Weapons for sale in Palmerston North
You are not invited to a ‘‘forum’’ where issues of ‘‘our’’ national ‘‘security’’ will be ‘‘discussed’’. You are not allowed to learn what is crucial for our ‘‘next 75 years’’.
On Wednesday and Thursday, a ‘‘forum’’ will be held in Palmerston North. This is the 21st such event held in New Zealand. All have been held in Wellington except last year in Auckland. About 500 people are expected to attend.
But instead of a forum to discuss ideas, this event, organised by the NZ Defence Industry Association, will host possibly 500 people including representatives from 150 manufacturers and companies selling, examining and purchasing the latest weapons and components.
Only association members or invited guests can attend. New Zealand companies involved last year included ANZ Bank, Airworks Auckland, Datacom, Mainfreight, Callaghan Innovation, Auckland University’s Uni services, Canterbury University’s Spatial Engineering Research Centre.
Why are the organisers so secretive?
A few of the expected international companies and one of their many products include the following.
Lockheed Martin with selfsteering bullets; Boeing with their portable Laser weapons; Britain’s BAE with their Thermal Imaging Night Vision system; Israel Aerospace Industries with insect-like drones that detect and destroy remote enemy targets and machine guns that can fire around corners; America’s Magpul Industry with machineguns that can fold into our pants’ pockets; Hawker Pacific, General Dynamics and others are expected. A significant variety of other weaponry will be for sale. Some questions we might ask:
Are these participants safeguarding peace, providing security, protecting democracy, enhancing employment and increasing prosperity? Or is it a self-serving, profit-controlled and a peace-threatening business? Do any of their weapons connect with nuclear, bio-chemical, robotic or cybernetic warfare? For how much longer will the word ‘warfare’ have any meaning with such weaponry? Do the corporates involved care to whom they sell their weapons? Do they care that each weapon demands a counterpunch, another stage in the ‘mad momentum’ of the arms race, an escalation of insecurity?
Companies seeking to win armaments contracts have received subsidies and tax breaks from at least one government. Weaponry has been gifted as foreign aid and used against another member of the United Nations. Poverty-stricken nations have been encouraged with allowances to buy expensive weaponry. About $2.5 billion annually has been paid in military-related bribes involving at least 100 nations.
Misleading justifications have been given to endorse our purchase of four American Poseidons, the latest and tactically superior warplanes. Propaganda describes it as the leading ‘‘anti-war plane’’ that provides a ‘‘first-kill opportunity’’ and is ‘‘the most feared of all planes’’. This wonderful ‘‘submarine killer’’ ‘‘irks’’ China. Obviously, this creates antagonism and not peace.
Our minister of defence has described these planes as being for ‘‘search and rescue operations’’. But Boeing proudly describes their function as being to ‘‘search and destroy’’ an enemy.
These war machines will cost us about $2.34b even without being outfitted with the advertised missiles, depth charges, glide bombs and torpedoes.
These hugely expensive weapons bring us into America’s multi-national war-focused alliance. Why? Why are we more loyal to the American armaments industry rather than the UN’S quest for peace?
Will Boeing be hawking more of these outdated machines in Palmerston North – when drones can ‘‘do the job’’ so very much less expensively?
Does the Military Defence Association really understand their rhetoric? In their 2016 Wellington exhibition they claimed they were shaping security for ‘‘the next 75 years’’. How on earth could anyone project the huge technological and political changes that will shape 2091?
Could our civilisation come ‘‘tumbling down’’ because of some human or technological error?
Do any within the armaments industry recognise that a moderate percentage of the trillions they spend on their trade of death could help millions to live?
Do such ethical and political issues ever disturb corporate comfort zones? Is it possible for them to consciously recognise they are forcing us to contribute to an arms race meaning perpetual insecurity that can only end in final horrendous destruction?
Why does the Defence Industry Association use the word ‘forum’ which the dictionary defines as a meeting place ‘‘for open discussion of subjects of public interest’’?
The Palmerston North event is not a ‘‘forum’’.
The curtain of secrecy being tightly drawn insults democracy. But why?
The Palmerston North event is not a ‘forum’. The curtain of secrecy being tightly drawn insults democracy.