No no “There’s a reason why we keep selling weapons to dictators…” They’re willing to buy them. Business has no morality and our government now acts as a business – that’s it.

Can you explain why “business as normal with dictators” is all about oil, while invading Iraq to depose a dictator was also, erm, all about oil?

(You do know that oil is fungible, don’t you, so that, even if Saddam had refused to sell oil to “us”, unless he had refused to sell it to anybody our own supply would have been unaffected?)

“If we didn’t sell them, somebody else would…”. As Mark Thomas pointed out, that’s the same rationale as used by heroin suppliers and they don’t seem to be able to get away with it, so why should our political elites ?

@ 2 cjcjc

Price?

“Each year, around $45-60 billion worth of arms sales are agreed. Most of these sales (something like 75%) are to developing countries.
The 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, Russia, France, United Kingdom and China), together with Germany and Italy account for around 85% of the arms sold between 2002 and 2009.
Some of the arms sold go to regimes where human rights violations will occur. Corruption often accompanies arms sales due to the large sums of money involved.
In modern conflicts over 80% of all casualties have been civilian. 90% of these are caused by small arms”.
http://www.globalissues.org/issue/73/arms-trade-a-major-cause-of-suffering

I assume there is no meaningful regulatory mechanism to alter the fundamental dynamics of the arms trade – in other words selling weapons to this or that psycho does not contravene any law (or if does it can easily be got round)?

As FR says this type of hardware is always be available from one supplier or another the question is whether or not we should take a closer look at our own record in this murky bit of the market?

@4 fair point, but he wasn’t just going to keep it in the ground, was he?

Sorry, just to add (in case I mistook your point) the price would have been unaffected unless he left it in the ground.

A refuses to sell to B but instead sells to C.
B therefore buys from whomever C would otherwise have bought from.
Aggregate supply and demand unchanged so would be no price impact.

Can you explain why “business as normal with dictators” is all about oil, while invading Iraq to depose a dictator was also, erm, all about oil?

And can you tell me why the Mafia will make friends if they’ll win money but also shoot people so that they can steal their money? Eh? Can you tell me that?

Hopefully its all about to change. Hopefully we can put some people at the top who realise this so that we can play apart in the future. If we let Cameron’s rhetoric continue and democracy does take off in a big way in the middle east we are all going to end up riding mopeds.

Oil can affect your country in other ways look at the unrest is doing to the price of Oil here and inflation due to the cost of that Oil, and Saddam even under an embargo was selling oil to everyone he could, France was one of the many big losers when Saddam bit the dust.

But yes your right why get rid of Saddam for being a killer of Children but tell us Gaddafi was a nice bloke now.

well of course it’s your balance of payments the price of BP getting a multi billion contract or not.

God forgive me to say Blair made a fortune out of the war in Iraq, because sadly he has and did.

New labour had done deal with China to repair aircraft so ending a deal for Barry in Wales and St Athens because it was cheaper much much cheaper.

So Blaming Cameron for carrying on for what we see as being a new labour asset is a bit rich.

I see many people are to young to have seen a picture in London of a sheet covering a young Police officer, some may not even remember the shock and horror of seeing a crashed plane in Scotland, and the dead.

But once contracts for Oil guns and planes are on the menu boy Tyrants are just people.

@ 7 cjcjc

“A refuses to sell to B but instead sells to C.
B therefore buys from whomever C would otherwise have bought from.
Aggregate supply and demand unchanged so would be no price impact.”

Control, then. If you, or the people in your pocket, own the oilfields, then you get a lot more bang for your buck. And a lot more energy security too. I also think you’re treating economics as a scaled-down model: there are plenty of factors other than overall supply and demand. Transportation, duties etc.

Also, it’s not just about oil. Oil is a single factor.

@ dave bones

“Hopefully its all about to change. Hopefully we can put some people at the top who realise this so that we can play apart in the future. If we let Cameron’s rhetoric continue and democracy does take off in a big way in the middle east we are all going to end up riding mopeds.”

And riding a moped is FAR too high a price to pay for the freedom of millions, naturally…

Yep, I’d agree with this, I’d also add that, in addition to those politicians and arms manufacturers, there are the good old trades unions. You know, those pillars of progressive labour politics – only they ain’t that progressive when it comes to sacrificing British jobs on the altar of human rights.

RTTNews) – Libya’s Justice Minister who quit the post in protest against the brutal repression of anti-government protests has alleged that Libyan leader Moammer Gaddafi ordered the 1988 bombing of a U.S. airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who resigned on Monday, told Sweden’s Expressen daily that he had proof that the despot gave the order for the deadliest attack blamed on Gaddafi’s regime that claimed 270 lives.

Did Cameron shake this mans hand, did Cameron then help release a bloke who may well turn out to be the bomber, BAE is not that brilliant a company to pay billions in bribes to countries not exactly freedom fighters.

good old business it kills it pays bribes but it keeps us in work.

Robert – Megrahi weas released in August 2009.

@7 Saddam had plans on selling Iraq’s oil in currency other than dollars. This the USA would not allow.

@16 – even if true, would have had no impact, or rather would have had the same (marginal) impact as Iraq selling all dollars received into other currencies

“Business has no morality “

Quite.

But that is why I take with a large pinch of salt the Rights constant moral lectures about all kind of things. There are two twin pillars that hold up the right wing; Free markets, and morality. They are of course completely hypocritical . But because the Right own most of the media they get create the frame that each issue is discussed on. So if it is killing lots of people with British arms, that comes on the free market pillar. If it is abortion, then it is all about morality. The Right is very adapt at hopping from one pillar to the other.

By the way, have you seen the price of petrol? I just ask because we hear nothing of the fuel protestors these days. I guess the claim that the fuel strike was just a bunch of angry right wing tories was true after all.

@ 18 Sally

“So if it is killing lots of people with British arms, that comes on the free market pillar. If it is abortion, then it is all about morality. The Right is very adapt at hopping from one pillar to the other.”

I think a lot of the time that’s less to do with personal hypocrisy and more to do with strange bedfellows. Libertarians and moral guardians co-operate politically in much the same way as liberals and socialists.

Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who resigned on Monday, told Sweden’s Expressen daily that he had proof that the despot gave the order for the deadliest attack blamed on Gaddafi’s regime that claimed 270 lives.

But until he gives that proof and it’s tested in court, it ain’t worth much.

Government has no morality either. Never has had.

“Government has no morality either. Never has had.”

So why should they decide if I should be allowed an abortion or not?

@ 21 Birdie

“Government has no morality either.”

Then vote for one that does next time.

@6:

@4 fair point, but he wasn’t just going to keep it in the ground, was he?

The standard line in the oil industry was that Iraq’s reserves were “under-exploited” due to “years of corruption, neglect and chronic under investment” – so, yes, actually, from the point of view of the international oil majors, he was “just keep[ing] it in the ground” – i.e. not pumping it as quickly as everybody else would have liked.

There is also the point that, contrary to popular belief amongst internet blog commenters, oil is not perfectly fungible, because it’s not uniform. Heavier, sourer grades are more difficult and expensive to refine, requiring additional equipment (such as cokers and catalytic crackers) which is not present at all refineries and is extremely expensive to install. Therefore the exceptionally light, sweet grades available from Iraq cannot be substituted with the heavier, sourer grades available elsewhere without paying a fairly hefty price premium.

Thirdly, it’s not just a question of total world oil supply – certain actors have a vested interest in having as much of that supply in their hands (and paying dividends into their pockets) rather than those of their competitors. The western-based multi-nationals are being increasingly crowded out of the most profitable parts of the business by national oil companies, and they’re not happy about it. Notice that the dictators we’re happy to prop up are usually those who are equally happy to sell concessions to the western-based multi-nationals, whereas the dictators we demonise tend to be those who insist that their oil reserves should be exclusively exploited by their own NOCs. (With the notable exception of Saudi Aramco, because they’re big enough to have us over a barrel. Pun very much intended.)

Not that I’m suggesting that oil was the sole reason for the invasion of Iraq… There were, of course, a number of other factors involved. But the oil helped grease the wheels… (Stop me before I pun again!)

‘“Business has no morality “

It would if the price of going to war against a dictator we was counted as an externality and those who had armed him were taxed accordingly.

@25 – no that would be a business projection; the same sort of risk/return calculation made with bank loans.

Iraq wasn’t about oil, it was about having a US-friendly government bang-slap in the middle of it all.

“That’s the system working at maximum efficiency, doing what it does and has evolved over long decades to do – keeping the precious spice melange oil flowing to the rest of the planet in an orderly fashion.”

I’m just not sure I buy it. For “the system” to actually operate in the way you describe, you’d have to ignore a host of other factors. If all “the system” cared about was keeping oil flowing for example, it would have moved to topple the regimes and organisations behind the oil price hike in the 1970′s wouldn’t it? There would be a vested interest in it maintaining the greatest possible supply, at the market price.

Sally and Chaise, Government has no morality, never has had.

imo no govt should be dictating about people’s own bodies, whether on sex, drugs, or rock and roll for that matter.

As for “voting” for one govt or another, what a sick joke – that’s one thing RedKen got right! Whoever you vote for the government gets in.

Human mass organisation comes down to “might is right”, tempered by pragmatism, that’s how humanity’s sorry history looks to me. It ain’t moral and it ain’t pretty.

@ 29 Birdie

All broadly true as it goes. What do you suggest?

Shatterface 25, too right, make polluters pay for the inherent consequences of their actions. That’s economics.

Ha, Chaise, you want a full manifesto? That one isn’t written yet.

@ 32

That’s my point. I’m not sure statements like “government has no morality” are particularly helpful unless you’ve got a viable alternative. And it sounds like an argument for not trusting the government with anything involving morality, except that that would remove most of the point of having a government in the first place.

@33: No diagnosis without a prescription, eh?

@ 34 Dunc

“No diagnosis without a prescription, eh?”

Not necessarily. But some kind of input is normally helpful.

It just annoys me that, when people point out the dangers of leaving things to private interests, the response from many is along the lines of “yeah, but the government sucks too!” As I said, if you feel that way, vote for a different one. The point of leaving some things in public hands is that public figures are accountable.

As I said, if you feel that way, vote for a different one.

I did.

[33] “it sounds like an argument for not trusting the government with anything involving morality” – reasons for not trusting them, or at least not trusting them too much, are legion.

I see that since the start of the ’90s at least six government ministers, 3 defense Secretaries and 3 defense Procurement Ministers, including Michael Portillo, George Robertson and Jonathon Aitkin, have gone on to work for arms-producing companies.
http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/publications/government/who-calls-the-shots-4pp-0205.pdf

According to the same report the real reasons for the government’s continued support of the arms industry (and arms exports) are complex, but perhaps the single most significant factor is the relationship between arms companies and the government. An intricate web of links gives arms companies unparalleled influence in determining government policy.

I would add a further factor – those that make such handsome profits from military hardware are nowhere to be seen when a casualty is lying in a poorly equipped hospital with half a leg hanging off.
These profiteers are presumably sufficiently insulated, materially and psychologically, to trouble themselves too much with the consequences of their nefarious business activities?

@ 36

See above comments about accountability. We’re better off with government than without it.

@ 37

“reasons for not trusting them, or at least not trusting them too much, are legion.”

Yes. I know. But that doesn’t mean an elected government and private interests are one and the same.

[39] “But that doesn’t mean an elected government and private interests are one and the same” – true, but the lines become more blurred than usual when it comes to British firm’s involvement in the arms trade?

@ 40

I wouldn’t say that’s blurring the lines exactly. It’s more to do with what the government should and shouldn’t be doing. As in it should be stopping the sale of weapons to unstable/despotic countries rather than facilitating the process.

As in it should be stopping the sale of weapons to unstable/despotic countries rather than facilitating the process.

And yet, if there’s one thing that’s received absolute, unquestioning support from governments of all stripes, it’s that. (And don’t get me started on the Export Credit Guarantee system…) What does that tell you about your accountability? When BAE says “Jump!”, both Labour and Tory governments merely ask “Off which tall building?”

[33] “it sounds like an argument for not trusting the government with anything involving morality” – reasons for not trusting them, or at least not trusting them too much, are legion.

I see that since the start of the ’90s at least six government ministers, 3 defense Secretaries and 3 defense Procurement Ministers, including Michael Portillo, George Robertson and Jonathon Aitkin, have gone on to work for arms-producing companies.
http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/publications/government/who-calls-the-shots-4pp-0205.pdf

According to the same report the real reasons for the government’s continued support of the arms industry (and arms exports) are complex, but perhaps the single most significant factor is the relationship between arms companies and the government. An intricate web of links gives arms companies unparalleled influence in determining government policy.

I would add a further factor – those that make such handsome profits from military hardware are nowhere to be seen when a casualty is lying in a poorly equipped hospital with a leg hanging off.
These profiteers are presumably sufficiently insulated, materially and psychologically, to trouble themselves too much with the consequences of their nefarious business activities?

[41] “it should be stopping the sale of weapons to unstable/despotic countries rather than facilitating the process” – Messrs Portillo, Robertson & Aitkin presumably took a different view, while the opportunity to flog a crate of Webley & Scott handguns would be much greater amongst the despot community rather than trying to do business with the peace loving Swiss, say?

@44

“with the peace loving Swiss”

Peace loving and well armed, mostly mountainous country that nobody else wants to invade, with little in the way of natural resources. The last war the Swiss fought was amongst themselves in the 19th century I believe….

Also, those peace loving montagnards aren’t above a little arms pedalling themselves:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Swiss_sell_fewer_arms_in_2010.html?cid=29557114

OK, but some 150,000 people are directly employed by the industry, last I heard.

Towns can greatly rely on such companies for employment and they are devastated when those companies make cutbacks in such areas.

It really is no surprise, then, that elected politicians try to avoid things that might cause cutbacks in those areas.

@46: Funny, but I don’t recall that argument being too effective when the industries in question were coal-mining, ship-building and steel-making, which employed millions and were the basis of the economies of several major cities.

@46: Funny, but I don’t recall that argument being too effective when the industries in question were coal-mining, ship-building and steel-making, which employed millions and were the basis of the economies of several major cities.

Well, I’m sure there is usually more than one factor.

Well, I’m sure there is usually more than one factor.

So am I, but I have a hard time believing that preserving 150,000 jobs ranks very high on the list… It’s an excuse they’re happy to use in public, and of course the unions (so thoroughly despised on every other issue) are more than happy to play along, but it’s so obviously inconsistent with so many other statements, actions and policies that I have trouble taking it seriously.

Iraq was about an imbecile getting revenge for his father assisted by a neocon administration who believed they could shift nations around like pawns on a chessboard. They genuinely believed the population in Iraq would shower them with rose petals. Destabilising Iran was the real neocon goal. A continuation of the Great Game with the British lion being replaced by the US eagle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IranUSSRBritain.jpg
Blair was their useful idiot who believed all the democracy bollocks. If it was all about oil in the narrow sense of US oil supplies. The simplest thing would have been to invade Mexico and Canada who supply most of the US oil demand. Iraq does have huge untapped oil reserves of the best quality blend and it is cheap to extract at around $1 to $2 in some places. Today we have the oil market gong crazy approaching $120 pb. The crazy thing is the best contracts did not go to US firms, British, Chinese and Russian firms got them.

Oil for the end consumer costs the same whether it is sold on the oil market by an anti-US dictator or a US friendly regime. The real goal of US foreign policy is the overthrow of the Iranian regime as they are seen as the biggest threat to Israel or a general war in the region.

If these pesky Arabs didn’t sell us their oil, vehicles wouldn’t be able to travel the roads, and millions of Western lives lost in traffic accidents would have been saved.

In fact, a lot more Western lives have been lost due to these pushers of the brown sticky stuff than have ever been lost through use of Western-sold arms.

So there.

I already know that the lofty waffle about invading Iraq in the name of democracy was cover for an ugly truth – namely that the world’s attitude to oil-producing countries is determined by their willingness to play pattycake with the rest of us, and human rights can dangle.

That there were and are oil interests at stake both in Iraq and Libya can be filed under, “No shit, Sherlock”. Your mistake here is to assume this is the only consideration. With both states there was also the issue of state-sponsored terrorism and the development of WMD. Both were international pariahs and both were subject to international sanctions. Libya decided to come in from the cold; Bush and Blair were prepared to accommodate this. You could argue that they shouldn’t have and you could obviously make the point that, his non-compliance with UN inspections notwithstanding, Saddam Hussein turned out not to have WMD. But none of this alters the fact that there was a real difference in the behaviour of these regimes. I don’t recall anyone calling for the invasion of Libya either but I do recall people suggesting that exactly the sort of strategy that was adopted in relation to Libya should have been taken with Iraq.

I note that the inhabitants of liberated eastern Libya are fighting to liberate western Libya, using weapons supplied by the UK. Good on yer UK. Helping to liberate Libya.

@17 In theory you would be correct, however having all Gulf Oil providers trade exclusively in dollars gives the US a big advantage:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Iraq/Iraq_dollar_vs_euro.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1554.htm

There’s a couple of websites going into deeper explanation, I quickly found from googling “oil sold only in dollars”

Quote:

In 2007, the British Government agreed a £5?million package with Libya which included armoured personnel carriers and water cannon. Since then we have sold arms worth tens of millions of pounds to Gaddafi’s regime.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1360079/How-Britain-sell-arms-Gaddafi-Libya-bleat-democracy.html

Any news of what exactly envoy Tony Blair has been doing to resolve Colonel Gaddafi’s predicament?

“Tony Blair is to become a Middle East envoy working on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU.” [June 2007]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6244358.stm

“No shit, Sherlock”

Hey, I’m not denying it. I know that “It’s a massive, self reinforcing system of repression in the service of commerce and capital, and everyone is implicated” and so on is more suited to a four-hour movie with eight hundred characters about smugglers in the UAE and Michael Douglas as an oil tsar in Washington or something.

Nonetheless, that wasn’t a message that was coming across at all on blogs or Twitter, where there’s been plenty of LOLing at Prime Ministers, but precious little questioning of why the Middle East is so repressive in the first place. The original post was aimed at exactly that point but, as ever, I’ve been trimmed down to the bits that conveniently put the boot into politicians.

Your mistake here is to assume this is the only consideration.

For the sake of putting Iraq into the context of a century of the petroleum industry, sure. As I’m sure you know, my take on Iraq was and is that it was spurred by a whole series of interlocking and complementary impulses, almost all of which I consider insane, ludicrous or extremely dubious. I don’t want to rehash a decade’s worth of arguments here though, so I’ll just say yes, Iraq was not only about oil.

On Libya, I’m saying – and said in the post – that I’m neither shocked nor horrified that Britain decided to play nice with Gaddafi. I know how the world works. My point on Blair and Cameron is that both of them are egregious bullshitters, and neither they nor their supporters are arguing in good faith in defending their case.

Cameron, for instance, is in the Middle East to sell ballsack-zappers to authoritarians. When he’s asked about it, he says things like “We want Kuwait to be able to defend itself” and wibbles about how racist it is to say that the Arabs can’t handle democracy… But, nobody is asking him whether Kuwait has a right to defend itself, or whether Arabs can handle democracy. They want to know why he’s selling ballsack-zappers to authoritarians.

Blair’s supporters – John Rentoul and David Cairns were linked in the original post – are pretending that suddenly everyone wishes we had invaded Libya, amongst other bullshit arguments, when what we really want to know is why he’s spent so much of his retirement sucking up to Gaddafi on behalf of major corporations. Nobody is asking why we didn’t invade Libya – they want to know how Blair reconciles his windy rhetoric with all those back-room deals.

I could go on here, but this is already longer than the post itself. Basically, a) Yes, our recent Prime Ministers are liars and bullshitters but b) The entire planet’s economy is dependent on the type of behaviour that they indulge in, and this is a shitty situation.

@48 “Well, I’m sure there is usually more than one factor.”

Yes the arms companies have better lobbyists and are willing to employ ex-MPs in non-executive positions.

Two main arguments emerged on last night’s Question Time defending Blair’s relationship with Gaddafi.

[1] Blair sucking up to Gaddafi resulted in Libya making concessions on their fledgling nuclear programme – imagine if Gaddafi had nuclear weapons at his disposal now?
[2] it is a human right for nations to be able to defend themselves and acquisition of military hardware is justifiable on these grounds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00z2xdv/Question_Time_24_02_2011/

@54

Funnily enough, the person who explained just how much of a threat the Euro oil bourse was to US interests was erstwhile Mary Whitehouse Experience standup Rob Newman :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159#

It’s rare that I urge people to watch a video on the internet, but this is one of those that should not be missed.

bluepillnation,

I don’t know how accurate Rob Newman is – he covers a heck of a lot of ground – but that was a very enjoyable hour. Thanks for that link.