Columnists

   Religion

   Commentary
   Community
   Entertainment
   Investment
   Matrimonial
   Opinion
   Sports




From the Editor: Akhtar Mahmud Faruqui

Dated April 08, 2005


The F-16s Announcement and After


The good news came after an exasperating wait of fifteen years. For many Pakistanis who had fumed over the inordinate delay, the recent Washington announcement for the supply of the F-16 aircraft sounded like music to the ears. Thank you, President Bush! A new vision of US-Pakistan ties is beginning to crystallize. Indisputably, there has been of late a marked surge in Washington’s support for Islamabad

President Musharraf’s statement on the sale carries a ring of truth: “The … acquisition of F-16s would certainly enhance the effective punch of our defense…it is our longstanding demand which has now been met. It will also help our strategy of defensive deterrence.”

As expected, stern critics of Islamabad fretted over the announcement prompting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to promptly spell out the motivations for the US decision. “Pakistan has come a long way, it’s on a better trajectory than it’s ever been, or that it’s been in many, many, years.” Struck by the conclusions of the September 9/11 Commission – invest in the relationship with Pakistan, because if you don’t you’re going to create the same situation we created in the 90s - Dr Rice explained why the US is now more energetically responding to Pakistan’s needs.

Ryan C. Crocker, US Ambassador to Pakistan, seemed to elaborate on this explanation: The US desires to establish long-term, broad-based multidimensional relations with Pakistan, not as a favor to Islamabad but for mutual benefit. Perhaps, the roller-coaster phase of US-Pakistan relations is over and indications are that a firmly structured relationship between the two countries is beginning to crystallize.

Yet, the Washington announcement on the sale of the F-16 fighters to Pakistan and the F-18s to India occasioned both jubilation and anguish in Pakistan. The public response became markedly muffled as the realization dawned on many that Pakistan - a reliable ally in the forefront of the US war on terror at considerable peril to its own security - had not been treated at par with its adversarial neighbor whose adventurous association with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and later aberrations in opportunistically changing course at will, are too well known. The logic of showing readiness to supply the more advanced F-18 planes to India is indeed hard to swallow.

So also the servile urgings of quite a few key Americans to India to buy the F-18 plane. How could one explain the recent exhortation of Mike Kelly, Senior Executive of Lockheed Martin, to Delhi: “If India’s requirements are beyond any existing fighters, we are prepared to make upgraded F-16s to India’s specifications with complete transfer of technology.”

US Ambassador to India, David C. Mulford, also had the same obsequious tone when he announced: “We will find out what kind of plane India wants and how we do technology transfer and also be reliable.”

Surprisingly, US Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan C. Crocker furnished a singularly grotesque explanation in trying to dispel the impression that the F-18s were in any way superior to the F-16s: “The F-16s are used by the US Air Force and the F-18s by the US Navy. Both are equally efficient in their functions and one is not superior to the other!”

Mike Nipper, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, however, thinks differently. An F-16, according to him, is a single-engine, land-based fighter jet that costs upward of $35 million. The F-18, a more advanced fighter, is a double-engine, carrier-based aircraft, which is up to 30 per cent heavier than the F-16. “The cost of the F-18 is considerably higher,” Nipper says, explaining that the jets sell “by the pound.”

As the campaign to appease India on the sale of the F-16s to Pakistan continues, the media in the US and India and influential political circles in Washington and Delhi, unabashedly express their indignation at Washington’s decision. A small sampling:

“I am bewildered by this decision. It is strategically such a bad move.” – Former Senator Larry Pressler.

“This sale sends a grave symbolic message to the government and people of India. We are slighting our relationship with India, a fellow democracy, to sell a defense system to a neighboring non-democratic nation, who has shown an unwillingness to normalize relations with India, …” - Congressman Frank Pallone

“The announcement Friday that the United States is authorizing the sale to Pakistan of F-16 fighter jets capable of delivering nuclear warheads - and thereby escalating the region’s nuclear race – is the latest example of how the most important issue on the planet is being bungled by the Bush administration…” – Robert Scheer in an article in the Los Angeles Times

“Balancing those sales by offering New Delhi the chance to purchase, and perhaps build, similar planes doesn’t lessen the damage of the Pakistan sale. It compounds it.” - New York Times.

“Pakistan, it appears is being rewarded, here and now, for … its abominable record on proliferation.” – The Hindustan Times.

Blissfully, the Wall Street Journal appeared to present just the opposite view, nay, an objective assessment: New Delhi has raised some objections but its more substantive response has been that it may consider buying a more sophisticated US jet fighter, F-18, and is ready for an expanded strategic relationship. The F-16 is famous for its ability to deliver air strikes with pinpoint accuracy, and is thus a valuable asset in Islamabad’s war on terrorists hiding in the rugged terrain near Afghanistan….

“The argument that Pakistan wants the F-16 to deliver nuclear weapons to India, a fellow nuclear power, ignores the fact it can already do that in other ways if it wishes to commit suicide.

“In fact, relations between the two states haven’t been this good for years and don’t look to be derailed by the plane sales.

“President Pervez Musharraf is due in New Delhi to watch the grand finale of the India-Pakistan cricket series.

“Indo-US relations have also reached a new maturity, President Bush who is due to visit India this or next month personally informed Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the decision to sell the planes to Islamabad. Mr. Singh expressed ‘great disappointment’, an obligatory response because of Indian domestic politics. But more significant is what his Defense Minister Parnab Mukerjee told the Press Trust of India: ‘If the military aircraft and other weapons needed for our national interest are available from the United States, we will certainly consider them.’ ”

It is not difficult to infer who stands to gain more from Washington’s decision to supply the F-16s to Pakistan.

- afaruqui@pakistanlink.com


PREVIOUSLY

Abandoned to Die?

Hindu Fundamentalism

Musharraf’s Visit & the Task Ahead

Musharraf’s Visit & the Issues

The Euro Has Arrived!

Support the Completion of the Laudable Project

The Cost of War

Sanity, Not Bellicosity

Conciliation, Not Confrontation

The Imperative of Peace

Hindu Fundamentalism

Spetember 11: Lessons for Muslims

Seeds of Peace

The General's Responsibility

Transparent Deception

Pakistani Americans: Formidable Challenges, Poor Response

Deal with an Iron Hand

Summer and Rolling Blackouts

Science for Survival

A Day to Resolve, a Day to Plan

A Turnabout in the economy

A Year After

Good news for Southern Californians

Sohni Dharti Allah Rakkhey

Muhammad: A Name to Revere, Not to Smear

Religious Affinities or Animosities ?

Learning from Mainstream Americans

The Ground Shifts!

The Evil Behind the Axis?

Kasuri Desires Lasting "Structural Relationship" with US

India's Missile Build-up

A disgusting performance

March 23rd and Pakistani Americans

After the War

A New Chapter

Recalling the Inspirational Legacy

Science for Survival

Sohni Dharti Allah Rakkhey

9/11: Lessons for Muslims

Memories of the Northridge Quake

A Foreigner's View of Pakistan

Vanity Fair a La Pakistan

Unique Legacy of Pakistan

It's Time to Contemplate Existence

US Media's Soft Spot for India

Making Peace with Nature

Discover Pakistan at the Beaconhouse National University

Good news from Pakistan

Breaking the Siege

A Pakistani who made dreams come true

A New Scientific Era?

Overcoming Hard Times

The Media's Responibility

A Pakistani Ivy University in the Making?

Religious Affinities or Animosities?

Vanity Fair a la Pakistan

'How Hard Can It Be'

A Foreigner's View of Pakistan

Untangling the Nuclear Tangle

Making Peace with Nature

Breaking the Siege

The Tragedy at Mina

Science and Survival

March 23rd and Pakistani Americans

Would Reason Triumph?

Making Peace with Nature

'How Hard Can It Be?'

Bracing for the Gathering Storm

An Eventful Fortnight

The Week Gone By

The Return of the Congress

Bush's Apology and Muslim Americans

On the March

A New Scientific Era?

Remembering Riaz Sahib

The change in Islamabad

The Foreign Secretaries Talks in Delhi

Reshaping the Endangered Species Act

Potentially a great nation

A Critical Issue

Presidential Debates and Their Messages

US Presidential Debates and Their Message

Science for Survival


APPNA Qissa, an Inspiring Story

Whither Muslim Americans?

Kofi Annan’s Plain Talking

A Pakistani Ivy University in the Making?

The Dr Shazia Case

The Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Initiative

Revealing Disclosures

Memories of the Northridge Quake

Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
© 2004 pakistanlink.com . All Rights Reserved.