Nukes

Dear Indigna,

I was appalled to learn that President Bush, on his recent trip to India, agreed to share nuclear technology with that country while exempting the Indians from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Doesn’t that frighten you? What if India goes to war with Pakistan? Are we setting ourselves up for a modern day arms race in the region?

Ducked and Covered
Indianapolis, IN

Dear Ducked,

I really think you have nothing to worry about. It is my understanding, if I remember correctly from my school days, that Indians live in buffalo hide “teepees” out in the Southwest somewhere and subsist through hunting, gathering, and limited agriculture. It seems unlikely that they would have a use for any nuclear technology, much less an arms race, so this “Treaty” of which you write seems rather moot, don’t you think? I mean, it would be decades, no doubt, before the Indians are in a position to threaten anyone, much less a country as far away as Pakistan, as I understand that their weapons of choice are handmade bows and arrows, as well as primitive hatchets they call “tomahawks.” Heck, it would take months just to get to Pakistan on horseback (Indians’ preferred method of travel), if they could get there at all, so there would be very little element of surprise should they wish to go to war with Pakistan, though how they would have even heard of Pakistan is rather beyond my comprehension as I understand they speak their own languages (not English) and don’t have television, radio or newspapers.

Now I have heard of something called a “tomahawk missile,” and granted, such a weapon could do some damage, but I hardly think it would spark an arms race. Furthermore, what the Indians could hope to accomplish by exploding a shell filled with those crude implements is more than I can fathom.