The Aero India 2009 is now a huge event on the world aviation calender, and ever since India has started showing its appetite for big ticket military items, all the big defense companies of the world are making a beeline to this bi-annual event.
It just got over recently, and since the US and India have been edging closer towards a supposed partnership of two great democracies, the American companies have been in India in full force trying to sell everything. So Lockheed Martin is trying India to buy the F-16, the venerable single-engine jet engine in the service of I dont know how many air forces in the world, and in production since decades and produced in thousands.
So there were two F-16s flown at Aero India at Bangalore. They belonged to the United Arab Emirates Air Force. Not there is any problem in that, except that they let Pak pilots use their planes, and in times of war, have helped the same country in cash and kind. And now we are supposed to be impressed by the same jet fighter. My personal opinion is that sure the US is a great partner, but the more we let source our national assets through them, the more we are scape goats to the classic American flipflop. Like somebody said, in this world, there are no friends, only national interests, and I am sorry to bring this up, but if the Congress and its piddly allies think that India's national interest is served by giving up on every sense of national security, then we are doomed. This is not just about the planes, but on a much wider scale.
Anyways, here is an act that actually reiterated my belief that nobody can be trusted, especially nations which have never had a history of being India's friends. There is a Tier I WTA tennis event called the Dubai Classic, with a prize money in millions, and the world's top ranking women tennis players make it a point to play in it. There is an Isreali tennis player, Shahar Peer, and she has been denied a visa to play in the event. So much for Dubai's pretense that it is a modern city and UAE is a progressive state.
I have said this for China, but the same holds for the Arab world as well - glossy buildings do not a nation modern make. When the mindset is the same, it eventually will come out in the open. The same is true for India, no doubt, considering what we did for Taslima Nasreen and how the fundamentalists of India raised a ruckus when we tried to prosecute the traitors among us, or some dumb idiots attacked girls at bars. But hopefully i will get to write about that later.
Coming back to the Shahar Peer episode, UAE probably hasn't realized that despite all the glitz and luxury it can buy with oil and gas, I am sure the people of the free'er world still hope for some basic human equality and dignity.
