Children pay price for arms industry
ON October 2, Mr Jamal Khashoggi, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to sort out some routine paperwork. That was the last time he was seen alive. It so happens that he was a vocal critic of the Saudi regime – and he disappears. Draw your own conclusions
Actually this isn’t the way the Saudi regime normally deals with such people.
Dissidents are usually arrested, tortured, subjected to a mock trial, found guilty, and beheaded – in public ; and the beheaded body is then sometimes crucified – in public.
In Jan 2016, 47 people were executed in a single day.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Saudi regime are currently waging a war against rebels in the neighbouring state of Yemen – but the chief casualties of this war are civilians. Save the Children estimate that at least 50,000 children were killed in 2017 alone, mainly from air strikes carried out by fighter aircraft sold to the Saudis by British and American manufacturers
Yes, the most lucrative business of all is in weapons of war. The US is currently negotiating an arms deal with the Saudis worth $110bn, as Mr Trump says “...on military equipment and on things that create jobs ... for this country” and nothing is going to be allowed to jeopardise this deal, not even the fate of Mr Khashoggi
Successive British governments, likewise, have signed deals worth billions of pounds in sales of arms to the Saudi regime. In the House of Commons in Jan 2016 a Conservative MP stated “Thousands of highly-skilled jobs in the UK are directly dependent upon our defence exports to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia”
So there you have it. The wellbeing of the arms industries of Britain and the US is what matters. The people of the Yemen, what about them ? Serves them right for being in the wrong place at the wrong time – in their own homes. And it’s always the children who pay the price – death by abortion or death by airstrike. Killing of innocent children either way – maybe that’s the kind of highly-skilled job the MP was talking about Tony Young Penlan, Swansea (Swansea CND and Swansea SPUC)