The following is the letter sent into the Tivyside from a local resident of Aberporth. Of course the paper edited it slightly so here is the original Welsh text.
Gwaed ar ein dwylo
Tybed, faint ohonoch chi ddarllenwyr sy¹n dilyn hanes Parc Aberporth - y datblygiad hynod gostus (tua £21 miliwn), ym Mlaenannerch? ŒR wy¹n siwr fod pawb yn yr ardal yn hapus i glywed am y gwaith fydd ar gael yno, cyn bo hir. Ond pe baech yn gwybod taw arbrofi a datblygu peiriannau milwrol, wedi eu creu i ladd a dinistrio, fyddai¹r diwydiant mewn golwg - a fyddech yr un mor frwdfrydig am yr anturiaeth?
Mae llu awyr yr Unol Daleithiau yn defnyddio Maes Awyr Prestwick, i hwyluso¹r cludiant o arfau i Israel. Oes yn rhaid i¹r Cymry dderbyn yr anrhydedd amheus o gyfrannu Œmhellach at gynllun Bush a Blair, wrth ddatblygu¹r Œwenynen ormes (drone)¹/UAV ym Mharc Aberporth? Y rhain yw rhai o¹r peiriannu dieflig a ddefnydir gan Israel i ddifetha Libanus - ei phlant diniwed, a¹i fframwaith.
Teitl y Parc, yn ol Andrew Davies (Gweinidog o¹r Cynulliad), yw ŒCanolfan Rhagoriaeth UAVs¹. Well inni fod yn wyliadwrus, rhag ofn i¹r fenter frwnt yma droi¹n darget ardderchog i derfysgwyr!
5 comments:
I don't have a copy of the letter in English but I am sure that I can get a translation easily enough later. As for your previous comment I have a reponse ready for you which in essence can be summed up thus. There will inevitably be some beneficial use of UAVs for civilian purposes but the major thrust for this new technology has been for military purposes as part and parcel of the US and British government approach to transforming the way in which it conducts war in the future. Any person with any sense will recognise that there is bound to be some horizontal technology transfer within the ASTRAEA project across the different divisions within the multiplicity of weaponry producers engaged within it. This debate revolves around a number of issues including the ethics of modern warfare, human rights considerations vis a vis the use of unmanned machines to deliver ordnance such as cluster bombe etc to civilian areas, and the financial implications of this kind of expenditure in our diminishing economy. That is my view and that of many others on this issue and this blog is my attempt at trying to ensure that people are aware of ALL the issues in this area and not just the sanitised views of those who support the project. And in any case, the idea of hundreds of unmanned vehicles flying about in British Airspace is not one that fills me with any great confidence given the current capabilities of hackers to interrogate computerised systems on a world wide basis, not to mention the objections of many civilian pilots to this kind of development.
In responding to this reply I have to say that Mike A appears not to understand that my position is that of total pacifism. In other words I would like to see all military developments stopped. There are plenty of other ways in which economic development can be encouraged leading to the creation of jobs which do not involve the creation of technologies designed to kill humans and destroy property and the environment, such as has happened in the obscenity that is the War in Iraq for example. As for the jingoistic war waged by Margaret Thatcher and her government, and that of Galtieri and the Junta in Argentina, in the Falklands I would have to say that there were many diplomatic alternatives to the unsatisfactory way that the dispute was resolved with the needless deaths and maimings on all sides, and there were years of diplomatic dealings wherein the issues of sovereignity could have been resolved without war. At the time it suited both governments not to do so for their own political ends, as the war itself amply demonstrated. It suits our current form of so called "democracy" to have some kind of dispute going on somewhere in the world in order to take peoples minds off of the central issue of corporate globalised exploitation of people and resources for the benefit of a relatively small number of people. An army solely for defensive purposes such as a peoples militia, could be justified when there are real threats of invasion, as with Adolf Hitler, however encouraging the massive development of armaments industries, driven onwards to make more profits in order to maintain jobs through the misery of millions of innocent people worldwide is just obscene, in my view. Perhaps you begin to see where I am coming from now and can understand that, as far as I am concerned, I am not content with the way in which my taxes are currently being spent, I would far rather see the billions spent worldwide on the arms trade used to seriously address the issues of world poverty, environmental catastophiies and education (particularly in the area of peace and justice). Of course there will always be those out there who are uncomfortable with the idea of letting people know that there are diffent ways of resolving conflict in the world without the use of force (shareholders and stakeholders in the arms industry for example), and also those who do not like the idea of others putting forward such alternatives, and protesting about current government political strategies including putting information relating to those strategies before the general public, but, to paraphrase George Orwell in 1984, in an era defined by spin and deceit to get at the truth is a revolutionary act, one that in my view is now imperative. Therefore you will understand that whilst I concede that there may be some advantages in UAV technology for civilian ends this is far outweighed by the other uses which this technology is developed. I thank you for the information on control of of UAVs but I remain unconvinced about the efficay of unmanned flight , as do many others.
Wyt ti wedi cael dy roi yn dy le ddwedwn ni y scidrych. Da iawn mike_a
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