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Money, War, Nuclear Weapons and Deals


The Sanskrit word 'Artha' has multiple meanings. The two important ones are meaning and wealth. This shows that the Hindus early on realized that wealth gives meaning to life. To balance the evolutionary greed for wealth (artha) they countered with the concepts of dharma, karma and moksha. As even the studies of primitive societies have shown that wealth and power are often conjoint twins and both give plentiful access to 'kama' (love or sex), the driving force of evolution built into the psyche of all living creatures subject to Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest.

It is the desire for acquisition of wealth, power and sex that leads to war in the present day and in the past, as borne out by the Mahabharata, Ramayana and Homer's Iliad.

America's history of native Indian genocide, conquest and usurpation of Mexico (Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico), Hawaii (from the native kingdom), Florida, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam, Philippines (from Spain), the neo-colonization of Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East were all based on acquiring wealth and power. European and American colonization of Asia and Africa was to exploit their natural resources cheaply and make them captive markets for expensive finished goods to doubly steal their wealth. 

In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks and became Istanbul. This cut off the trade of Venice with the orient, which made it wealthy from trading Indian spices and Chinese silk and porcelain as well as other goods. Spices were essential to preserve and make edible, meat in the absence of refrigeration. Fifteen hundred years earlier, even Roman emperors and writers like Pliny complained that trade with India and China was draining the Roman treasury of gold, the medium of trade. That is why successive Roman emperors debased the currency by reducing its gold and silver content. The Indian currency (rupee) derives from 'rupa', meaning silver. All governments lie and debase the currency. Roman emperors, Muhammad Bin Tughlak (issued leather coins), Weimar Republic of Germany, Latin American countries in the twentieth century and America from Nixon's abrogation of the Bretton Woods agreement to today have done so.

To continue the trade with India, Vasco De Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached India with the help of an Indian navigator based in East Africa. The French, British and Dutch followed and Asia was colonized. Columbus did the same on behalf of Spain and landed in the Americas, called the natives Indians and Spain decimated them and was joined by the French in Haiti, the Dutch in New Amsterdam (now New York) and the British in Jamestown, Virginia and Plymouth, Massachusetts. India was industrially superior at that time and had advanced textile technology (muslins, calicos and Dhaka malmal). The British who beat the rest of the Europeans were mostly importing textiles and spices from India. East India company was profitable as a trader, but Britain was a loser of gold and silver as they had nothing to sell that India or China wanted. Britain decided to de-industrialize India by stealing the technology, cutting off the thumbs of the Indian weavers, who were mostly Muslims (converted from lower castes) and after developing a power loom, flooding India with its own cheaper copies of Indian textiles. This is why Gandhi started the Swadeshi movement with burning British textiles and promoting the wearing of homespun khadi.

When it obtained the Diwani of Bengal from a weak dissolute and money hungry Mughal emperor after defeating Siraj-ud-Daulah in 1757 with the help of Mir Jaffar and financing by Amirchand and Jagat Seth, Britain became both government (tax-collector with military authority) and major trader. Thus it could set the prices for buying and the tax levies on all. After a while the East India company overthrew Mir Jaffar and replaced him with Mir Kasim for a bigger bribe. It soon realized that there was greater profit in being the government and started hiring out its native Indian army to the highest bidder and demanding a share and a voice in the newly conquered territory. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century there were famines in Bengal due to poor monsoons and British government officers both in their private capacity and on behalf of the government hoarded grain till the prices were higher leading to the death of millions. This is why I keep warning about the collaborating idiots willing to sign humiliating nuclear agreements and sacrificing India's independence, nuclear deterrence and foreign policy.

China was willing to sell silk, porcelain and tea to Britain, Europe and America but only for gold. They all then, occupied coastal towns in China by military means and forced unjust and inhuman treaties on China. Britain and to a lesser extent the others were the biggest drug cartel in the world. Britain grew opium in India and forcibly made the Chinese population addicts and coerced the Chinese government into turning a blind eye to the narcotics trade. That eventually led to the Boxer rebellion in China and its current chip on the shoulder. The stolen tea plants from China by the British are what started the tea estates of India and Ceylon. The Dutch and the British stole the technology of making porcelain from China and started the Delft and Wedgewood porcelain factories. These are the same nations now crusading against narcotics trade and for intellectual property laws. They also condemn human trafficking for slavery and prostitution after getting rich from the slave trade. 'Sau sau choohe maar aur khhaa ke billi haj karne chali'.

From Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush Jr., the US has been de-industrializing itself by moving manufacturing and services to Mexico, India , China etc., where labor is cheap and there are no environmental or worker protection laws to enrich the fat cats who finance both American political parties. It is oblivious to the impoverishment of its own citizen workers. This has led to 800+ billion dollar annual trade deficits. This is what led Nixon to close the gold window. The nearly six trillion dollar US foreign debt is all denominated in its own currency, which is the international reserve currency. One of the reasons it attacked Iraq and wants to attack Iran is because they wanted to trade oil in euros instead of the dollar. At present the US could pay off this debt by just printing dollars which would become worthless but not harm the US economy as much as if its debt was to be paid in gold or an appreciating stronger currency. Instead of officially devaluing its own currency which would worsen the flight from the dollar, it is twisting China's arm to revalue upwards its currency and failing that has threatened huge tariffs on Chinese goods.

China, unlike India is unwilling to be bullied into submission. Its officials threatened that if the US senate puts tariffs on Chinese imports, it would dump its 1.3 trillion dollar reserves on the market and sink the dollar. Compare that to our peon Manmohan Singh, who simply fell at American sahib's feet and agreed to the nuclear deal, calls opponents unpatriotic and threatens to resign even though he has never been elected as prime minister or any other legislative post. I say, let him resign. We have had enough of this foolish puppet. 

The deal prevents India from testing nuclear weapons and puts most of its current nuclear plants and future plants under intrusive inspection FOREVER. It does not guarantee enrichment, heavy water technology or even uranium fuel. It will not allow India to accumulate a lifetime supply of fuel but will only dribble the exported fuel in a trickle just enough to continue operating the plant. In the event that India conducts a test, there will be consultations but the US has the right to demand return of everything. Furthermore the US only promises to attempt procurement from other sources. There is no way to judge the extent and sincerity of attempts. The US claims that it has been attempting to stop Pakistan's terrorism in Kashmir by supplying it with F-16s. China claims it is attempting to solve the border problem with India by demanding Arunachal and occupying Aksai Chin.

The agreement does not allow India to withdraw for forty years while the US can break it anytime. It prevents India from building a pipeline from Iran and forces it to join the Proliferation Security Initiative making India the 'chapraasi' of the US 'jamaadaar'. It commits India to a future cutoff in the production of fissile material. It thus hampers India's military nuclear program both qualitatively and quantitatively. It requires India to build a separate reprocessing facility under IAEA, US and international inspection and permits reprocessing after all that only after a year or more of negotiation. Thus India's reprocessing of nuclear material for civilian purposes is pushed to a distant future of five or more years. All this is contingent on an annual positive review by the US president. The agreement can be unilaterally abrogated by the US by passing a new law as it did with Tarapur in 1974 causing enormous problems still unresolved after more than thirty years.

Some nuclear scientists like Dr. Anil Kakodkar with their fixation on our third stage thorium power plants and constraint of still working for the government indirectly, have succumbed to this single obsession while completely missing the military and strategic aspect repeatedly emphasized by Dr. Gopalkrishnan, Prasad and Brahma Chellaney in the Asian Age and other venues. The Secretaries and civil servants are just glorified clerks. Similar people have lied throughout Indian and world history and done the bidding of their masters for position, power or money. Indian politicians holding ministerial positions have been involved in bribery scandals from arms dealers, spy agencies and rich industrialists. There are current unresolved allegations against the former Congress officials of Punjab for funding party election coffers by such means.

It is not mandatory that the deal be approved by parliament, but if enough honest politicians raise a hue and cry the deal can still be stopped. Many vociferous protests have been heard from the BJP and other parties. One doesn't know whether these are genuine and will be pursued, or bogus and for political gain. The communist parties have been the loudest but are intellectually bankrupt and logically inconsistent. Their visceral opposition to alliances with America is understandable but their stupid and slavish love for China and Russia just exposes their idiocy. Both these countries have totally abandoned communism so why do the Indian communists still follow the preaching of their new governments and side with China which threatens India and still occupies its territory. Their other blind spot is the whitewashing of the atrocities and injustices of Muslim rule in India, best exemplified by the benign assessment of Alauddin Khilji's rule in India by Promila Thapar. The gullibly foolish assessment of Mao by Pannikar, the Indian envoy to China and the acquiescence by Nehru to referring the Kashmir problem to the UN because of his love for Edwina, as allegedly attributed by her daughter in an interview is consistent with the naivete of our leaders.

If the communists whatever their ideology, have any love for India and the ability to contemplate the future, they should use their position to topple the idiotic and corrupt Congress government if their demand of walking away from the civilian nuclear deal is not met. We will see if their honesty and integrity are what they claim or they are just another filthy pig feeding at the public trough like the Congress, BJP and numerous others.

Let me give you some reasons why India needs to test again and improve its nuclear arsenal. In the current issue of the American magazine, Atlantic Monthly devoted to China, there is a sound analysis of US, Russia, China and their nuclear weapons and strategic options. China has only eighteen ICBMs based on land with a 4000 kiloton bomb on each and one or two nuclear submarines with very few smaller range nuclear weapons. The US has nearly 300 nuclear weapons disbursed on multiple submarines. Each missile has multiple warheads and each nuclear submarine carries multiple missiles. The US is shifting a lot of nuclear submarines to the Pacific fleet in the vicinity of China. The warheads are the new W-88 type of nearly 500 kiloton strength. They are accurate to within short distances of the target due to their GPS guidance systems. Theoretically, the US can program the missiles from all nuclear submarines with multiple warheads in such a way that each of China's 18 sites is hit by multiple (sixteen) warheads from different missiles and different submarines. The redundancy would ensure the total destruction of China's land based ICBMs in a pre-emptive strike.

The US really wants to build ABMs to defend against a second strike capability of China and Russia. This is why Putin opposes the radars and ABMs that the US wishes to install in Poland and the Czech republic. They are not meant to defend against Iran which is decades away from such nuclear capability but to blackmail Russia and China. This is why China tested the anti-satellite weapon and is building more mobile land missiles and more nuclear submarines. Thus anti-ballistic missiles are not defensive but offensive weapons meant to achieve total nuclear superiority by a preemptive first strike against the enemy and his first strike nuclear weapons and a significant capability to neutralize the enemy victim's second strike capability.

There is one more ace up America's sleeve. If these 500 kiloton warheads were to detonate on the ground there would be more massive fallout and millions of deaths. America has the ability to assure an above ground detonation of its warheads and the article calculates that such a strike would not cause more than ten thousand Chinese casualties. This would reduce the pressure on emasculated and despondent China to retaliate to soothe the public furor. If it did decide to retaliate America's missile shield would destroy the few remaining and inaccurate submarine based missiles that China has and then the US would retaliate with its even more massive land based missile warheads causing hundreds of millions of Chinese casualties.

In all probability China would not retaliate against the first US preemptive strike. Now consider that the biggest Indian nuclear weapons are only 40 kilotons (one-hundredths of China's). They are not fueled and ready to launch and would take hours or days to launch. India has no submarine based nuclear weapons. Only our current foolish leaders can be complacent and secure in their idiocy and ignorance. A savvy China is continuing a massive and diverse nuclear buildup. One of the reasons India went nuclear is the fear of China more than Pakistan. If a hostile China were to blackmail India with its nuclear weapons or use a first strike, does any sensible Indian currently trying to hide behind America's skirt seriously think that America would threaten or use nuclear weapons against China for India's sake and risk American cities!    

12-Aug-2007

More by :  Gaurang Bhatt, MD


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