WE have seen several slanging matches between the treasury benches and the opposition in parliament in the past few weeks. The exchanges, never pleasant, appear to have acquired a sharper and bitterer edge in recent days.

Could this have anything to do with the opposition’s no-confidence motion against the prime minister? The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy knows that the motion will be defeated. The government too says it is confident that the opposition move will be easily thwarted. Moreover, the alliance between the ARD and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal remains tenuous. The ideological difference between them was again underlined in the National Assembly on Monday, when the maulvi ‘bahadurs’ tore up copies of the Hudood amendment bill in a protest from which the ARD assiduously kept itself apart. The opposition is not, therefore, going into the no-confidence debate like a rock solid front.

Yet does one detect a certain underlying tension or testiness in the government’s reactions? Not all the ruling party members and their allies can honestly declare that the opposition’s charges against the prime minister and the government are totally misplaced. The government also knows that accusations of wrongdoing and corruption in the privatisation of the steel mills and other concerns and the earlier stock exchange scandal form the gravamen of the opposition’s no-confidence motion; in the debate that will follow many facts, figures and names will be mentioned. The government may feel uncomfortable at this prospect, although it has shown remarkably little sign so far that it is any way sensitive to the demands either of public morality or accountability.

Until some weeks ago, some kind of a working relationship appeared to exist between the prime minister and the opposition; indeed, Mr Shaukat Aziz in a meeting with journalists in Karachi three months or so ago had stressed that despite political differences, he remained in touch with opposition leaders and talked to them in parliament and outside. That relationship may not be as equable now as it was previously. Since General Musharraf does not think that as president it is his constitutional and moral obligation to talk to the opposition, as he talks frequently and with great gusto, to members of the ruling PML, the dialogue process between the opposition and the government may suffer on account of the standoff with the prime minister.

Not that the contacts so far have resulted in any significant political or parliamentary advancement. Indeed, when the opposition and the government have cooperated it has been most often on reactionary causes. Take two instances from this week. The government supported a PPP proposal to refer the Hudood amendment bill to an enlarged select committee. It did so because the PPP proposal provided it with some breathing space on the bill, which has been brought by it with the greatest reluctance and only to avoid scrapping the Hudood laws altogether as demanded by all enlightened sections of Muslims.

The second instance is the near unanimity that prevailed in the National Assembly on the one-dish bill, initiated by the MMA. Now, as the relevant Dawn headline rightly pointed out, the bill amounts to allowing a “one-dish meal of six items”, and it can only please the marriage hall/catering industry interests, which enjoy support on all sides of the house. So it is nonsense to suggest that these two examples in any way mark a milestone in government-opposition cooperation, as a section of the press has done. We tend to forget that both sides have a preponderance of the same vested feudal, entrepreneurial and commercial interests whose protection will always bring them together.

On broader political issues or issues of principle, such as democracy, the question of the president’s uniform, independence of the Election Commission, etc., the gap between the two sides remains as wide as ever, and this will no doubt be illustrated during the no-confidence debate. An indication of the government’s vulnerability on some of the points has already come in the shape of the ripostes it has made to opposition charges over the Steel Mills privatisation process.

The government does not seek to clear its own position; instead, it says, in effect, “Well, what about corruption during the Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif governments? What about the Surrey mansion and the Raiwind estate?” This is suggesting that while we may have indulged in wrongdoing, it is nothing on the scale practised by previous governments.

If you say the Supreme Court verdict on the privatisation issue is brimful of adverse implications for the government, the latter retorts by referring to the storming of the Supreme Court by members of the Nawaz League. We should be able to justify our actions on the strength of the soundness and correctness of our actions and on the basis of our confidence that the actions were just and right rather than argue that they are better than those taken by previous governments. This reflects the moral bankruptcy on the part of our rulers.

Two wrongs have never made a right, but this has always been our ultimate defence and justification — this has happened again in the case of our cricket team staying away from the Oval Test (and thus forfeiting it by breaking all rules) in protest against umpire Darrell Hair’s absurd decision on ball tampering. Defending our actions by comparing them with what has gone on before, combined with an exaggerated idea of our own virtue, has been the bane of our national life and doesn’t look like changing. It’s small wonder then that the president and the prime minister haven’t yet jumped in to defend the action of Inzamamul Haq and PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan (beyond a telephonic call to the captain).

And when it comes to belittling the opposition, everything is considered fair. The government’s resort to hitting below the belt is evidenced in the uproar raised by the treasury benches over the alleged removal of the Quaid’s portrait from the chamber of the leader of the opposition and its reported replacement by a picture of Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s father, Mufti Mahmud. The relevant newspaper report had not even been investigated before charges were flying around about the JUI’s “anti-Pakistan” role before and immediately after independence.

This is no way to go about countering the opposition’s no-confidence move or hiding your irritation at the fact that someone has dared challenge the conduct of your government. One of the great handicaps of a military administration that takes over power in violation of the Constitution is that it forever has to rationalise its action by asserting how vile and venal was the elected, civilian government before it.

But there can be a positive way of looking at the new development: this is the first no-confidence motion brought against the military-led government, and it provides it with an excellent opportunity to take up the allegations against it pointwise and reply to them on merit, without reference to what outrages were perpetrated by Ms Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif, which were many, of course. Where lapses occurred, these should be frankly admitted.

Meanwhile, as a tailpiece and just by the way, it might be interesting to note that among the many charges levelled by then president Farooq Leghari (now a PML ally) while dismissing the government of his own party leader in 1996 was one saying that “in the matter of the sale of Burmah Castrol shares in PPI and Bone/PPL shares in the Qadirpur Gas Field involving national assets valued at several billions of rupees, the president required the prime minister to place the matter before the cabinet for consideration/re-consideration of the decision taken in the matter by the EEC. .. This has still not been done.” This was one of the reasons cited by Mr Leghari for disbanding the National Assembly and dismissing Ms Bhutto’s government. Something to mull over as the privatisation issue is discussed?

Perhaps Faiz put it magnificently:

Tumhi kaho rind o mohtasib mein hey aaj shab kon farq aisa/
Yeh aakey biathain hein maikadey mein, woh uth key aiey hein maikadey sey.

(All right, you tell us the difference tonight between the wine-taker and the watcher of morals/The one has come to sit in the tavern while the other has just come from a tavern).

ITS described by a senior official at the Ministry of Defence as a dead duck ... expensive and obsolete. The editor of World Defence Systems calls it 10 years out of date. A former defence minister remarked that it is essentially flawed and out of date. So how on earth did BAE Systems manage to sell 72 Eurofighters to Saudi Arabia on Friday?

One answer is that it had some eminent salesmen. On July 2, 2005, Tony Blair secretly landed in Riyadh to persuade the Saudi princes that this flying scrap heap was the must-have accessory for every fashionable young despot. Three weeks later, defence secretary John Reid turned up to deploy his subtle charms. Somehow the deal survived, and last week his successor, Des Browne, signed the agreement. All of which raises a second question. Why are government ministers, even Blair himself, prepared to reduce themselves to hawkers on behalf of arms merchants?

Readers of this column will know that British governments are not averse to helping big business, even when this conflicts with their stated policies. But the support they offer the defence industry goes far beyond the assistance they provide to anyone else.

Take the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), for example. This is a government agency founded 40 years ago to smooth out foreign deals for British arms companies. From its inception, this smoothing involved baksheesh. It was established as a channel for financial aids and incentives to corrupt officials in foreign governments.

In 2003, after bribery of this kind became illegal in the UK, the Guardian found an internal DESO document explaining its guidelines for arms sales. In certain parts of the world, it said, it has become commonplace for special commissions to be required. This is a matter for DESO, to whom all requests for special commission should be referred. If DESO confirm that such payments can be made, contracts staff may need to provide the means for payment. A special commission is civil service code for a bribe. The document suggests, in other words, that the British government is overseeing the payment of bribes to foreign officials.

BAEs previous deals with Saudi Arabia are surrounded by allegations of corruption. It is alleged to have run a #60m slush fund to oil the Al Yamamah contracts brokered by Margaret Thatcher. The fund is said to have been used to provide cash, cars, yachts and hotel rooms to Saudi officials. The Serious Fraud Office was bounced by the Guardian’s revelations into opening an investigation. But among the conditions the Saudi government laid down for the new deal is that the investigation is dropped. Lets see what happens.

With this exception, the big arms companies appear to have been granted immunity from inquiry or prosecution. Letters from the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, Sir Kevin Tebbit, show that he prevented the ministrys fraud squad from investigating the allegations against BAE; that he failed to tell his minister about the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office; and that he tipped off the chairman of BAE about the contents of a confidential letter the SFO had sent him. When the US government told him that BAE had allegedly engaged in corrupt practice in the Czech Republic, Sir Kevin failed to inform the police.

For 14 years, the government has suppressed a report by the National Audit Office into the Al Yamamah deals. Earlier this summer the auditor general refused even to hand it over to the SFO. A parliamentary committee on arms exports published a report this month that expresses its frustration over the governments reluctance to assist its inquiries. It also shows that Mark Thomas, the stand-up comedian, has done more to expose illegal arms deals than the Ministry of Defence, the Export Control Organisation and HM Revenue and Customs put together, simply by searching the internet and the trade press and attending the arms fairs the British government hosts.

In response, the government has investigated not the companies, but the comedian. A confidential email from a civil servant suggested that the trade minister, Richard Caborn, was seeking to gather background/dirt on him in order to rubbish him. Caborn says that he was misrepresented.

The only arms dealers to have been prosecuted since 2000 are five very small fish. All of them escaped with a small fine or a suspended sentence, including a man who made repeated attempts to export military parts to Iran. Compare this to the treatment of those who upset the arms industry. Nine anti-war campaigners in Derry who occupied the offices of the arms company Raytheon have just been charged with aggravated burglary and unlawful assembly. If convicted, they could be imprisoned for years.

Every government policy designed to protect our national interests or promote world peace is torn up at the arms companies request. They are not supposed to sell to dodgy regimes or countries in the midst of conflict. So let them first export their arms to the Channel Islands, from which they can be resold. Weapons may not be exported to any country unless it shows respect for human rights. So get the Foreign Office to note a small but significant improvement in the Saudi governments performance and use that as your excuse.

Should we be surprised that, as the Times revealed on Monday, Israeli soldiers have found night-vision equipment made by a British company in Hezbollah bunkers? Should we be surprised that despite a government commitment to sell Israel no weapons, equipment or components which could be deployed aggressively in the occupied territories, British companies have been supplying parts for its Apache helicopters and F-16 bombers? The government seems to see the escalating dangers in the Middle East as nothing but an opportunity for business.

Perhaps most damning is this. Blair claims that Britains security comes first. Yet one of the means by which his government managed to secure this deal was to speed it up. How?

The Sunday Times reports that the first 24 planes for the Saudis will be those at present allotted to the Royal Air Force, with the RAF postponing its deliveries until later in the production run. In other words, the Saudis perceived need for fighter planes takes precedence over our own.

So why does Her Majestys Government behave like a subsidiary of BAE? A report by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) shows that 39 per cent of all the senior public servants who go to work for the private sector are employees of the Ministry of Defence moving into arms firms. In return, scores of arms dealers are seconded to the ministry. The man who runs DESO, for example, previously worked for BAE, selling arms in the Middle East.

CAAT lists the government committees stuffed with arms executives, the donations, the lobbyists, the Labour peers taking the corporate shilling, and I am sure all this plays an important role. But it seems to me that something else is at work. There appears to be a sense among some at the core of government that peace, human rights and democracy are for wimps, while the serious business, for real players, is war and the means by which it is enacted.

— Dawn/Guardian Service