How EDO MBM/ITT supplies the Israeli military
[Bristol] solidarity | 31.05.2010 22:22
As the 6 Bristol EDO Decommissioners prepare for the start of their trial in Brighton/Hove on 7 June, and as Israel once again targets all and any opposition to it's proto-fascist theocracy, there is an excellent recent addition on the Smash EDO website detailing links between EDO and the Israeli military.
How EDO MBM/ITT supplies the Israeli military:
EDO components used in Iraq
EDO MBM/ ITT are a key partner in the development of Raytheon’s Paveway guided bomb programme. The Paveway bomb was the most used air weapon in the 2003 attack on Iraq. 70% of all munitions launched in the initial ‘shock and awe’ bombing were Paveway bombs. Records show EDO MBM have exported parts to the US company General Dynamics, that make the bomb bodies of the US Paveway bombs on a regular basis at least since 2006. EDO MBM currently manufacture hardbacks and ancillaries for the new generation of UK Paveway IV guided bombs as part of a global assembly line that stretches from the US to Sardinia. Since 2003, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed as a direct result of the military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The guided bombs used in these immoral and illegal acts of aggression were directly and knowingly assisted by EDO MBM’s research and development of the Paveway system.
On these facts alone, EDO MBM/ITT are complicit in crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law. Any damage done to their factory by the decommissioners action in January 2009 pales into insignificance when this is taken into account. But EDO MBM’s complicity goes further still...
EDO and Israel
Since 2004 two managing directors of the company have confirmed the company owns the patents of two essential components used by the Israeli Air Force F16 aircraft called the VER-2.
Open sources and statements by directors of the company prove that the Zero Retention Force Arming Unit and the Ejector Release Unit (ERU) 151 are both used in the VER-2 bomb rack. In 1990, Flight International reported that the Lucas Western ‘Zero Retention Force Arming Unit’ had ‘already been fitted to Tornados, Israeli F-16s, Australian F-111s, USAF F-15Es and USN A-6s and A-7s’. Between 2003 and 2007 EDO MBM advertised on its Brighton website that it was ‘actively manufacturing’ the EDO MBM Zero Retention Force Arming Unit.
Read the rest of the article, including some sources and links here http://www.smashedo.org.uk/How%20EDO%20Supplies%20the%2...y.htm
Support the Bristol Decommissioners (and the 3 fellow defendants from Brighton) - join the court picket from 9am on 7 June, or DIY in whatever way you wish closer to home. Check http://decommissioners.co.uk/
[Bristol] solidarity
Original article on IMC Bristol:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/692528