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From: bradley@cs.utexas.edu (Bradley L. Richards)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Computer Communication and the Gulf War
Message-ID: <1679@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 30 Jan 91 02:20:57 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
Organization: Dept of Computer Sciences, UTexas, Austin
Lines: 31
Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

Thom Gillespie writes that he wants to hear news over the net from inside
Iraq, and can't understand why we haven't heard from them like we did from
folks inside China about Tiennamen Square.

There are two reasons to consider.  First, China has nearly 100 times the
population of Iraq.  Even though both countries are relatively poor, it's
a fair bet that there are a lot more folks with computer access in China
than in Iraq.  The second, obvious, reason is that Tiennaman Square was not
an attempt to destroy the military and industrial centers of the country.
Communications in Iraq at this point are probably chancy at best, and even
electrical power is unavailable in many areas.  So it's little wonder that
we don't see lots of Iraqi messages on the net....

Thom, you also say "is there anyone who doesn't realize that the Gulf War
is also an enormous weapons testing research project.  We are told about the
successes, what about the failures?"  Now, there's no doubt that the military
and the contractors are paying very close attention to how well different
weapons systems are working--they'd be foolish not to.  But your implication
that this is the reason (or even *a* reason) to go to war is uncalled for.

No doubt there have been failures.  Bombs have been dropped off-target, and
no doubt you've seen the photos of the town northwest of Baghdad that was
destroyed.  But what kind of information do you expect?  There's only one
western journalist left in the whole country, and everything he says has to
pass by Iraqi censors.  Iraq portrayed that village as an example of the
kind of indiscriminate bombing that they claim we are doing.  But I'd lay
odds that there was a military target of some sort in that village (perhaps
one of the mobile Scud launchers?), as it was just too far out of the way to
get bombed by accident.

Bradley