Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-08-Speech-3-254"
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"en.20100908.14.3-254"2
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"Mr President, a dilemma faces all arms manufacturing countries over the issue of arms exports. The fixed costs are self-evidently and inevitably high, which makes it uneconomic for most – if not all – countries to manufacture arms for their own use only. It would be tempting for some arms manufacturing countries simply to have a policy to export arms to any country other than ones that it has reason to believe might attack itself or its interests. That would maximise the interests of the country producing the arms. However, it would at best be an amoral policy and, at worst, a thoroughly immoral one.
The criteria stated in the original question for deciding whether to export arms are many and varied. Different criteria might apply to different kinds of weaponry. Countries with poor human rights records such as Iran – and, for that matter, those EU countries that lock people up for political dissent or heretical opinion, such as half the countries in the EU – should be denied small arms, surveillance systems and articles of restraint, but might not be denied weaponry to protect them from external attack.
Countries that are prone to waging aggressive wars, but respect the rights of their own citizens, might be sold small arms and restraint mechanisms, but not weapons of mass destruction. In particular, the United States – arguably the most aggressive country on the planet, having waged countless destabilising, aggressive and illegal wars – should be denied any technology that might be used for weapons of mass destruction.
Iran, however much we might deplore its human rights record – and I certainly do – has not carried out any attacks on its neighbours. It was not, for example, the aggressor in the Iran-Iraq war. However, it may be the focus of aggression and a planned attack, possibly by the United States and possibly by Israel. We might not wish it to have weaponry that could be used to launch an attack – and I certainly would not – but we might want it to have access to a nuclear shield to prevent it from being attacked."@en1
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