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Food security and the start of World War 3
James Irvine
Teviot Scientific, Cultybraggan Farm, Comrie,
Perthshire, Scotland
Filed 30 Jul 06
©www.land-care.org.uk
It looks as though we are at the start of World
War 3. So it would be prudent to think - sooner rather than later
- about our food security. At present the UK is far from self-sufficent
in food production, with the situation under present government
policies set to get progressively worse.
Surely no one any longer believes that the war
between Israel and Lebanon is simply about a local skirmish between
the Lebanese militant Hezbollah and the Israel government. The Middle
East has been a cauldron of mounting political unrest for years.
It has now reached boiling point.
The invasion of Iraq with the toppling of Saddam
Hussain was allegedly based on the fear that Iraq was harbouring
weapons of mass destruction, but the follow-through plan seems to
have been poorly formulated.
Now Iran has been putting two fingers to protests
from the West about its alleged nuclear weapons programme.
We are told that Syria is providing much of the
modern heavy weaponry for the Hezbollah to enable them to pummel
powerful rockets at some of the cities, towns and villages of Israel
that come within an increasing range.
The USA transports by air 1000 lb laser-guided
'bunker busting' bombs for Israel to use in their attempt to knock
out the Hezbollah. The Boeing planes land at Prestwick for refuelling,
and cause sharp protest from Scottish politicians, the Irish having
previously refused to be involved.
Now El Quaeda says it is going to come in on the
scene with increased terrorism directed at those countries who support
Israel. The UK is implemented on account of its strong links with
the USA, and we have suffered severely from El Quaeda before.
No one seriously believes that either words from
the talking shop of the United Nations or the despatch of a multinational
task force to the area would be effective in bringing about a durable
ceasefire and lasting settlement. The Hezbollah, with such strong
support from oil-rich neighbouring Arab countries, are not going
to be easy to beat. Peace between Israel and the Lebanon was negotiated
before, but the Hezbolla allegedly used the time to re-arm, re-organise
and re-train in modern warfare.
Meanwhile, oil and gas prices escalate at such
an alarming rate that our economy is bound to be adversely affected.
We continue to 'debate' how we in the UK are going to maintain our
energy supplies, while countries such as France and Finland are
well ahead with their energy programmes.
The economy of totalitarian China is set to overtake
that of the USA in just a few years, while Russia - also with a
dubious ethical past - is becoming immensely wealthy on account
of its energy reserves, holding other countries to ransom in the
process - and the ability to do so in the foreseeable future whenever
it fancies.
Yet the UK government is apparently quite content
for the main airports in the UK to be sold off to other countries.
So it is now the Spanish who will decide what investment will go
into Heathrow as opposed to Madrid or elsewhere. The UK government
might even be happy for the UK energy supply companies - such as
Centrica - to be sold to the Russians. Apparently more and more
of what were once UK-owned companies are now owned by businesses
based abroad. Even the London Stock Exchange is apparently up for
grabs if someone anywhere made a sufficiently tempting offer.
As the European Union gets ever larger, so the
likelihood of conflict arising within it increases. The organisation
will inevitably become more and more incompetent as it fails to
grapple with the hugely varying demands of its member states and
their variable levels of compliance regarding the innumerable and
often ill-conceived directives that affect so many aspects of a
country's economy. The rich countries will inevitably lose patience
funding poorer ones while at the same time they lose control over
their own destinies. The UK may well get fed up being essentially
the only one supporting the USA in its efforts to control the threat
of terrorism, while other EU member states just talk about it. There
is little doubt that if UK voters were ever to be asked they would
roundly condemn any suggestion of a European Constitution and would
have no stomach for joining the euro. So the EU simply continues
with its disruptive policies without asking.
Thus, along with the USA, the UK is well and truly
embroiled in conflicts in the Middle East and is clearly vulnerable
to retaliation. In addition, the UK has an uneasy relationship with
the EU.
The UK's stance against international terrorism
and against the proclaimed desire of the Hezbollah to 'annihilate
Israel' may well be justified. And so may the UK's attempts to 'stop
the drug trade in Afghanistan and establish democracy in that country'.
But in doing so it had better pay some attention to security on
the home front.
And that includes the security of the supply of
food to is own citizens.
Instead of wasting valuable resources on poorly
thought out environment schemes that will contribute little or nothing
to addressing the problem of climate change, the UK government,
along with the devolved Scottish Executive, should be encouraging,
rather than discouraging, the production of home grown truly healthy
food. Not only are much fewer airmiles involved and the biosecurity
risks reduced, but we may well need much more home-produced food
if World War 3 escalates as an increasing number of folk fear that
it will.
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