A major criminal investigation into alleged corruption by arms dealer BAE Systems was halted yesterday when Tony Blair claimed it would endanger Britain's "national security" if the inquiry went any further.
No ifs, no buts - unless Blair says so.
Of course, that might not be true, but now we'll never find out.
Corporate crime must be so much easier with the head of state on hand to veto any investigation into (alleged) trails of brown envelopes used to secure arms deals.
Still, we should thank BAE and the Saudi Embassy for their concern for public coffers. Since they're squeaky clean, they obviously only relentlessly lobbied the government to stop the investigation because it was a needless waste of several million pounds of taxpayers' money. How nice of them!
If you ever needed any proof that the state is complicit in corporate corruption and dodgy deals - especially those involving weapons and control of oil - look no further.
(Image shamelessly plagiarised and hacked together with a massive cap-doff for inspiration to Rough Music
http://www.roughmusic.org.uk/ and other guilty persons who know who they are, as well as the bastards at the DWP.)
See also:
http://www.caat.org.uk/press/recent.php?url=141206prs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,,1972749,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6180945.stm
Corporate crime must be so much easier with the head of state on hand to veto any investigation into (alleged) trails of brown envelopes used to secure arms deals.
Still, we should thank BAE and the Saudi Embassy for their concern for public coffers. Since they're squeaky clean, they obviously only relentlessly lobbied the government to stop the investigation because it was a needless waste of several million pounds of taxpayers' money. How nice of them!
If you ever needed any proof that the state is complicit in corporate corruption and dodgy deals - especially those involving weapons and control of oil - look no further.
(Image shamelessly plagiarised and hacked together with a massive cap-doff for inspiration to Rough Music
http://www.roughmusic.org.uk/ and other guilty persons who know who they are, as well as the bastards at the DWP.) See also:
http://www.caat.org.uk/press/recent.php?url=141206prs http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,,1972749,00.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6180945.stm
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Some further thoughts - whatever it was, must have been HUGE
15.12.2006 15:10
In many ways, what worries me more than simply the corruption, is the idea that whatever is going on here is so big that Blair and co would risk allegations of serious corruption, apparently without even trying to cover that up, rather than face whatever the "alternative" option was.
I'm not usually much of a conspiracy theorist, but what on earth could be so big that they'd deliberately (and seemingly hastily) expose themselves to this much scrutiny out of choice? It looks really, really bad, but it's undoubtedly less bad (for them) than the alternative option was.
Whatever lay at the end of this investigation must have been absolutely gargantuan for Blair to risk his neck and step in like this - and now we'll probably never know.
I've smelled a few rats in my time, but this one STINKS like nothing I've ever encountered before.
National security, jobs, economic interests... whatever, it's all a load of crap, and the public interest is in exposing corporate corruption in the military industrial complex, especially when that corruption might run to the tune of £40Bn or more!!
I think the "national security" issue at hand here seems to be that if Blair doesn't do what the Saudis say, then our country is royally fucked in some way or another. So there's your "national security" for you - Blair has to be a Saudi lapdog and expose himself to really bad corruption allegations, or else we (ordinary folks) get absolutely crapped on by the Saudi government. ("Do what we say or else!" - Doesn't that sound a bit like a terrorist threat?)
BAE Systems have a lot to answer for. Corruption aside, their share price has risen massively today. What kind of sick bastards invest in an arms company anyway? I mean, as if profiting from murder wasn't about as corrupt as you could possibly get in the first place, regardless of that company's dodgy dealings and conveniently state-whitewashed corruption allegations.
This is so fucked up I'm (comparatively) lost for words today.
Penny Crayon