2 March 2012 Letter to Guardian


Dear Sir
Simon Jenkins spells out what we on the left have always maintained, but mainstream historians have strenuously denied: the Soviet Union, even under Stalin’s tyranny had no aim of conquering the West by force. (‘An ignorance that started the cold war now targets Islam’; Guardian March 2 2012). However, Jenkins and the man he praises, Andrew Alexander, leave out the key factor in the equation. It is not only, or even primarily, ignorance of other countries that fuels such myopic and belligerent policies. As Eisenhower warned, just after the end of the Second World War, it is the military industrial complex that we have to beware of. The arms industries are the most profitable worldwide, but particularly so in the US. The need to conjuror up an enemy or a few wars at regular intervals, are essential if taxpayers are to continue footing the enormous and penurious bills. It is also a truism that without a globally dominant weapons arsenal and enormous army, the USA would not be able to play world policeman and ensure its economic interests are maintained. It’s time we realised that continuous rearming and international weapons trading are paving the way to the world’s destruction not to its security.
Yours faithfully