This video says about itself:
15 December 2016
The UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, has rejected calls to follow America’s lead and stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, which is spearheading a bombing campaign in Yemen.
By Zoe Streatfield in Britain:
SNP demands end to Tory militarism
Saturday 31st December 2016
Salmond slams ‘shamefully stained’ relationship with Saudis
The Scottish National Party (SNP) urged the British government yesterday to abandon “knee-jerk militarism” and adopt an “ethical and effective” foreign policy in the new year, following months of Western-backed bloodshed in the Middle East.
Prime Minister Theresa May has faced cross-party opposition to her continued sales of arms to the Saudi regime, which has used the weapons in indiscriminate attacks on Yemen that have killed numerous civilians.
The SNP condemned Tory ministers’ “shamefully stained” relationship with Saudi Arabia and called for an independent inquiry after reports emerged that outlawed British-made cluster bombs have been used on targets in Yemen.
Ms May has also faced criticism for her government’s participation in coalition air strikes in war-torn Syria, which have helped to create a massive refugee crisis.
SNP international affairs spokesman Alex Salmond said: “For the UK government, the new year should be one of recognising and correcting the errors in their foreign policy approach and one where they adopt a more ethical and effective approach that abandons military obsession and instead puts humanitarian and political efforts at its core.”
The MP and former party leader warned: “You cannot arm regimes with stained military tactics with one hand and then raise the other to proclaim the need to uphold human rights.
“The lessons are clear for all in the last year, from the lessons of Libya to Yemen and Syria.
“The SNP have consistently called for a wider strategy, rather than knee-jerk militarism, and we will continue to hold the Tory government to account on these crucial issues.”
Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade warned that arms exports had “fuelled a humanitarian catastrophe” in Yemen, while fallout from the “botched and immoral wars” in the Middle East remained a cause for concern.
Mr Smith added that if Britain was to play a more positive role on the world stage, then “militarism and war must give way to an approach that provides humanitarian relief for those in need and promotes peace and democracy.”
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Pingback: Stop September London arms fair | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Saturday 24th June 2017
posted by Morning Star in Features
Not only does Armed Forces Day promote unquestioning loyalty to an imperialistic institution, it also costs a fortune, writes EMMA SANGSTER
THIS weekend, celebrations of the British armed forces will take place across the country. Councils up and down Britain are organising and supporting military parades, displays of weapons and “military assets” and military-themed family entertainment.
The national Armed Forces Day event will be held in Liverpool, with city centre and waterfront events including Army, Navy and RAF “villages,” family zones, fly-pasts and a gun salute.
The event is a big one. Its promotion by Culture Liverpool puts it on a par with Mersey River Festival, Liverpool International Music Festival and SGT Pepper at 50.
It is a day to reflect on how we got to the point where the armed forces are singled out from other public service professions — some of which also face everyday danger — for a day of national celebration.
What are the long-term implications of further entrenching militarism into our culture and equating armed service with “family fun”?
The first Armed Forces Day took place in 2009. It was instituted on the basis of government fear that the military was losing the battle for public opinion after its failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The day is billed as “a chance to show your support and salute our forces for all they do.” Any concern that what the armed forces do should be open to debate is blotted out. This demonstration of public support for serving personnel is then transformed into support for the institutions of the military, as councils and partner organisations become its promoters and its recruiting sergeants.
How much does this cost the nation, and local councils each year when other services are facing cuts and closure? Recent evidence suggests that councils have to dip into their reserves, sometimes digging deep, to fund Armed Forces Day.
Despite a grant from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and some commercial sponsorship, the day is likely to cost a significant amount of money for Liverpool city council which has to underwrite it and find the extra funding needed.
In fact the MoD grant for this national event is only £25,000. Whether or not they wish to attend or support the military, the people of Liverpool will be paying and, quite possibly, seeing cuts to council services deepened as a result.
In 2015, the final bill for the Guildford Armed Forces Day events was over £800,000. Even with some commercial sponsorship, the council was left to pick up the tab of over £350,000. The MoD grant only accounted for 3 per cent of the costs with the council providing 14 times more funding.
In 2014, Stirling council budgeted £250,000 for staging the national event but ended up paying over half a million pounds at the same time as £21m in cuts over five years were due. Nottingham city council allocated £115,000 from contingency funding in 2013. This same budget was charged with finding over £18m of savings.
Given the scale of a national event, the logistical implications for a local authority are enormous. A review of the experience of hosting Armed Forces Day in Guildford found that the event “utilised staff from almost every department of the council.”
Some staff had to work every day for weeks and shifts went around the clock. Similar widespread calls on staff time were identified in a review of Armed Forces Day in Stirling.
The diversion of council staff away from other work represents a hidden cost and an impact on other services. The demands of hosting what is essentially a large promotional event will contribute to the pressures on, and delivery of, vital year-round local services.
This year Nottingham City Council has announced that, after holding an event every year and the national event in 2013, it will not be having an Armed Forces Day due to “dwindling council budgets.”
It’s not clear where the decisions to hold national Armed Forces Day events originate from within councils, despite their resource implications. An external review in Stirling in 2014 found failings in transparency and process in applying for the event. These included a fundamental “confusion” over who agreed that Stirling should bid to host the event.
To understand why councils are using their limited resources to support one sector of the community each year, we also need to understand the extent to which the military have become embedded into civil society over the last five years through Armed Forces covenant partnerships.
Every single local authority in Britain has signed an Armed Forces community covenant. On the face of it, these partnerships help to remove disadvantage from the armed forces living locally who experience disadvantage in access to services or need additional support.
But under the covenants, local councils also pledge to encourage public support for the military through events such as Armed Forces Day.
In 2014, local peace activists challenged Wrexham council to explain why they were reneging on a previous decision to not allow military hardware in the town’s public spaces. The council’s Armed Forces champion cited their obligation under the community covenant as the rationale. The military event, presented as family fun, had machine guns and other weapons for children of all ages to handle.
This obligation is no doubt felt locally in areas with large armed forces communities, but it has been imposed across the nation from above. The MoD has worked relentlessly to create a sense of moral duty for local authorities, businesses, charities, schools and other sectors of civil society to partner with the armed forces.
Armed Forces Day is turning into Armed Forces Week with flags flown over town halls and public institutions and community groups of all kinds enlisted to support the military, including schools, performing arts, sports clubs and faith groups.
What is being sacrificed as a result? Ethical policies that seek to endorse the need for peaceful resolution of conflict are easily put aside in the face of pressures to show support for the military. Dissent certainly seems to have been silenced within council chambers. Where is the support for local peace events or those championing the bravery and commitment of workers in civilian public services?
BAE Systems is a regular sponsor of the national Armed Forces Day event. It is also the largest arms company in the UK and has been implicated in numerous human rights abuses through selling weaponry to oppressive regimes. Culture Liverpool has found itself endorsing BAE systems and sanitising their activities. Tweeting that BAE are “dedicated to developing technology that keeps our armed forces safe” is a blatant economy with the brutal truth.
Guildford borough council had to suspend part of its sponsorship policy in order to accept money from BAE Systems, which barred sponsorship from organisations involved in the production and sale of weaponry and firearms. As this would prohibit BAE and possibly the MoD from part-funding the event, the policy was suspended with no democratic process.
Local authorities have become the military’s promotional agents, sending endorsements for military approaches and military recruitment out into the community. This should not be subsidised by local communities any longer.
We must stop being blinkered to the inherently destructive power of military solutions and stop celebrating its institutions blindly. We must learn the lessons from the recent past to work towards a mature and ethical way of approaching issues of peace and security.
War has a tendency to divide communities and peace has a tendency to unite them. Let’s promote peace.
Emma Sangster is the co-ordinator for ForcesWatch.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-ebd5-Militarism-the-whole-family-can-enjoy#.WU6UfVFpwdU
LikeLike
Thursday, 17 August 2017
Tories go from class war at home to war preparations abroad!
THE Tory class war at home means permanent austerity for the working class, with anti-union laws brought in to further chain up trade unions, while wages have been frozen for up to ten years.
The NHS is facing ever more savage cuts, while the pensionable age is being adjusted upwards. The army of the homeless is growing rapidly, as are the numbers sleeping on the streets, while the number of families that depend on food banks runs into millions!
Pensioners meanwhile are being presented as the privileged enemy within, with their triple lock pension arrangements the target for government action, while students now know that the interest rate on student loans is to go up to 6.1% from September.
The UK’s foreign policy is an extension of this class war policy at home. At a time when we are all being lectured that there is no money tree, hundreds of billions are being found preparing for a new imperialist war, centring on the Middle East, where the UK ruling class has been selling billions of pounds of bombs and aircraft to the Saudi ruling class, and supporting Israel.
The UK has found hundreds of billions for two giant new aircraft carriers, support vessels, the aircraft to go with the carriers, and the docks to hold them, and has been feverishly preparing a dock in Bahrain, where the plan is to base them but which however is still not deep enough. The first giant aircraft carrier was launched yesterday in Portsmouth, HMS Queen Elizabeth. The 65,000-tonne ship has been undergoing sea trials since setting sail from Rosyth dockyard in Fife, where it was built in June.
The 900ft-long carrier cannot currently deploy planes but flying trials are due to begin next year. Its sister ship, another giant carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, is currently under construction. The Queen Elizabeth cost £3bn, its escort vessels will cost £1bn each, and its aircraft, 40 are ordered, £100 million a go, and are due to make their first trial flights from the carrier’s deck next year with 120 aircrew currently training in the US.
Under an agreement with the USA, the UK has already contributed US$2.5 billion towards development costs and is down to buy 140 of the jets. Captain Petitt, senior naval officer for the two vessels, said at the launch they would become the UK’s ‘most potent strategic weapon bar the continuous at sea deterrent’.
He added he could ‘certainly see’ the vessels used in campaigns against Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil) and expected them to be sent to the Gulf on deployment when ready. He added: ‘The base, HMS Juffair, at Mina Salman Port will play a central role in the Royal Navy’s ability to operate in the region, and reaffirms the UK’s determination to work with Bahrain to maintain security and stability in the Gulf. The facility will give the UK an enhanced and permanent presence in the region, allowing longer-term deployments in the Gulf.’
Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony in Bahrain, then Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: ‘The beginning of construction work at Mina Salman Port marks a watershed moment in the UK’s commitment to the region. The presence of the Royal Navy in Bahrain is guaranteed into the future, ensuring Britain’s sustained presence east of Suez. The new facility will enable Britain to work with our allies to reinforce stability in the Gulf and beyond.’
Commander Joint Forces Command, General Sir Richard Barrons KCB CBE ADC, said: ‘This is a reflection of the continued cooperation and engagement between the Bahrain Defence Forces and the UK Armed Forces. We welcome the continued support from Bahrain which enables the Royal Navy to operate in the Gulf region.’
Capitalist Britain, that cannot afford an NHS or proper pensions or free state education, is awash with cash for war preparations! The UK working class is clearly in the same trench as the oppressed peoples of the Gulf and the Middle East.
https://wrp.org.uk/news/13550
LikeLike