Realpolitik Gone Nuclear
By Joseph Grosso
11 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org
I'm trying to think differently, not stay stuck in the past-
George W. Bush, March 2nd 2006
Headlines around the world last week spoke volumes about the announced agreement between the U.S. and India on nuclear cooperation. The New York Times opened its lead story on the agreement with the following:
President Bush and Prime Minister Singh of India announced here today that they had reached agreement on putting into effect what Mr. Bush called a "historic" nuclear pact that would help India satisfy its enormous energy needs while allowing it to continue to develop nuclear weapons.
This deal between the world's oldest and largest democracies was a long time in the making. In the announced deal India agreed to classify 14 of its 22 nuclear reactors as civilian facilities, subjecting them therefore to international inspections (the others kept as military facilities are exempt from such inspection) while India is guaranteed a supply of nuclear fuel and retained the right to develop more fast-breeder reactors for its military program (fast -breeders being efficient for producing plutonium necessary to make nuclear weapons).While the deal still has to get through its Congressional critics, the significance of the announcement has greater implications than belatedly welcoming India to the acceptable nuclear weapons club (where it joins the ranks along with Israel). It is important to look back on other, related developments of the past year to get the fullest effect of the present implications.
It was about a year ago when headlines spoke of the State Department's announcement that the U.S. would sell two dozen F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan in reward for cooperation in the War on Terror; actually "sell" is not entirely honest since $3 billion for the sale came from American aid (reversing a Congressional halt on such sales put into effect in 1990 in protest of Pakistan's nuclear pursuits).
Any fears of giving hi-tech weaponry to a military dictatorship who had previously supported the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and whose leader has survived several assassination attempts, were dulled at the same time by a parallel development coming directly from the administration's philanthropy towards Pakistan that ran in the Times Business section several weeks later.
Noam Chomsky has long advised his readers and listeners to read the New York Times Business section and indeed those who skipped over the Business pages on April 16th 2005 missed a grander jewel of information.
The headline was a witty, if beautifully cynical one: "Connecting to India Through Pakistan- Deal for Jet Fighters Opens Doors for Military Contractors".
The opening paragraphs read like this:
On the same day last month that the United States announced that it would sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, President Bush personally called the prime minister of India, Pakistan's archrival, with advice intended to soften the blow. The United States, Mr. Bush confided, had decided to allow fighter jet sales to India as well.it was the 15 minute phone call that was heard loud and clear by American military contractors.
It appears that the Bush administration is covering its bets in one of the world's hottest spots with two nuclear-armed states who have already been near the brink of nuclear war and have fought three other wars since their inception (one of which took place in the backdrop of Pakistani genocide in Bangladesh). One could only speculate, especially given India's larger, cash ready economy- the reason for the "loud and clear" signal heard by American contractors, about the profit rates dancing about Lockheed-Martin heads, the producers of the F-16s, should the two states give the world a fourth war.
From there the Times gives a relatively insightful glimpse into the workings of the military industrial complex. It explains:
For Lockheed-Martin, the potential sales to India mean that it may be able to keep alive its aging F-16 production line and save jobs in Fort Worth, where nearly 5,000 people work on the plane.Alternatively, Boeing could benefit if India pushes for something other than the F-16. That could mean new business for Boeing in St. Louis, where 5,000 now build the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the F-15 Strike Eagle, high performance jets now exclusively used by the American military.
While it is reassuring to know that Lockheed-Martin and Boeing have found another tension filled market (the three largest buyers of F-16s besides the U.S. Air Force have been Israel, Turkey, and Egypt) to keep their production lines moving, it is also reassuring to know that with such rotten realpolitik the administration will advance an already dangerous arms race, fund a military dictatorship whose government has actually allowed Islamists to advance (by banning secular parties) and whose intelligence agencies (along with CIA money) built the Taliban and may well have been involved in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, while at the same time for reasons of contractors' profit sell a potentially large amount of military planes to its next door rival with major tensions always a moment away. Meanwhile the question of Kashmir continues to fester.
Now on top of it all, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (which prohibits providing nuclear technology to states, like India, that have not signed) is further weakened and an invigorated India industry may well incite a Pakistani, and Chinese, response. Meanwhile hopes of disarmament seem even more impossible.
With so many Evangelical eyes looking towards the Middle East for bizarre apocalyptic signs, perhaps it is time for the rest of the world to turn its attention where signs are much more readable and urgent.
