10th July 2023
US President Joe Biden arrives in Britain for a brief visit
The current British media obsession is with an, as yet, unnamed BBC presenter who has allegedly paid a teenager thousands of pounds for explicit sexual images. This could be an important issue of exploitation, grooming and the potential abuse of a position of privilege. If so, it rightly garners news headlines and brings into question the HR practices and management culture at the state broadcaster.
In its main news bulletins last night (9th July) the BBC devoted almost 10 minutes to the issue, covering both moral and legal angles to the story. The visit of US President, Joe Biden to Britain warranted only half of that amount of airtime and less than half of that again was given over to the issue of the US decision to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs in its war with Russia.
Across the world 123 nations have signed up to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a treaty outlawing the use of cluster bombs due to their indiscriminate impact upon civilian populations and the potential for unexploded munitions to cause damage years down the line. Britain is a signatory to the Convention, the US, Ukraine and Russia are not.
In a conflict such as that between Russia and Ukraine, increasingly clearly a NATO proxy, it is impossible to calculate how many lives these weapons may destroy. Ukraine is keen to become a NATO member and there is little doubt that NATO will welcome its membership at some future point. Biden’s visit to Britain is a flypast on the way to the NATO summit in Lithuania where membership issues are bound to be on the agenda.
A recent report by the New York based Human Rights Watch has criticised both Ukraine and Russia for the use of cluster bombs that have killed civilians. This drew a response from Kyiv which accused the organisation of “spinelessness” and “absolute immorality”. The response follows on from an attack upon Amnesty International by President Zelensky last August when he described the human rights organisation as being guilty of “immoral selectivity” for being critical of Ukraine stationing combat troops in civilian areas.
While the US and others are hesitant about Ukraine joining the NATO military fight club while the conflict with Russia is ongoing, they remain content to pour weapons into the country in order to keep the war alive. One of Ukraine President, Volodymyr Zelensky’s senior advisers, has suggested that Ukraine requires “weapons, more weapons, and more weapons, including cluster munitions” in order to defeat Russia. US arms manufacturers are no doubt rubbing their hands in glee at such statements.
In spite of being a signatory to the Convention outlawing cluster munitions, Britian has offered less than a mild rebuke to the US for succumbing to the demands of Ukraine’s hardline nationalists. Rishi Sunak will no doubt frame this as being in the spirit of the so called Atlantic declaration, agreed in June, which is little more than a one way ticket for US firms to access British markets and for Britian to continue its kowtowing to US foreign policy in return.
Arms manufacturers in Britain meanwhile are cashing in on the fact that long term purchase orders and direct subsidies are paying for more than 90% of the research and development budgets of private defence firms, resulting in companies then handing over billions to shareholders in dividends.
A report by thinktank Common Wealth cites the example of US based General Dynamics, which has been developing Ajax armoured vehicles for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) at a cost to the public so far of £3.2 billion. The original target date for the vehicles to be operational was 2017 but a series of design errors has seen the date pushed back to 2029. In the meantime, General Dynamics have paid out £20 billion to shareholders since first being awarded the contract in 2014.
Other examples are cited in the report which also highlights MoD spending commitments on equipment procurement over the next ten years, amounting to £242.3 billion. As the report states, this contrasts sharply with other areas of industry where “comparative 10 year plans on public procurement are not in place.”
The BBC may be covering such issues, deep in its news pages, but they are certainly not headline news, unlike the alleged transgression of one of its employees. How big a role does the news media play in shaping the agenda? It is clear that all too often the real news is buried beneath an avalanche of so-called human interest reports. The increasing emphasis upon personality not policy serves only one purpose, to keep people away from the real news and the waste on weapons of war and mass destruction, which is endemic to the capitalist system.
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