Arms and the Poodle

It’s true. He has stood up on his hind legs, widdled on His Masters Trousers and bitten the hand that feeds him. Bravo. Perhaps that crack about sweaters was the last dog biscuit, and after carefully considering the bowl (which says Fido) and the collar (which says Fido) and the flea-infested kennel (which says Fido) he decided the time had finally come to use those back legs of his to get that collar over his ears and skip the light fantastic.

Don’t hold your breath. This is spinnery on speed: Hargreaves would down tools and stop tinkering with that Spinning Jenny to look on in dumbstruck awe. Business as usual: an attempt to position the U.K. as the conciliatory, humane ones whose soldiers take their sunglasses off and wear berets all the better to reassure a fearful populace. Certainly not the kind of folks who would take photos of themselves sexually abusing and torturing Iraqi civilians for their personal gratification. Thumbs up, anyone?

Yes. Tony made a phone call to Olmert to voice his deep concern. And he has urged the U.S. to ‘understand.’ Apparently this constitutes “dramatic criticism” and is a startling and unprecedented display of independent foreign policy making.

Kim Howells, a British Foreign Office Minister (ie not very high up the tree) has also been speaking out, calling for Israel to show “proportionality and restraint”

I’d planned on having a bit of a field day at Howell’s expense. I thought I’d ask that awkward question “So, Mr Howell, what would have been “proportionate?” One of those photographs? Two? One fifth of them? A half? Inquiring minds need to know. If something is disproportionate, there must have been some another portion that would have been proportionate no?

And – I was going to wonder – has he simply been misinterpreted in his calls for ‘restraint?’ After all, according to Clare Short (admittedly She Who Is Known For The Foundation of the ‘I’m Going – I’m Going – Really Any Minute Now I’m Going. Honest’ School of Resignation -- but still it’s true that in the end she did go) and as documented by Mark Thomas in As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela; Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade ,

“. . .every minister who makes a foreign trip has three briefings: one from their department detailing the purpose of their trip, a second from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office explaining the political situation in the country the minister is to visit, and a third briefing, talking points, from Downing Street, things to mention and plug, like Arms Deals. Every time there is an arms deal in the air it is a minister’s duty to talk it up, no matter what the purpose of the trip. They could be visiting victims of the tsunami or having a meeting about carbon emissions, and somewhere on their to-do list scrawled in biro are the words – ‘Big up the guns.” (123)

‘Was this what that phrase ‘restraint’ was about?’ I was going to muse. After all, various U.K. companies do an excellent line in handcuffs and other assorted accoutrements of the torture trade. And they’ve got good contracts in high places: the handcuffs used in Guantanamo have “Made in England” stamped on them. (Thomas, 212). Perhaps Howell was taken out of context, I was going to speculate – perhaps there’s a big deal in hand-cuffs going down and he’d been told to ‘big up the cuffs and tell them BOGOF on the netting.’

According to the Guardian , an anonymous ‘senior Israeli diplomat’ described that ‘Poodle To The Poodle Phone’ moment thus: “'The tone was very positive. We agree on all major aspects of this crisis and are greatly appreciative of Britain's position.”

Well may they be, since the U.K.’s sales of arms to Israel almost doubled to a not insignificant £25m.

The Foreign Office claims that “ that all exports were considered under the government's official criteria. "The bottom line is that no piece of kit is used for external aggression or internal repression."

Children’s parties. That’s what they’re for. An alternative to Bonzo the Happy Clown and purple dinosaurs.

So yes. Field day. Planned excusion to the sunny uplands.

But looking at Howell’s words again and doing a bit of reading between the lines, I think that perhaps (just perhaps, I wouldn’t venture anything stronger than that) there may be a bit of a cri de coeur going on there. Albeit expressed unfortunately not in its vehemence but in its moderation. And yes, in its argumentation too: the reason to refrain from killing children is not that

“Every person who has got a mobile phone, every person who can take a photograph of somebody being blown to bits, or a child with a limb missing, is a reporter now.”

But such errors in argument are not uncommon when one is desperately trying to persuade. Who can say for sure what is in his heart or where it might eventually lead him?

Enough.
What is to be done.
Opposing the arms trade is a piece in this jigsaw puzzle I think.

It’s late in the day, but here are three things you can do (depending of course on what you already are doing -- you may already be running at full tilt – whether on this or any of a myriad of connected issues).

1) Knowledge is the beginning of power. Inform yourself and inform us. Places to start reading include Control Arms and also the Amnesty International USA pages on arms control. And there’s this for some recent (sad) history. And as in all things, google is your friend.

I must admit – digressions, diversions, excursions and expeditions are always very welcome - but I’d kind of like it if one of the things people used this thread for was ‘here’s what I found out.’ That could be ‘here’s what I found out about who is selling what to whom.’ It could also be about ‘what can be done to stop it?’ Or ‘What have people done? What worked? What didn’t?’

2) These folks Campaign Against the Arms Trade could probably use some support. If you know of other similar organisations – whereever they may be based – that could do with any of the various kinds of support and involvement that such organisations can generally use, tell us about them.

3) Do you have stocks? A portfolio? (Unlikely, I know) But on that slim off-chance, take a look at who you’re investing with: maybe do some rethinking and reorganising if it strikes you as necessary. Do you have a pension? (Unlikely, I know) But again, on that offchance, take a look at who they invest in. Do you need to do something about that?