By Shahid Farooq Abbasi – LIPR Ambassador Of Peace based in Islamabad
US claim of being a forerunner for the non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) regime seems nothing but a parable as its actions on the ground clearly contradict its claims. Ironically, few days ago, Ned Price, a US State Department’s Spokesperson during a press briefing, when asked about the accidental launch of the Indian Ballistic Missile and growing incidents of Uranium theft in India, simply responded that the launch of the missile was merely an accident, and he doesn’t have any clue about the incidents of Uranium smuggling in India.
It appears quite unreal and optical that a country that has unwrapped havoc against many Middle Eastern countries alleging them of hiding Weapons of Mass Destruction is so oblivious about the large-scale unauthorized movement of radioactive substances and disorderly maneuvers of nuclear-capable Ballistic Missiles under the nose of a fascist BJP regime in India.
Now let’s take a look at actual series of events involving the smuggling of highly radioactive materials in India, one of America’s buddies in South Asia. India has become an active hotspot of illicit radioactive markets where unlawful theft of radioactive materials has become a frequent event. Over the period of last 30 years, more than 200 kilograms of radioactive material have gone missing from several nuclear facilities in India.
In the latest instance, in Feb 2022, two Indians were apprehended in Nepal in a bid to sell Uranium in the black market. As per media reports, the Uranium was brought to Nepal from India and the smugglers were selling the substance for Rs 350 million per KG.
A long strand of similar incidents of theft and illegal possession of radioactive materials like Uranium and Californium raised serious questions over the protection of the Indian nuclear arsenal. Apart from this, a recent incident of an accidental launch of a nuclear-capable Ballistic Missile Brahmos by India towards Pakistan is another matter of disquiet that exposes the feebleness and inefficacy in Indian defence setups.
How bizarre is it that the United States intelligence community is so naïve that it knows about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Libya where it didn’t exist, but doesn’t know about the Uranium theft in India while the entire international media extensively reported it !!!
Now a glance into the past events where the US government showed some extra exuberance by going after counties that according to the USA were making or hiding WMD.
In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq, alleging that Saddam Hussain is developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Then-President of the United States George W. Bush justified his invasion on the grounds of intelligence inputs.
But after 12 years of bloodshed and anarchy, and the loss of 5000 US and allied troops along with one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, the world came across the fact that the intelligence input by the CIA that Saddam is developing Weapons of Mass Destruction was nothing but a deceptive lie.
On March 19, 2019, a former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer exposed the failure of the CIA via a Twitter thread and publicized that Bush was so sure about Saddam Hussain hiding Weapons of Mass Destruction because it was concluded by our intelligence circles but later turned out to be bogus.
Prior to this UN weapons inspectors had already repelled US claims by reporting that they had not found any trace indicating that Iraq possesses any WMD.
In Syrian transgression, once again similar hoax was introduced in the propaganda market, that Syria has acquired Sarin, a nerve agent lethal to those who inhale it and Syria has got the capability to deliver Sarin with missiles and aircraft, and it also has a stockpile of Biological and other Chemical Weapons.
However, Syria warned that the US was trying to blame its problems in Iraq on Damascus after a number of people within Washington were discussing the false reports on WMD in Iraq. A former worker at US Central Command’s Mideast headquarters Kris Alexander on July 27, 2012, in his piece of opinion in wired.com, revealed that Syria did not have any WMD and the entire episode was a slice of factious propaganda. Though the US couldn’t fetch WMD from Syria, the pandemonium of violence that it had ignited in the country resulted in more than 606,000 civilian deaths so far. Iran and Libya have also been among the victims of WMD-based propaganda with no evidential sustenance.
The truth is so blatant, US authorities used WMD as a tool of a sophisticated propaganda campaign to justify their unlawful invasions in the Middle East to the American people with a veiled intent of seizing oil resources and strengthening its partner in crime Israel by destroying all of its potential rivals in the region. But deliberately thrusting aside the potential of nuclear proliferation and a possible accidental nuclear catastrophe arising due to slack behavior of India and susceptibilities in its Missile Systems.
By contemplating USA’s biased slant, it can be avowed that America has deliberately turned its blind eye towards India, as it can’t afford to lose its tactical ally in South Asia which it believes could be used as a counterbalance against the rising global influence of China. By doing so, the US is clearly undermining the security of the entire planet just to satisfy its own paramountcy cravings and strategic interests. It has also demeaned the aspirations of peace-seeking countries of the world.
