Is India being rewarded for nuclear misbehavior?: India's first nuclear
blast in 1974; Former Prime Minister Indira Ghandi inspects the site.
The Frontier Post, Pakistan
U.S. Gives 'Original Sinner' India a Nuclear Free Ride
Has the
United States, its Western allies and even the world, favored India at the
expense of Pakistan? According to this editorial from Pakistan's Frontier
Post, Since India began its nuclear weapons program just after independence
in 1946, 'Americans and their Western sidekicks' have sought to reward it,
while seeking to punish Pakistan just for reacting responsibly to counter the
Indian threat.
The India-U.S. nuclear deal: While the U.S. needs to keep India 'on side' as a counterweight to China in a fast-changing world, many worry that offering New Dehli access to nuclear materials outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty may have gone too far.
General Tariq Majid, Chairman
Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, has commendably done some straight talking.
This was imperative to put the international jokers so frantically out to decry
and undermine Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence in their place. The general is
right: Pakistan is now a declared nuclear state, which is an inexorable reality
that better be recognized by the international community. The mischievous
specters being raised about Pakistan’s nuclear assets falling into undesirable
hands must also cease. Their bogey men are too obscene to have even a leg to
stand on.
Since they are so crucial to our
defense, Pakistan's nuclear establishment wouldn't leave securing such assets to
chance. The general forcefully brought up how Pakistan's pursuit of nuclear
weapons wasn't a choice, but a compulsion. As a matter of fact, a wealth of newly-published
evidence establishes beyond doubt that while Pakistan was producing isotopes
for the treatment of disease and the production of new seed strains for agriculture
in its nuclear facilities, India was well on its way to building a nuclear
weapon. It was a venture embarked upon by India’s first prime minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru, soon after independence - with the active support of the Western
powers. It was his daughter, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who detonated India’s first
nuclear bomb during her premiership in 1974, ironically labeling this vicious
weapon the, “Smiling
Buddha.”
Since India's vile nuclear
adventurism came only three years after she broke up Pakistan with her military
adventurism [the Bangladesh
Liberation War], Pakistan's security concerns were naturally exacerbated.
Those concerns rose dramatically as the world community, rather than reining in
India's nuclear pursuit, sought to punish Pakistan. All sorts of pressure and
embargos were imposed - including a halt to all military supplies from the
United States, where the troops were equipped predominantly with American
weaponry.
Appallingly, while Pakistan
was kept roasting on the spit, India was left free to move ahead with its
nuclear weapons program. When, in May of 1998, India conducted a series of
shocking atomic tests, there was much feigning and posturing of outrage in the world's
capitals - but no punishment. But sanctions on Pakistan came quick and fast the
moment it reacted with its own testing in the face of torrents threats and
bluster flowing from New Delhi. Today, that persistent discrimination against
Pakistan and consistent favoritism of India has donned new clothes.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Even though India is the
sinner that was guilty of unleashing the nuclear genie in the region, the
Americans and their Western sidekicks have sought to reward it. Obviously,
having been seduced by a lucrative Indian nuclear trade worth something like
$100 billion, the Americans have given the original sinner against
nonproliferation a deal. America's Western sidekicks have teamed up to get the
deal endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear
Suppliers Group, opening up the planet's nuclear storehouse to New Delhi, so it
can buy whatever it wants for its civilian program - thus creating all the
space it needs to freely and abundantly keep up with its nuclear weapons
pursuits.
Russia and France have already
concluded nuclear deals with India, while in her first Asia visit, U.S.
Secretary of State Clinton went straight to India and chose two locations for
ventures by American nuclear manufacturers and businesses. Not only are America
and its Western allies loath to give such deals to Pakistan, but the Obama Administration
has openly come out against two nuclear power plants that China has agreed to
build to help Pakistan combat its painful electrical shortage.
The U.S. administration has
left no doubt that it would oppose China's deal with Pakistan when it comes up
for approval before the Nuclear Suppliers Group, even though Beijing has made
it absolutely clear that the deal conforms to all IAEA safeguards. And since
the group makes its decisions by consensus, the fate of the deal is uncertain
if not outright impossible at this point in time.
So much for the Obama Administration’s
new strategic partnership with Pakistan - about which hierarchies in both
Washington and Islamabad are regaling our ears about so tiresomely and
jarringly.
