Nixon plotted war against India in 1971

[Judi Lynn]

Nixon plotted war against India in 1971

Press Trust of India
Posted online: Saturday, May 07, 2005 at 1653 hours IST
Updated: Saturday, May 07, 2005 at 1715 hours IST

Washington, May 7: Fearing that Soviets might get involved in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, then US President Richard Nixon had wanted China to make coordinated military moves in support of Pakistan, according to documents released by the State Department.

The Nixon administration was not prepared to involve itself in a war on the Indian sub-continent. Nor did it pay much attention to Indian concerns about "the carnage in East Pakistan" and the problems of refugees in West Bengal, said a State Department press release giving the gist of the papers on the Bangladesh War of Liberation, released yesterday.

But, the signing of the India-Soviet Union Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation in August 1971, while not a mutual security treaty, was viewed in Washington as a blank check to India in its confrontation with Pakistan, it said.

The US policy included support of Pakistan in UN and pressure on Soviets to discourage India, with hints that US-Soviet detente would be in jeopardy if Moscow did not comply.
(snip/...)

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=46310

[JohnnyRingo]

1. Can't these republicans get along with ANYONE?

They're always looking to invade to stop the spread of________ (fill in blank)

[saigon68]

2. Goodness and Mercy

[oscar111]

3. Nixon was drinking heavily, according to Kissinger

at some point.. was it then? or just later on?

Nixon was more RW than many thought , it seems.

His dirty tricks seem to be repeating, with the current use of a planted "journalist" in the WH press choir, pay to radio hosts to tout NCLB, and the like.

Not to mention stealing the last election by a dozen dirty methods at once.

[FreedomAngel82]

17. I've noticed that too

That a lot of his tricks are implanted with Bush. Isn't that strange? And also a lot of the people who brought down Nixon are back again to bring down Bush.

[dad]

18. 9

Reading Peter Rodino's obituary, I couln't help but be
reminded that half of what Nixon resigned for was child's play
compared to what Bush has done, and the other half would be
legal now thanks to the Patriot Act.  
For instance, a memo from England just came out that says Bush
and Blair were targeting Saddam in 2002, and the policy was to
attack Iraq.  The memo stated the plan was to make the intel
fit the policy.  Hello - war - false pretenses?  Impeach? 
Unfortunately no Dems have any balls at all; they just worry
about shit like how to get family values back on their side.

[varun]

9. Democracy

They were ready to attack the world's most populous democracy by supporting a dictatorship (Pakistan) and a Communist nation (China).

[nine30]

4. Nixon was an a$$hole of the highest order

father of the "southern strategy" , he is the cause of the
Osama-ization of the South and the reason why they vote Republican today.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[happyslug]

8. Actually no

First you have to divide the Southern Democrats of the New Deal Era into its two parts, kept together by electing the Democratic nominee in their White only Primaries. The two parts are often referred to as the "Old Whigs" and the "Old Progressives". The group referred to as the Old Whigs get that name from the fact that prior to the Civil War they tended to be members of the old Whig Party. When the decade before the Civil War the Whig party divided in half, one half joining the Anti-Slavery Republican Party, the Southern Half joining the Democrats so to control that party and its traditional control of the Southern Militia.

After the Civil War these Old Whigs stayed in the Democratic party because the GOP preferred to recruit from the Blacks in the South. With the end of Reconstruction these Old Whigs were at the heart of making sure the Blacks lost their right to vote (or if that was not possible to make the black vote meaningless).

The "Old Progressives" received their name from the old post-Reconstruction Progressive party. This came out of the Mid-West but was also big in the American South. The Progressive party wanted national and local reforms and ended up moving a lot of progressive mid-western farmers from the Republican party to the Democratic Party of William Jennings Bryan. In the South the Progressives came out of the Democratic party instead of the Republican Party and when Bryan had the Democrats adopt the Progressive party platform went back into the Democratic party.

Now the switch from the Progressive party to the Democratic Party was not smooth and left residue. The chief cause for the move back to the Democratic party in the south was the possibility that the Republican party (which in the South was overwhelmingly black) could win election with the white vote split between the progressives and Democrats (controlled by the Old Whigs). In the 1890s as the Progressive age came to a close, the Old Whigs used this fear of blacks getting elected to force the Progressives back into the Democratic Party. Now the Old Whigs did pay a price for cutting out the blacks, whoever won the all white primary their had to support even if he was a liberal southern democrat. On the other hand the old Progressive all had to support segregation no matter what to even win the all white primaries (Thus you get Southern Liberals like George Wallace saying things like "Segregation, Today, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation forever").

Under Roosevelt this fight became nasty but Roosevelt was able to control it. The old Whigs disliked Blacks so much that the old Whigs would never openly support the GOP (Through would do so in alliance with the GOP starting in the late 1930s). That alliance killed any further improvements in the new deal (and would later become the base for Nixon's Southern Policy).

In most of the South the Old Progressives were the one's in charge in the 1930s and supported FDR's new Deal. It was the Old Whigs alliance with the GOP that killed any further social improvements starting in the late 1930s. At the same time period the old Progressives started to adopt a more neutral position on race (leading to some of the first racially integrated work places in the south During WWII when Eleanor Roosevelt fought for such integration). The Old Whigs reacted to this by playing the Race Card, and when Truman rejected that card in the 1948 election the old Whigs redoubled their efforts (These efforts was NOT only to keep the blacks down, but to make sure NO Progressive laws were passed). The old Progressive had to ride this tide of racism and like George Wallace became as anti-black as the Old Whigs in the post WWII American South.

Now for the old progressives this racism was often more rhetoric than action. For example when the Old Whig Governor Of Mississippi stood in the way of blacks entering the University of Mississippi in the 1960s, he ignored the Federal Orders to stand aside until actual force was used to force him aside and let the blacks in. The following year George Wallace made his more famous stand to keep the blacks out of the University of Alabama but stood aside as soon as the Federal Marshall gave him the Court Order to leave the blacks in. Wallace knew the Order was coming down so all he was doing was grandstanding for the white voters of his stand while in effect doing noting to stop the blacks from going to the University of Alabama.

George Wallace actually shows the problems of the Old Progressives in the American South during this time period (and in the Depression). How do you do reforms while getting elected in an atmosphere of overwhelming racial hatred? Like Huey Long in the 1930s, Wallace did it the best way he could, say the right racial comments to keep the Neanderthals happy and than make sure any reforms not only helped the whites of the South but also the blacks.

It was the Old Progressives like George Wallace that supported FDR and his New Deal (And these people are still in the Democratic Party down south, along with the Blacks who only joined the Democratic Party in the South since the 1960s, prior to that, if registered at all, blacks were members of the GOP). While the Blacks left the GOP for the Democratic party in the 1960s and 1970s, the big movement out of the Democratic Party to the GOP since the 1960s has been the Old Whigs joining the GOP, a party, except for Slavery, many would have joined in the 1860s (yes 1860s not 1960s) instead of the Democratic party.

I go through the above to show you who supported the New Deal so that you do not think it was the Racists of the American South. The racist tend to be Old Whigs, while the Old Progressives only were racist enough to show support for racist policies to get elected. That is the main difference between the two groups, a huge difference and a difference even the Blacks of the South Recognized. For example George Wallace in his last two elections as Governor of Alabama lost the White Vote but won the election do to the overwhelming support of the blacks in his state. The blacks in his home state knew the difference and voted for the man who would try to do them some good as opposed to his opponent who was a true racist. As one Black man said, Wallace believed Blacks had Rights, he might also believe that every white-man should own four blacks, but Wallace believed blacks had rights. Wallace's Republican opponents do not even want to give the blacks any rights even basic Human Rights, those rights that were the basis for FDR's New Deals Reforms.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Thanks for taking the time to write this post. I've marked it to reread.

To my knowledge, I've never seen this explained before. Greatly appreciate your input.

The information about George Wallace was something to ponder, as well. He had a very brusque, rough demeanor. It's good to know there was something slightly more civilized lurking from time to time behind the image.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

13. That's very informative, thanks. (nt)

[nine30]

15. Interesting !

So the people and their "values" basically remained the same, they merely switched labels( Republicans --> Democrats, Democrats --> Republicans) So what constitutes the core of today's southern Republicans.. the descendants of the Old Whigs or the Old Progressives ? What exactly did Nixon mean by "States Rights", that caused the Old Whigs to join the Republican party en masse ?

[happyslug]

20. The Old Whigs are now happy in the GOP

While the old Progressives are allied with the Blacks in the Democratic Party in the South.

Now my thread was the emphasis the period from the 1930s to the 1970s, to do so I had to briefly go over the period 1865-1930. In 1865-1877 the North tried to get the south to be an integrated society with the Blacks have more rights than they will have till the 1960s. In the Compromise of 1877 the North agreed to leave the South handle its "Racial problem" in exchange for national unity.

From 1877 till the 1890s Blacks retained most of their rights (including the right to vote) and segregation was restricted to social Groupings (i.e. Churches) and NOT imposed by law. In the 1890s you see the first laws segregating blacks from White on public conveyances and inns (and the laws spread from those to other areas). This is also the period where the Progressives rejoin the Democratic Party in the South AND the blacks lose their legal right to vote (The vote had been denied to many Blacks from the 1870s onward but these were always viewed as illegal acts, but starting in the 1890s you start to see the law being used to stop blacks from voting, or making their vote meaningless by adopting the white only primary system).

Race relations in the South has always been changing, post Civil War the movement was for black rights, after 1877 to denying access to these rights, after 1892 to using the law to deny black their rights, and after 1956 to use the law to make sure the rights of blacks are protected. In periods where blacks voting power was weak, liberal politicians had to be as racists as their opponents just to get elected. You can NOT do anything unless you are in power, thus the art of politics is balancing between what you have to do to maintain majority support for you as the leader, while doing as much reform as possible. Reforms are popular in theory, but the opposition to a reform is deeper than the support for reform. The reason for this is that the opponents of a reform can clearly see how it will affect them, while the supporters while seeing the good of the reform, rarely will suffer a harm if the reform is NOT adopted. Thus the push against reform is always stronger than the push for reform.

This is why the South had a problem with de-segregation. The people opposed to desegregation saw the change as harming themselves, while the supporters could see the potential improvement, but had long dealt with the existing condition that fighting for the change AND dealing with the lack of change maxed them out. Thus it took till the early 1970s (and Nixon Watergate debacle) for Congress to have the Courage to pass an Education Act that provided Federal Funds to Public Schools AND ATTACHED A REQUIREMENT THAT NO FUNDING WOULD GO TO SEGREGATED SCHOOLS. That act ended segregation in the US more than any other single act, more than even Brown vs the Topeka Board of Education. Notice it took the most liberal Congress of the post-new Deal Age to get it passed and Conservative Members of the Congress has been trying to gut it and kill it ever since.

[Rex]

6. Dam, what is UP with Repukes and their warhardon?

Why can't we just dump these people to the bottom of the sea with all the dam guns? Why must they piss off everyone and make war on brown skinned people? It must be a racist-fascist thingy. :shrug:

[Gregorian]

7. It's hormonal.

Or genetic? Man, that has a sense about it. Hilterian. But it seems justified. It's not like saying someone is black, and not liking them for that. These people are aggressive and cruel. That is worthy of indignation.


Conservatism is dangerous.

[NorthernSpy]

11. I misread that as "Nixon plotted war against Indiana"

But, of course, plotting war against India was just as wacky.

:scared:

[struggle4progress]

12. Nixon didn't care abou the world's poor: this Bangladesh Liberation War ..

.. was associated with a horrid famine. Had Nixon had an ounce of ordinary decency, he would have concentrated on the humanitarian disaster, instead of following Kissinger's cruel "realpolitik" view of the world ...

[Demeter]

14. My God! I Can't Imagine The Chaos and Disaster

maybe we should be grateful for Watergate, and insist on one every 20 years...oh, wait, we are doing that already, but the GOP is dishonoring their ancestors and refusing to impeach.....

[Skidmore]

19. Nixon was a twisted soul of the worst sort. He just doesn't

go away, does he? Decades later we are still dealing with the fallout of his corrupt and vicious presidency. Rather than the Rs acknowledging that Nixon was devastating to the nation, they chose payback.

[jmatthan]

16. This was well known in India

in 1971 as US Naval Forces steamed into the Bay of Bengal.

The entire Indian population was anti American at that time and a lot of that hatred against the US has remained till the present day, not as an outward display of hatred but of total mistrust of the American Administration - both Republican and Democrat.

Various US Ambassadors have brought back a degree of sanity, and as long as India is at the winning streak of the present outsourcing boom, it will stay below the surface.

Jacob Matthan
http://jmpolitics.blogspot.com
Oulu, Finland