Posted on 03/31/2005 2:37:47 AM PST by Gengis Khan
US tells India, drop dead
March 28, 2005
A friend, usually upbeat about India-US relations, sent me an angry mail over the weekend after President George Bush called up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the evening of March 25 to inform him that the US had decided to supply F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview to The Washington Post, "dismissed concerns" about the fallout of the American decision. The mail reads:
"lovely easter gift to india from the us.
moral: proliferate nukes, threaten us interests everywhere, be terror hub, and get rewarded for it. this has been north korea's experience, china's experience, saudi arabia's experience, and pakistan's experience.
suck up to the us, desperately crave its goodwill, allow its odious conversion machine to dictate terms to you, and get slapped on the face. this is india's experience.
simple solution for india: proliferate nuke and missile technology to anybody who wants it, especially taiwan and japan. this will immediately get american respect, much as pokhran-ii did."
The issues that arise from USA's decision to strengthen Pakistan's strike power, I feel, are much larger than merely seeking or getting "American respect." A nation whose civilisational history stretches back to 5,000 years, that is more than Americans can count without a Texas Instruments TI-83, and whose billion-plus population is not dependent on American wheat surplus of the PL 480 variety, can do without "American respect." Thank you very much, but America is welcome to stuff its "respect" in a hot dog.
The larger concerns are two-fold. First, Washington's mollycoddling of Pakistan, a rogue state that has not only proliferated cross-border jihadi terrorism but also spawned an underground bazaar where it has been hawking weapons of mass destruction to other rogue states. Second, the arms race that will follow America's dubious deal, with both India and Pakistan upping their defence expenditure at the cost of social welfare spending.
A third aspect that merits comment is the glib manner in which Rice, during the joint press conference she addressed along with Minister for External Affairs Natwar Singh during her brief stopover in New Delhi earlier this month, waved away any 'announcement' of an American deal on F-16s for Pakistan in the immediate future. Perhaps time and space are extremely elastic for those who wax eloquent on "absent morals" of others.
It is immaterial whether or not Pakistan has been assisting the US in pursuing its "war against terror" -- ask those who are involved in the war, including intelligence operatives, and they will tell you Islamabad has been leading Washington down the garden path -- what is material is that India must protect its own national interest. There is little evidence to show that Pakistan has given up the path of terror; nor is there reason to believe that Islamabad is genuinely interested in peace.
If you have any doubts, look at the daily acts of terror in Jammu and Kashmir; the insidious growth of ISI modules in the Northeast; and, the export of jehadi fundamentalism to India via Nepal. Nothing has changed in the last one year, never mind peaceniks who are making silly asses of themselves.
The absurd claim put out by unnamed sources in the US State Department that the F-16s form part of American assistance to Pakistan to wage war on terrorism is as laughable as the lollypop of advanced fighter jets (F-18s, no less) and nuclear power reactors that has been offered to India. "What the Americans have announced is the actual, physical delivery of F-16s to Pakistan and a bunch of nice promises for India," a foreign office official in New Delhi has said underscoring the absurdity.
No less absurd is the claim made by "senior administration officials" at a background briefing for "select journalists" that the military assistance to Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf was aimed at ensuring "a fully democratic, economically promising Pakistan, that feels secure and is thus at peace with its neighbours."
The officials might as well have added that it is inconsequential the US's favourite tin pot dictator is to blame for the runaway basement bomb programmes in North Korea, Iran and Libya, among others. Boys will be boys, you see, naughty and mischievous; what's a component here and a blueprint there?
Those nations that have committed the mistake of trusting the US have come to grief, and how. It will be disastrous if India makes a similar mistake. If the UPA government believes in what it says, that India is a sovereign nation free to make its own choices, then it should not touch the American promise with a bargepole.
The Pakistanis can seek satisfaction in saving 5,000 jobs at Lockheed Martin Corp, Indians need not lose sleep over the plight of unemployed workers in Texas. In fact, it will be fun to watch Bush and Rice squirm, which they shall, if Manmohan Singh and his team look through their alleged offer and go ahead with selecting the next generation, multi-purpose jets from what has been offered by the French, the Swedes and the Russians.
If they choose to be charmed by the Americans, then India might as well say goodbye to its sovereign identity and become another client state of the US like Pakistan has become.
PS: At the launch of journalist Wilson John's book Pakistan's Nuclear Underworld: An Investigation, a devastating expose of how A Q Khan and his bosses in khaki went around hawking nuclear know-how for a fistful of dollars, in New Delhi last week, a former foreign secretary, mindful of the presence of two diplomats from the US mission in the audience, charged the Americans with "doubletalk and duplicity" on illicit nuclear proliferation by the Pakistanis.
Later, one of the American diplomats, fuming over being shown up so bluntly, accosted him and told him that he had been "offensive and insulting to my country" and "you could have been more nuanced without being inaccurate." Retorted the former diplomat: "We are a free country. We can say what we want I couldn't care less for pretensions of the American empire."
Let's order a second hot dog!
That makes sense. It's also closer to the land itself (less quarrel over drilling rights). The North Sea and Gulf of Mexico has a lot of deep sea drilling. I suppose there will be deeper explorations off of India soon enough.
I still do not understand as to why the USA is giving F-16s to Pakistan and would like to know. Pakistan terrorists are a threat to the USA and are listed as such. ...can't help but wonder if something else is going to happen there...maybe another sinkhole for the more prickly terrorist groups, as in Iraq?
Yep,nuclear power is pretty high on the agenda & the US has promised to allow sale of civilian technology to India.Hydro-electricity has a lot of potential,but very little has been exploited,in part due to reasons of political correctness.
Pakistan Air Force Inventory
System / Quantity/ Role/Description
F-16A/ 21/ Multi-Role Air Superiority fighter
F-16B / 11 /Advanced Trainer and wartime ground-attack fighter
Pakistan had an additional seventy-one F-16s on order, but delivery has been suspended since 1990. Pakistan AF F-16s stored at Davis-Monthan AFB "Boneyard".
Actually,India doesn't need Russia or someone else to tell it that Iran is a threat.It uses much the same logic,why the US considers Saudi Arabia(an equally big sponsor of terror) as an ally.Iran is seen as a big sponsor of terrorism against the US & Israel,but not against India.OTOH,Saudi money is seen as seeping through to a number of extremists in India & the premise gets reversed.
Im not too sure whether India "likes" Iran.For one,Iran's N-programme has Pakistani help & Iran is much close economically and militarily to Beijing.& we have the fact that India is Israel's largest arms buyer.
I've posted this time and again. You are da man!!!
Lets just say the biggest worry for India in the next decade is the issue of "energy security". Hence a country like Iran is so important for India (because of their oil reserves and proximity to India). There is a frenzied rush by India and China for grabbing oil in the region. I understand the US is trying to accomodate India in some sort of energy security arrangement (mostly cooperation in the field of nuclear energy) to distance India from Iran. But I doubt that will be enough. Oil is what the economy runs on.
Iran is also militarily close to Russia, and on more than nuclear technology. Russia has been selling ballistic missile equipment to Iran for some time.
I'm trying to find a map that was posted to the Free Republic site a few days ago. It showed the likely ranges (distances) of Iran's new missiles.
Hmm,If im not mistaken,the BM part has been handled by China & North Korea.Not saying Russia has no role,but they have mainly supplied other systems.If you look at Iran's arsenal of new Russian systems,you will see that those are pretty old Mig-29s(poor radar & no active BVR weapons) & T-72 tanks,Kilo class subs.
Nearly all new Iranian & Pakistani BMs are of North Korean origin.
If you are aware of the fineprint of this proposed pipeline,you will notice that it will pass through Pakistan & onto India.Hence Pakistan will get cheap gas along with a tollfee.Do you honestly think China is going to build a pipeline across 3 countries & that too through disputed territory???& do you know how much India's energy consumption will be by 2020???It will be just below the US & China.About Iran needing an outlet,hope you know that China recently delivered a fleet of supertankers to Iran's national oil company.No prices for guessing where the cargo is likely to go.China is also working on deposits much closer to home,including in Indonesia,Turkmenistan & Kazakhistan & these are far more sensible(politically & economically) than a pipeline through 3 nations.
India has built the weapons computer for the variant of the SU-30 fighter which Russia has built SPECIFICALLY for it's airforce & which won't be exported without Indian consent.India also uses weaponry from Israel,France,Italy,Britain among others.Those folks don't have a problem & your fear only holds if India chooses to buy American weaponry.
All the gas won't stay in India.It will be used by Indian industry & consumers!!!
Pakistan & China are building a deepwater port on Iran's border region.That could be the outlet & a far more politically safe one for China.LNG from there could technically be piped to China(Tibet) through Gilgit & Baltistan & the distance is far lesser than it is through India.
IRAN DELVAR - VERY LARGE CRUDE CARRIER
http://www.ship-technology.com/projects/iran_delvar/
Talking about Indian made computers on the Su30s, I read somewhere that softwares for the F-22 were built in India. Know anything about that?
Isn't the Iran/India pipeline going to be built through Pakistan? You seem scared to death of them getting F-16's, but you have no fear that they might cut off/take over your pipeline?
I'd rather not sell the planes to Pakistan, but we must be getting something in return behind the scenes. Musharraf shooting up some Taliban in Pakistan wouldn't be enough to earn the more advanced versions of the fighter, or the AMRAAM missile.
Like you said, the Apache, or Blackhawks would be more useful to them. What does Pakistan use for CAS now? Do they still use old A-5's?
I'm really not sure if Musharraf will live long enough to receive anything to begin with. We may have to hit Pakistan hard if he gets assassinated, and try to secure those nukes. Warm up the Sukhoi's!
Have you found anymore rumors about the blk 70 that Lockheed is cooking up?
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