WITH this weekend's Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford attracting aviation enthusiasts throughout the world, Bruce Kent, the veteran CND campaigner and chairman of the Movement for the Abolition of War, gives his views
"WHAT a spoilsport," I can almost hear people saying, to be against the Fairford Tattoo this weekend. If the weather holds it will be a great day out, fun for all the family; racing cars, a bungee experience, fighters, bombers, acrobatics, and miserable old Kent is against it!
Why? Because the militarisation of our planet is not fun. Weapons are made to kill and they do kill. Money spent on them cannot be spent on health, food or education.
The global arms bill is now running at about $800 billion a year, more than ten times the amount spent annually by all the agencies of the United Nations directed at human welfare and the protection of this planet.
Yes, the crews of those RAF Lancasters were brave men. Most service people from most countries in most wars were brave. But those who have seen what war actually means are the last to want more wars.
There are more than 30 wars going on at the moment, most of them civil wars. The weapons used come from the industrialised countries of the world. We in Britain have now become number two arms supplier.
Because we live in a culture of war it is those who call for practical steps on the road to peace who are thought to be the eccentrics.
From war toys to war films we live in a culture where war is thought to be normal and inevitable. The only way of solving problems! It is not normal and it is not inevitable. The glamour of a tattoo protects us from the reality.
Normally I would not want a Fairford type tattoo cancelled. Mine are probably minority views and I would be happy enough if there were a display of peace initiatives and a stall marked "non-violent solutions".
But Fairford this year is different. It was from Fairford that great bombers took off for the Gulf to carry death and destruction thousands of miles away.
They took off even as we witnessed for peace outside the wire. Now President Bush wants to carry on where his father left off. The war drums are beating for another war on Iraq and Tony Blair seems all too ready to support it.
Once more Fairford is likely to be a place of far away death. It is not a place for picnics or creches or 'a little tike adventure playground'.
We have only just finished with a war in Afghanistan, if finished is the right word. About 4,000 entirely innocent people were killed in that bombing.
Children, families, old people, farmers were blown to bits in a bombing which was meant to be so accurate.
God knows how many died as refugees from cold and hunger. They were there briefly on TV. Now gone, forgotten.
Who dries those eyes? Who comforts those widows, those orphans? Not for them picnics. For them the B52 meant horror, not a nice day out.
The Charter of the United Nations, signed in 1945 said that the organisation was founded "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war". Every country promised "to refrain...from the threat or use of force against...any state".
The United Nations was never a pacifist body. The Security Council does have the right to authorise military action in case of aggression but only when all non-violent ways of settling conflicts have been exhausted.
In dealing with Saddam Hussein we have hardly started to explore non-violent ways.
Our sanctions have killed tens of thousands of Iraqi children. We hang on to our weapons of mass destruction and not for one moment would we consider letting outside inspectors look at the plants which make them.
We never mention the one country in the Middle East which certainly has got nuclear weapons Israel. We have not even started on the negotiations, so long promised, aimed at the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction everywhere.
The Fairford tattoo will of course go ahead. It is a public relations delight for those great companies whose existence depends on the production of weapons.
Our protest will be ignored and many will think us spoilsports. I don't think we are.
Fun, games, excitement, family outings yes please.
But they do not have to be linked to the instructions of war and death, especially when yet another long range war is being prepared.
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