« Fearing Rudy | Main | Best Nickname Competition » Unexpected Friends16 Oct 2007 10:21 am Brian Beutler: "Thanks to a bunch of meddling, anti-American leftist politicians, India may not draw the United States into violation of domestic and international law after all." Strange but true. For more on the disaster that is this nuclear deal, see this from the Center for American Progress. Comments (10)
gregor, you simply pass Tinker Belle's wand over India and pronounce it within the charmed circle. What a perfect example of the utter ignorance of the logic of international multilateral agreements and regimes that reigns supreme in this country. 
gregor you seem to be missing the point. The NPT is voluntary - nations sign the agreement based on the assumption that everyone plays by the same rules. The India plan says that America gets to sidestep the rules altogether. Why do you think that China won't make the same exception for Pakistan, Russia for Iran, France for ... well whoever wants French made nuclear power plants. If you believe in the treaty, this was an idiotic move. If you don't believe in the treaty then special status doesn't mean anything. BTW anyone who thinks Republicans are particularly bad on this point should remember the plan passed the Senate by a vote of 82-12. It passed the House by 359-68.
@ Jinchi Pacifism is not a virtue in itself. Be proactive
You are assuming that everybody is/was playing with the rules established No. I'm making a simple point. If you believe in the NPT then you don't make special exceptions. If you don't, then you end the treaty. Trying to pretend that we support a treaty that we've just put through the shredder is absurd. As for making India a special case, their two main rivals are China and Pakistan. You may think its smart politics to jab a finger in their eyes, but I certainly don't. One is becoming a major player on the international scene, who will only counter by dramatically increasing it's own program. The other is trying to choose between siding with us or the Taliban. And being proactive by reneging on the treaty because you think someone else might is self-serving and disingenuous.
Damn! I was really looking forward to those Indian mangoes that aWol was going to get in trade for our nuke stuff. Great deal, eh?
The mangoes were in exchange for Harley Davidson exports to India that previously violated some local standard. You can buy delicious Indian Mangoes already.
The obvious goal of nonproliferation is that you don't want to see ANYBODY with nuclear weapons. Friends OR enemies. Even yourself. Which is why the US and Russia are supposed to be reducing their stockpiles, assisting non-nuclear nations like Iran to achieve their own peaceful nuclear energy programs, and pressuring nations which have nuclear weapons and who are not members of the NPT - like Israel and India - to join and be brought under a supervisory regime. And to dealing with regimes that are under the NPT not to renege - like North Korea - by not pressuring them with threats of war. The India deal violates the entire concept of nonproliferation. That's obvious. The treatment of Iran also violates the letter of the NPT. Clinton and Bush reneging on the deal with North Korea is what caused North Korea to unfreeze its nuclear program and create nuclear weapons. It's obvious that monetary interests are trumping nonproliferation. Somebody intends to make billions selling nuclear technology to India. Somebody else intends to make billions selling weapons to be used by the US against Iran - if not North Korea. Until you deal with those monetary interests, nonproliferation isn't going to work.
http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/sundayitems.asp?id=SEC20071027192423&eTitle=Columns&rLink=0 Functioning anarchy? Here's why it's good TJS George "The debate over the Indo-US nuclear deal is not about the Indo-US nuclear deal. It is about ideology. That is why it produces more heat than light — and why it will not be resolved rationally. A rational approach was outlined by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam last week. Nuclear reactors based on thorium, a plentiful Indian raw material, will help us achieve self-sufficiency in nuclear energy, he said. Research on this by Indian scientists is in an advanced stage and, according to Dr Kalam, thorium-based reactors should be ready in India in five to seven years. This means that the enormous quantities of electricity required in India are within reach with our own efforts and our own resources. Such a route to energy efficiency should satisfy those who push the deal in the name of energy self-sufficiency as well as those who oppose it in the name of losing our strategic independence. [Inserted comment: To be confident of this, one has to have trust in Indian R&D, which according to past reports Dr. Manmohan Singh did not have] When the decision was finally taken not to persist with the treaty, the Prime Minister took a reasoned and reasonable stand on it. He was sorry, he said, but it was not the end of the road. But over-enthusiastic lobbyists took the position that no one would now believe India and that the Prime Minister, now proved incapable of keeping his word, must resign. This is so one-sided an argument that it is laughable. Actually, the Prime Minister reinforced the strength of Indian democracy by listening to the majority view of Parliament. He proved that public opinion counts in India, that the Executive is not an unresponsive monolith. No one can say that about the United States. American public opinion has repeatedly rejected the unilateral warmongering of the Bush Government. Yet the man is speaking of a new war against Iran. Ours may be a functioning anarchy, but it is better than a non-functioning democracy."
A comment taken from BR forum, by Kati "Well in my own way shall try to list of reasons why some of us are objecting to the deal economic-military and political reasons - hope you will find the points useful. The primary foundation on which the government is trying to sell the deal is ENERGY SECURITY of the nation which is an out and out false statement. To start with energy does not mean energy we get from nuclear reactors it also means the fuel we burn to run the vehicles,in furnace ,in aircrafts ,in petrochemical plants and in refineries as feed stock -the whole spectrum . So even if we switch 100% to nuclear reactors our dependence on crude oil will remain and that is a more strategic dependence since while we can put up large number of coal based power plants like China we cannot produce crude. So the object of the deal narrows down to electrical energy alone and not the complete energy spectrum. Zooming in on the power generation scenario as of date we have 125000 MW of total installed capacity out of which roughly 55% is from coal based power plants ,35% from oil/gas based power plants ,3% from nuclear power plants .3-.5 % percent from wind and rest from hydel units. So even if we double or even treble the nuclear power generation capability to 12000 even 20000 MW by 2020(unlikely since as on date such manufacturing capability does not exist in the world) the total share of nuclear power to total installed power capability is not likely to be more than 5%. Now do you assure of an energy security to the nation based on a very ambitious and highly unlikely figure of 20000mw BY 2020 which even if somehow becomes true will just be a miniscule part of the nation's energy requirement? Secondly it is not that we dont have the technology in fact our nuclear technology today is better that available with most developed nations with the exception of US/Russia and maybe France and Japan in the civilian side. So what do we surely don't have anything much to gain from light water reactor technology since that calls for use of low enriched uranium and we do not have the uranium enrichment technology perfected yet and US is not giving us that technology even if we buy the light water reactors from GE/Westinghouse . We have perfected the pressurized heavy water reactor technology and also fast breeder reactor technology. Pressurized heavy water reactor uses natural uranium and spent fuel from the pressurized heavy water reactor is reprocessed to extract low purity plutonium which as oxide or carbide or in mixed form used as fuel for fast breeders. The thorium blanket surrounding the fissile core of plutonium in fast breeders gets irradiated by fast neutrons and gets converted to Uranium 233 which can be used in the third stage of nuclear fuel cycle named advanced heavy water reactor along with thorium extracted from the monazite sands of Kerala to have a true closed loop nuclear fuel cycle which will in its turn make us independent of imported uranium and really allow us to carry forward our nuclear power program as envisioned by Bhabha. The nuke deal is no way helpful in achieving this self sufficiency in this program The nuke deal calls for a bifurcation of our civilian and military nuclear program.That means 70% of our reactors and its scientific manpower pool will no longer be available for military research - this is not acceptable. Secondly it also means the spent fuel from 70% of our reactors is not available for plutonium extraction for use in fast breeders or in weapon manufacture -this is also not acceptable since it is a de facto implementation of fissile material cut off treaty. The deal also states it will cut of all supplies and take back things already supplied even if paid for if we have to conduct another series of nuclear test - this is again unacceptable it is again a de facto NPT implementation by back door. We have never agreed to discriminatory NPT/FMCT so far, why we are doing it today in the name of nuke deal which is of dubious advantages? In fact Russia long back promised to supply us reactors and even uranium at discounted price if we agreed to project specific safeguards thats it and now are putting up 2x1000 MW reactors near kalpakam why we did not tell them to put up more without any of these wide range of restrictions pushed forward by US .Russia offered 10x1000 MW reactors and fuel why we are not taking up the offer? To test or not to test a nuclear weapon is our sovereign right who is US to say we should not test and if we do we shall be punished? Why we should put 70% of our nuclear reactors under IAEC/US safeguards ,they did not help us build them ,in fact they tried every trick in the book to make them not successful. Now even if by some miracle we get 20000mw by 2020 as claimed by our honourable PM even then we need the petro fuel from the Middle East which again big chunk should have come from Iran but thanks to the deal and US pressure on us the LNG deal is scrapped and if we join US in a possible strike against Iran then we can kiss goodbye to any Iran oil/LNG for good. Now tell me this nuke deal is enhancing or endangering our energy security .You think the economy can maintain a 10% growth if there is no fuel to run the trucks/locos /furnaces /aircrafts /furnaces even if we get 2-3 % extra electrical power at prohibitive cost from US and NSG? Now lets ask some questions to our elected leaders - why were the uranium mines were closed down? -why the Prime Minister then Finance Minister cut of funds to domestic nuclear power industry but now ready to buy the same technology from US? - Being a minority government and and having a majority opposition in the parliament why the government is so hell bent on trading off our hard earned right to test our weapons and develop our nuclear program our way on US say-so? - How as a self respecting nation we are listening to the humiliating remarks from US junior diplomats on what we should do or not do? - what kind of technology exactly is US is giving us that we dont have already and how are they going to help us in achieving nuclear self sufficency? -why aer we we spoiling our relationship with Iran at US behest and endangering our oil/gas supply and consequently risking our true energy security? -why while the trend the world over is to lower the share of nuclear energy from present 16% to 8% we are pushing for an all out goal to increase our nuclear share of power produced to 5-10%? This despite the fact that we have a very limited availability of uranium the likely fuel for the imported light water reactors and still not perfected the enrichment technology. - Why not a single power project came up in Maharastra in last 8 yrs? [Inserted comment - one of India's major industrial states] - Why we are not tackling the power theft issue seriously which account for about 8-25% of all generated power and is more than the actual shortfall? - What will be the cost of power from the new nuclear power plants? Well these questions the government shall never answer in public or in private simply because they have no answer - you can package a lie well but it can never be the truth. _________________________________________ I hope this and the previous conveyed to you some Indian points-of-view.
Comments closed October 30, 2007. |
Search
Subscribe to this blog by Email Books by Matthew Yglesias
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Weekly Archives
Categories
|
Copyright © 2008 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
| 
Heads in the Sand
India is neither North Korea nor Iran. Not even Pakistan. I think it deserved the special status afforded to it by the deal. In this case I will have to disagree with the American as well as the Indian left.
Posted by gregor | October 16, 2007 10:48 AM