Deb & Mick Stacey, Ballina
The first victim of war is always the truth, and one must go out of their way to discover this, as some of us have done for a long time now, as Peace/Anti-war activists. Although for some time now our government’s excuses for involvement in war have been blatantly obvious ie our insatiable lust for commodities such as oil, gas etc. or strategic dominance.
But the end game since WWII has always been the vast profits for corporations, such as Halliburton, Boeing, Rolls Royce, Raytheon etc… who are involved in high technological strategies.
Raytheon Australia is the Australian arm of Raytheon Technologies. It was established in 1999, and has grown to become the largest US-owned defence contractor operating in Australia, and is a major operator of the ‘Five Eyes’ global surveillance strategy of which Pine Gap is a part; whose main operation today is of highly sophisticated killing machines (drones). In 2012 Raytheon Australia recorded a turnover of $735.5 million.
The British Government, only last week, announced a staggering £16.5 billion increase, to their already massive so-called ‘defence’ budget, which makes Britain the largest military spender in Europe. This at a time when the country is struggling with COVID-19, and an estimated figure of more than five million children are living in poverty, many obviously homeless. On top of this they want the world to believe they have a grand plan to address climate change. The mind boggles.
Love is the answer.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
