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The paper today carries a follow-up story that stops short of admitting it was wrong and lacking objectivity.

Another story in the same edition however, shows just how dangerous a little knowledge can be when it comes to such things.

Combine the tabloid tone of a major broadsheet with the feeble intellect of a politician and you get stupid responses -- such as those proffered by Green NP Keith Locke.

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It looks as if Keith swallowed the Herald's story, hook line and sinker -- and now he wants more scrutiny and tighter controls on the export of any technology that could possibly be put to "bad military use".

Oh please! Almost everything that is remotely hi-tech has the potential for use by, in, or for the military and, if the peaceniks are to be believed, *all* military use by the USA and its allies is "bad".

Many people don't realise that there are quite a few small NZ businesses quietly developing or churning out products that are used by military organisations around the world -- indeed, even by (gasp!) the USA.

What, for example, would be wrong with this guy exporting his wares to the USA? If that were to happen, would Mr Locke argue that by providing practice grenades to the USA was helping train "Bush's war machine"?

And what about software? There's some rather nice niche software being developed by various people in NZ and I'm sure some of it would be found on PCs or in embedded systems within the US military.

This kind of attitude cuts deeply at the whole basis of a knowledge economy and I would have thought that the Greens (if anyone) would have been fully in favour of things that relied on brainpower rather than using up the planet's valuable resources.

Here's a question for Mr Locke: if you're not prepared to allow Kiwi hi-tech industries to export their wares to the USA if there's any hint that they may have military applications, will you be similarly averse to using any new, pollution-free fuel-cell technologies that are developed by the US Army or other part of the evil "war machine?"

There is absolutely no doubt that armed conflict massively accelerates the rate at which technology is developed -- and armed conflict has always been part of the behaviour of the human species. While I'm strongly opposed to any regime imposing its own beliefs and laws on another -- I'm also pragmatic enough to realise that NZ is a tiny player in a huge market and that we also have a responsibility to ensure that we're prosperous enough to support our young, old, infirmed and other members of society.

Maybe the Greens ought to temper their own ideology with a little pragmatism and not try to hog-tie the very industries on which we're going to become increasingly reliant for our future.

Are you in favour of banning Kiwi technology and products that might be used in "Bush's war machine?"

Go have your say in The Aardvark Forums

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