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!
I'm late to the show...seems I have another 200 or so posts to read!!
"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?"
I think I have read that India has contributed but would not want to put it in stone. Programming seems to be a trait they are extremely adequate at. We would be idiots not to take advantage. Especially seeing as they have designed Russian hardware and software. Any advantage in warfare needs to be exploited if you expect to win. And we do!
I think we suck up to the mooselimbs too much -- Israel, all of the Palestinian territories and Jordan should be given to the Israelis -- both the Jews AND Christian Arabs, no moosies allowed. Lebanon should be Christian ONLY -- maybe allow the Druze in.
Most of the posts are crap...but go ahead and read. We need to have a thread where we can play war games...wanna start one?
No doubt India needs oil, gas, etc., but...you know...Russia has tonnes of it. At least with Russia India does not have to bend over for the muslims. Guess who in India's region has the largest reserve of natural gas? Take a guess...freaking Bangladesh. Do you know why they don't drill for it??? Beacuse the Saudis pay them not to. Can you belive that!
Sounds like fun. I'll take Russia and march south, then I'll take India and march east and lastly how about Isreal and US forces push east. Your turn.
Dude,the weapons computer for the SU-30MKI is Indian & it will be built in India.No other Russian plane will carry it.Ever heard IPRAs??Both Russia & India have signed one with one another.If you think Im stupid,why don't you find out why China has got downgraded variants of the SU-30 when compared with Indian variants.India & Russia have jointly marketed the MKI variant to Malaysia which will buy a slightly downgraded variant without Israeli avionics & Thailand has also shown interest.Im from the planet Earth,but Im sure you have no clue about the differences between an SU-30MKI(India),SU-30MKM(Malaysia) & SU-30MKK(China).
Sorry if you didn't know,most folks on this website have a big softcorner for the Italians & Ive been on this longer than you to know that.Who said anything about intellectual superiority.
Im not here at your mercy & if you don't like my statements on America arming China's oldest pal,feel free to yelp.As expected,I will never get one word out of some folks on what they think about Pakistan's relationship with China.
First of all,Im the least impressed about a Iranian pipeline through Pakistan.Both nations rate pathetically on my list.& Nothing has been finalised yet & a lot of folks in India are considering delaying ,if not cancelling the deal.India does get gas via tankers from Iran.The petroleum minister recently said India would look elsewhere(Qatar,Indonesia) if Iran didn't reduce the price of gas.
Pakistan has a few AH-1s,though those admittedly need an upgrade or replacement.It also has the French Mirage-5,which was designed specifically for Israel with a ground attack role.
Nope,Actually the Blk 70 is still at a political level.Unless India shows real interest,it will remain at that level.I did read that the US had offered the BLk 52 to India,but India said it wanted to see the Blk 60 & that request was granted.
"We need to have a thread where we can play war games...wanna start one?"
---That'll be really good!
Pakistan has used a number of it aircraft and helos in ops in Waziristan against Al Q / rebel strongholds. F-16s, Mirage and AH-1s have all been involved in airstrikes in this region of Pakistan.
Anyway, lets pick sides first...
The only question is who is going to opt to be Pakistan, Saudi Ariabia, Iran, Syria, North Korea....
India has produced both its own fighter-bombers and fighters. The HF-24 Marut did well against Pakistan. Their development of the Gnat, known as the Ajeet, was also very successful. The Indians are also currently developing their LCA fighter.
"India goes east for what?"
India will go to the Himalayas and Tibet for a little pilgrimage.
Those stored Pakistani F-16s recently went to the USAF and US Navy as agressor and test aircraft.
"Somebody start a war-game thread. We need rules for who joins the thread, alliances, and information on availalble military strengths."
Can you come up something?
"The only question is who is going to opt to be Pakistan, Saudi Ariabia, Iran, Syria, North Korea...."
Arnt there any Muzzie or Chicom Freepers around here?
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