Human Rights, British Interests

As we all know, the British Government is concerned about human rights. We know this because the British Government talks about human rights a lot. The British Government talked about human rights when NATO was bombing the former Yugoslavia. The British Government talked about human rights when the weapons of mass nonexistence in Iraq turned out, mirabile dictu, not to exist. The British Government is concerned about human rights. A former British Government approved arms sales to Saddam Hussein, but the present British Government would never do anything like that. The present British Government has a list of countries which it has identified as "countries of concern". A country of concern is a country which is a source of concern to the British Government. The British Government's concern for such countries stems from the British Government's belief that human rights in such countries are not respected as the British Government believes they ought to be, at least by people other than the governments of Britain and the United States. Among the countries of concern are such places as Israel, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and Colombia. There are twenty countries of concern on the British Government's list; and in its continuing concern for human rights, the British Government has approved arms sales to all but one of them. Among last year's notable achievements for British industry was the export of fifteen thousand sniper rifles, for defensive use only, to countries including Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and a theocracy less liberal than the one in Iran. The NGO Saferworld said that the last three of these customers were "of concern because the UK has no way of finding out where the weapons end up". Apparently there is a shortage of surveillance cameras outside the UK. In its concern for human rights, the British Government has also granted export licences for tank and aircraft components to Russia and China, and all sorts of goodies for the Righteous State. Progress on improving human rights in the Righteous State and the land granted it by Jehovah has, according to the Ministry for Lesser Breeds, been "limited". A Whitehall spokesbeing stated that "the government takes into account whether arms were likely to be used for internal repression or external aggression"; so we may be assured that the British Government displays its usual firmness in requiring undertakings from both arms dealers and buyers that the weapons will be kept out of any unpleasantness that may happen to occur.