A. Q. Khan, Father of Pakistan’s Nuclear Bomb, Has Died | Hacker News Reader

A. Q. Khan, Father of Pakistan’s Nuclear Bomb, Has Died

nytimes.com

15 pointsJoeDaDude17 comments

Dangerous guy, he worked with Libya, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. The height of amorality.

Good riddance TBH. His damage to international security will never be repaired.

You mean his damage to American hegemony, right? They tend to hate it when they can't bully countries with their oversized military so no surprise that they villanise their deterrents. The hypocrisy is pretty sickening if a little amusing.

As far as I and the majority of Pakistanis are concerned, he's a hero.

Shame for India but it's laughable to suggest that India would not have escalated into a full out ground invasion into Pakistan if they did not have a massive deterrent.

No, I meant exactly what I said. It would have been one thing if he simply fathered Pakistans own program; while that might have raised eyebrows in Capitol Hill here in the US, it would not have fallen terribly outside expectations of security elites in Asia as well as the EU and US. When he started playing footsie with DPRK and others akin, it most definitely was a wretched move.

Pakistanis can love him as a hero...there are people in the US who still worship Robert E. Lee, and they are idiots also.

Except the difference is the Americans never had to deal with a hostile next door neighbour with the personal financial and arms backing of the world's largest military superpower so this is a laughable attempt at equivocation.

You might not like the DPRK (I'm not a fan either though then again it's hard to have a firm stance on an area in the world where there is almost no non-propagandised information on) but it makes a lot of sense why somebody from Pakistan of all places would be sympathetic with their situation.

Pakistan needs nukes. It's a shallow country, no room for defense in depth, and India is a huge, hostile neighbor. The World would be better off with Libya and North Korea not having nukes.

Seems a bit of a weird double standard there. Why exactly should Libya and North Korea not have nukes? They have powerful hostile forces against them as well. India also absolutely required nukes because Pakistan definitely does act the aggressor in several instances. Their army might be smaller but outnumbered does not mean outgunned.

Libya got destroyed by American forces because it did not have any real deterrent to invasion and Assad literally allowed NATO in to show he had no weapons of mass destruction only to then be toppled anyway.

Seems that playing ball with the Americans does not work as Iran has learned the hard way with Trump breaking their nuclear treaty. It's because America - just like China and other super powers - do not believe that international law applies to them. Might makes right in their eyes, regardless of the pompous self aggrandising crap about freedom and democracy.

Libya and North Korea were both exporters of terrorism at the time, such as the Lockerbie bombing and North Korea kidnapping Japanese off the beaches of Japan at night.

India had nukes before Pakistan, and built them because of China, not Pakistan. The order of development was:

US built them because of WW II, to beat Germany to them, and aid the War effort.

USSR, because US had them.

China, because USSR.

India, because China.

Pakistan, because India.

If being an exporter of terrorism is all it takes to be disqualified to possess nukes, then the USA and Russia should have lost theirs a long long time ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan

And Indias bomb, the guy sold to everyone.

Playboy was one of the first outlets to break that news story and did a hell of a job with indepth coverage. In between the Lindsey Lohan photos obviously

> And Indias bomb

Yeah, no.

India conducted its first test in 1974. Khan Research Laboratories was started in response in 1976.

He may not have been responsible for their original bomb but he sold a hell of a lot of equipment to improve their program. They were never officially acknowledged by name but we're simply refered to as "another buyer" or similar

In honestly surprised the was able to retire and no one assassinated him. Particularly the Israeli...oh there was talk of them buying from him too. He was instrumental in starting new programs but also improving existing ones

There are half a dozen middle powers which would have loved to get their hands on them. India and Israel are the least likely candidates.

He was a pretty equal opportunity merchant if death from what I read

The point is that there was nothing he was selling that would be useful to the Israelis (or the Indians, assuming he'd do business with them). Both of these countries have long standing weapons programs that have made progress substantially beyond what Khan could bring to the table.

Also India is the enemy of Pakistan and the why Pakistan develops nukes. It's really nonsense to help India.

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