Posted on 05/11/2008 2:36:19 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
Ten years after India crashed the nuclear weapons club, the Bush administration is planning on rewarding it for its bad behavior.
When India conducted nuclear tests on May 11 and May 13, 1998, the Clinton administration condemned the tests and imposed sanctions. But now the Bush administration is condoning India's actions.
By provisionally agreeing to supply fuel, reactors and other technology to India's civilian nuclear sector, the United States is legitimizing a weapons project that India conceived in dishonesty. Back in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, India misused material and know-how provided by countries such as Canada and the United States for its nuclear energy program and diverted these toward nuclear arms.
Now, if Congress and India's governing coalition go along, the Bush administration will become a big booster of India's nuclear program.
"This deal is a disaster for the nuclear nonproliferation regime on the planet," says Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. "It blows a hole through any attempts in the future that we could make to convince the Pakistanis, or the Iranians, or the North Koreans, or for that matter any other country in the world that might be interested in obtaining nuclear weapons that there is a level playing field, that there is a real set of safeguards."
So why is the Bush administration being so generous with India? The answer is twofold.
First, it wants to enlist India as a junior partner in its global crusades. India will be expected to join the United States in its efforts to contain countries such as China and Iran.
Second, U.S. corporations want to profit from selling nuclear reactors and supplies to India.
The pact "will present a major opportunity for U.S. and Indian companies," Ron Somers, president of the U.S-India Business Council, has said. The council is frantically lobbying Congress for passage of the deal.
The agreement needs to be scrapped.
It legitimizes a nuclear weapons program that is primarily an ego trip on the part of the Indian ruling elite.
It accelerates the nuclear arms race in the region, forcing Pakistan to expand its program and inducing China into a more aggressive nuclear posture, too.
It encourages the squandering of the Indian government's scarce resources even when the country desperately needs to uplift its people.
It draws India into the Bush administration's ill-conceived global project.
And it reinforces the notion of nuclear weapons as legitimate, when they are repugnant and unworthy of any decent nation.
Surely, the world's oldest and largest democracies should both know better than to enter into such a devil's pact.
Thirdly, India was not signatory to any treaty restricting it from designing, manufacturing or stockpiling nuclear weapons.
India needs nuclear weapons to protect itself against Pakistan.
I feel just fine about India having nuclear weapons... India is the worlds largest democracy...and the US should always strive to be India’s partner in the WOT.
India should replace China as our largest trading partner...I’d rather buy stuff made in India than China any day!!!
Amen. I am all for helping India counter Pakistan and China. Support our friends against our foes.
“Amitabh Pal is the co-editor of the Progressive Media Project and the managing editor of The Progressive magazine”
This is what Wiki has to say about “the Progressive”
The Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics and culture with a pronounced leftist perspective. Known for its pacifism, it has strongly opposed military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage to civil rights, civil liberties, and environmentalism. It has opposed nuclear weapons from August 1945 to the present.
Ah, it fits now!
No problem with India. The Republic of India is a shining example of a success in advancing both capitalism and a republican form of government. In little over 60 years of independence, India had grown to become an economic power and stabilizing entity; while Pakistan, which achieved independence at the same time, has become a cesspool of Islamic intolerance, economic abyss and dictatorial strife. Knowing that India has nukes is a comforting thing.
We should all thank George W. Bush for “opening” India, like Richard Nixon “opened” China. It is one of the more far reaching hallmarks of his Presidency.
No one in Washington cared much of anything about India, and were shocked when Bush pretty much by himself ordered the State Department to reach out to India in a big way. Only Bush had the foresight to recognize India’s vast potential as a US ally now and in the future.
His timing was also perfect, as India at that moment had the best possible government both for India’s development and international interests.
The left in India were horrified, because they both abhor the US and are more loyal to leftism and India’s real enemy, China, than to their own country, much like the Democrats are in the US.
No, as far as U.S. policy is concerned, it would have been better if India had not started a nuclear arms race with Pakistan.
The better reason for the deal is that India has a legitimate need for power generating capacity, and this deal gives the U.S. more control to make sure the technology is used for peaceful purposes.
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