Rsytheon 9 trail and the links with Metrix

The Raytheon 9 trial and the links with Metrix.

The Raytheon 9 trial - lesson for Raytheon in Wales? Mark Steel's article, censored by the Indy lawyers, is below.

Publicising the trial of 9 who occupied Raytheon's office in Derry, to stop their weapons manufacture. Government grants and encouragement to Raytheon to provide jobs (in guidance systems for bombs and missiles) are paralleled by the involvement of Raytheon in the Metrix consortium - to train British and any other 'friendly' soldiers to use the missiles.

Raytheon's involvement in cluster munitions is a symbol - one that Rhodri Morgan has been at pains to deny - of the wider plans to integrate Britain into US military plans (say anti-Metrix campaigners) http://www.antimetrix.org/http://caatcardiff.blogspot.com/

Mark Steel on the Raytheon 9 trial-----------------------------------Hmm, I've written this article for this week's Independent, about a case that should have had masses of publicity but has had hardly any. So there I am feeling smug at redressing the balance and I'm informed this evening that the good people of the law won't let it be printed. So here it is - my illegal article - oo, it must feel like reading LadyChatterley's Lover in 1962.....----------------------------------------------------------------------There's a trial currently taking place in Belfast, that seems to explain plainly how nothing makes any sense. It revolves around a factory owned by the arms company Raytheon, which was set up in Derry soon after the IRA ceasefire.

John Hume, who'd just won the Nobel Peace Prize was among those who announced the opening of the plant, welcoming it as a result of the 'peace dividend' So at last, now the men of violence had agreed to give up their weapons, the area could attract a peaceful company with a turnover of seventeen billion dollars from making weapons.

Clearly, all the while theIRA were decommissioning their arms, most of us misunderstood this process. Because the government reports must have gone "They possess 100 rifles, 10 RPG 7 rockets and a shed full of semtex. If they want to be taken seriously this isn't NEARLY enough; they need Tornado bombers and a car park full of tanks - we can't deal with these amateurs."
For example, when Raytheon won a contract to develop a new missile system for the Israelis in 2006, a spokesman boasted they would "Provide all-weather hit-to-kill performance at a tactical missile price."

Next they might have adverts, that go "Hurry hurry hurry to the Raytheon springtime sale for lasers, tasers and civilian-erasers that will make flesh sizzle through snow, sleet or drizzle WITHOUT making a casualty of your wallet." Despite this, the government in Northern Ireland welcomed the new plant, claiming they'd been assured it wouldn't be making weapons. To which a reasonable response would be 'Right - they're a weapons manufacturer - they supplied weapons to, amongst others, the Indonesian military junta - this might, if you were cynical, suggest they make weapons.

Or what do you THINK they're going to be making - FAIRTRADE FUCKING CUSTARD!' Eventually it was admitted they were making guidance systems for missiles, and so for a while there was a pretence these were being employed for peaceful reasons. Perhaps the systems were being attached to wasps so that a central controlling network could guide them away from picnics.
Continued...http://www.marksteelinfo.com/pt/blog/default.aspx?id=10&t=The-evidence-mounts-that-some-things-are

... Note that John Hume of the Nobel Peace Prize was taken in and welcomed Raytheon to Derry - so our Rhodri is in good company.