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Call To Arms.....trading...if The Iom Is In For A Cut Of The Action Is That A Good Or A Bad Thing?


manxchatterbox

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What is the situation regarding IOM companies being involved in arms trading? Are there any restrictions on IOM structures doing such business? or is the IOM in the same situation as Ireland??

 

The lack of regulation in Ireland (that) allows arms dealers free rein. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-2103948,00.html

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/200604030014

 

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/F...0aewFBADppk.asp

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I don't know anything about the regulation of the arms industry in the Isle of Man ... I'd have thought there would be regulations as arms traders would be likely to try and set up off shore and shell companies to disguise their operations. Anyone know?

 

On the more general issue of the arms industry I think the issue is more complicated than Charles' statement.

 

Rog's one liner probably sums it up, but I'd like to broaden it out. I believe it is a fundamental right of communities to defend themselves. The issue of killing is there, but so is detering, and Christian ethics etc include just war theory and acknowledge the role the military has in maintaining a secure society.

 

Thankfully in our part of the world the goverment effectively provides security and the government is pluralistic and under democratic control.

 

That isn't true everywhere. The morality of a person who sell weapons is not exclusively bad: I'm pretty certain Rog will say the arms dealers who smuggled weapons into Israel in 1948 were doing good and averted a genocide, supporters of the Bosnians will say the same of those who armed them in the face of Serbian attacks and a UN boycott.

 

The real struggle of ethics is to place it in the real world. Ideally the world would be at peace and arms sellers and their like would not be needed, but in the nasty and brutish world we live in what should guide those who sell arms? I don't think it is necessarily universal condemnation ... the only thing is the issues are so complex it seems beyond the power of the individual to work out if there actions save or destroy lives. Are we left with the extremes of a complete ban or laissez faire? Anyone with any opinions?

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The only way to end wars is to have them.

 

Say you have a country struggling to feed it's population. So you give them a large wedge of cash as aid. How would you feel if they spent some of it on defence? Because that's exactly what happens. In lots of parts of the world where people go hungry power still comes from the barrel of a gun.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-2103948,00.html

 

Sister Barbara Raftery, along with her students from Scoil Chriost Rí, have also helped expose the lack of regulation in Ireland that allows arms dealers free rein...

...They contacted an Israeli company that was advertising stone-throwing machines. The husband-and-wife-run company offered to send the equipment to Ireland under an “agriculture” classification — in contravention of Israeli law. They also volunteered to travel to Ireland to give a demonstration...

....The Dispatches documentary, entitled After School Arms Club, argues that Ireland’s lack of regulation means it is legal to do such deals in Ireland, even if the weapons never come here but just move from one country to another. The schoolgirls brokered deals to transport a stun baton from Korea to California, and also imported leg irons to Ireland from South Africa.

 

The Programme was broadcast on Monday - anyone watch it?

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What is the situation regarding IOM companies being involved in arms trading? Are there any restrictions on IOM structures doing such business? or is the IOM in the same situation as Ireland??

 

The lack of regulation in Ireland (that) allows arms dealers free rein. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-2103948,00.html

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/200604030014

 

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/F...0aewFBADppk.asp

 

Its mainly policed through obeyance with sanctions notices, and UK restrictions on the type of goods or services that can be supplied to certain places.

 

However I have never heard of anyone stupid enough to invoice "tank spares" through an IOM or any other company, its usually "car parts" or "machine parts" which means that who is going to twig unless the consignment is impounded or otherwise found.

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The only way to end wars is to have them.

 

Say you have a country struggling to feed it's population. So you give them a large wedge of cash as aid. How would you feel if they spent some of it on defence? Because that's exactly what happens. In lots of parts of the world where people go hungry power still comes from the barrel of a gun.

I think that most aid is not given in huge chunks of cash now, for just the reason you mention and also to avoid the corrupt syphoning off by those at the top of the tree. There is a trend towards project aid where the money is designated for technically specified projects, which are put to competitive tendering and are monitored to ensure it is delivered to where it is intended and there is usally a VFM exercise undertaken.

 

Having said that, aid is used as a carrot to encourage "good governance" in certain regimes and it is also often an element in the package to prop up "favourable" regimes. It also has to be said that often CIA-backed commercial operations are the first to establish themselves in post-conflict rehabilitation. So, it does have a political dimension.

 

More of a concern is the role multinational corporations play in funding and arming factions useful in their quest to secure the particular country's natural reserves using paper companies to disguise their involvement.

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