--- Gabe Menezes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > US tells India, drop dead, > March 28, 2005 > A friend, usually upbeat about India-US relations, sent me an angry mail over the weekend after President George Bush called up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the evening of March 25 to inform him that the US had decided to supply F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview to The Washington Post, "dismissed concerns" about the fallout of the American decision.
Mario replies: Gabe, for reasons that I have not yet figured out, you are continuing a relentless drumbeat of negatively slanted news about the US relationship with India, often twisting the truth in order to do so. This post on Goanet by you is especially slanted by the omission of any mention of the US offers to India that were concurrent with the offer to Pakistan. The following is an Editorial from The Indian Express of March 29, 2005, which makes my point. Not only has the US NOT told India to "drop dead" as the subject line of your post falsely asserts, the Bush administration has, on the contrary, offered to help make India a world power (see third paragraph below). The editor of Indian Express is concerned that India will refuse the US offer, a far cry from the impression you have sought to create. If you have a shred of shame left, you would send a copy of the editorial to your friends who you claim keep feeding you this stuff. US has made an offer We need to consider it seriously. That would be the best way to test American intentions India should take a serious look at the US offer to supply 126 multi-role combat aircraft to India. After all, this will only extend India�s choices. If two US companies � Lockheed Martin with its F-16 and Boeing with its F-18 � join the bidding, the Indian Air Force could expect other companies already in the fray to come up with even more attractive terms. If the proposal from either Lockheed or Boeing turns out to be the best in the competition, in terms of price, reliability, and technology transfer, India would have every reason to buy a major weapons platform from the US for the first time. This talk of the US offer fuelling a fresh arms race on the subcontinent also does not quite make sense. The very fact that New Delhi and Islamabad might be buying weapons from the US seems to make a lot of people in the subcontinent uneasy. But stranger things have happened. For more than a decade, Russia has been selling similar fighter aircraft to both India and China. That hasn�t led to an arms race between New Delhi and Beijing. There are only three major centres of advanced arms production � the US, Europe and Russia. As a result, India, Pakistan and China would want to leverage the best possible deals with these sources for their inevitable defence modernisation. India would be unwise to refuse the American offer and reduce its choices. With its obsession over the transfer of F-16s to Pakistan, the government has glossed over the rare offer from the Bush administration � to make India a world power. During her talks in New Delhi on March 16, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had spelt out this new approach. But the government has preferred to strike an injured posture over the transfer of F-16s to Pakistan rather than engage with the Rice proposals. Besides a long-term defence-industrial partnership, the Bush administration is offering to sell nuclear reactors to India and enhance New Delhi�s global standing. For sceptics in the government this is a mere sop. But all indicators over the last few years � especially the Bush administration�s National Security Strategy of 2002 and the recent US National Intelligence Council report predicting the dramatic rise of India and China by 2020 � suggest a strategic assessment on America�s part that a stronger India is in its national interest. If New Delhi were to scoff at this offer, it would indicate a myopia of a very high order. Instead, it should be negotiating on the new US proposals in a serious and open manner. That would be the best way to test American intentions.
