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Posted on 05/28/2002 7:48:36 PM PDT by Dallas
NEW DELHI, India --
India sharply criticized a speech by Pakistan's military leader as "disappointing and dangerous" on Tuesday and asserted that al-Qaida terrorists now are in disputed Kashmir.
The nuclear-armed South Asian rivals also cranked up their war rhetoric after Pakistan test-fired another missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads into India. The HatfII, or Abdali, missile was the third such missile tested by Pakistan since Saturday.
Despite international pressure, India said Tuesday it was unlikely that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would hold peace talks with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan.
"You cannot put a pistol of terrorism to my temple with the finger on the trigger and say, 'Dialogue with me, or I will release this trigger of terrorism,'" Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to bring Vajpayee and Musharraf together during an Asian summit in Kazakhstan next week. Pakistan has accepted, but Singh reiterated India would not resume dialogue until Pakistan stopped attacks in India-controlled Kashmir by Pakistan-based Islamic militants.
Also Tuesday, India's defense minister said fighters from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and from Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban are in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
"We have information that the number of terrorists who are on the other side of the border ... (are) people who have fled from Afghanistan, al-Qaida men and Talibanis," Defense Minister George Fernandes told Star News Television.
Singh also warned that American forces in the region were not a deterrent to a possible strike on Pakistan.
"The physical presence of U.S. troops in certain parts of Pakistan is clearly known to us ... and it is not an inhibiting factor in policy determination," he said.
Singh also restated India's policy that it would not strike first with nuclear weapons if a war should erupt. "India has not ever spoken of nuclear weapons," he said.
In Washington, the U.S. military was worried that the dispute could interfere with its search for al-Qaida fighters, a Pentagon spokeswoman said. A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there are signs Pakistani troops are preparing to move toward Kashmir from the Pakistan-Afghan border, where they are helping with the search.
After a NATO luncheon in Italy, Secretary-General Lord Robertson said President Bush, Putin and 18 other alliance leaders "share a deep common concern" and urged India and Pakistan "to de-escalate and resume talking together."
Singh repeated India's claim that Musharraf has done little to curb cross-border infiltration by militants and called his Monday night speech "disappointing and dangerous."
"Disappointing as it merely repeats some earlier reassurances that remain unfulfilled today," Singh said. "Dangerous because of deliberate posturing, tensions have been added, not reduced."
Musharraf also said Monday that Pakistan would not start a war, called attacks inside India the work of terrorists and renewed his call for unconditional negotiations.
He warned, however, that Pakistan would fight back "with full might" if attacked by India and would continue to support what he called Kashmir's "freedom struggle."
Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman in Islamabad responded to Singh on Tuesday by saying India first deployed troops at the border.
"The intemperate and shrill statements by its leaders have also served to heighten tensions between the two countries," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Britain, meanwhile, kept up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan.
"President Musharraf is under no doubt about expectations of the international community to take action, as well as the action he already has taken, to crack down on cross-border terrorism," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said after meeting Musharraf.
Straw planned to see Vajpayee in New Delhi on Wednesday.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since achieving independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir. Both nations claim the Himalayan province in its entirety.
The two nations put 1 million troops on high alert on both sides of their frontier after New Delhi blamed Pakistan-based militants for a December suicide assault on the Indian Parliament. The troops regularly exchange gunfire and heavy artillery and mortar fire.
Relations were further strained two weeks ago after an assault on an Indian army base in Kashmir killed 34 people.
Musharraf vowed in January to halt terrorists operating from Pakistani territory. India says he has done little to fulfill that pledge.
India accuses Pakistan of waging a proxy war by training and arming Islamic militants and allowing them to cross the frontier for the last 12 years. At least 60,000 people have died in the insurgency.
Meanwhile, India and Pakistan's new representatives at the United Nations on Tuesday publicly reaffirmed their countries' commitment to peace.
Vijay Nambiar, of India, and Munir Akran, his Pakistani counterpart, both swore to uphold the U.N. Charter -- whose main principle is preserving international peace.
In a statement, Akran called for negotiations. Nambiar reaffirmed India's commitment to the charter, adding his personal commitment "to see that we agree to further these goals."
"We continue to believe that the United nations has a legal, moral and historical responsibility to promote a just and peaceful solution to the Kashmir dispute and, more immediately, to prevent the recourse to logic of war in South Asia," Akran said.
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press
Vijay Nambiar, of India, and Munir Akran, his Pakistani counterpart, both swore to uphold the U.N. Charter -- whose main principle is preserving international peace.
Oh, like that really means something.
Adding more every week. It's overkill. 3 nukes would disrupt either country to a tremendous extent.
Pakistan's missile tests is definitely not the way to calm India down. It stirs up the "use it or lose it" fears that could trigger a pre-emptive strike.
It depends on how badly they want to fight. Right now, they are like two bullies who are trading insults on a playground -- each secretly hoping that their friends will intervene to keep them from actually fighting.
Naw, India and Pakistan are both receiving the big dogs from the Foreign Offices of the major powers, and are getting invitations from Russia, blah blah blah.
The whole world is stopping everything to either visit or call these leaders. These guys are eating it up. A region which has been forgotten and ignored for several years suddenly seems very important.
Meanwhile, the Indians have told all their officers to start using up all their vacation for the year.
War may happen, but it's not going to happen this summer unless some terrorists pull off another big strike in India.
Well, if the Indians slide a few nukes into the area where the Al Quesies and Tallibunnies are holed up, there will be little point in searching for them in that area anymore.
It may or may not be "overkill" a word too easily and often thrown about. If the launch sites of the other side are hardened, one may have to devote several warheads to each site, even if that means that a bunch of empty holes are struck. It's all about damage limitation in the *second* strike. You don't want the other guy to have the ability to lauch that second strike. OTOH, such a situtation is fairly stable, since striking first may not kill all the other sides retalitory assets.
Only after the other sides nuclear capable assets are taken care of, can one target its cities or conventional military assets.
India is a pretty big place, and while three nukes, would make a mess of the 3 largest cities, they might not have nearly the impact you might think. Nukes are powerfull, but not so very powerfull that a single one will totatly destroy a large city. Oh something in the 10+ Megaton range would, but I doubt the Indians or Pakistanies have anything that big...yet.
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Nostradomus may have been right! Satan is busy, I tell ya!!
The Bass Brothers, and Ted Turner have been buying up land in Nev/Ariz for the last few years (claiming it was for the water rights). It now appears it'll be beach front property when California falls into the ocean.
l. The top-secret earthquake-triggering weapon (ETW)
A weapon will developed in secret underground laboratories that can trigger earthquakes at existing fault zones. It will work from a scientific principle recently discovered but not yet developed. The weapon will involve an airplane or airborne origination that may drop something or project a laser ray onto a region. An extension of the device is carried in a plane that flies over the area and focuses energy waves where the earthquake is to be triggered. The more technologically complex power source will be based and channelled from the secret laboratory via the plane.
The country that develops this will be able to hold it as a major threat against major nations, because most nations have geological faults that are susceptible to earthquakes and therefore the weapon. The situation will parallel the development of the atomic bomb by the U.S. in that the country will be the sole owner and the capability for destruction will be so awe-inspiring and frightening that everyone, including the infidels, will call upon the saints for protection.
m. Diplomacy dies with international earthquake terrorism
The revelation of the weapon will cause a disintegration of diplomatic nations and the United Nations will eventually dissolve, because the paranoid nation that developed the weapon will not share its technology but instead use it as a method of international terrorism.
n. ETW unleashed on San Andreas and New Madrid faults
The weapon will not be revealed immediately to the world. Only after the country actually uses it and there is an earthquake generated by it, followed by many others that occur without the characteristic buildup of geological pressure, will people become suspicious. The initial earthquake triggered by the weapon will be sufficient to cause other earthquakes in a chain reaction. The San Andreas and New Madrid faults in the U.S. will be affected. The San Andreas will continually rumble and vibrate as a result of the earthquakes triggered by the weapon, in time driving the New Madrid fault to eventually erupt explosively and violently. Initially geologists will think the earthquakes are due to natural causes but later information will point elsewhere and they'll begin to be suspicious. After more earthquakes and further evidence they will finally confront the scientific world with the mounting evidence that they are not natural.
o. Antichrist obtains ETW through espionage and treachery
During the time of radical earth changes this weapon will be applied to create many earthquakes, generally before the Antichrist comes to power. The nation that develops the machine builds it independent of the Antichrist's forces, but later when he gains greater power he will be able to acquire the weapon. He'll seize the machine for his own agenda of worldwide conquest. The Antichrist will acquire the machine through deceit, trickery, spies, bribery, and all other nefarious means known to man.
| Location | Size | Count |
| Hiroshima | 12 kiloton | 1 |
| Nagasaki | 10 kiloton | 1 |
| India | 15-60 kilotons each | 20-60 |
| Pakistan | 15-25 kilotons each | 10-30 |
| Russia | 3-50 megatons each | 2,000+ |
Operation Cue (500kb) Beginning in 1953 the Federal Civil Defense Adminstration, working with the Atomic Energy Commission, set up an atomic test program to investigate the effects of nuclear weapons on typical American homes and their furnishings. |
Operation Castle (300kb) Operation Castle, a series of thermonuclear tests, was conducted in the Marshall Islands in the spring of 1954. The 15 megaton Bravo detonation was over 1,000 times larger than Hiroshima. |
Layer Cake Design (500kb) In Andrei Sakharov's Layer Cake design, several layers of light and heavy elements were alternated. High explosives surrounding the Layer Cake would be used to implode and ignite the atomic bomb at the center of the device. The atomic explosion would then set off a fusion reaction in the deuterium. |
Operation Cue (300kb) Each home was equipped with refrigerators, typical appliances, the kinds of food one would eat, from baby food to adult food, and were exposed to the blast. |
Operation Castle (100kb) Operation Castle yielded more fallout than any of the other U.S. thermonuclear tests, contaminating military personnel and civilians on nearby islands. |
Camp Desert Rock (900kb) Camp Desert Rock, Nevada - The U.S. military began using smaller blasts to learn how to fight a nuclear war. On April 22, 1952 approximately 2,000 Army personnel conducted maneuvers beneath the mushroom cloud of the 31-kiloton Charlie nuclear detonation. |
An excellent point that gets overlooked far too often, thanks to 50 years of the Left's nuclear fearmongering. The purpose of nuclear weapons is not to kill civilians, it's to eliminate the enemy's capacity to wage war. Killing 10 million civilians per side will certainly disrupt the economy, but it will not wreck either side's ability to wage war in the short term—and in the long term indiscriminate slaughter simply stiffens the enemy's resolve. If, for example, Pakistan nuked 10 million Indians, you'd see the remaining 993 million Indians march north with pointed sticks if necessary to do to Pakistan what Rome did to Carthage. You cannot afford to toss nukes at civilian targets until you have rendered the enemy totally incapable of bringing war to you (c.f. Japan in August 1945).
Nukes, if used, will be used against military targets. Now, that doesn't mean civilians won't die in droves—in that part of the world, you get a heavy rainstorm and a thousand people die, so certainly the death toll from a nuclear exchange may reach seven figures. But the real targets will be first the enemy's nuclear arsenal, followed by conventional marshalling areas, supply chokepoints and command centers. You can expect dams to be hit, which will of course kill many thousands, but again, the intent is to disrupt convoys, not kill civilians. But dropping a nuke into the middle of New Delhi or Islamabad? It's not likely to happen. Not because either side's generals are saints, but because they are generals, not terrorists—they are trying to accomplish military objectives, and killing even 1% of the enemy's noncombatants simply doesn't serve those goals. Neither side has enough nukes to hit all the militarily useful targets; they're not going to squander a precious, irreplaceable resource on civilians.
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