India and US - III

02-01-2006, 08:05 AM

Interesting read.
PRIVILEGES AND PERILS
- The US ambassadorâs job in Delhi is not an easy one
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060131/asp/...ory_5786690.asp

**acharya** · 02-01-2006, 04:20 PM

http://www.helpamerica.us/foremo.html

02-02-2006, 12:47 AM

US denies economic 'threat' from India, ChinaQUOTEThe officials briefed reporters a day after USÂ Â Â President George W. Bush called in his annual State of the Union speech for enhancing the teaching of math and science in US schools and for sharply increasing scientific research.

In his speech, Bush warned that the United States "cannot be complacent" and warned that "we are seeing new competitors, like China and India, and this creates uncertainty, which makes it easier to feed people's fears."

But "this is not about going up against China and India," said John Marburger, the director of the White House's office of science and technology policy. "This is about leading the world."


Bush Says U.S. Must Not Retreat Into Isolationism QUOTEFeb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said he recognized the threat of terrorism and economic competition from China and India are creating uncertainty and anxiety in the U.S. and warned the public against withdrawing into isolationism. ....................

02-05-2006, 10:28 AM

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/04iran4...?q=tp&file=.htm

02-09-2006, 09:41 PM

http://us.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/09guest.htm

QUOTEGeorge W Bush's protocol handlers have notified South Block that the American President's deep belief in his born again faith precludes his visiting Mahatma Gandhi's Samadhi at New Delhi's Raj Ghat -- during his forthcoming visit to India.

When asked -- by reporters on a recent trip aboard Air Force One -- if he will be breaking a decades long tradition of foreign dignitaries visiting India paying respect to the Father of India, Mr Bush, as is his wont, was caught off guard and mumbled something about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ views cremation as a pagan practice.

ramana · 02-09-2006, 10:16 PM

There was news item on Paul Harvey radio show about UK Hindus and Sikhs asking for the right to have open air cremation. The tone implied that whats happening ot the world now.

Also cremation in US is a recent 30 to 40 year phenomena. Must have had church influence.

02-10-2006, 05:39 PM

QUOTEIndo-US ties will help Indians gain political clout: Subrahmanyam

February 09, 2006 23:54 IST

The ongoing ties with the US will help Indians gain political clout in Washington much like the Israeli Jews, Chairman of the Taskforce on Global Strategic Developments K Subrahmanyam said Thursday.

Addressing a lecture on 'Challenges and Prospects for Indo-US Relations' at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, he said the present Indian population of 2 million in the US could well go up to 5 million in the next 10-20 years giving it "critical mass" to influence political decisions there.

Subrahmanyam debunked those advocating a China-India-Russia triangle to counter the US, saying it would not work.

"Where are your cousins and nieces? Are they in Beijing or Shanghai," he asked adding, India's relationship with the US spanned many years and such ties cannot be replicated either with Russia or China.

There is no doubt that Washington was trying to befriend India to serve its own purpose and interests, and was now willing to accept New Delhi as partner and not an ally, Subrahmanyam said.

India therefore had a leverage, he added. Subrahmanyam said the US was worried over the rapid growth of China and feared Beijing overtaking it.

Washington believed English-speaking youths, trained manpower, political stability, huge young skilled workforce, among others, in India would be to its advantage.

India would also help the US solve its economic problems in the future, he observed.
According to him, ideas to befriend India in the US came from intellectuals like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a professor in International Relations.

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/09tie...&file=.htm

**acharya** · 02-13-2006, 07:16 AM

Lot of new things in this article form The Hindu

http://www.hindu.com/2006/02/13/stories/...411000.htm

Americans and anti-Americanism

Harish Khare

Whatever may or may not be the Americans' motives, they have revived a four-decade tradition of anti-Americanism in Indian politics.

TWO WEEKS ago Uma Bharti decided to visit The Hindu office in New Delhi. With characteristic bluntness the Bharatiya Janata Party "rebel" stated the purpose of her visit: she wanted an assurance that The Hindu would not succumb to "pressure" from the BJP establishment to black her out of its news pages. The assurance was readily and sincerely given. This business out of the way, I asked for her take on one of the mysteries of our times: L.K. Advani's praise for Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a secular icon. Why?

With characteristic bluntness, Ms. Bharti explained: because Advaniji wants to become Prime Minister of India with American blessings. Elaborate, if you please. Because Manmohan Singh had refused the American plan of India making concessions to General Pervez Musharraf on converting the Line of Control into the international boundary, the Americans were looking for a pliable man and Advaniji was amenable to Washington's script. When it was pointed out to her that the next Lok Sabha election was more than three years away and that was really too long a time in politics, an untroubled Ms. Bharati argued that the American game plan was to so organise things as to make Advaniji Prime Minister in this Lok Sabha.

Fantasy of an over-active imagination? Or, just a reflection of a belief across the entire political class that somehow the Americans have the leverage and the Machiavellian capacity to re-arrange the chessboard of Indian politics? Or, a subconscious assumption that the other person would knowingly and willingly sell out the country just to enjoy an uncertain power stint with the help of this or that foreign power?

This is not a new phenomenon. Throughout the 1970s Indira Gandhi's critics suspected her of doing the Soviets' bidding in order to stay in power, while she accused her detractors of being in league with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), out to destabilise her regime just as they had in Chile and in other parts of the world. In the 1980s, Rajiv Gandhi's supporters regularly accused V.P. Singh of being guided by foreign agencies, mostly American. In the 1990s, the P.V. Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh team was charged with carrying out an agenda spelt out by outsiders. This was the most dangerous period Later, it was Atal Bihari Vajpayee's turn to answer his own swadeshi sangh parivar that reviled him for selling out to the videshi. The foreigner has a habit of complicating our internal equations.

The foreigner â the American, to be precise â is once again at the core of the current turmoil in national politics. And the Americans have done enough to lend some credence to Uma Bharti's conspiracy theory. The Americans have made the mistake of positing a linkage between the Bush-Manmohan Singh Civilian Nuclear Agreement of 2005 and Iran's nuclear profile. If it was not enough that assorted Americans in Washington have butted in with their presumptuousness, the gentleman at Roosevelt House has come up with his own undiplomatic formulations and communications, each calculated to bring together all the latent anti-American forces and impulses. The American Ambassador has succeeded brilliantly.
To keep the govt weak with many opposition was the aim of Uncle when the negotiation is going on.
Almost everybody â from the extreme Left to the Third Front wallahs to the extreme Right â has reason to question the Manmohan Singh Government's stance towards the United States. Whatever may or may not be the Americans' motives, they have revived a four-decade tradition of anti-Americanism. Though the various voices have different calculations, a gang-up cannot be ruled out entirely given the desperation among certain unsavoury political entrepreneurs.

Much of the responsibility for this unhelpful situation rests with the Congress leadership and the Prime Minister and his aides. Of all the political forces in this country, the Congress Party has the least to apologise for when it comes to standing up to the Americans. In fact, the only time India defied the United States was when a Congress Prime Minister refused to be cowed down by the Nixon-Kissinger gunboat diplomacy of the USS Enterprise kind. Yet the Congress has allowed other voices to walk away with the nationalistic pretensions.

Part of the problem is the lack of appreciation among the Prime Minister and his aides of the need to speak out. Ever since Natwar Singh had to pack his bags at the Ministry of External Affairs, two eminently competent professionals â National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran â have shared the burden of conducting foreign policy. While the latter is a trained diplomat and hence not expected to pitch in in the task of selling at home a particular policy, the former being a lifelong (and distinguished) policeman remains unconvinced of the need to sell his foreign policy wares in the democratic marketplace. The Prime Minister, who holds charge of foreign policy, has not devised the format of going public with the arguments and rationales behind this or that policy initiative. He is content to do the institutionally correct thing: making a statement in Parliament, and waiting for a debate when the Lok Sabha meets for its Budget Session later this week.

Meanwhile the detractors, dissenters, and doubters have almost run away with the nuclear deal/Iran vote debate. In the public discourse over these two developments, most of the arguments â for or against â have been provided by "strategic" experts, who in turn are being internet-worked by not-so-uninterested friends across Chanakyapuri.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that except for three or four among our public officials (Brajesh Mishra, Jaswant Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, and Manmohan Singh), the political class is vastly under-equipped to debate the technical and technological issues involved in Iran's nuclear ambitions or in the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement. Most of the political leaders have native wisdom and some education as well as varying and rich life experience of sorting out masses' deprivations and dreams. They are used to trafficking in slogans and shibboleths, rather than debating nuanced policy issues. In matters like nuclear issues, each leader and each party has to necessarily depend upon this or that strategic expert and his or her biases. The Manmohan Singh regime has failed to see this crucial gap; it could use all its resources and advantages to calibrate the debate on these two politically dicey issues. Instead, it has (mostly) opted for silence.

Unfamiliar situation

Now, the political system finds itself faced with a new and unfamiliar situation. All these years atomic energy was the plaything of a super-elite. Once in a while a political leader â Indira Gandhi in 1974 and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1998 â would seek to garner popular advantage out of a bomb; but most of the time, how and what to do in the nuclear field was left to the Atomic Energy Commission. Suddenly the political leaders and parties are keen to have their say. Complex issues such as "energy security" or "nuclear technology" mean very little to the vast majority of citizens.

How can the concept of energy security be relevant or explained to the Muslim underclasses in Sitapur or to the Dalits in Mirzapur when their mohallas and bastis do not get electricity for four hours in a day?

For expedient political reasons various political leaders are tapping emotions, from conventional anti Americanism to Muslim sensitivities, in the process even conceding an unhealthy veto power to the minorities over foreign policy. The Telugu Desam Party chief, Chandrababu Naidu, reportedly said: "India has a large Muslim population and we cannot allow their sentiments to be hurt on such issues." This is a dangerous reasoning and in the long run bound to beget reaction of the majoritarian kind. For good measure, Mr. Naidu also accuses the Government of succumbing to American pressure. This from a leader who till the other day showcased himself as the CEO of Andhra Pradesh for every visiting American delegation, from Bill Gates to Bill Clinton.

In the weeks to come, the maturity and wisdom of leadership in all political parties will be tested. The rest of the world will watch how we are able to sort out complex policy issues within the framework of a democratic polity as also whether the ruling establishment is able to use domestic dissent to pursue optimal policies with demonstrable competence, finesse, and fancy diplomatic foot-work. At home, we will need to ensure that unsavoury characters do not use anti-Americanism to pursue their limited agendas.

02-13-2006, 01:54 PM

The Iran nuclear issue has cast its shadow on the domestic politics of India. The Left and the SP are apparently trying to give a communal colour to the issue, with an eye to keep their Muslim vote banks intact. The Congress is not far behind; the recent amendment to the procedure for detection of Foreigners in Assam is a pointer to that direction.
While the Iranian nuclear issue is being made use of in our domestic political moves, the importance of the issue in the context of Indiaâs Security aspect may increasingly get overlooked. It is unfortunate, that some of our political leaders are not interested in the prevention of the growth of another nuclear power in the neighbourhood of India. They are more interested in keeping their Muslim vote bank intact, with an eye to the elections to some of the State Assemblies in the immediate future. Let us hope a wiser sense will prevail on them.

02-14-2006, 05:22 PM

The following article in the Imternational Herald Tribune of 13 Feb is worth noting.-
Quote

NEW DELHI With international attention focused on Iran's renegade nuclear program, a much-trumpeted nuclear deal that was to showcase the emerging global strategic partnership between the United States and India has begun to unravel virtually unnoticed.

Unless the United States rolls back its demands, it is almost certain that no formal nuclear agreement will be ready for signature when President George W. Bush arrives in New Delhi on March 1. A barren U.S. presidential visit would ensure a slow death for the accord.

That accord represented a statement of intent to promote civil nuclear-energy cooperation. Since it was announced last July, intense negotiations on a formal agreement have run into major hurdles over U.S. efforts to shift the goalpost, triggering an Indian backlash. The present and former chiefs of the Indian nuclear program have vented their fury in public against the U.S. negotiating goals.

The concern in Washington over the July deal coming loose has found expression in contradictory ways - first an undiplomatic outburst by the U.S. ambassador to India that resulted in him being summoned to the Indian foreign office for an admonition, and then the dangling of a new carrot.

To salvage the deal, the Bush administration is offering to include India in its proposed global energy partnership program that is to supply countries with reactor fuel and take back the spent fuel afterward to prevent its use weaponry. The dubious plan is to rely on a technology that at present remains prone to catching fire and is not cost-effective. The U.S. Congress, moreover, is unlikely to change the law to allow the dumping of foreign-generated nuclear waste.

In any case, the invitation to India is contingent upon successful negotiations to implement last July's accord. Those negotiations, however, have been caught up in battles over U.S. demands that India bring much of its autonomous nuclear program under permanent international inspections.

New Delhi "reciprocally" agreed in July to accept a series of legally binding obligations that include the civil-military separation of its nuclear program. But no sooner had the accord had been signed than Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns repudiated the principle of reciprocity, declaring the accord "will have to be implemented by the Indian government and then we will have to seek these changes from the Congress."

While the accord merely states that India will begin "identifying and separating civilian and military nuclear facilities and programs in a phased manner," Washington has added specific conditionality - that such a separation plan be "credible," "transparent" and "defensible." Put simply, America has set itself up as the arbiter to whom India is answerable. In contrast, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assured India's Parliament that, "It will be an autonomous Indian decision as to what is 'civilian' and what is 'military."'

Washington has also sought to renege on the accord's central plank - that India would "assume the same responsibilities and practices and acquire the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology." Washington now insists India cannot pursue the same "practices" as the five established nuclear powers, which offer nuclear materials and facilities for International Atomic Energy Agency inspections in return for token inspections by the agency.

U.S. negotiators are also insisting on a watertight civil-military separation in India, contrary to the practice in the other nuclear powers, most of which do not even pretend to have carried out any such segregation. Furthermore, by seeking to apply international inspections to the Indian uranium-enrichment and beryllium facilities and to the dual-purpose fast-breeder program, U.S. negotiators are seeking to constrict India's nuclear military capability before New Delhi has built a credible minimal deterrent against its main rival, China.

America's goalpost-shifting approach shows it will accept India at most as a second-class nuclear power. India is unlikely to countenance that. The only way the deadlock can be broken is through political intervention at the highest level. And by a return to the principles enshrined in last July's accord.

(Brahma Chellaney is a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi.)
Unquote

02-15-2006, 06:53 AM

USA â INDIA NUCLEAR DEAL GENERATES "GREAT INDIAN DIVIDE"

02-15-2006, 06:58 AM

QUOTEAmerica's goalpost-shifting approach shows it will accept India at most as a second-class nuclear power. India is unlikely to countenance that. The only way the deadlock can be broken is through political intervention at the highest level. And by a return to the principles enshrined in last July's accord.


US will try to extract every single drop from India and every favor from US will be attached with COngress approval.
US may play real political trick. More paid opposition, you may soon see lot of articles and discussion on this issue in different Univ. by Indian commies in US.

**Hauma Hamiddha** · 02-17-2006, 10:58 AM

Friday, February 17, 2006
US refuses visa to ex-IISc chief, member of PM panel

Goverdhan Mehta 'Most degrading experience,' says top scientist, US
Embassy staff suggested he's linked to chemical warfare

PALLAVA BAGLA

NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 16 Questioning his internationally acclaimed
credentials and suggesting that he was working in "chemical warfare and
bioterrorism," the United States has refused an entry visa to Professor
Goverdhan Mehta, former director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,
and one of the world's top scientists in organic chemistry.
This despite the fact that Mehta, a member of Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh's Scientific Advisory Committee, has been to the US 20 times, the most
recent being May 2005 when he delivered a lecture at the National Academy of
Sciences in Washington, DC.

And in 2004, when he participated in the Indo-US S&T Forum Governing body
meeting under the aegis of the White House.

"This is the most degrading experience of my life," Mehta told The Indian
Express, "it's reminiscent of the (current) American ignorance and arrogance."
Mehta has informed the university declining its invitation.

Mehta applied for the visa in Chennai after he was invited as a visiting
professor by the University of Florida at Gainesville, and for a lecture at the
American Chemical Society.

On February 9, Mehta appeared for the visa interview. He said he was
"repeatedly humiliated" by the consular officer who accused him of "hiding
things" suggesting that Mehta's work related to chemical warfare and
bioterrorism.

Confirming that Mehta was turned away without grant of a visa, David
Kennedy, spokesman for the US Embassy in New Delhi, said it was a "pretty
standard affair to ask for more information."

Mehta said he told US officials that all his academic research was in the
public domain and related to "new molecular entities" and "by no stretch of
imagination (could be) related to chemical warfare."

"At one point he (the consular officer) even asked me about my PhD
research carried out 40 years ago. I tried to plead that I have been invited by
a university as visiting professor."

"Distressed" over the treatment meted out to one India's top scientists, R
A Mashelkar, president of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), said this
was a "very unfortunate" incident.

Ironically, the Paris-based International Council of Science, of which
Mehta is the president, is a global organisation committed to the rights of the
free movement of scientists. It's the oldest and largest federation of science
academies with over 100 national academies including the US Academy as its
members.

Earlier before taking over as president of ICSU, in a 2004 piece in
Science magazine, Mehta had written: "All scientists should have the possibility
of participating without discrimination."

URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story....t_id=88076

. A Fulbright scholar, Mehta is member of the governing board of Indo-US Science
and Technology Forum
. A former member of the governing board of the United States Educational
Foundation in India (USEFI)
. President, International Council of Science, a world body of national science
academies
. Has been to the US 20 times, lectured at National Academy of Sciences in
Washington in May 2005
. Paul Tarrant Distinguished Professor at University of Florida in 2001

02-17-2006, 09:55 PM

Its hard to see this incident in isolation. I dont know whether GWB even knows about these details but if he has any personal plans to buddy up with India these steps have dealt a solid blow to those plans.

In a way its good that these things are happening right now - Indians are getting trained in the yanky concfept of 'friendship' - slapping with one hand while shaking hands with the other.

02-17-2006, 11:17 PM

The dhimmis at US SD are in full swing..

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display..../wf-latest.html

02-23-2006, 11:05 PM

MY WASHINGTON DIARY -by B. Raman
QUOTE5. Let there be no doubt about it. There is a hardening of American public opinion against Islamic fundamentalism in the wake of the incidents of violence over the Danish cartoons. "The time for euphemisms is gone. Let us call a spade a spade. It is not just jihadi terrorism. It is Islamic extremism, Islamic terrorism. We do not want a clash of civilisations. It is Osama bin Laden and his followers, who are projecting their terrorism as a clash of civilisations. We have to confront it head-on." That is the argument I heard again and again from circles close to the neo-conservatives.

QUOTE9. Everybody in the US without exception is convinced that Iran should not be allowed to acquire a military nuclear capability. There is a difference of opinion as to how imminent is a nuclear Iran. The professionals argue it is still years away and hence there is time to give diplomacy a chance to find a solution. The ideologues argue that it is only months away. Some say that Iran must be presumed to be already nuclear and acted against immediately. A nuclear Iran is seen as a threat not only to Israel, but also to the US.

10. The ideologues blame the Clinton Administration for the present crisis relating to Iran. They criticise Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Madeline Albright, his Secretary of State, for trusting former Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami and for placing the ideological opponents of the Teheran regime such as the Mujahideen-e-Khalq in the list of terrorist organisations as an overture to them. They say it is absurd to talk of moderates in the Iranian Islamic circles. Everybody in Iran wants to destroy Israel and damage the US interests. Mr. Khatami did not talk about it openly whereas the present President Mr. Ahmadinejad, does it openly. So they believe. They feel the Clinton Administration should have destroyed the Uranium Hexafluoride plant at Isphahan and the enrichment plant at Natanz even when they were under construction instead of allowing them to be completed. If one points out that even the Bush administration had closed its eyes to the goings-on in Isphahan and Natanz till 2004 because it needed Teheran's complicity for its invasion and occupation of Iraq, one is disliked.

11. The ideologues, who feel that much time has already been wasted on diplomacy, demand the immediate announcement of a programme for bringing about a regime change in Teheran through political covert action and not through military invasion as was done in Iraq and an air strike against all nuclear establishments of Iran to be undertaken even before a regime change is achieved. They argue that a regime change will take some time to bring about and insist that an air strike on the nuclear establishments should be undertaken within the next six months. As the first step in the exercise to bring about a regime change, they want the administration to remove the terrorist tab on the Mujahideen-e-Khalq.

12. Amongst the other arguments which I came across are:

It would be unwise for the US to encourage Israel to do the job without the US directly getting involved. It could unite the Islamic world behind Iran.Â

The US should do it, but not unilaterally. The ideal would be for the US to launch an air strike on behalf of the UN. However, it is unlikely due to a possible veto in the UN Security Council by Russia and China. The US should, therefore, do it on behalf of the NATO, which should not pose any difficulty since countries such as France and Germany share the US concerns over a nuclear Iran.Â

A purely US strike on behalf of the NATO could be projected by the jihadi extremists as part of the clash of civilisation between the Muslims and the Christians (crusaders). The US should, therefore, build a coalition of the willing to back a NATO air strike consisting of some important non-Christian states such as India, Japan and Singapore. Hence, the importance of India. The implementation of the civilian nuclear deal with India should be conditional on India going the whole way with the US till Iran's nuclear establishments are destroyed by a US air strike on behalf of the NATO.Â

13. At an interaction on Iran led by two retired senior officers of the US army who have been advocating a quick US air strike by the middle of this year followed by covert political action for a regime change, I intervened and said as follows:" I will project a scenario, which none of you seem to be envisaging. Supposing before you make an air strike on Iran's nuclear establishments and bring about a regime change, the jihadis bring about a regime change in Islamabad and capture power after overthrowing Musharraf. You will be faced with a cruel dilemma---- should you act against the Iranian nuclear establishments first or against the Pakistani ones. What will you do?"

14. All I got in reply was a reiteration of their faith in Musharraf and an expression of their confidence that such an eventuality is unlikely to arise


I don't agree with him. Why to drag India into mess? Who will handle Islamic fundoos and commies of India?

03-02-2006, 08:53 AM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Feb 15 2006, 06:53 AM)USA â INDIA NUCLEAR DEAL GENERATES "GREAT INDIAN DIVIDE"
[right][snapback]46780[/snapback][/right]

Indo-US nuke deal what a Con Job?
As per article..
"The separation of India's civilian and military program's is key because the U.S. has only agreed to recognize India as a civilian nuclear power â not a nuclear weapons state."
huh?

Rice and U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley briefed reporters on Air Force One as Bush flew from Washington.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060301/ap_o...dia_bush_2

what are these con men up to?
<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/furious.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='furious.gif' /> COLOR]

03-02-2006, 09:04 AM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' /> They want India to accept..

And the dirty little secret is that we five--the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, and France--do not accept safeguards forever. 
.NYT

**acharya** · 03-02-2006, 10:23 PM

February 28, 2006
Q&A: U.S. and India
By BERNARD GWERTZMAN

From the Council on Foreign Relations, February 28, 2006

Bernard Gwertzman is consulting editor for the Council on Foreign Relations website, cfr.org.

George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a leading expert on India's nuclear program, applauds the U.S. goal of trying to reach an accommodation with India over its nuclear program. But he says the details in the draft accord, now being worked on in advance of President Bush's arrival in India next week, were "very under-cooked and not well-considered."

"The idea of changing the rules to make some accommodation with India was correct," says Perkovich. "But this particular approach was ill-considered, in essence giving India, or attempting to give India, everything, and to throw out in essence all the rules in return for too little from India. And the reason that you want more from India is to be able to send a signal to the rest of the world that 'Yes, nonproliferation matters also, and we're not throwing out the distinctions that have been made between countries that have nuclear weapons and countries that don't.'"

President Bush heads to India and Pakistan next week. In India, which will be the centerpiece of the trip, he's hoping to sign an agreement on nuclear sharing, which will require congressional approval. Do you think this agreement will actually come into being this soon?

Certainly the administration and the Indian government in July when they announced the basic outlines hoped and anticipated that by now, yes, they would have been able to clear away the legal issues and actually have something formalized. The proposal ran into a lot more difficulty than either government anticipated, in both countries, interestingly. It ran into considerable opposition in India and a lot of scrutiny in the United States.

What were the problems?

The original proposal was unusually vague, and it left open some really fundamental questions. For example, the administration in July 2005 said that this deal would augment our nuclear nonproliferation objectives. It said the main way this would happen is that for the first time India would designate certain nuclear facilities as civilian, and put those under safeguards by the [UN nuclear watchdog, the] International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]. Many of those facilities aren't under such safeguards now.

What the administration didn't nail down was how long would the safeguards be accepted or agreed to by India. In other words, all of the world, except for the five recognized nuclear weapon states, have safeguards forever on a facility. You build a facility, you put it under safeguard, safeguards are there eternally, and safeguards on the fuel and the nuclear material are for eternity.

People asked, "Is this what India's going to do, when it designates a facility as civilian and puts it under safeguards, is it for eternity?" [Bush] administration leaders kind of shrugged their shoulders. They hadn't thought of it. The Indians, when first asked, said, "No way, because what we've agreed to, and what President Bush has said, was that India now will be treated like all the other advanced nuclear countries, meaning the five recognized with nuclear weapons." And the dirty little secret is that we five--the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, and France--do not accept safeguards forever. We have voluntary safeguards which say, "Yes, you can come look and inspect it today, but if tomorrow I change my mind, I kick the inspectors out, I take the fuel, and do what I want with it." And so Congress and others asked the administration, "Well which is it, is it safeguards forever, in which case, OK; if it's not safeguards forever, you didn't get anything." And the administration scratched its collective head and said, "We're going to have go talk to the Indians about it."

So what's happened when we talked to the Indians?

The Indians came up with a formula that was very clever. They said, "Well, we don't like it, but we're prepared to accept safeguards on facilities and on fuel as long as you're prepared to continue providing the fuel. So if you say safeguards forever, that means you have to promise fuel forever." The United States will never agree to that.

Why is that?

I've had this discussion with administration officials. They say, "We will never give up our sovereign right to deny exports to anyone." This comes up in regard to Iran. In many ways, the key to solving the Iran nuclear problem will be to guarantee Iran sources of fuel from outside of Iranto persuade Iran not to make the fuel themselves. And the Iranians say, "We can't do that if we're not going to be guaranteed that fuel supply forever." And the United States says it will never make that guarantee forever because it may want to impose sanctions if Iran takes hostages again, or what have you. The United States will never give up its right to deny export licenses. And so that same principle would have to hold for India. This is one of those issues that's still, I think, being hammered out as we speak.

And of course, in India, I gather, there's a strong nuclear lobby?

In India, you have a strong nuclear establishment, which is a little different from a lobby. In other words, it's the Department of Atomic Energy, the Atomic Energy Commission, the people who actually wear the white coats and design and build things and get budgets to do that. It's always been a state within a state. It's been highly unaccountable. It's never been subjected to international scrutiny or competition. They were seen as the avatars of modernity and brilliance, the real symbols of great technological prowess, and so they have been powerful over the years, and also, immune from economic accountability and pressure. It's a paradox. On one hand, the nuclear experts realize that, finally, all of the promises they've made about providing nuclear energy for decades always come up woefully short; that they're never going to meet the country's energy needs without significant international cooperation.

You mean they don't have enough sources of uranium?

They don't have enough sources of uranium to fuel the kind of first-generation nuclear reactors they would need to meet energy requirements for the short term or even the next two decades. So there's a physical limit because of the fuel. There's a technological limit because their programs always kind of run behind in terms of the size of its reactors and its general capability.

Now, they're improving that a lot, but they can't build enough reactors soon enough to meet the country's energy targets. So where that leads is that, for a combination of both fuel needs and reactor needs, they're going to have to turn to international cooperation. Now they have a grand plan that they've had since the 1940s, which is to be the only country which relies on a totally different kind of fuel, which is a thorium-based fuel, because India has an abundance of thorium in its sand, in its soil. The problem is that the thorium fuel cycle is always fifty years away.

So did the Indians come to the United States first?

They have been coming to us for many, many years, saying, "You want better relations, the No. 1 issue has been to open up for nuclear cooperation, end the different kinds of sanctions." So they've been hammering on this for decades. Yes, they came to us saying we want fully open nuclear cooperation. Modestly, they would have settled for fuel right now, but they wanted everything. And then this administration, unlike others, for a variety of reasons said, "Let's give them everything."

If we reached an agreement, this would allow American companies like GE [General Electric] or Westinghouse to build reactors for them?

Yes, that's right. [It would be an agreement] to build reactors, to supply nuclear fuel, to engage in full-scale civilian cooperation in facilities under IAEA safeguards. And this is what requires a change inU.S.law. Also, if the United States were to be faithful to the international rules that it helped establish, we would have to persuade the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which is a cartel of nuclear technology suppliers, to change their rules, which also bar this kind of full cooperation with countries that don't have all of their facilities under IAEA safeguards. And so the president promised that in addition to changing our laws, he would try to change the Nuclear Supplier Group guidelines, to make what we want to do consistent with the rules. That would open up the Indian sector to cooperation from France, Japan, and anybody else with which India would want to do business.

The question to me is why did India ever set off those bombs in 1998 that led to its problems?

From their point of view, it was: "We're going to set off these bombs because, like the United States and China and other great powers we need nuclear weapons, and we face a rising China that's been noted by the United States as a potential major power with which we have a border dispute. They have nuclear weapons targeted at us; we're going to need demonstrable nuclear weapon capability. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is engaged in violence with us." But at least as important as that was the view: "Look, the countries with nuclear weapons get treated like great powers in this world and the countries that talk about morality and disarmament, as India has for forty years, get dismissed, they get laughed at. And so we are going to speak the language that the United States and China and others respect, which is the language of assertiveness, of military strength and defiance, and so we're going to defy these rules, and we're going to blast the tests and you'll want to sanction us, you'll do it for a while, but eventually, you're going to have to accept us as a great power." That's why they did it.

And they're turning out more or less right, aren't they?

That's why this is controversial for a lot of people. The administration's view is, in essence, "Yes, we should admit they were right, and the world has changed, and we all are in a contest with China, and India sits in an interesting place on the map. So let's change these rules and recognize thatIndiais a great power and treat it as such."

You've written a book about India's nuclear program. What do you think about this pending U.S.-Indian agreement? Is it a good one, or is it not?

I think this particular agreement was very under-cooked and not well-considered; very important details were omitted, but the idea of changing the rules to make some accommodation with India was correct. But this particular approach was ill-considered, in essence giving India, or attempting to giveIndia, everything, and to throw out in essence all the rules in return for too little fromIndia.

What do we need from India?

The safeguards that India puts on facilities it designates as civilian should be permanent. That's key. The number of facilities that India designates civilian as opposed to military should be very high. In other words, they could turn around and say, "You know, half the program is civilian, you can put safeguards on it, but the other half we're calling military and no one's ever going to go near it." And that would be kind of a travesty in terms of diminishing the role of nuclear weapons in the world. So there's that issue.

But the biggest issue, and where the administration neglected things, was the world already has much too much raw material, highly enriched uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons. And the United States, France, Great Britain, and Russia have stopped producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. We believe that China has also stopped producing but they've never announced it or formalized it. And it is a high priority of much of the world to have everybody in the world stop making additional materials for nuclear bombs.

Now the Indians claim they need to be able to produce fissile material because they only have a minimum stockpile, right?

Well, they say several things. They started late, comparatively, and they have a small stockpile, but all they ever want is a minimum credible deterrent, they say, but they never define it. And I think the administration, and much of the criticism the administration faces, is that in essence, this deal not only blesses that India has nuclear weapons--and that's something I think is natural and unavoidable and we should just go ahead and accept--but they've blessed the idea that India has nuclear weapons and is going to continue to make more of them, and that's the part that I think is objectionable, and I think at this time our position should be nobody should be making any more nuclear weapons, period.

Now if Bush gets to Indiaand there is no agreement to sign, is that a terrible disaster in the relations?

No, I don't think so. I don't think it should be a medium or long-term disaster if it isn't signed, but secondly, if it were, then it proves all the claims about the relationship are a lie anyway. In other words, champions of the deal, in many ways say we should make this deal to demonstrate that the U.S.-India relationship is so strategically important, that we have so much in common, we share such values, we're such natural allies, that we want to reflect that in this deal. Now, if you turn around and then say, "But if you don't do this deal somehow we're going to be adversaries or there's going to be no relationship," then you were lying about the relationship that you say the deal was reflecting. So how could a nuclear cooperation deal carry that much freight?

Is Pakistan going to try to get the same thing, or is that just out of the question?

They're going to try to get the same thing and it should be out of the question.

03-03-2006, 04:37 AM

Hss some one seen this link or read the book about Sr Bush and Anglo Saxon empire, NWO etc..

http://www.tarpley.net/bush24.htm

Bush's apprenticeship with Kissinger would have taught him the techniques we have seen Kissinger employ in his secret communications with Moscow during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1970: Kissinger makes clear that an integral part of his crisis management style is the studied attempt to convince his adversary that the latter is dealing with a madman who will not shun any expedient, no matter how irrational, in order to prevail. But with the Bush of 1990 we are far beyond such calculating histrionics. There were still traces of method in George Bush's madness, but the central factor was now the madness itself

There were also governments in the developing sector whose obedience to the Anglo-Saxon supermen was in doubt. The 250,000,000 Arabs, who were in turn the vanguard of a billion Moslems, would always be intractable. The out-of-area deployments doctrine of the Atlantic Alliance would now be the framework for the ritual immolation of the leading Arab state, which happened to be Iraq. Later, there would be time to crush and dismember India, Malaysia, Brazil, Indonesia and some others.

Continuing violence was the staple of the New World Order. Elections in India were scheduled for late May, and the likely victor was Rajiv Gandhi, whose mother had been assassinated by Anglo-American intelligence in 1984. Rajiv Gandhi, during his time in the opposition, had experienced a remarkable process of personal maturation. During the Gulf crisis and the war against Iraq, he had used his position as chief of the opposition to force the weak Chandra Shakar government to reject a US demand for landing rights for US military aircraft transferring war material from the Philippines toward Saudi Arabia. If re-elected prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi would very likely have assumed a position of leadership among world forces determined to resist the Anglo-American New World Order; he also would have offered the best hope of frustrating London's gambit of a new Indo-Pakistani war according to the game plan in which Bush had participated back in 1970. The Anglo-American media did not conceal their venomous hatred of Rajiv. He was assassinated while campaigning

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