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!
bah..the pakistanis are one step away from being just like the palis..
The following is an old one--posted in 2001.
Russia, N.Korea, China give Iran missile aid -CIA
muzi news ^ | 09/08/01
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/519198/posts
Posted on 09/08/2001 10:29:44 PM PDT by Typhoon
LatelineNews: 2001-9-8] WASHINGTON - Russian, North Korean and Chinese "entities" supplied fresh ballistic missile-related equipment and know-how to Iran last year, moving it toward self-sufficiency in long-range missile production, CIA Director George Tenet told Congress on Friday.
In an unclassified version of a report on deadly weapons mandated by law, Tenet said Iran remained one of the most active seekers of foreign technology for developing and delivering weapons of mass destruction, Reuters reported.
During the period covered by the report -- July 1 to Dec. 31, 2000 -- Tehran was described as pressing ahead with an effort to develop a domestic capability to build chemical, biological and nuclear weapons plus their delivery systems.
The U.S. intelligence community predicts that within the next 15 years, the United States most likely will face intercontinental ballistic missile threats from North Korea, probably from Iran and possibly from Iraq -- barring big changes in their political bearings.
The second half of 2000, entities in Russia, North Korea and China continued to supply crucial ballistic missile-related equipment, technology and expertise to Iran," Tenet said.
Tehran -- branded the most active state sponsor of terrorism by Washington -- is using such foreign aid in purpose often cited by the Bush administration as driving its push to build a multilayered anti-missile shield over the objections of Russia, China and many U.S. allies.
The CIA report said North Korea continued procurement of raw materials and components for its ballistic missile programs from "various foreign sources, especially through North Korean firms based in China."
"We assess that North Korea is capable of producing and delivering via munitions a wide variety of chemical and biological agents," Tenet said.
Russian entities, meanwhile, remained a significant source for Iran of biotechnology, chemicals and other equipment with potential military application.
The expertise and technology gained, along with the commercial contacts established -- particularly through the Bushehr project -- "could be used to advance Iran's nuclear weapons research and development program," it said.
"The Russian government, moreover, failed to enforce its export controls in some cases regarding Iran," Tenet added.
During the last six months of the year, China likewise "continued to take a very narrow interpretation of its bilateral nonproliferation commitments with the United States," he said.
Last November, China committed not to assist, in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons.
But Chinese entities, unnamed in the report's unclassified version, provided Pakistan with missile-related technical assistance in the second half of last year, the CIA director said.
North Korea, for its part, continued to export significant ballistic missile-related equipment, components, materials and technical know-how to countries in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa last year, the report said.
Greetings
First of all, let's remember,
"Countries have NO permanent friends or permanent enemies,
Only permanent self-interests"
Thus, during the WW2, the US and China were allies against the Japanese. Barely 6 years later, the US and Japan were allies against China, ie , during the Korean War
Another interesting question," could a few F-18s given to a country be enough to make a it become a major world power?"
Hardly the "Big Boys" are already playing with new generation toys like molecular nanotechnology, laser, EMG, GAMMA, etc and yeah, SPACE, don't forget space weapons. "The country that controls the high ground in Space, will be the dominant military power"
In general, a few F-18s , SU-30s, KILOs, SAVA cruisers, aircraft-carriers don't frighten anybody,but stuff like molecular nanoteechnology would, a superpower make. That separates the Men from the boys
Yet another question, if one would to use LOGIC, "why should the US create YET another Monster (Frankenstein), as if the current one Monster is NOT enough ?
If China is regarded as a potential Frankenstein why should the US intentionaly create a second potential one in India ?
Somehow I think the US too smart and street-wise to really make India into a real power, and the second monster after China
Unless, if one head-ache is NOT enough, HEY, how about we have two head-aches ...........two for the price of one ?
This is the last I have to say on the matter, thank you very much! It is apparent we are going to have to disagree on this matter. I will defend America to the death, as I'm sure from your postings, you would do for India. However this is an American forum and I for one would like to keep it that way. If you are an Indian Nationalist please go start your own forum as I have had emails from other members of FR warning me of the India defenders here, and their inability to see any other point of view. We are Americans and that will be the overwhelming point of view.Hmm,If I didn't tell it clearly-the weapons computer is built in India & the Russians are hardly bothered about it.They are making enough money,jointly hawking it with India & I have mentioned the Malaysian deal.If anything,Russia's arms industry thanks to collaboration with companies from Israel,Italy,France,South Africa,Great Britian among others have made inroads into numerous countries like South Korea,Greece & the UAE.Those companies have had no complaints about the Russians hawking their stuff.
About sleeping with a skunk,I don't think Russia smells any worse than Egypt,Saudi Arabia or Pakistan & we all know who is sleeping with them.
About telling me to mind my own business,dude if you don't like contrary opinions,that's what forums like these are for.As long as I continue to play by the rules,I can get to hang on here & IIRC, I have yet to break any.If you don't like my views ignore them.If you can't,GET A LIFE.
Not a line of the code comes from India.
What do you mean by this? All FReepers think alike? Then why have a DISCUSSION forum? Won't it beat the purpose?
Whose tagline was this?
Skepticism is good. It keeps you alive.
Ahem, let me explain. What I mean from the simple and easy-to-comprehend statement above, is that the articles I post on FR are not my opinion. I post them from various sources so that it may induce a valuable discussion between FReepers, which I think is constructive.
PS: Keep your threats to yourself.
US tells India buy more arms ...
Please correct me if I am wrong, but this shows a bias pure and simple.Past posts? You reviewed all my 1000-odd posts in five minutes?
Then I'd suggest you check out my last post as well.
I have an uncle and and aunt both with first name Kanchan. :-)
About me posting stuff related to Hinduism, that was in ONE article, right? I was replying to the posts that were addressed to me, as well as criticising other posts in a fair way. And about the India thing, well, if you care to look a bit deeper, it's more anti-China than pro-India.
I believe China is the free world's biggest threat, and am afraid not much is being done about it. It worries me sick. Pick up anything in a shop and it isn't too difficult to notice it's made in China. Man, I hate China!!! If you call that biased, I don't care.
If America were to tackle China, it needs the help of a sizable country, and I see none other than India that fits the bill. So, when I see actions that keep America and India estranged, I criticise them. You find that a problem?
Then I've got to ask one thing. Do you see the Commies as a threat or not?
Saw your Profile Page. . . nice area. God's country, I imagine.
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