Twickenham and readers of RTT?

The answer lies in the fact that the world’s wars are fuelled by the arms trade and Dr Vincent Cable, MP for Twickenham, is at the heart of the international web of arms disseminating countries. The UK is the fourth highest military spender on the planet. Just this week Mr Cameron is scheduled to announced a £1.1 billion ‘package’ of ‘defence’ spending. The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) tells us that ‘Most countries where major conflicts are taking place are recipients of UK arms’. These sales are made ‘..with little or no regard for the damage they might cause or the wider implications of supplying them’. The licences authorising British arms manufacturers to sell their wares are issued by Dr Cable as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. His department gives massive assistance to the legalized gun-runners with, unbelievably, 180 of his staff dedicated to arms sales whereas, by contrast, only 142 of his staff provide assistance to ALL other manufacturers.

All this is particularly vexing since Dr Cable is respected as a representative who conscientiously attends to the local problems of his constituents. Moreover there is little doubt that he is a man quite capable of standing up to the good-old-boys, business-as-usual militaristic brigade who have led us into such disastrous and illegal wars in recent years. If Dr Cable were to resist the establishment gun-runners this would give pause to the other states who support this death-dealing activity. Time to rethink Dr Cable. Ask your constituents if it was for this that they elected you.

Finally we, in the comfort zones of the world, are forced to realise a terrifying truth. It is not just the faceless unpeople of distant lands who are at risk of sudden death from the criminal activates of the rich gun-running states. Now a foot-soldier, a terrorist, a demented fundamentalist can potentially bring down an airliner flying at over 30,000 feet (‘Cover-up: rebels destroying all links to MH17 air atrocity’, 19.7.14).

Thanks to the arms trade the world is awash with weapons of all types. The UK government is a world leader in the selling of arms. The arms trade fuels the world’s wars and now we know that it puts everyone at risk.

The UK is at the heart of the international web of arms disseminating countries. It is the fourth highest military spender on the planet. The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) tells us that ‘Most countries where major conflicts are taking place are recipients of UK arms’. These sales are made ‘..with little or no regard for the damage they might cause or the wider implications of supplying them’. The licences authorising British arms manufacturers to sell their wares are issued by Dr Cable, MP for Twickenham, as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. His department gives massive assistance to the legalized gun-runners with, unbelievably, 180 of his staff dedicated to arms sales whereas, by contrast, only 142 of his staff provide assistance to ALL other manufacturers.

All this is particularly vexing since Dr Cable is respected as a representative who conscientiously attends to the local problems of his constituents. Moreover there is little doubt that he is a man quite capable of standing up to the good-old-boys, business-as-usual militaristic brigade who have led us into such disastrous and illegal wars in recent years. If Dr Cable were to resist the establishment gun-runners this would give pause to the other states who support this death-dealing activity. Time to rethink Dr Cable. Ask your constituents if it was for this that they elected you.