US approves Indian nuclear deal
President Bush and Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh agreed to the agreement for the deal and the US Congress just passed the bill as well. This is deemed to be historic by some but also that it is hurting non-profileration (that is the spreading of nuclear technology).
India will get access to US civil nuclear technology and fuel in return for allowing their civilian nuclear facilities to be inspected, nuclear weapons sites though remain off-limits. India has made it clear also that this does not mean it supports the U.S.'s ways in Iran and also that they do not have to stop creating fissile material.
This comes as a shock to me because India has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty so I do not undertsand why we would give them access to our facilities. We are not gaining much in return because we are not able to see their nuclear weapons sites so what is to gain from this? They could use the access to create more nuclear weapons. I do not see President Bush's or the U.S. Congress' reasoning in this. I do see how we are helping them because they are in desperate need of energy but we need to at least gain something in return. Checking their civil facilites does nothing for us.
posted by Crazy Horse @ 12/12/2006 08:08:00 PM
8 Comments:
I do believe that helping India develop their nuclear power industry is a kind move by the US. I feel it is alright to do something for another country without expecting anything in return. I doubt however that this is actually the case. For what purpose I am not sure, but gaining support for the U.S. from this country may be one motive. Also helping India with their nuclear program while condemning Iran’s and North Korea’s is setting a double standard which is unfair and likely will come back to haunt us. If we are going to help another countries with their nuclear program especially one that has done nuclear warhead testing as recently as 1998 we should help all countries. Or at least not punish some countries for the same actions. We must figure out what are stance is on nuclear weapons in foreign countries and apply that to all counties equally.
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I personally find it interesting that we can allow certain countries to develop nuclear plants and such, and then condemn others. There is no guarantee that India will continue to have positive relations with the U.S. They have the same ability to cause nuclear problems. I think that it is not sending a good message to all of the countries who are simply observing before they make their decisions, because it does not display the United States in a positive manner. Even if we say that we must be allowed to examine their facilities, they could still find ways to keep their developments secret. This could lead to more conflicts, which nuclear weapons could easily be brought into. I don't think that this is a positive step.
It would be nice if only it were that simple. Yet, the United States is always going to identify some nations as inable to handle nuclear weapons. The United States can't be assisting India to gain support from the country, because India flat out said that they they will in no way support the United States' nuclear involvement in Iran. In my opinion, the motive is to show that the United States supports other nations obtaining nuclear weapons, as long as we have knowledge on the inside. The United States is always trying to control how other nations treat nuclear weapons. It's interesting, because who is regulating our nuclear weapons program? Hopefully this doesn't backfire with India using US intelligence to create what the United States is trying to protect against.
Well, first off, checking their civil facilities allows us to view their nuclear safety systems and helps to prevent another Chernobyl from happening. It's more of a preventive measure of anything. This is a great development for the world, as the world moves to the more clean power provided by nuclear fission. Nuclear energy is very reliable and relatively clean (in fact, the nuclear waste could be returned to the site where the fuel was dug up, as since radioactive decay would have made the material less radioactive than before). Nuclear power for India could help curb down carbon emissions from the highly populated and urbanized country, and help the country become more developed, as power would be far more available to everyone. Hopefully, nuclear weapons don't suddenly appear in India after this agreement, but India seems like a very trustworthy country.
This is a kind action that the United States is taking. By giving Iran access to our civil nuclear technology will help them out greatly. I believe that if we are to expose our technology we should at least be able to be exposed to something valuable and useful to us. What are we going to gain if we get to inspect civilian nuclear facilities? We already have the knowledge on nuclear power plants and weapons; I am not aware of any other information that we could get out of this agreement. I know that kind actions don't always need something in return. But in this situation, something important is needed to be shared.
But shouldn't we be worried as to what other countries may think of this? Since we are at war with Iran, I would be a little upset if a country I am fighting with helped out another one. I agree with Tualition on how if we are going to help one country we maise well help all countries.
India already has 8 operable reactors and 6 reactors under construction; I really don’t think we need to worry about them being a huge threat. If they were really serious about making weapons they could have done so already. Just because they didn’t sign some non-nuclear proliferation treaty, doesn’t mean they want to create nuclear weapons. India has an incredibly large and growing population that I believe will heavily depend on nuclear power in the future, and our government should be more then helpful in giving up access to our nuclear plant information.
I think our government has good reason to be suspicious about the nuclear ideas of other countries (N. Korea, Iran), but as nuclear power becomes more popular among world countries, I think we need to realize that most nations are only using it for energy and not weapons. We need to accept the fact that the nuclear power decisions of other countries (in most cases) don’t involve us.
It seems that these days the United States only thinks that Nuclear power is going to be used for the nuclear weapons. The thing is that nuclear power is actually a great energy source and it is a lot safer than many people believe. Most countries are actually looking towards using nuclear power for is great supply of energy. America should actually be using more nuclear power. As a country I believe we are VERY uninformed about nuclear weapons, and I believe that is because our government is completely devoted to anti- nuclear power. They have drilled it into our heads that nuclear materials are used for destruction and danger, when actually those nuclear materials are used for nuclear power, which can supply great amounts, and actually it is very clean.
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