Created: 14.11.97 Updated: 03.12.1997
155, SHUTTLE
STREET,
TYLDESLEY,
MANCHEST ER, M29 8BS.
June 11,1997
Dear Chancellor H.Kohl:
I would like to encourage you to formally end German participation in the EFA. This will be the second European country to pull out of the EFA (European Failing Aircraft) project, France pulled out in July,1985,I am informed, and will probably lead to the collapse of the whole project over the coming months. The grounds for pulling out are as follows Weconamic (B)political (C)moral (D)military.
(D)I will put the military argument first because it appears to be our opponents strongest card, but is it7ftie pro-EFA forces argue it is necessary to ensure the defence of Europe in the 21century. But they fail to recognize that we are living in a disarming world. There have been massive cutbacks in defence spending around the world since the disarmament process began for the first time ever in the history of the human race on Dec.7,1987,with the signing of the INF agreement (This treaty came about partly because H.Kohl said that Pershing 2A missiles could be put into the agreement, by contrast the then prime minister flew to Washington in 1986 to try to block the agreement, and only agreed to that treaty after it had become inevitable, thus the German government has a history of ignoring pressure from the hawks within Britain and Germany. Later M.Thatcher tried to force West Germany(as was) to accept short range nuclear missiles as a replacement to Lance missiles. She was removed from office about a year after these proposals collapsed). Thus because we are living in a disarming world, the miltary need for another military aircraft is questionable. The question that is never properly and directly answered is "who are we defending ourselves against"? The answer is that in a world we will have less and less to defend ourselves against and this will free up resources to tackle the real problems of poverty. homelessness, alternative nan-nuclear, non-fossil fuel energy generation, radiation polluticn, greenhouse gas pollution, general pollution etc etc all potential generators of employment.
A positive alternative if you are concerned about the miltary strength of our neighbours such as Russia (which possesses only a third of the military strength of NATO) is to negatiate further reductions in military forces. This has the advantage of reducing tensions at far less cost, I don't say no cost because it costs money to implement disarmament treaties. At present there is a proposal for another conventional forces treaty (CFE) in Europe that will require deeper cuts in Western forces than Russian forces. The effect of the EFA would be to create a contradiction between on the one hand negotiating further cutbacks in military force and on the other hand adding to military force. Thus the military argument can be countered by pointing to the disarmament status quo namely "a disarming Europe, in a disarming World" which releases resouces for more constructive use, increases security and reduces the threat of war.
The disarmament status quo which is frequently opposed by British politicians due to their inability to come to terms with present political realities also happens to be the mostly widely supported security policy amongst the general public in Western Europe and for this reason Britsh governments are frequently forced by events to bow to that policy. For example the recently elected government has now become a supporter of a Global ban on landmines where as 3 years ago the government vigorously opposed this policy. Previously the British government opposed a comprehensive test ban treay CTBT as late as 1994, in 1995 they supported a CIBT but also confusingly supported French nuclear tests in the Pacific despite opposition within Britain, in 1996 they signed the CTBT. Thus British governments frequently oppose the inevitable and cave in at the last minute.
(B) The present British government is of course very inexperienced in dealing with (judging from the previous track record, alluded to above) the most powerful political forces on the planet, which are thepro-disarmament, pro-peace anti-nuclear forces.They may feel (at present) they can ignore such pressures, but history will come to show this has been a severe miscalculation. Just as J.Chirac miscalculated by persuing nuclear tests in the Pacific, in the same way the German government seems to be miscalculating by failing to scrap the EFA. It should be remembered that the German parliament voted to scrap the EFA, some years ago. It should also be noted that at the recent General Election 4 politicans closely associated with the EFA namely M.Rifkind, M.Ebrtillo, J.Aitken, D.Mellor have all been humiliated by losing not just their government jobs, but also their seats in parliament. M.Portillo and M.Rifkind have lobbied members of the German government in favour of EFA within the last 6 months, D.Piellor was paid adviser to the company (BAe) that is closely associated with EFA within Britain and J.Aitken was another MP closely associated with the military industrial oomplex. The British public showed its immense support for the military industrial complex by eleminating these MPS from public life. Since the 5th MP most recently associated with EFA ie J.Major was in a very safe seat he did not lose but he did lead his party to the worst result since 1832.1 am sure appropriate lessons can be drawn, by present German political leaders, who will also have noted the recent election results in France. It was a mistake to try to overrule by manipulative means the decision of the German parliament. We were told that the new EFA project renamed Euro-2000 fighter would be cheaper, 20-30% cheaper, but I don't see any evidence of this in the most recent figures, which seem to be an increase, in cost. Three months ago in Britain we were told the total cost was going to be E40 Billion, now, the figure is being quoted as E42 Billion, thats an increase of 2 Billion in only 3months.
(A) What will the real cost be if the project were to continue? Apparently Theo Waigel has recently said in the German parliament that he is going to put a freeze on big public spending projects. We can't have one rule for the civilian econcmy and another for the state parasitic, military economy surely. This will destroy Mr Waigels credibility completely. He will become the laughing stock of the German people. Did you hear the one about the finance minister who said he would put a block on all big spending projects and then went and spent Billions on a European Failing Aircraft? People will say 'well if the state parasitic military industrial complex, which is always putting its hand in the taxpayers pocket and gives us nothing back except scrap metal, can have the money then why can't we have some as well'. If there is spare money then it should be invested in the civilian economy, not parasitised by the military-industrial-complex. One proposal for financing the EFA shows the extent of the damage that the military-industrial complex does to the civilian economy, in a very direct way. The proposal is as follows. The German government has given money to a company DASA for the civilian Airbus passenger jet. This money was allocated within the previous budget specifically to support civilian industrial production, that would help to strengthen the German and European civilian aircraft industries, which is a growing sector of production. What is proposed is that rather than supporting an industry that clearly has a future, instead money should be taken from a potential success and redirected into an area of failure. Because for the last 6-7 years there have been steady reductions (a)in military exports (b)in world wide defence spending. There is no evidence that this status quo will change, ndeed a lot of evidence points the other way-For example proposals for a second CFE treaty mentioned above will result in further cutbacks in defence spending. There are other objections to this 'fiddling the books proposall. Is it legal?
If parliament budgets money within Britain for one purpose, it is questionable whether it can be used for another purpose without questions be asked, because the budget which is in the form of a parliamentary law, has been approved by parliament. There are contingency funds to deal with unexpected events, but you couldn't use money allocated by law for one purpose and redirect it into another completely different one. This would be seen as'fiddling the books'but obviouslyJ don't understand how this would differ in Germany.But the effect of this proposal would be to destroy jobs in the growing civilian side of the economy, in order to fund jobs (at enormous cost/job as I explained in the previous letter I sent to H.Kohl)in the declining military sector of the econany. This is just the way to continue to weaken the German econany-What the German economy needs is some low cost jobs, that don't require a fortune of taxpayers money to subsidise them. These are more to be found in projects like home insulation and housing improvements, in environmental cleanup, etc etc. This would be investment for human need and not military industrial complex greed.
The week that the British goverment tried and failed to get the German goverment to finance the EFA, it was announced that another Britsh Defence conglomerate RACAL was laying of pound1000 workers worldwide, thus as they claim to be protecting jobs in one part of the dinosaur with enormous amounts of taxpayers money, another part of the dinosaur is laying off workers in this declining sector of the economy. There is a lack of realism about our governments attitude to this dinosaur sector. The fact is that despite the UKs enormous investment in military production since WW2 our economic strength has continued to decline. And this is not by coincidence. After WW2 both Japan and Germany invested in civilian manufacturing, in the civilian sector, they used their scientific talent to build up strong civilian industries. By contrast the UK, the USA, and the USSR continued to invest heavily in militarism. As a result it was reported, during the General Election by the Labour Party that the UK, is now 21st in world economic performance and 12th out of 15 in the EU. (according to internationally recognized OECD economic statistics) It has been quite comical to see Tony Blair with only 5 weeks in a government job, recommending Thatcherite economics to other EU leaders. The Labour party also said that Britain had fallen from 16th to 21st during the last 6 years of the J.Major government.What did failed Thatcherite economics consist of? Increasing inequality, attacks on the welfare state, huge military projects, and poor investment in the civilian sector, poor investment in education, civilian manufacturing and civilian research and development. If T.Blair continues this policy but invests enormous amounts in supporting the military industrial complex dinosaur which means the waste of 15Billion pound on the EFA (Europes Failing Aircraft) 7.5 Billion pound on trident nuclear submarines running costs etc etc, then my expectation is that England will fall to about 25th in the world economic league table, within 5 years and 13th out of 16 other EU countries the extra EU country being Scotland.
(C) The moral argument is simple. If EFA goes ahead then it is argued that it would become an export ie part of the arms trade. This would mean it could end up killing people in wars in other countries, or it could kill people by stealing resources from the investment in primary health care. This already happens in the case of countries like Pakistan and EFA would continue that misuse of resources for aggressive purposes, thus EFA is bad politics, bad economics and bad morality and unchristian. I expect to hear of its demise sooner rather than later
Yours truly Malcolm Sutcliffe