Margie Pestorius

Harms Dealers: Thales in partnership with Israel Aerospace and Elbit.

Pro-Palestine protesters say Thales has no social licence

Stephen W Enciso Garramilla/Darwin December 17, 2023 Published by Green Left Weekly (Original Article Here) About the wonderful Darwin Crew

A delegation of peace builders who wanted to question Thales on its links to Israel’s genocide in Palestine was denied entry to the weapons manufacturer’s office on December 15.

Thales has a relationship with Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit, the Israeli defence electronics company.

Weapons company Thales under fire for human rights violations in West Papua

The Thales-IAI partnership has produced the Sea Serpent, a surface-to-surface guided missile with a kill range of 200 kilometres. The Thales-Elbit partnership involves a subsidiary company UAV Tactical Systems (U-TacS), which makes killer drones.

Last year Israel was ranked 10th largest global exporter of weapons. Its technologies are often promoted as being successfully “combat-tested”. For instance, Elbit’s drones have been used for surveillance and attacks in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

As the Palestinian death toll exceeded 18,000, Australia voted to support a United Nations ceasefire motion, after stalling for 67 days.

Israel is continuing its indiscriminate air strikes against Palestinians, with United States support.

Achieving a lasting peace will require a break in the military-industrial complex. This year Labor agreed to 52 defence export permits to Israel, while 322 such permits have been approved over the last 6 years.

Palestinian human rights groups have launched proceedings in the Federal Court to expose all arms exports to Israel since October 7.

Justin Tutty from Top End Peace Alliance said that for weapons companies “the humanitarian crisis [in Gaza] is just a business opportunity”. They are expecting to make big profits.

The delegation reminded Thales that it has no social licence to operate.

Peace builders have previously tried to speak to Thales over its sale of Bushmaster vehicles to the Indonesian Special Forces for its repression of West Papuans.

“War crimes start in the corporate boardrooms of Thales and other harms dealers,” human rights advocate Billee McGinley said. “We show up to expose the true nature of their business and to make clear we do not accept them.”

Thales staff blockaded the door with a Christmas tree and refused to talk to the delegation or receive a letter.

The letter called on Thales to immediately release a public statement “confirming any weapons or military equipment used in Gaza”, and to “urgently recall any weapons or military equipment that are being used for war crimes in Gaza”. It also demanded Thales end its “insidious relationship with the Israeli weapons industry” and “retool or move out of Darwin”.

Tutty said the US military build-up is bringing more international weapons companies to the Northern Territory — including Raytheon, Northrup Gruman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

“These companies are coming to feed on the error our government is making in buying into America’s plans for a war with China,” Tutty said.

The delegation left disappointed, only to find 7 police cars and approximately 15 officers waiting for them in the car park.

E8 We Need These Minds: MIlitarism in Universities

Last episode looked at how weapons companies’ influence campaigns on kids in schools, and even in early childhood.

This reaches a peak in our universities.

Education in STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths – should be a public good.

But weapons companies have gone all-out to make sure universities serve their agenda, in research, and in recruitment.

We need to face up to this. And this episode has a great example of doing just that, from the UK.

Produced and presented by Zelda Grimshaw and the team at Wage Peace

Relevant links (UK-based):

Demilitarise Education: https://ded1.co/

Stop Killer Robots: https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/

Forces Watch: https://www.forceswatch.net/

Find us at Wage Peace:

https://wagepeaceau.org

info@wagepeaceau.org

https://www.facebook.com/wagepeaceau

https://linktr.ee/wagepeace

Boeing is a Weapons Corporation at UQ – Beware Boeing’s Wars

Boeing’s hypersonics program is at the heart of the Aukus arrangements – #AukusWillFukus actually.

From a leaflet 2022 – Get Weapons Corporations out of Schools and Universities

General Ryan is peddling #USPropaganda – and he is ALSO being facilitated by the Defence and Space Research Unit at UQ.

Boeing has a weapons research facility which dominates engineering at UQ.
The UQ “defence“ and “space” research unit is pushing a self serving narrative for war in order to justify weapons development.
Boeing takes about $4-5bn a year from the Australian taxpayer. And US weapons companies like Boeing are receiving about $20-30bn a year from Australian taxpayers.
Weapons are a business model. It‘s commerce not defence. Hypersonics are core to a wasteful arms race.
UQ is “Space-Washing”. UQ pretends that weapons engineering is not connected to increasing, unethical, wasteful militarism. Hypersonics are core to a wasteful arms race.
This is a time when we are facing ecological collapse from global heating. #EarthCareNotWarfare

Text from Leaflet – Boeing is a Weapons Company.

Boeing’s hypersonics program is at the heart of the Aukus arrangements – #AukusWillFukus actually.

From a leaflet 2022 – Get Weapons Corporations out of Schools and Universities

General Ryan is peddling #USPropaganda – and he is ALSO being facilitated by the Defence and Space Research Unit at UQ.

Boeing, the Pentagon and Australian-based Propaganda Units

Wage Peace friends have been out disrupting the US propaganda machine because the weapons companies are pushing for war

On 6 September 2023 our friends interrupted this public lecture. General Mick Ryan is there at the lectern. He’s an ex-ADF General – now a #USPropagandist – and he’s about to tell people about why we must prepare for war by buying more US weapons.

ALP stalwart Paul Lucas moves in. But even 30 minutes later we were still there telling an alternative story about what is going on!

greg holds 'US propaganda' banner next to Mick ryan at public lecture

Watch on YouTube as we disrupt his latest propaganda engagement.

#BewareBoeingsWars Boeing is a weapons company

Our friends also attended Boeing slowly walking up to their suburban location in Brisbane. We prevented the weapons dealers arriving for work. Beware Boeing’s wars we warned. Boeing is a weapons company. With BAE, Thales, and General Dynamics, Boeing is pushing for war while taking the big bucks from Australians. #EarthCareNotWarfare

Keep watching. Keep speaking up. You are all making a difference when you talk about what weapons companies are doing.

Watch this short video as we present the neighbourhood with the reality of having the third biggest weapons company in the world in their residential area.

#USPropaganda

Boeing couldn’t have a better friend than General Mick Ryan. He’s always suggesting Australia buy more weapons from the United States. (Which is one of the reasons we suspect him as a propagandist).

At Mick’s lecture we discovered another connection between the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Pentagon’s propaganda arrangements.

Turns out Ryan was being shepherded by the deputy head of “Defence” and “Space” Research at UQ, Greta Nabbs-Keller. Dr Nabbs-Keller has a history as an ADF “intelligence” officer. She is a Bahasa Indonesian speaker. She is also director of the “Hypersonics Program” research at UQ that Boeing is central to.

In his introduction ALP stalwart Paul Lucas acknowledged Nabbs-Keller for her UQ position. It appears she set this lecture up. Is she on the propaganda team too? We wonder why someone who organises research partnerships is accompanying an unpaid adjunct ‘professor’ for a novel he’s written about the “war over Taiwan”?

General Mick Ryan has been propagandising for the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) – for the Pentagon, for Empire since early 2022 (according to his LinkdIn). He’s been given ‘expert strategist’ status by the mainstream media.

We have to wonder why no other “strategist” can be found to back the Pentagon talking points he does. Whether on the payroll (he claims not) or a “useful assistant” it is unclear. He is certainly centring himself. And UQ is part of that story.

One of General Ryan’s “positions” is adjunct professor at UQ, but it’s hard to find what he researches there. Or how he got professor status as someone with a minor masters degree.

The Pentagon is the US’s Empire Department. With the mega weapons corporations, the MIC drives the plans for war. It’s good for the MIC businesses. The propaganda organisers involved teams of people operationalising the plan. They are tasked with drawing people into their pro-war scenarios. They spruik for war.

The propaganda units have to soften up and prepare populations – to build a consensus that war is a good idea. Dr Binoy Kampmark gives another view on Ryan here. And Caitlin Johnstone here.

You can make a difference with us on this – so stick with us! Tell this story and tell other stories that you see. The more you are out and about with us, the more you can help confirm these relationships.

We will be at UQ again and again over the next few weeks. Please join us if you are in Brisbane = just email us to say “I’m in”!

If you are following from afar – please use the social media amplifier effect!

We Need you to Call Out the Propagandists #USPropaganda

Label articles pushing for war, and the people who organise them #USPropaganda is pentagon propaganda. You see them – YOU label them. Tell people. Talk about it. We have to make visible what they are doing in real time.

Watch on YouTube as we disrupt Ryan’s latest propaganda engagement.

What you can do:

Retweet this almost viral tweet!
Repost that or this Facebook version and from Instagram
Start using our “slogans” as hashtags because they help frame our work: #USPropaganda #EarthCareNotWarfare and … #BewareBoeingsWars

We are ordinary people. We make a big difference when we work together. It’s all we got! Reply to us direct by email.

#EarthCareNotWarfare #USPropaganda #AUKUSwillFUKUS

Child’s Play? Militarism in the classroom

Weapons don’t just design and build themselves – they need highly-skilled people to do this.

But most of us have no intention of joining in mass murder. What’s a weapons company supposed to do?

It turns out they have lots of tricks and techniques to get hold of the people they need – and they target them younger than you might think, right in school. Or even before…

Zoe was one they tried to inveigle into the war business. Elise West from Medical Association for the Prevention of War is one of the campaigners aiming to erase weapons companies’ ability to get a hold of our kids. You’ll hear from both of them in this episode.

Produced and presented by Zelda Grimshaw and the team at Wage Peace

Links mentioned in the episode:

MAPW’s report Minors and Missiles: https://www.mapw.org.au/campaigns/weapons-companies-influence/

Gruen, Series 14, Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDGOOoPRV4Q

BAE Systems and The Smith Family: The strange case of the weapons maker and the Australian children’s charity | Paul Daley | The Guardian

UPDATE 1: since the interviews for this episode, the NSW Education Department has also designated weapons companies as not appropriate to be involved in the school classroom.

UPDATE 2: Teachers in Australia are mobilising to end militarism in our classrooms. Join the campaign here: https://www.melbournefoe.org.au/no_defence_curriculum

Find us at Wage Peace:
https://linktr.ee/wagepeace

* In loving memory of Zoe Hulme Peake. “We can imagine something better, together. *