India’s Bomb Test

Regarding “India Deserves World Sanctions,” editorial, May 14: Once again the Western world presumes it can dictate how countries not in their exclusive club can best serve their national interests. Maybe our rivers are polluted, and maybe we have a lot to accomplish in terms of education, etc. However, Indian children can go to school without parents worrying they will be shot at; pregnant women can shop in the stores without looking over their shoulders at potential gunmen. Many Americans appear to believe that the right to bear arms is their constitutional right, necessary to protect their interests. Well, India views nuclear arms in the same light.

Most Americans have no idea that India is surrounded by hostile neighbors, China and Pakistan, both of whom are treated exceptionally well by the U.S. Back in the ‘60s the Chinese claimed that “Indians and Chinese are brothers.” What did they do? They turned around and attacked us in the 1962 conflict. How about Israel, which has nuclear weapons? Well, Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbors, so the Western world reasons. It might come as news to you, but so is India.

When was the last time that the U.S. was threatened by Canada or Mexico? India as a sovereign nation has every right to defend its national security, without other nations interfering in its business.

KAVERI SUBRAHMANYAM

Los Angeles

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As an Indian and a nuclear engineer, I have to state that India, as a consequence of these explosions, is now going to have nuclear missiles pointed at it from both Pakistan and China. And the region is going to go through the same stress that the West went through during the Cold War. Indians became paranoid when the Pakistanis butchered 3 million of their own countrymen in erstwhile East Pakistan. India has also paid the price of China’s genocide in Tibet. The Dalai Lama lives in India.

In case the U.S. seriously wants to alleviate nuclear proliferation, instead of sanctions, it should get involved in mediating between these counties to resolve the border disputes. The fact that 200 Christians are on death row in Pakistan for criticizing Islam is another issue that should be addressed. Democracy is built on generating consensus and not unilateral man- dates/sanctions.

SHOBHAN PAUL

Malibu

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Re “U.S. Intelligence Failed to Warn of India’s Atom Tests,” May 13: U.S. intelligence scores again! After its brilliant performances in Vietnam and during the Cold War in the Soviet Union, the intelligence community has proved one more time that it studied under Inspector Clouseau at Bumbling University.

Let’s appoint a serious and honest person, like former President George Bush, once the director of the CIA, to completely rethink the role of intelligence and then to revamp it from top to bottom.

RENE ROBERTS

Valencia

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Please explain the U.S. being “aghast with surprise” and its condemnation of the testing in India. Can we maintain an exclusive, “holier than thou” right to underground nuclear testing, as we recently did in New Mexico (April 2), without expecting the same world outcry of shame?

EVA L. BARCIA

Los Angeles