Get That Man a Place on Mount Rushmore

Here's an overlooked part from a scary new article by Seymour Hersh about Pakistan's nuclear weapons:


The Pakistani intelligence officer is talking about actions by the Reagan administration. Usually we hear about this from U.S. sources, but it's interesting to have confirmation from the other side. There's a good summary in a Consortium News article about the movie Charlie Wilson's War:


And there's more: the Pakistani bomb was probably funded by Saudi Arabia, just as the Iraqi nuclear program was during the nineteen eighties. The Reagan administration was aware of it in both instances, but had other priorities.

The Reagan administration and its foreign policy is truly the gift that keeps on giving to America.

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003139.html

As to N. Korea, we are essentially allowing them to throw a fit every so many years, and then paying them off in exchange for what we know are bogus promises to suspend nuclear activities.

And in 20 years, who will write the "I toldja so!" book that details how we "knew" that North Korea or Iran were developing a nuclear weapon? We know they are now. (As an aside: as everybody on the planet forgotten India's nuclear belligerence a few years back??? Seems that way!)

So, the question becomes: what're we going to do about it? :silly:

n/t

...regards to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is really starting to catch up with it.

There is an arguable possibility that the next intentional nuclear weapon detonation will be by either Pakistan or Israel and that use, no-matter how small or specialized a weapon, and in light of the United States' permissive attitude, could be the most disastrous foreign policy debacle in the history of our country.

It is sometimes difficult given the regular brinkmanship of successive conservative Israeli governments, and their willingness to use conventional weapons on neighboring countries, to judge just how likely they would be to use a nuclear weapon, even a specialized "bunker-busting" weapon which did not detonate above ground. Those realities at times seem hard to decipher.

Pakistan, on the other hand, is a very unstable country to begin with and there have been incidents on both sides of the Pakistan/Indian conflict which send a chill up the spine. I do not have a link for this (it was from the Hindustan Times (Indian newspaper) years ago, when it happened) but sometime in the few years after Sep. 11th, an Indian commander of something like a battalion of tanks had gone rogue pulled his tanks into a position well ahead of the other commanders and into a disputed region which was likely to elicit a strong Pakistani response.

The United States presented the Indian government with satellite intel after they (honestly) denied knowing anything about it. As soon as they saw what was going on they relieved their own commander of duty in the field and withdrew the tanks (presumably something like 50-70 tanks) back to the area they should be in.

This kind of shit goes on far too often and although it does not receive much attention from the U.S. press, the situation both inside Pakistan and between Pakistan and India is a very troubling one.

By comparison, the Israel v. Palestine imbroglio is a kindergarten squabble.

single handedly ended communist and tore down that wall, where's HIS peace prize?