Monday 19 January 2015

GET RID OF TRIDENT


Tomorrow there is a vote in the London House of Commons on the renewal of the Trident Weapons System.

The Greens, Plaid and the SNP will vote against, but it is expected that the *three London parties will largely vote for spending more than £100 billion on a weapons system that is very little use for today's wars or today's enemies.
I know we live in a dangerous world. But most of today's danger seems to me to come from terrorism. You can't fight terrorism with nuclear weapons. Even if a terror organisation got hold of a nuclear bomb and threatened to use it... 
what could the West do with a nuclear deterrent? Where would we target it? 

In any case the United States of America has more than enough weapons to deal with the "mutually assured destruction" question, and for those who feel it is wrong to let the American's take  the financial strain, there is no reason why a financial contribution to their costs couldn't be made by other Nato countries.

No western country (that means France or the UK) would dare use a nuclear weapon without permission from America. But at least France does have the dignity of that option. The UK does not. While the French President does have a red button, the British government does not. The weapons system is part of America's defence capability, and the launch codes are held by the USA.

Retired senior military have said that they would prefer that the money be spent on something that they can actually use.

Some say that America, too, would rather than Britain spent some more money on conventional forces which could be used by them in the various wars in the Middle East that we get involved in. On the other hand, some say that America would prefer us to maintain the nuclear capability because it guarantees us a seat on the Security Council where, in anything important, we take America's side.. or you might say, 'vote the way America tells us to'.

Tony Blair apparently said in his autobiography that the weapons system was of no strategic value and maintained only for prestige. It is the membership fee for the big boys' table, at which, along with France, the UK really should have no place.

I discovered from Neil Findlay, during his unsuccessful leadership campaign, that the Labour Party's Scottish conference voted to scrap Trident, but was overruled by the party leadership. 

When there are hungry kids (look at the figures for food banks), freezing pensioners, folk living on the street adn sleeping rough in sub zero temperatures and so many privations for so many people, why are we paying over £100,000,000,000,000 (that we don't have) for weapons that we won't use?

I'm sure that every Tory will vote for the system, but some decent Labour and Liberal MPs will vote against. You can urge them to do so here.

Correction: * I've just read on Twitter that the Labour Party intends to ignore the debate, classing it as a meaningless stunt.

If the SNP, Plaid, Greens, Labour and some Liberals and maybe a few of the Northern politicians voted together, then we could rid the country of these abominations.

And we'd have £100,000,000,000 to spend on improving the lives of the wretched. And Labour thinks it's a stunt because the SNP is involved in organising it?????

And Jim Murphy says that they care about Scotland and its poor.

Oh well...

29 comments:

  1. Letter duly sent, though I don't think it'll make any difference, incumbent "Scottish" Labour mp.
    If nuclear arms could defend, against terrorism, "911" would never have happened. A better equipped conventional force could, react to threats, defend and carryout humanitarian relief efforts far better.
    Though I'd rather spend the money on, helping the sick and the poor, building hospitals, sorting our infrastructure and generally making the world a better place.

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    1. A 100 Tony Blairs, now there's a frightening thought.

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    2. I don't think for a minute that the leaderships of the Westminster parties will go against the conventional wisdom that it is important for the good of mankind that they be at the top table bringing their accumulated wisdom and wit to bear upon discussions... or as most of us would say spreading chaos by joining in with any neo-liberal nonsense proposed by the likes of George W and Darth Vader!

      But the more voices that are raised against this folly, the better.

      Like you I'd much rather that they didn't spend the money on killing people, but keeping them alive and fed, but I suppose that doesn't go down in history as much as war making.

      For every Gandhi there are 100 Tony Warmonger Blair...

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    3. Oh dear, I'm sorry I put that image in your head. Hard to imagine anything that evil.

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  2. There are a fair few meaningless "stunts", in Labour.

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  3. And feeding the hungry doesn't increase the wealth of the arms dealers.........

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    1. True Carol... and of course, it doesn't get you a seat at the top table with the big boys. Ask the Danes, or Finns, or Icelanders...

      There's not a lot in the way of foodbanks up there in civilisation, but Mr Obama isn't likely to call...

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  4. If the radiance of a thousand suns
    Were to burst at once into the sky
    That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One ...
    I am become Death,
    The Destroyer of Worlds.
    —Bhagavad-Gita


    The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts left behind ghostly silhouettes of human beings whose lives were erased in an instant.

    http://www.thehypertexts.com/images/hiroshima-shadow-2.png

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    1. I take it you would vote against this obscenity?

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    2. Oppenheimer, quoted Bhagavad-Gita, after the Americans dropped the "bomb" on Japan. There and then these weapons should, have been outlawed.

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    3. Yes. They should. Instead even the one socialist government that we ever had spent money it should have spent on other things, trying to prove that Britannia could be in the forefront of nuclear technology.

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    4. Tris, have a look at Nico's blog, he'd vote for trident; apparently.

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  5. Replies
    1. Ha ha! Munguin says thank you. He has tweeted it to all his friends... well, all the people he knows!

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  6. Well I had a hard time getting past the bit about writing to my MP, as he is Labour, has about as hard a time as thon Tory one who was putting his constituents letters in the Park Bin I will not waste either my time or patience, and as they are boycotting the Debate because they seem to be warmongering types apart from Katy Clark who seems to be in the wrong Party, she should try the SSP I think.

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    1. I agree. I don't know why she is still in Labour.

      Clearly she doesn't agree with anything they stand for.

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    2. I see that Ian Davidson says he also will be voting against renewal of Trident, as he says he has done consistently for two decades.

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    3. Hats off to him. Can't stand the man. I think he's an oaf, but I salute him for telling Miliband to stick his weapons.

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  7. If 300,000,000 go to bed hungry it is the fault of their parents nobody else

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    1. Why is it the fault of the parents, do you not think the parents are going hungry too.
      Do you not think that it is morally wrong to pay billions on weapons of war, rather than invest in jobs, health and a fair welfare system.
      Do you not think this situation may happen to you or your nearest and dearest. Do you not think chasing the wealthy tax dodgers is a better use of public funds, than monstering those less fortunate.

      Or is it, as I suspect; you do not think.

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    2. That's about the daftest comment I've even seen on here, Anon. I was temped not to dignify it with an answer.

      But you sound like Iain Duncan Smith. Or are you Esther McVile or Lord Fraud?

      What about the pensioners who choose between something to eat and keeping themselves warm enough to function?

      Jim: A friend of mine, a GP, was saying that she reckoned that most of us are possibly somewhere between 3 and 6 months away from this kind of situation.

      You never know what is coming for you.

      You lose your job; the partner runs away with the window cleaner.

      You discover you have some really horrible illness.

      You have an accident.

      Things like this can completely change you life...

      My friend has seen it happen.

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    3. Do you think it's the responsibility of the taxpayer to feed other peoples benefit brats ?

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    4. I think it is society's responsibility to have no hungry children in a rich country.

      My own conscience wouldn't let me pass a hungry kid when I have so much.

      What would you do?

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  8. tris and the other appeasers

    I do consider incumbent on you nuclear deniers to explain how to respond
    to a rogue state an example could be ISIS. if the gain control of a nuclear state
    and then threaten to expand their caliphate.
    Just wishing for it not to happen isnt really a sensible answer after all who predicted the rise of ISIS and its consequent murderous reign .

    warm fluffy feelings of pacifism may make you feel all holy and nice but
    they wont keep our children safe in their beds at night

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    Replies
    1. That'll be the same ISIS, set up by the American, British and Saudi governments then.
      Can you explain to me why America could prevent 911, even though they have the worlds largest stockpiles of WMDs?

      Are you sure your not really Jim Murphy?

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    2. Niko. If they did get hold of a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it, how would Britain counter it? Well at present we would wait until America decided what to do, and then we would do what America told us, when America wanted us to do it. If it involved firing any of our weapons, America wouldn't have to just give permission, they would also have to arrange the firing, because we don't have the facilities. If in the future we didn't have any WMDs, we would do exactly the same thing, except America would simply do the firing itself.

      Now America has enough nukes to knock the whole world out. Why do we need to have them too? I've already said that I see no reason why little broke countries shouldn't hep to pay for these weapons, but we do not need them. Blair said as much himself. They are for prestige. In short, Britain is a fur coat and no drawers nation.

      I wonder if the Chancellor of Germany has though what she would do if ISIS decided to hit Germany, or the PM of Italy, or the king of Spain...

      They too would ask America what to do and wait until they were told.

      They are pretty much in the same circumstances as we are. Only they doesn't have to find £100 billion and more (although they can't tell us how much; they simply don't know how much it will cost.)

      How do you feel that the membership of 'Scottish' Labour voted to get rid of the WMDs and the leadership ignored them completely?

      Incidentally, the people of Iraq are hardly behind ISIS, so Mr Obama would have to make up his mind who to bomb and where to bomb them. After all, a bit like the leadership of Al Qa'ida, these people move around.

      I think it would be foolhardy indeed to bomb the hell out of Baghdad AGAIN, killing, in this case, probably 4 million people when the weapon firers would be thousands of miles away, possibly not even in Iraq, or whatever it is now called.

      Anyway, the last time Labour said that that area had WMDs, it was a lie. They didn't. But we killed hundreds of thousands of them anyway and let the people responsible off without as much as a slapped wrist.

      And people wonder why there are Islamic terrorists?

      Best way to sort out all this terrorism is to deliver the people who were involved in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Muslims into the hands of the World Court and make sure that they are dealt with in the same way that we deal with rogue heads of state for countries that aren't Europe or North America.

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    3. They didnt answer well not with any common sense...

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    4. Best I could do really.

      Either you want to be part of this thing, or you don't.

      I guess if you are excited by top table, and Britain pretending the sun never sets on its empire... you like what it now takes to be that kind of country.

      I'd rather they fixed the roads and fed the kids.

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