Ronan Sen had the audacity to call the dissenting Indian parliamentarians headless chickens. Then, since he did not have the courage of his convictions and felt that his job could be threatened, he apologized and claimed that he was criticizing the Indian press which says the same lies as he does and has been echoing its masters' voices mostly and deserves a special award for brown nosing, just like the American press.

Mr. Sen is supposed to be the Indian ambassador to the US. He really fooled me. By his public announcements, I thought he was the US ambassador to India, since he was unthinkingly toeing the American line.

Unfortunately for India, he is not alone. There are other so called India's ministers, ambassadors, negotiators, bureaucrats, journalists, strategic experts and even nuclear scientists who parrot only the American point of view, while supposedly negotiating on India's behalf. 

Top of the list are our lying ministers publicly proclaiming that India has not given up its right to test nuclear weapons.

Their spin needs to be explained.

The Hyde Act unequivocally states that India agrees not to test nuclear weapons and if it does so, America has a right to terminate the agreement and demand the return of all equipment, material and facilities. The 123 agreement simply states that it will be done after bilateral talks. It also states that nothing in the agreement is contrary to the Hyde Act and the act as a law passed by the US Congress is applicable to the US and thus to the US president who has sworn to uphold the laws and constitution of the United States.  

Secretary Burns and a myriad US government have repeatedly said so unambiguously and loudly enough to cure our ministers hallucinating with delusions of grandeur. Bush's signing statements are sheer bravado and a figment of his warped imagination. He is in no position to oppose the Democratic Congress especially for the sake of his pet animal called India. He must think highly of India as he named his cat thus or that what I expect our ministers to say in the next press conference. Maybe we should name his pet Indian dogs differently to show our respect.

Manmohan Singh's and Pranab Mukherjee's statement that India has a right to test is like a foreign visitor to America claiming that he has no agreement with America that he cannot rob banks or commit murder in America. Sure, any foolish visitor can commit those crimes, but he better be prepared to go to jail for a long time or face the death penalty. Even Bush is not going to annoy the Congress for India's sake and the new president will simply say that his or her hands are tied by the Hyde Act and India will face the dismal consequences. Even a third rate nation like Australia is threatening that it will inspect any uranium that it supplies. The IAEA will carry out intrusive inspections as well. If India tests, there is no guarantee of lifetime uranium supplies, only a vague promise of attempts to help. Even if the agreement is broken, India will be bound forever with inspection of the present fourteen and all future nuclear plants.

The only reason America wants the nuclear pact is to bring India into the CTBT (which it has rejected itself) and the NPT (whose tenets it refuses to observe) by the backdoor and bind it so tightly that India's nuclear weapon deterrence will be strangled and suffocated in this straitjacket. The second reason is to sell it expensive nuclear plants and conventional weapons. The outlay of hundreds of billions of dollars will compel India financially, never to test. If it does so it will have inoperable nuclear plants like Tarapur and useless weapons without spare parts like the rotting Iranian F-14s and tanks from the Shah era.

Sundry bureaucrats, journalists and scientists are worried about their jobs more than their country. They could be retired, transferred and in the case of journalists just fired by the owners of TV stations and newspapers, who have a lot to gain by increased trade worth hundreds of billions of dollars with the US. This is why it is important for the educated and concerned citizens both in America and India to get their news from more and unbiased sources and think and analyze instead of being gullible. A free press is useless if it echoes the propaganda of the rich and powerful. Similarly merely voting out the incumbents when both or all parties are crooks with the same agendas does not make a democracy. It is an exploitation of the stupidity or apathy of the electorate.

The communist parties visceral abhorrence for America is just as wrong as their slavish and blind love for China and Russia which have never practiced true communism and are really capitalists now, with sanctioned thievery for the rich and powerful. So is America. The whole world is drifting towards oligarchy and plutarchy proving the absurdly foolish statement of the end of history by Francis Fukuyama an error of delusion. India is best off being friendly with the US, EU, Russia and China and aligning where its interests meet those of any other power. India's foreign policy and dealings with Iran outside of nuclear know-how should not be part of any civilian nuclear pact and not be dictated by any other country.

The civilian nuclear pact does not accept India as a nuclear power and definitively denies it any dual use technology. On the other hand the obsessive love and slavishness of the Congress as announced in a roundabout way by the Indian ambassadors and ministers shows that they have no knowledge of history or international politics. The reason why they are keen beats me until I realized that they are greedy and masochistic. They want to be thrashed by America and must love being masochists.

They think that the US will make India a great power. Only idiots without a brain will be naive enough to believe that the sole dominant power on earth wants to create its own rival. The US is looking for feudal chiefs willing to do the bidding of the king emperor (itself). It will put up with our foolish leaders as long as they suit its purpose and then dump them like Marcos of Philippines, Mobutu of Zaire, Noriega of Panama, Shah of Iran, Saddam of Iraq, Shevardnadze of Georgia, etc. I still doubt whether the communists, BJP or the entire bunch of scoundrels have enough honesty or integrity to stand by their principles to bring down this rotten government or will they ultimately be bought by some shameful means.

If India reneges on the pact and tests, it will be subjected to the same harassment as Iran and may be invaded like Iraq. How stupid is our leadership that they have learnt nothing from the way the Afghan mujahedeen and Pakistan were dumped after they served the purpose of destroying the Soviets in their Vietnam in Afghanistan? To sign such a humiliating pact, one must be ignorant, stupid, bullied or bought. Some of the scientists are happy to get uranium to proceed with the three stage electric power strategy and have no understanding of nuclear weaponry. Even some strategists are living in ignorance and have no concept of America's, innovations, strength and intentions. My article on nuclear weapons at this site and numerous articles by Dr. Brahma Chellaney (in Asian Age etc.) spell out the details.

Finally, adding to misunderstanding are many letters and opinions by persons who have neither taken the time and effort to study the deal nor thought about it and yet confidently assert it to be good and necessary. They don't want to be confused with facts as their mind is made up and merely reflects their political biases or sometimes just plain malice. I have tried to be fair, and like Lord Palmerston I believe that nations have no permanent friends or permanent enemies, just permanent interests. Once you fool me, (Tarapur) shame on you; twice you fool me (this new pact), shame on me.