The Meat of the Matter

More On Foreign Policy

Would you buy a used F-16 from this man?  The US just sold F-16s to Pakistan, and pissed off India, the second most populous nation in the world. Most Americans don’t know how tense the situation is between Pakistan and India. Both nations have nuclear capabilities, and on numerous occasions they have come very close to using them. How does selling F-16s to Pakistan fit into our War on Terrorism? Does one fight terrorism with an F-16? How can Bush pray for peace the same day he sells hi-tech fighter planes to one of the world’s most volatile nations—-right during a time when those two nations were trying to talk about improving their relationship? The bottom line is: India—whose air force is the 4th largest in the world, and a major customer for defense contractors—was more interested in the French Mirage for their fleet. To show India what a tough vendor we are, we sold the F-16s to their enemy. So in the end, you say, it’s “just business.” And you would be correct. And our “just business” attitude blithely sends a counter-productive message to the world. We don’t care about the cold war between India and Pakistan, as long as we get that 5 billion dollar arms deal. We don’t care about peace; if a country doesn’t buy our arms, we’ll sell them to their enemies. We don’t care about an Islamic country (who may one day be our enemy) proliferating nuclear arms. The message: “We pray for peace, but we don’t care. Show us the money.” And people wonder why people say we created the mess we’re in …