[thechat] Solve This Political Triangle

William Anderson neuro at well.com
Sun Jun 23 13:50:21 CDT 2002


---- Original Message ----
From: "Martin Burns" <martin at easyweb.co.uk>
To: <thechat at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 7:15 PM
Subject: Re: [thechat] Solve This Political Triangle

> On Friday, June 21, 2002, at 04:02  pm, Ben Dyer wrote:
>
> > <http://www.f-16.net/reference/users/f16_pk.html>
> >
> > It states that the reason the U.S. originally balked at giving the
> > F-16s to
> > Pakistan is because this is "in accordance to the Pressler
> > amendment to the
> > Foreign Assistance Act, which forbids military aid to any nation
> > possessing
> > a nuclear explosive device."  It seems completely political with the
> > purpose of singling out Pakistan, though.  (Remember, Israel is an
> > undeclared nuclear power.)
>
> Likely that there's an undisclosed exceptions list - which the UK has
> to be on. Unless our glorious leaders have been lying about our
> independent nuclear deterrent [sic] for decades.

No, the Pressman Amendment is pretty damn specific.  It's an amendment to
the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and the subtitle is "Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Conditions on Assistance for Pakistan".  You can read the
amendment here: http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/coalition/sancpres.htm

It basically says that while Pakistan has a nuclear weapon, or weapons, the
US can't give or sell Pakistan military equipment or technology, unless the
President says to Congress and the Senate they don't have nuclear weapons,
and that anything being given or sold to them will "reduce ... the risk"
that they can get nuclear weapons.

Can't get much more specific than that!

--
_ __/|   ___  ___ __ _________  "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
\`O_o'  / _ \/ -_) // / __/ _ \  for Sega." -- Brodie, 'Mallrats'
=(_ _)=/_//_/\__/\_,_/_/  \___/ @ well.com :: William Anderson
   U - Ack! Phttpt! Thhbbt!     http://neuro.me.uk/




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