Anyone else been thinking about the nukes for mangos arrangement as you watch the news from Mumbai?

[Skidmore]

Or the arrangement by which the * administration propped up a dictator in Pakistan and did not see to it that their nuclear program was curtailed? Or are you cringing whenever you hear the newsreader say that * is "monitoring" the situation?

For any Republican seeking to establish *'s legacy based on his handling of the issues surrounding the use of terrorism in the world and international relationships, I double dog dare you. You can count on your party being eliminated entirely and I'm all to happy to point out that nukes for mangos is poster child for the tone and tenor of your fair haired laddy's grasp of international affairs.

[annabanana]

1. yup. . I remember being astonished at the coverage. . . "mangoes"

"mangoes" I thought.. "you mean mangoes and, don't you?"

"What the hell just happened?" I thought...

[Warren Stupidity]

2. No not really, but perhaps you might want to explain a bit more.

I don't quite understand how terrorists killing people in Mumbai has much to do with India's nuclear programs. Please explain.

[Marrah_G]

4. The reports are that many of the attackers were Pakastani.

Pakistan and India have been at odds for a long time. They also are both Nuclear states.

[Deja Q]

5. Which doesn't automatically mean they were working to the order of their official government.

[Marrah_G]

7. Oh I know- but it still causes problems regardless

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Ok. Perhaps they are pakistanis.

And indeed both India and Pakistan are nuclear states. Now what about the OP's 'nukes for mangoes' statement?

[Marrah_G]

8. I was just responding to your question.

I'm off reading up on mangos in regards to nukes now as the OP left me a little confused also.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Well I did the same.

And the quote is from the racist rightwing toad Pat Buchanan, for starters. That in itself doesn't mean much, Buchanan is sometimes correct about some things. I just don't quite get the connection between Mumbai being assaulted by terrorists and the Bush administration's surrender on maintaining a fiction of NPT embargo over India's nuclear force. It isn't like India (or Pakistan for that matter) were going to give up their nukes, there is no policy position that would accomplish that. The phrase itself is insulting to Indians. India is an advanced economic power these days, hardly an agrarian export based economy. India is also well on its way to becoming an advanced regional and global military power, and their nuclear force is very much part of that equation. Buchanan has no point other than jingoism, so I remain puzzled by the OP.

[Skidmore]

11. The OP doesn't want any nukes in the world.

The idea that a war devolving into a nuclear standoff could not be triggered by some faction in this area is not ridiculous or of no consideration.

I don't know what Pat Buchanan has to do with this all, but I think the stability of that general region of the world is still far away. Because a society is not "an agrarian export based economy" has nothing to do with the type of weapon they can or may use in the right set of circumstances.

Again, as for nukes, I would be extremely happy to see all nations destroy their arsenal, especially our own. And * wasted a goodly number of years in which such objectives could have been negotiated and accomplished.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. You used the phrase "nukes for mangoes"

and I googled it. The source is Buchanan. So you toss up a racist jingoist Buchananism, and then claim innocence. Fine.

I still don't understand the point of your OP at all. India had a well developed nuclear force before the Bush administration dropped the pretense of an NPT embargo, and continues to have a well developed nuclear force. India and Pakistan have had at least one nuclear standoff in the past, and may well have another in the future. India has suffered outrageous terrorist attacks with Pakistani involvement in the past and will suffer again in the future. There is not a whole lot we can do about this. This is simply the reality of the current situation.

We can take most of the blame for this mess.

The Bush administration, quite separate from the end of the fiction of the NPT embargo on India, killed the NPT itself the day it invaded Iraq. The message that event sent was quite clear: in the post 9-11 world a nation that wants to assure its sovereignty must have a nuclear deterrent. Iran and North Korea have taken note, as have India Israel, Saudi Arabia Pakistan and others who have nuclear weapons or have the means to acquire them. The disarmament initiatives that spawned the NPT, SALT and its successors, and the laudable efforts of Gorbachev and Reagan to stand down their nuclear forces and reduce their size and scope are all dead. Killed by the neocon idiocy of the last eight years, killed by great power neo-imperialism in Iraq, and across the globe, by tactical and strategic nuclear force redevelopment efforts initiated by the Bush regime, and by the abandonment of the missile defense treaty and the deployment of anti-missile systems by the Bush administration. Mangoes had nothing to do with it. Nukes for Mangoes is Pat Buchanan spouting racist jingoist nonsense.

[Skidmore]

14. When that deal went through in 2007, it was generally discussed as

"nukes for mangoes" in the media and generally. I heard that phrase more than one place and Buchanan is not someone who sticks in my mind. How it is racist, I don't know since it is a fact that in 2007 concessions in the policy of a ban on production of fissile material and weapons by India. Part of the US concessions also included lifting the embargo on mangos imported from India. Actually, "nukes for mangoes" has been discussed previously on DU many times (see link below).

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GZEZ,GZEZ:2008-30,GZEZ:en-GB&q=+site:www.democraticunderground.com+nuclear+mangoes+democratic+underground

Nothing like stirring the honey pot, is there?

In my estimation, the policies generally pursued and not pursued over the past 8 years have been detrimental to the globe. Disarmament needs to be revived and pursued with sincerity before a post-9/11 world becomes a post-nuclear conflagration world.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. The phrase is dismissive of India.

And it appears to have been coined by Buchanan. The fact that other people on DU use it is irrelevant.

It is also bullshit in the sense that it implies that somehow we were giving India any technology it did not already have, or trading that technology for agricultural products. India has been a nuclear power since the 70's. The 2007 'concessions' were simply ending the fiction of an NPT embargo. There was no ban on India producing anything, at least not an effective ban that actually managed to stop anything. Nor have we given India technology it didn't have or couldn't produce on its own.

I agree that the Bush regime's rampant idiocy of the last eight years has wrecked lots of stuff, including the NPT. However both India and Pakistan walked out of the NPT long before Bush took office, and I remain unclear on how terrorists attacking Mumbai has anything to do with the 2007 agreement, which was your OP's assertion.

[Skidmore]

16. The phrase is dismissive of the * administration's

misguided foreign policies and nothing else.

[Marrah_G]

3. self-delete.

[Eugene]

9. No. These are separate issues.

George Bush may be an idiot, but there's no way short
of brute force to get Pakistan to disarm. South Asia
is a rough neighborhood where the players are nuclear
armed. A solution to defuse the situation won't be
imposed from the outside. Besides, Pakistan is or
nominal ally in the "War on Terror."

The Indian nuclear deal is simply bad policy in broader
terms. BushCo rewarded a state that flouted the NPT
to give GE billions in sales opportunities. The deal
doesn't compound the military problem beyond
undermining America's credibility.

[Occam Bandage]

13. I don't really think that those terrorists were motivated by

the United States selling nuclear power tech to India. As for nuclear weapons, well, Pakistan's been a nuclear power since 1998, and India has since 1974, so I don't really buy the argument that Bush is responsible for either.