Weapons for Sale in Palmerston North

26th October 2018
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 the 31st October and 1st November, 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.

But instead of a Forum to discuss ideas, this event, organized 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 UniServices and Canterbury University’s Spatial Engineering Research Centre.

A few of the expected international companies and just one of their many products might include the following.
*Lockheed Martin with self-steering 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 machine guns that can fold into our pants’ pockets
* Hawker Pacific and General Dynamics are among others expected to attend with technical innovations for sale.

Some questions we might ask:
+Are these participants safe-guarding peace, providing security, protecting democracy, enhancing employment and increasing prosperity? Or is it a self-serving, profit controlled and 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? And more profits?
+Is peaceful co-existence welcomed by the industry with their trade so profitable?
+ Can we ever expect peace with the many heavily armed nations and politicians dependent on support and income from the armaments industry?
+Should tax-payers have any say in the deployment of weapons? For example:
*The USA, at one time, sold weaponry to 18 of the 25 nations at war and, also, to the murderous dictator, Saddam Hussein of Iraq
*Apparently, China sold arms to both sides in the internecine conflicts in both the Congo and Sudan
*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 UN
*Poverty-stricken nations have been encouraged with allowances to buy expensive weaponry
*About $2.5 billion annually have 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 $2.34 billion, 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 United Nations’ 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?

Why should either of these instruments be in our corner of the Pacific bringing with them the possibility of mass mayhem?

Is the weapon industry worth-while because it stimulates employment? Undoubtedly, this colossal fortune would provide far more employment opportunities in education or health or the trades.

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? Or, an unstable political leader? Or a wild terrorist group?

Do any within the armaments industry recognize 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 recognize they are forcing us to contribute to an Arms Race meaning perpetual insecurity that can only end in final horrendous destruction?

To what extent does fear-mongering and zealous patriotism demand more dangerous weapons?

Can the momentum of massive overkill be stopped or even hindered?

Why did President Eisenhower, a five-star Major General, express concern that the “military-industrial complex” was in danger of “spiraling out of control” and threatening humanity with “hanging from a cross of iron”?

+ Can we ever reform the mindset that declares peace depends on having more lethal weaponry than anyone else?

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?

John Hinchcliff

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