What the Indian giver got

[I'm Gone 60]

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=49144

Standing beside Pervez Musharraf, an ally in the war on terror, President Bush explained how he told him Pakistan would not be getting the same aid in developing peaceful nuclear power that Bush had just promised to India:

"I explained that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories. So as we proceed forward, our strategy will take in effect those well-known differences."

Bush was bluntly saying India is a democracy we can trust not to spread nuclear technology, but we're not sure we trust you. After all, your boy A.Q. Khan was running a Home Depot for A-bomb technology.

Unstated message: We're not sure any nuke technology we give you, Pervez, will not end up in an al-Qaida madrassa. For there is no guarantee you will be around that long, Pervez, given your enemies have tried to kill you four times and elections are to be held in 2007.

If Musharraf feels he was asked to come through the service entrance and given the bum's rush, who can blame him?

While even his greatest admirers do not confuse Bush with Bismarck, what the president did on his Asia tour seems inexplicable.

In the Cold War, India aligned with Moscow and repeatedly fought a smaller Pakistan that was our friend. In the war on terror, no ally has taken greater risks than Musharraf. While both India and Pakistan refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India was first to break faith with a West that gave it nuclear technology and the first to test nuclear weapons.

Why, then, did Bush agree to transfer U.S. nuclear technology only to India? In so doing, he insulted an ally and blew a hole right through the NPT regime on which we stand to make our demands on Iran and North Korea?

Apparently, at an all-night session on the last night in India, the U.S. negotiators capitulated to all of India's demands, lest Bush leave New Delhi with nothing to show for a trip halfway around the world but an agreement to import mangoes.

What did Bush give – and get?

India will be given the same access as Japan to U.S. technology and nuclear fuel, which will enable India to divert its fuel to weapons.

India agreed to let the International Atomic Energy Agency inspect 14 of its 22 nuclear facilities, while eight, military in nature, are off-limits. This is a like a college president agreeing to let cops search the dorm for a stash of marijuana – as long as they stay off the sixth, seventh and eighth floors.

Would the United States permit Iran, which signed the NPT and has allowed IAEA inspections of all known nuclear facilities, to agree to a deal like this? No way. We don't trust them – but we trust a democratic India that already has the fruits of its past deceit, a nuclear arsenal.

Unilaterally, Bush has decided that democracies who refuse to sign the NPT and secretly build, test and maintain nuclear weapons will be exempt from the laws. Nations we do not entirely trust, like Pakistan, get no help. Nations we detest, like Iran, face sanctions and preventive wars.

While Pakistan was sent to the back of the bus, this was a triumph for India. Bush got nothing but press clippings for his presidential scrapbook.

What happens now?

Israel, which has also refused to sign the NPT and has 200 to 300 nuclear weapons, will demand the same nuclear technology that India got. On what grounds can Bush deny Israel?

And while Bush may grant exemptions from U.S. law and the NPT regime for countries he views as friendly and democratic, China is likely to provide similar aid to its friends, democratic or not, and step into the breach Bush opened with Pakistan.

Iran will use the U.S. concessions to India to show U.S. hypocrisy. For unlike New Delhi, Tehran signed the NPT, agreed to open up its nuclear facilities and never tested a bomb. On this one, Democratic Rep. Ed Markey is right: "America cannot preach nuclear temperance from a barstool."

That Bush decided to end decades of estrangement between America and India, and make her a friend and partner, letting Cold War bygones be bygones, is commendable. But why did we have to pay a price for India's friendship? Economically, India sells twice as much to us as she buys, and outsourcing benefits her workers, not ours.

As for India being a counterweight to China, we don't have to pay for that. With Muslims to the east and west, Chinese to the north, and Maoists in Nepal, India needs us more than we need India.

Nor is New Delhi so foolish as to allow herself to be dragooned into some NATO-like U.S. alliance to encircle or contain China. She has good lines to nations not exactly our friends: Iran, Syria and Cuba.

In New Delhi, Bush traded a horse for a rabbit, and some of us are wondering as to the whereabouts of the rabbit.

[Melo 1]

Heheheeh!!!! This sounds like the ravings and rantings of a mentally-challenged person!!!

[Fischkoepfin 1]

I have to agree with Buchanan as much as I despise his politics. The nuclear deal with India came at about the worst possible time, and, given the importance of Pakistan in the "war on terror," embarrassing Musharref was about the worst possible thing to do; after all, what incentive does Pakistan have now to continue searching for Al-Qaida members when the US shows more interest in furthering the technological well-being of Pakistans arch-enemy...

Additionally by rewarding India for not signing the NPT with access to nuclear technology, other nations are encouraged to leave the NPT since that seems to be the best way to become a nuclear nation.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Heheheeh!!!! This sounds like the ravings and rantings of a mentally-challenged person!!!

It really doesn't. Buchanan (while way out there on many issues and usually too isolationist in my view) has nothing but pointed out the gross incompetence of the Bush administration on the playing field of foreign affairs. The US (and the world) has but one leg to stand on with Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions: The NPT. Bush managed to practically bury it. Well done!

[pax 0]

Ugh, I can't believe I'm agreeing with Pat Buchanan.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Heheheeh!!!! This sounds like the ravings and rantings of a mentally-challenged person!!!

You hit a sixer here Melo.

Actual record historically:

• Pakistan started 1965 and 1971 wars
  • 1965, there was trouble in Baluchistan (from which Ayub wanted to divert attention) plus perception that India would crumble easily to assault (as it had suffered defeat from China in 1962)--result was that Ayub started a war with India, Pakistan got driven back and its economy tanked even more than India's afterward
    
  • 1971, Yahya Khan, refusing to give up power to legally elected Mujib, started massacring his own country's citizens--and then compounded it by attempting to conquer India "in one fell blow"; result of both was splitting off of East Pakistan as Bangladesh
    

  [*]Also, in 1987 a Pakistani agent Arshad Pervez was caught red-handed at JFK (just before boarding a PIA flight) with Krytrons (A-bomb triggers) in his briefcase; no Indian was ever caught with such devices at any time (because India's establishment had developed its own version, albeit cruder)

  [*]Also, how Pakistan became an ally in the "war on terror"--after 9-11, Musharraf saw that

  • US was going to invade Afghanistan
    
  • As Pakistan Army (and ISI) had supported insurgencies in Indian Punjab and J&K, India could easily sieze such an opportunity for a "joint invasion"--eliminating Musharraf's government (especially by also pointing out to US that Pak Army/ISI had also been the Taliban's main materiel backer from 1996-2001)
    

  and so had to pip these at the post

  [*]Plus, the only agreement "violated" by India (there were no specifics in the initial nuclear aid agreements from Canada, UK and US) would be the NPT--and it is impossible to actually violate a treaty which one never signed.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Heheheeh!!!! This sounds like the ravings and rantings of a mentally-challenged person!!!

You hit a sixer here Melo.

Being Indian (or Pakistani), it's probably harder to view this somewhat objectively...

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Heheheeh!!!! This sounds like the ravings and rantings of a mentally-challenged person!!!

You hit a sixer here Melo.

Being Indian (or Pakistani), it's probably harder to view this somewhat objectively...

Whatever, ET. That's like saying you can't be objective about German politics. Sure you can. And so can we, give us some goddamn credit.

I'm glad India never signed the NPT and I hope she never does. It's a discriminatory treaty meant to preserve the nuclear status quo. It just pretends to be about world peace, all it's really about is making sure no one else can ever challenge the big-dogs of the world stage. Give me a break.

And as for this particular deal, India shouldn't ratify it. No way should they allow foreigners onto their sites. Look at what joining the world community on this issue (by signing the NPT) has done for Iran. The West is all up in their face about them developing nuclear weapons. It's their goddamn right to develop them.. they're a free country, not some fukcing colony of the United States. I hope the Indian parliament tells Bush to shove his agreement where the sun don't shine. India tested its first bomb back in '74 and they've come a long way without American help. They don't need it, they'll be fine. Might take longer, but that's ok. What's the hurry?

Edited March 9, 2006 by Agent Smith

[Mirorgate 0]

Personally... the thought of any nation having Nukes scares me.

It literally only takes one madman... regardless of nationality.. to touch off the end of this planet.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

...

Nukes for all, eh? Great concept! Or maybe not...

[almaty 19]

Ugh, I can't believe I'm agreeing with Pat Buchanan.

me too

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

...

Nukes for all, eh? Great concept! Or maybe not...

Tell you what. You can get on your high horse and ask other countries to not make nuclear weapons as soon as countries of the West get rid of theirs. Until then, stfu.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

...

Nukes for all, eh? Great concept! Or maybe not...

Tell you what. You can get on your high horse and ask other countries to not make nuclear weapons as soon as countries of the West get rid of theirs. Until then, stfu.

The West? Did they move China and Russia lately?

Edited March 9, 2006 by ET-US2004

[I'm Gone 60]

Actual record historically:

[*]Pakistan started 1965 and 1971 wars

[*]1965, there was trouble in Baluchistan (from which Ayub wanted to divert attention) plus perception that India would crumble easily to assault (as it had suffered defeat from China in 1962)--result was that Ayub started a war with India, Pakistan got driven back and its economy tanked even more than India's afterward

[*]1971, Yahya Khan, refusing to give up power to legally elected Mujib, started massacring his own country's citizens-

I guess like Arabs and Israel, both sides will say the other started things first. So what's the major point of contention? religion? This a recent hatred or does go back to 1000 A.D. when some guy from Pakistan gave the King of India the finger? LOL

Haven't people in India done a pretty good job of rubbing each other out too?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

...

Nukes for all, eh? Great concept! Or maybe not...

Tell you what. You can get on your high horse and ask other countries to not make nuclear weapons as soon as countries of the West get rid of theirs. Until then, stfu.

The West? Did they move China and Russia lately?

In case you haven't noticed, most of the open moralizing on this issue is coming from Europe and the United States.