Why we’re right to disrupt Land Forces

Worldwide, military spending hit a record US$2.4 trillion last year. If our rulers were serious about ending world hunger, just over a tenth of this amount could do the job, spent over a decade. If our rulers were serious about tackling climate change, this sort of money could have had us well on the way to solving the problem already.

But instead, our rulers are serious about war—so we get Land Forces.

Do you want a target for rifle practice depicting an armed man wearing a keffiyeh, the Palestinian scarf? Get to Land Forces, where GlowShot Targets should have one in stock. (GlowShot was on the 2022 exhibitor list—the organisers are a little shy about publishing this year’s list.)

If you want to buy the Rafael Spike missile, which most probably killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom in Gaza this year, head to Land Forces. The 2022 exhibitor list linked directly to Rafael’s promotional material, which boasts (as many Israel-based weapons companies do) that their products are “combat proven”. On aid workers, among many others.

If you want to buy the Elbit Hermes drone, which most probably fired the Spike missiles into three successive cars until Zomi Frankcom and all her six aid worker colleagues were dead, you can talk it over with the Elbit rep at Land Forces.

While you’re there, you can hang out with reps from Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the F-35 planes that Israel uses; HTA, whose co-CEO Karen Stanton is a key link in the Australian F-35 supply chain; and General Dynamics, which manufactures the 2,000-pound bombs the F-35s often drop on the people of Gaza.

Of course, you won’t find the survivors of these attacks at Land Forces. There will be no stall where you can talk with Suleiman Salman al-Najjar about the 24 family members he lost, killed by a 2,000-pound bomb dropped on his home (most likely) by an Israeli F-35 in October 2023. Nor will medic Mohammed Al Khatib be there, talking about treating the victims of three 2,000-pound bombs dropped by Israeli F-35s on the supposed “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi in the central Gaza strip in mid-July. And Umm Mahmoud will not be there to recount an almost identical Israeli bombing raid on al-Mawasi just this week—10 September 2024—where her neighbours “were torn into pieces, most of them women and children”.

Israel’s war in Gaza, with all its genocidal carnage, is being fought for profit and power. And the profit and power to be gained from that war, and from supplying the means to fight that war, outweigh the horror and heartbreak endured by the family of Zomi Frankcom, Suleiman Salman al-Najjar, Mohammed Al Khatib, and Umm Mahmoud—along with the millions of Palestinians whose lives have been scarred or destroyed forever by the current genocide.

This week, the release of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide final report prompted former soldier Kat Rae to reflect on Radio National about how well the “military-industrial complex” had done out of the wars of the past twenty years. Meanwhile, the help provided by Veteran’s Affairs to her husband Steve (also a former soldier) to deal with crippling back pain was a $7 per fortnight prescription. This was cut to $5 and then cut altogether just two weeks before Steve took his own life.

And the costs of war, the costs of the preparation for war, the costs of a society geared increasingly to war, spread far beyond those who are killed under the bombs or die later from the aftereffects. Our government can find $368 billion for nuclear-powered submarines—some of the most sophisticated killing machines so far devised—but claims it can’t afford to fund schools and hospitals properly.

And then there’s the nuclear weapons. Land Forces participants Lockheed Martin, Thales and BAE are on the select list of companies that make the most destructive weapons known to humanity.

All of this is meant to be normal. The monstrous, mundane.

And usually, the masters of war get away with it. Usually, they’re able to conduct their brutal business as if it’s entirely divorced from the human slaughter and the sickening waste of human capacities that the arms trade represents.

Earlier this year, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz described the scene at the Singapore Airshow, the biggest and most important arms trade show in Asia. “The Gaza war”, Ha’aretz reported, “was a selling point for Israeli arms makers”. It described how “the Asian clients took an interest in systems that have proved themselves on the battlefield, and the efficacy of the Israeli weaponry showcased here was backed up by evidence fresh from the battlefields in Gaza and Lebanon. Some of the buyers were eyeing defense systems that have intercepted thousands of missiles, while others were drawn to attack drones and tiny, advanced loitering munitions”.

Thanks to the thousands of protestors who have taken to the streets of Melbourne this week, media reports from Land Forces will be very different. Although the mainstream media will attempt to denigrate the protesters and sanitise war, they will not be able to hide that there is mass resistance to one of the great obscenities of capitalism—the trade in the weapons of war and genocide—as our rulers gear up for yet another brutal redivision of the world for profit and power.

And just as importantly: for many of the protestors, this will be an important experience of ordinary (extraordinary) people making their voices heard, in a world designed to leave us silent and powerless. The protests are one step among the many needed to retake our world, from the warmongers and profiteers who currently treat it as theirs to exploit and destroy.