Sorry, I can see that nothing I say will change your prejudices………As you seem more worried about the right to have Nuclear Weapons. Then the total distruction they could cause……………..and its clear any response by me (i.e. American) would just fall on silent ears.:eek:

Maybe you should take a look are your own Morality. Before you start pointing fingers…..:p

don’t characterise my replies as being anti-American per se. I have nothing against Americans and have been in the US for a few years now. I like Americans as a people, but I don’t like some of the policies of its Govt.

Another thing- you act like you’re representative of the American people, whereas you’re not. You’re a rather poor sample of one actually. Actually, I couldn’t care less if you’re Tongan, as long as you’re defending the hypocrisy of the US Govt.

And how are rogue nations defined? They are defined as nations the US considers to be rogue in nature. And the rest of us are supposed to kowtow to the US’ flawed conception of the world. If we’re not with you, we’re against you, according to your enlightened leader. In your misinformed (eg WMD’s), misguided (eg Cuba and all other nasty red places pose a threat) and mistaken (eg Israel is the oppressed, not the oppressor) view we should consider all states that you deem your enemies as our enemies too. If we don’t, you have told us that we are added to your list of enemies.

Do you seriously expect non-Americans to subscribe to such blatently stupid “thinking”?

to just add to your point, lets just take the example of Libya..what exactly did Libya do that made them a terrorist state, as compared to say, Pakistan ? they were behind an airline bombing, have a megalomaniac dictator, and have challenged the US in the past. thats about it. compare that to Pakistan and see how India and Afghanistan, two of its neighbours have suffered terrorism and unrest sponsored by it.

you could just do a google search to see how Pakistan has been the hotbed of terrorist training activities for well over a decade now. guess who trained and equipped the Taliban that is haunting the US and NATO troops in Afghanistan today?
yet, because Pakistan was a US ally, it only came “close” to being declared a terrorist country, but never did make the “cut”. how is it that despite proliferating nuke technology, Pakistan still is not one of the “axis of evil” nations that Iran somehow is a part of ?

and how many terrorists did North Korea train ? just because it has a dictator who doesn’t like the US or South Korea, a US ally, its a part of the “axis of Evil” ?

Well, I doubt many see the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a good thing!:rolleyes: As I stated before the US didn’t have a problem per se with India getting Nuclear Weapons. It had a problem with the spread of such weapons to rogue nations. Which, will likely happen as more and more countries acquire such weapons. Let’s not forget after India got Nuclear Weapons Pakistan, North Korea, and possibly now Iran will have them! So, is that what are you defending??? Also, do you think the risk of Nuclear Weapons being used goes up or down. With the more countries that acquire them???:eek::rolleyes::eek::rolleyes:

Funny, you would rather beat up the Bad Americans. Then face the fact there concern is not hypocritical at all. That the US along with many other countries are trying to stop the spread on the most deadly weapons know to man kind. Which, in the wrong hands could mean the doom of us all!

well, it was America that perfected the nuke weapon first anyway, and they were the first to use it on a civilian population..what makes you think that others won’t count that as being “rogue” ?

the issue on hand is this- you cannot have flawed, discriminatory regimes like the NPT, when there are 5 nations in the world that have nukes and don’t have No-First-Use policies. Either all should renounce nukes or else the entire premise of nukes being dangerous in other’s hands sounds like double standards..

its like this group of bullies who think that they can carry firearms, but every other person should be prevented from acquiring or developing their own. this group of bullies won’t even promise not to ever use their firearms only if attacked, so it means hypothetically that if you wouldn’t even need to get into a fight with them, for them to shoot you pre-emptively..wonderfully secure you’d feel I’m sure.

I’m surprised that the US has a Constitution that guarantees the right of every individual to carry a fire-arm as a form of equality. Apparently, the same cannot be extended to countries. Safest is to ban everyone from carrying arms.

India offered to give up its nukes, as long as all others did too. no-one agreed, and India never did sign the NPT, so it never broke any laws, any agreements when it developed its nukes. Iran is an NPT signatory, so either it should pull out of that or else what its doing is illegal.

as for the great concern about the doom of all, what did America do to prevent Pakistan from acquiring its “Islamic bomb” ? If tomorrow, a Talibanesque regime comes to power, or some Taliban sympathising general takes over in a coup, Islamic terrorists could get their hands on a dirty bomb or a nuke itself. And yet, what did US do to prevent Pakistan from becoming a nuke power ? Pressler Amendments ? How does that compare to what economic and military sanctions its applied on N Korea or Iran ? What did it do to punish China for propagating nuke technology ? Or to punish Pakistan for proliferating nuke technology to N.Korea and Iran ?

the US can’t apply morality selectively and possibly believe that others are naive enough to think that the US is truly concerned with altruism.

Are you really surprised. That is the price of a really new built MiG-29K. Seems like Russia has run out of leftover airframes and would have to really built new planes. Just ask Boeing for the price of a new F/A-18C.

all MiG-29Ks are new built airframes that differ from older MiG-29 airframes in many ways..you’re confusing yourself with MiG-29 SMTs..

With “arrengements” like this the LCA doesn´t seem that inexpensive any more. I believe the real cost of this project is a well kept secret. 🙁

You don’t know much about India.

India is a democracy unlike our neighbours..we have a Comptroller and Auditor General’s Office that audits every defence program and publicly pulls them up for over expenditure (even of the most trivial kind)..those penny pinching bureaucrats won’t sit silent if the LCA had a “real cost” that was not revealed. the expenditure figures are open source data and published, although if you want me to produce them for you, I won’t bother.

Like pointed out before by some one else. The Tejas delays are the main reason for the MRCA competition. Now After RFP and Submission of bids, there is and there must not be no going back.

I would have 4-5 LCAs for the revised cost of Mig 35s tho :confused:

You’re totally wrong..the Tejas delay has nothing to do with the MRCA..the MRCA was originally meant to replace the MiG-23s (over 130 ground attack BNS and air-defence MFs) that were to be retired by 2009. the Mirage-2000-5 seemed the best choice due to its multi-role nature and the fact that Gwalior’s Maharajpur AFS had the infrastructure in place to handle 150 Mirage-2000s, not just the 50 that are there now.

the IAF pretty much asked for 126 Mirages, so that they could’ve been licence built in India and would’ve probably entered service by now, but the tragedy was that the Govt. didn’t want such a large deal to be a single vendor deal and it opened it up to every tom, dick and harry that built a plane.

Tejas’ were to replace the MiG-21s and the 130 Bison upgrade has made sure that till the time comes when they need to be replaced (2015 as of now), there don’t need to be that many Tejas’. going by the current rate of development of the Tejas, IAF’s interest in a Mk.2 variant and currently planned production schedule, there will be a shortfall in numbers around 2015 due to Bisons retiring and one may expect more MRCAs on option to fill those numbers.

from the naval aviation thread, an excerpt of the interview with Captain D.S.Shekhawat

Interview : Interview Commanding Officer, INS Hansa Captain D.S. Shekhawat
FORCE November 08

How many flying units do you have?

I have eight flying units at Hansa. To start with the ‘Fighter’ elements, the premier unit is INAS 300, also known as the ‘White Tigers’, which comprise Sea Harrier FRS 51 VSTOL aircraft. Right now, the fighters are undergoing an upgrade under the LUSH programme. This programme has commenced at a very opportune moment, as these aircraft were becoming old. The first three Sea Harriers were inducted way back in 1983. However, the aircraft will be completely revitalised after this upgrade as, apart from the new BVR missile, radar and recording system, they will also get some data-linking capability. The prototypes have already been inducted into the squadron. The initial ‘Operational Trainer’, too, has come, and the programme is moving well. HAL is coordinating the programme. The second unit is INAS 552, which is the Training Squadron of Sea Harriers. Once the LUSH programme is completed, the same aircraft will be flown by them as well.

In the same article which claimed that the Russians are asking for $77 million per Mig 29 K

its Vivek Raghuvanshi, what else can I say ?:rolleyes: