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!
Yes, we could talk all day about Israeli tech tranfers to China......:)
Akin to that if you remove all that diplomatic smooth talk.
Very well said.
Umm,Ronald Reagan & Rajiv Gandhi signed watershed agreements on Defense & technology cooperation in the early 80s.US companies( NG in particular) cooperated with India on it's indegnious Light combat aircraft & the US supplied subsystems for the Indian navy's Sea Harrier & SeaKing aircraft.The IN's 4 Type-209 class subs use US firecontrol systems.That was just a start & Bush sr continued things,but Billyboy slowed things down,before killing it(& restarting it!!!).You are right,GWB has offered India much,but to be blunt,those offers don't go as far as the kind of cooperation that Russia,Israel & France have with India.
Let's do just that then. I believe Israel felt really pi$$ed when America stopped them from selling the Phalcon AWACS at the last minute. Thankfully, Bush gave the go-ahead for that sale to be diverted to India.
To be fair to the Israelis,their relationship started with the PRC when Beijing was the buzzword in the West.The US did supply plenty of systems to the Chinese in late 70s & most of the 80s & that's when cooperation regarding the Lavi began with China.
"Recognize Taiwan, sign a defense treaty with it, ensure it gets massive investment in return, to heck with "Chinese sensibilities". If Chicoms can try to encircle India, well, two can play that game."
And then what?...Have Paki F-16s (gifted by America) and Chicom Su30s raiding our capital from opposite directions?
Translation of article: The US wants more help from Pakistan in the hunt for bin Ladin on its Afghan border.
I guess their skipping the whole national infrastructure thing what with indoor plumbing, diesel powered trains, a road system, and jumping straight to the high tech weapons and gadgets?
I'm really getting tired of the "ancient civilizations" downing the US because we've only been around a couple hundred years. You'd think that these long time countries would have progressed beyond caste systems, rickshaw draggin', and eating bugs.
Lets see if I've got this right - we put men on the moon almost 40 years ago, and these jacka$$es are just now getting a squadron of supersonic fighters together?
The only reason every man woman and child in the US has not progressed beyond what we have is because we're being held back by these turd worlder's.
I recall an airshow exhibit of a new Chinese fighter that resembled an F16, was on display for one day and was pulled from public view. I thought then, they copied our MD F16 from the missing Taiwanese one.
Which can be interpreted as the US should have sold attack Apaches or Blackhawks with stand off missiles & upgraded the Pakistani Orions to be used for overland surveillance rather than sell F-16s.
China won't be able to attack India and Taiwan at the same time.
That too when India and the US are natural allies.
I'm guessing Sukhoi, but I bet the F-16's were promised to Pakistani from day one for their help in Afganistan. They wanted and needed F-16 spares so badly before 9/11 that I can't believe the issue wouldn't have come up from the start.
Yes. It was also amazing how the Israeli Lavi looked just like an F-16 with canards ;)
India aligning itself against China would require a formal alliance with the US. India cant and wont go it alone against China.
And India will be willing to have an alliance with the US only if the US is willing to let go of Pakistan.
Yep,that's the most logical reason.Besides,gifts can also be used to encourage behaviour along expected lines,if not for rewards.Pakistan's record on nuclear proliferation & shutting down of terror groups hasn't been too satisfactory.Though I doubt things will drastically change with the military in power.
Wasn't the LAVI a joint US-Israeli project???IIRC,Lockheed Martin was involved.
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