The Pariah Sketch
Let’s face it, we love the Saudi government. Apart from the tenants of the Whitehouse nobody makes us swoon quite like the gentle souls that are the House of Saud. We woo them with multi-billion pound arms contracts and they blow up our skirts with oil and unspecified help in The War Against Terror. We then coquettishly blink away from their human rights abuses, even when they’re committed against our own citizens. It’s a match made in heaven.
It’s been a long, stable relationship; one to make Iain Duncan Smith, with his fretting for the institution of marriage, proud. The two countries tied the knot in 1985 (although they’d been courting since the mid 1960s) after signing a pre-nuptial agreement. The deal was known as Al Yamamah – ‘The Dove’ – for that added dash of romance.
With doves of course being synonymous with peace, it was therefore obvious that Al Yamamah involved us selling the Saudis billions of pounds worth of weapons. Now, the British arms industry is special; our other so-called strategic industries – shipbuilding, coal and steel for example – have been gently ushered into oblivion and their workers ushered into call centres or onto incapacity benefit.
Most of our manufacturing industries languish around the place like unloved and unemployed step-sons. Our arms manufacturers on the other hand are like the favourite son – nothing is too good. The attention, time and money we lavish on them is extravagant to say the least. There’s a prestige involved in flogging weapons and the tools of oppression to abattoir states you see. Our leaders lobby customers on their behalf (you can see John Reid as this sales team’s Blake character, can’t you?).
Via the Defence Export Services Organization (DESO), a government department, we help private companies sell weapons. The Wikipedia entry is worth a read. The department was founded in 1996 by then Defence Secretary Denis Healey who said, in rhetorical contortion worthy New Labour at its most morally conflicted:
…while the Government attach[es] the highest importance to making progress in the field of arms control and disarmament, we must also take what practical steps we can to ensure that this country does not fail to secure its rightful share of this valuable commercial market.
Translation: while guns are bad and must in the long term be got rid of, we’d be mad not to make as much money as we can from them in the mean time. Profitable arms sales being the perfect incentive for disarmament, obviously. Five hundred civil servants are employed by DESO but they work for the benefit of private companies.
The British taxpayer also showers riches upon the feted arms industry. Each year we subsidise BAE and their ilk to the tune of between half and one billion pounds. Few other industries receive such largesse. Successive governments decided that other countries could buy their steel, coal, ships and what have you elsewhere but not their guns.
And Saudi Arabia is also like a favoured and over-indulged son. We’re willing to turn a blind eye to all the scrapes they get up to while lesser sons get a good smack. We know what they’re up to but why spoil their fun. Willie Morris, former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, described Crown Prince Sultan having ‘a corrupt interest in all contracts‘.
The UK Foreign Office’s website itself says ‘[t]he British Government has a number of concerns about human rights in Saudi Arabia. These include the implementation of basic international human rights norms; aspects of the judicial system; corporal and capital punishment; torture; discrimination against women and non-Muslims; and restrictions on freedom of movement, expression, assembly and worship.’
Yet earlier this year the Government took sides with the Saudi authorities who, it is alleged, tortured a group of British men wrongfully held after a spate of bombings in Saudi Arabia in 2001. A forensic pathologist, after examining one of the men, Ron Jones, confirmed Jones’ account of events. He had been beaten, deprived of sleep, told his wife and son were also in custody and being tortured, and given a ‘Rohypnol-style’ drug. He now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and is recovering from a nervous breakdown.
‘National interest’ is a term that crops up regularly when it comes to our dealings with the Saudi government. The 1992 National Audit Office investigations into the Al Yamamah deal were suppressed in the ‘national interest’ by the then Tory Government and despite pre-power promises to the contrary, New Labour have also refused to release the reports.
And ‘national interest’ was the reason for the Serious Fraud Office dropping its investigation into alleged bribery and corruption between arms manufacturer BAE and Saudi Officials. In his statement, to a deserted House of Lords, announcing the decision, the Attorney General said:
In addition I have, as is normal practice in any sensitive case, obtained the views of the Prime Minister and the Foreign and Defence Secretaries as to the public interest considerations raised by this investigation. They have expressed the clear view that continuation of the investigation would cause serious damage to UK/Saudi security, intelligence and diplomatic co-operation.
You have to wonder how many other inquiries the Prime Minister might not consider to be in the ‘public interest’. (‘No weight has been given to commercial interests or to the national economic interest,’ the Attorney General also said. The price of BAE shares is up eight percent this morning.)
Which brings us to where we are. If I was a Saudi prince in London this morning, I know what I’d be doing – shoplifting from Harrods, crashing my limo into the gates of Buckingham Palace and taking potshots at passers-by with a sniper’s rifle from some tower somewhere. Why the hell not? To prosecute me would be to risk the relationship between the UK and Saudi Arabia, wouldn’t it? The message is sent: We’re frightened of Saudi Arabia. Global reputations are nothing in comparison to cold, hard cash.
Where this leaves the rule of law and the example we set to other, lesser, nations is clear. In 2002, Tony Blair had this to say about the new relationship between the richer nations and Africa. It was to be, he said…
…a partnership in which, in return for African countries applying rules of good governance, anti-corruption, proper legal and commercial systems; we offer assistance for good governance, action on education and health, access to markets, help with conflict resolution which blights so much of the continent…
This morning, you wouldn’t be surprised if the African debtor nations told Blair to stick his white man’s burden where the sun doesn’t shine (his conscience, as it happens) and default on their financial obligations as one. In his ‘live like us or get lost‘ speech to Muslims and other incoming foreign extremists last week (like the media, he’s not interested in white, home-grown extremists), Blair declared the rule of law to be one of Britain’s ‘essential values’ and demanded allegiance to it.
Blair’s own definitions of ‘good governance’ and ‘rule of law’ are now urgently required lest beings of lesser morality than his decide to act by his example rather than his creed. He can then tell us the secret of a good marriage. As if we didn’t already know – lavish gifts, a blind eye turned to indiscretions and an obedient silence when your getting screwed.
(Some of this has been recycled from an earlier piece about the tawdry UK/Saudi bunk-up)
Update: This.
Posted on December 15th, 2006 at 1:04pm under Human rights, Sleaze, T.W.A.T., UK politics
Justin
It’s pieces like this that keep me sane. Thanks a bunch.
That there are others who not only see the nakedness of the Emperor – and the total moral bankruptcy of “The Establishment” when it comes to the things that really matter, but are also prepared to sock it to ‘em so eloquently, is some consolation for having to live in this sanctimonious moral pig-sty – with hardly a fag paper between the mainstream parties when it comes to issues of this sort.
…with hardly a fag paper between the mainstream parties when it comes to issues of this sort.
Indeed:
Just to point out, of course, that since most of the money trails that we are interested in for purposes of terror financing pass through Saudi at some point, the now-established principle that the Magic Kingdom is a non-permeable barrier for UK investigations would seem to be a pretty helpful thing for the terrorists to know.
My constructive, progressive, non-negativist solution for this problem would be to continue to support the SFO investigation.
On BBC 4 “World at One” today the Attorney General was at great pains to point out that ;
1. It was the SFO that made the decision to discontinue the inquiry half way through.
2. AFTER he had made that decision the Attorney general spent DAYS discussing this with lawyers at the SFO etc.,
3. He had consulted others – TB etc.,
4. He made the decision in the afternoon yesterday, immediately he knew of the SFO’s decision because this was commercially sensitive information about which the markets should be informed.
5. He was aware that there had been already been leaks about the SFO’s decision.
A succession of non sequiturs that simply do not add up – redundant anyway necause there is no certainty that BAE will sell their antique design Typhoon to the Saudis anyway.
From your “live like us” link:
“Obedience to the rule of law, to democratic decision-making about who governs us, to freedom from violence and discrimination are not optional for British citizens. They are what being British is about.”
By any measure of logic, combining this statement with the Al Yamamah result makes Tony either:
a) a liar
b) morally incoherent
c) a criminal, and/or
d) not a British citizen.
Any of which make him unacceptable for the position of Prime Minister, or disqualify him outright.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.”
H. L. Mencken
Of course, it’s an awfully big boat to rock…
ziz: “A succession of non sequiturs that simply do not add up – redundant anyway necause there is no certainty that BAE will sell their antique design Typhoon to the Saudis anyway.”
Well now it depends on who offers the biggest bung to the right Saudi official.
[Drum roll]
Let the Games begin!
@ziz
Sounds like the same logic is at work that Slavoj Zizek saw behind the incoherent list of ‘reasons’ assembled to justify the Iraq war: it’s because of WMD, democracy, womens’ rights, won’t someone please think of the children, etc. etc. – a sure sign that someone is trying to disavow something that is all too obvious.
@dsquared:
Looks like Blair should be getting another visit from the coppers, this time for providing material assistance to terrorists.
Sooooooo, what we should do is tell the Saudis to take a running jump and let the French get the contract whilst we lay off thousands of defence workers so that in future we will have to go cap in hand to other countries to buy our defence equipment; meanwhile, hospitals, old people’s homes, transport, power and all the utilities we take for granted go out one by one because we haven’t any Saudi oil.
Well done, ‘Chikyog’, it’s a corker!
Brilliant writing. Glad to see I’m not the only one pissed off by this story
Anyone for conversion?
Well, David. I’m engaging with you once more against my better judgement, but here goes.
The last available figures show that of all the oil imported into the UK, only 4% of it from Saudi Arabia. The vast majority of it comes from Norway. I’d suggest we wouldn’t struggle too hard if we told the Saudis to take a running jump.
The arms exports are worth £5bn a year. That’s just one percent of the UK’s total production. Again, I wonder if that gap can’t be filled with something else.
Maybe we don’t have lay off thousands of workers. Maybe some kind of treaty that ensures we only sell weapons to nice countries might be in order. The need guns too apparently. Or alternatively and preferably in my opinion, as Rochenko suggests, maybe some kind of swords to ploughshares initiative is the way to go.
The final analysis is this: British arms dealing is purely a matter of prestige – it’s not about oil and not about economics. It makes us look big on the world stage. It’s the geopolitical equivalent of putting a rolled up pair of socks in your underpants.
[...] What with all the exitement yesterday, what with Blair being questioned by the police, the investigation into bribes over British arms deals with the Saudi dictatorship being dropped “in the national interest”, the official announcement that Princess Diana’s death was an accident (like, reeeeaaaally?), and another announcement that 2,500 Post Offices are to close in the face of a massive public outcry (including a petition signed by 4 million people), the lack of articles about the resignation of a minor minister is understandable, but the resignation of the head of MI5? Does that really merit such little coverage? Especially considering that “Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, who has been director general of the security service since October 2002, said she had been planning the move since before last year’s terrorist attacks on the London Underground.” [...]
“Maybe some kind of treaty that ensures we only sell weapons to nice countries might be in order.”
Being of a kindly disposition I will assume that the notion of “nice countries” is a piece of irony!
“some kind of swords to ploughshares initiative is the way to go”.
And what, precisely, do you think our defence industries could make that isn’t being made already?
And finally, two questions; how much higher will be the price of defence equipment when our suppliers know we have no alternative, and which part of America will most of our skilled defence technology graduates emigrate to?
I will studiously ignore the blithe way you dismiss a possible drop in oil imports of 4%!
given the size of the subsidies in the defence industry, we could allow all the workers involved to retire on £60,000 a year and still come out ahead of the game.
Defence firms find something else to do with their time, surprisingly often (although of course not often enough: misspent public subsidies tilt the balance of incentives somewhat): here’s the Galileo Optics Corporation.
(sorry, the above comment counts as a positive suggestion for a solution to the problem, in my role as self-appointed and unpaid code-of-conduct compliance officer.)
1976?
hardly a fag paper between the mainstream parties when it comes to issues of this sort.
The Lib Dems have described this situation as “outrageous” and “a sorry state of affairs” and have been pressing for publication of National Audit Office’s report on the Al Yamamah contract, and details of the Attorney General’s meetings with ministers and the PM.