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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Re: Do Russians ALWAYS lie? - (nf)
Message-ID: <840@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Apr-84 13:57:01 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.840
Posted: Sun Apr  8 13:57:01 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Apr-84 21:17:21 EST
References: <6580@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
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>>> Has anyone read or heard the official soviet response/opinion of
>>> the collision?  Not that it bears any resemblance to reality, I
>>> am just curious as to what it was.
>
>>  With this kind of unthinking expectation that the Soviets must always
>>  lie, how can we ever expect to achieve the kind of mutual trust needed
>>  to avoid the nuclear winter? Wasn't there once something called "the
>>  credibility gap"? Didn't it refer to the US government's statements?
>>                                       -- Martin Taylor
>
>Soviet government statements have no correlation with reality.  It is
>not that they *always* lie; they will tell the truth when it suits
>them.  But if it serves their purposes to lie, then they will lie.
>There is ample evidence for anyone willing to look:  KAL Flight 007 and
>Andropov's "cold" are only the most recent examples.
>
>   Scott Renner

I wasn't trying to claim that the Russian stories are usually (or even
often) true.  Just pointing out that it is a fashion for governments
everywhere to hide information or to release just favourable information.
We don't have to go as far back as Tricky Dick for local examples
("I will never lie to you" was an election phrase that didn't last long;
and look at what we know vs. what the US government wants us to know
about Central America.) One of the reasons the US has decided to pull
out of UNESCO is that most of the countries in UNESCO want to formalize
this kind of selective information dissemination.  Here it is fashionably done,
but not discussed in public, like sex in Victorian times. ("Close your
eyes, and think of England." "It's a matter of National Security.")

My main argument is that we MUST try to hold to a single standard in
assessing the behaviours of our own and other governments, whether the
others be Soviet or nominally friendly.  Misinformation from government
is one of the most damaging things that can happen to a people, since
from it so many other evils flow.  Perhaps they are more guilty than us,
since at least most Western governments usually apologise or try to
weasel out of it when they are caught lying (but not always, as with
the current US administration).

Don't believe your own or any other government on faith alone. And don't
forget that THEY are people, just as we are.  We all have the same
interests at heart.
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt