<div dir="ltr"><font face="georgia, serif">Good Morning Visionaries:</font><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">For those not subscribing to the Daily News, my column on Obama and Modi's bromance is appended below in the version that will appear in the Sandpoint Reader.</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">You all have a great day.</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">nfg</font></div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Should the U. S. Encourage a Nuclear India?</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">By Nick
Gier</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><i><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The chemistry that has brought Barack and
me </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><i><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">together has also brought Washington and
Delhi closer.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">—Nahendra
Modi</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> India’s new prime minister Nahendra Modi broke all
diplomatic protocol when he rushed up the steps to Air Force One and gave
President Obama a big hug. This is their
third meeting and a veritable bromance is developing between Obama and the leader
of the world’s largest democracy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Everywhere
I went in a recent one-month trip to India, I found nothing but praise—from all
sections of society—for Modi and his plans to solve India’s major
problems. I witnessed some immediate
results: hundreds of new public toilets and the reduction of trash in some
streets because of Modi’s “My Clean India” campaign. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> As Obama looked out on India’s Republic Day parade, he
would have observed hundreds of Russian weapons and MiG and Sukhoi jets flying
overhead. For decades the U. S. shunned
India as a member of the “non-aligned” movement and for buying most of its arms
from the former Soviet Union. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Instead
of supporting democracy in South Asia, the U. S. instead forged an unwise
alliance with Pakistan’s military dictators.
At a national parade in that country, Obama would have seen American
F-16s in the air instead of MiGs. Even when under democratic rule, Pakistan’s
military intelligence has consistently backed Muslim extremists while the U. S.
pours billions of dollars of aid into the country.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">At the
Republic Day parade Obama would have also seen Agni missiles, named after the
Hindu fire god, which can carry nuclear warheads. In April of 1998 India,
citing threats from Pakistan and China, resumed nuclear bomb testing in the
deserts of Western Rajasthan. India has fought and won four wars against
Pakistan, but in 1962 India lost badly to China, who still occupies of millions
of square miles in the Indian Himalayas. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">Hindu fanatics, some holding high posts in
Modi’s government, proposed that a new Goddess temple be built near the test
site. (This fierce female deity used to lead Hindu and Sikh armies into
war.) They proudly proclaimed that with better nuclear arms, Hindus were no
longer eunuchs and could now stand up to the world as real men. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">In June of 1998 I invited a professor from New
Delhi’s Gandhi Peace Foundation to visit the University of Idaho. I arranged a Martin Institute panel on the
Indian bomb testing, and I assumed that our visitor would join us in condemning
his government for escalating tensions in South Asia. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">We were all surprised that he supported the
testing, and he objected to the flyer I made advertising the panel. It featured a powerful cartoon showing
mushroom clouds reflected in the tear-filled eyes of Mahatma Gandhi.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">Pakistan now has more nuclear warheads than
India does, and it has the missiles to deliver them. (Ironically, one of them
has been named Gauri, a name for the Hindu Goddess!) Thanks to Chinese-built
reactors, Pakistan is producing more plutonium than any other country in the
world. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">Abdul Qadeer Kahn, the infamous father of
Pakistan’s atomic bomb, secretly gave Libya, Iran, and North Korea vital
information about building nuclear weapons. Neither India nor Pakistan (along
with Israel and North Korea) has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">In addition to the fear that India and
Pakistan will nuke each other, there is also the dreadful possibility that
Muslim extremists would get hold of the plutonium and make their own dirty
bombs. The CIA claims to know where all
this deadly material is, but how could it possibly be sure that it is secure?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">Obama and Modi put the finishing touches on a
plan, initially negotiated by the Bush administration, to give India access to
nuclear fuel for power generation. The
most difficult part of finalizing this deal was to get the Indians to promise
not to use the fuel for weapons. The U. S. civil nuclear engineering companies
also wanted assurances that they would not be held liable for accidents.</span><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">We cannot trust the Pakistanis and there are
Muslim-hating fanatics surrounding Modi, and he has done nothing to silence
them. There is, however, one saving grace:
the India army is very professional and it can be counted on to be
restraining force in the powder keg that is South Asia.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University
of Idaho for 31 years. He was also
Senior Fellow at the Martin Institute from 1990-2000.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
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