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From: al@aurora.UUCP (Al Globus)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: To Hell With Diplomacy
Message-ID: <376@aurora.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 21:23:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: aurora.376
Posted: Mon Jul 15 21:23:58 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Jul-85 02:25:22 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 35

>The Battleship New  Jersey and  said destroyers  fired on GUN
>EMPLACEMENTS ONLY, and with great accuracy at that  (our modern naval
>vessels are equipped with automated means of determining trajectories
>of incoming rounds...

According to an article in Aviation Week (sorry, can't remember the issue),
US Naval gunfire in Lebanon was quite inaccurate do to poor spotting.
Even with a lot of computers and sensors naval gunfire is
not accurate without spotters due to wind, slight variations in shells, movement
of the ship, etc.  Spotting was poor because we have no RPVs (remote
piloted vehicles), there were few ground spotters, and we didn't want
to risk piloted aircraft.  This was agravated since it seems the Moslems tended
to put their artillery in populated areas.

>The rounds fired by the U.S.   naval vessels
>were in RESPONSE to shells fired at  the ground  based Marines and/or
>the ships themselves from gun emplacements in the hills around Beirut
>and in the Bekka Valley.

This was true at first.  Later, the gunfire was used to support the
Lebanese army against the Moslems.

>I  would  be  pleased  if Mr.   Globus  would attempt  to restate his
>justifications of the bombing attacks on the U.S...

I'm not trying to justify anything.  I'd just like to point out that people
get extremely upset when the are shelled, regardless of what justifications
are given in editorials, and tend to shoot back.  This is a fact, not a 
justification.  If you send combat troops into civil wars, weapons loaded or
not, they're going to get shot at.  Responding by shelling populated areas
is stupid.  You will notice that the vast major of marine casualties came
AFTER the naval shelling.  If we had followed our constitution, Congress would
never have declared war, no troops would have been sent, and no marines
would have died.  Perhaps there would have been no hijacking, but that
cannot be said with confidence.