Recently
read the chapter “Buckling to Bandar” in Shadow
World by Andrew Feinstein. Definitely provided some
pertinent food for thought re: ethics. My
questions can relate to any/current
instances where governments change the rules for those they owe their power to. Or I mean those that the government serves. Ah ethics, what a beguiling subject. Consider an arms deal that began in that
magical decade of the eighties:
What does
it mean when a gov’t as large as the United Kingdom’s buckles to business
interests? At issue is a multibillion
pound arms contract with the gov’t of Saudi Arabia that saw delivery of materiel
in exchange for oil begin in the eighties.
The most recent contract in the ongoing deal began in 2006. The industry and gov’t both stressed how
important the deal was for jobs and for security. On the flip side, the investigators – the Serious
Fraud Office (SFO) – said their mandate went beyond such considerations. So what about national interest, said the
SFO: they were investigating in the name of a higher principle. The gov’t and the Defenc(s)e contractor
involved, BAE, felt national interests superseded this principle.
Allegedly Prince
Bandar of Saudi Arabia communicated to the UK that if the investigation was
not halted his state would reject the deal causing 1) UK workers to miss out on
jobs, 2) forcing SA to shop elsewhere which wouldn’t be difficult, and 3)
potentially allowing would-be terrorists to take hold in the momentary vacuum
where SA was without the latest technology therefore not allowing them to pull
the strings they usually do in the Middle East.
So, I know,
minutiae of overseas corruption. It is
interesting just to consider as an ethical case though – and set aside how the
US could be doing (does do?) similar things.
In the al Yamamah deal discussed above (and yeah, Margaret Thatcher’s
son was involved (getting paid) and the deal has been called “who’s your mama?”)
the gov’t seemed to re-write a subscribed to ethical system that had had seen
the creation of the SFO.
What does
it mean when an ethical system is revised or when it comes with an asterisk? What if your continued existence as a person
or a country is put in jeopardy if you or your nation can’t allow a little
wiggle-room in matters ethical? Does it
change one to not live up to self-decided ethical standards? Or is it just a needed revision? Maybe the ends justify the means and staying
alive trumps any way of life that could extinguish that life, however
disreputable it makes one.
Where does
the appeal to ethics come from? Well,
religions supply many ethical systems. Considering
how religion can set such high standards it is perhaps understandable why
people and people acting through gov’t fail to comply.
To conclude
I would argue that re-establishing one’s ethical guidelines does change
one. As I’ve discussed
before I am not exactly speaking from a religious perspective. But I believe that is why asking forgiveness
is a built-in feature of (at least) Christianity. The new person, or state, no longer agrees
that the old ethics are correct and therefore do not need to seek forgiveness for
a wrong never committed.
No comments:
Post a Comment