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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric
From: eric@aplvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: USSR reportedly shoots down Korean Commercial Airliner.
Message-ID: <293@aplvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Sep-83 09:23:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: aplvax.293
Posted: Sat Sep  3 09:23:10 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Sep-83 19:09:20 EDT
References: <1894@rabbit.UUCP>, <467@ihuxw.UUCP>
Organization: JHU/Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD
Lines: 33


	I can't believe that someone thinks that the incident was an attempt
to murder a congressman. It will probably be some time before this is sorted
all out (and since most of the data will come from US and Japanese monitoring
stations, much of it may remain classified), but I don't believe the Russians
would shoot down a plane to get one congressman. First is the issue of how
they knew he was on board (not difficult to learn, but probably not constantly
monitored by Moscow). Second, you don't kill 260 people to get one if you are
a major super power. Let's face it, they are going to take a lot of flack for
this (which they certainly deserve, do not get the idea that I am siding with
the Russians on this).

	The actual cause of the shooting has got to be the fact the plane flew
over a very sensitive area of Soviet defense. This has happened before (about
five years ago if I remember) and at that time the plane wandered around for
several hours. As a result of that, it is possible that the Soviets developed
a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy.

	The other thing coming out is that the Soviet pilots consistently 
refered to the plane as "the target". This indicates that they were either
extremely callous or that they mis-identified the plane. The US does use a
militarized version of the 707 for recon. If it is the later, the Soviets
were incredibly inept at identification, since 747s and 707s are not too
similar.

	Anyway, it is clear that this borders on an act of war (there are
rumors that there will be problems with insurance because it was an act of war)
and the response from the rest of the world must be stern, but not enough
to cause the Kremlin to take that final step. I would not want to be responsible
for this decision.

					eric
					...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric