According to recently de-classified white house documents Richard Nixon said that " Indians are a slippery, treacherous people" while his Henry Kissinger held the view that "The Indians are bastards anyway. They are the most aggressive goddamn people around". This is during the run up to the East Pakistan/Bangladesh fiasco resulting in an India-Pakistan war.
To crush the rebellian West Pakistan engaged in a genocide resulting in around 3 million people dead, 200,000-400,00 women raped and 8-10 million people sought refuge in India.
Nixon seems to have overlooked the human casuality to maintain good relations with Pakistan. He seems to have remarked to a visiting Pakistani delegation "Yahya is a good friend. I understand the anguish of the decisions which Yahya had to make."
When full scale war began between India and Pakistan, Nixon dispatched the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal to "intimidate" India. This however did not change the outcome and the new country of Bangladesh was created.
It does make up for interesting reading on how American Foreign Policy has been historically based on.
No comments:
Post a Comment