Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!acorn!abray
From: abray@acorn.co.uk (Andy Bray)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Soviet Access to Usenet
Summary: Remember Grenada?
Message-ID: <594@acorn.co.uk>
Date: 13 Dec 88 00:56:44 GMT
References: <7649@well.UUCP> <8081@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <17651@gatech.edu> <5048@brspyr1.BRS.Com>
Organization: Acorn Computers, Cambridge, England
Lines: 68

In article <5048@brspyr1.BRS.Com>, miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) writes:
> [... loadsa stuff deleted ...]
> 
> And you have completely misinterpreted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
> Suppose a bloody civil war broke out in Mexico, and after years of devastation,
> anti-US forces started getting the upper hand.  Suppose the US embassy in
> Mexico City was burned to the ground and US diplomatic personnel butchered and
> their heads paraded around the city on poles.  Suppose the CIA began announcing
> that much of the success of the anti-US forces was due to heavy covert Soviet
> involvement.  Suppose the anti-US forces began making statements about taking
> their fight across the border into Texas.  You may safely assume that US policy
> makers would argue strongly, and probably successfully, for a US invasion of 
> Mexico.
>   
Hmmm.. this sounds awfully familiar to me. I seem to remember not so long ago
a certain superpower invaded a far smaller nation called Grenada for reasons
very much similar to this, and Grenada had the features of being further away
than Cuba, smaller, and in no position to directly threaten the 'Good 'ol US of
A'.

Grenada is (and was) a member of the British Commonwealth, and as such strictly
speaking sovereign territory of Her Magesty Queen Elizabeth the second. This
pissed of some of us here in Britain, I can tell you. So much for the much
vaunted 'special relationship'. I wonder what Ronnie would have done if he
thought he could safely invade the USSR?

Now I realise this is no longer totally appropriate for comp.misc, but to some
of us here in Europe, the distinction between Gorby's Russia and Ronnies USA
seems to be getting a bit blurred.

It seems to me that there is a very good argument for us here in the West to
offer various degrees of support for the changes being made in the USSR,
whether by a news feed or rather more concrete economic support, and that is
this:
	1)	Most would agree that Mr.Gorbachov has a more positive attitude
		to the West and arms control etc. than any previous Russian
		leader.

	2)	He has very much put his neck on the line gambling that
		Perestroika will lead to real economic improvement in Russia
		rather than just allow various embarassing nationalistic
		issues to surface in Armenia, the Baltic states, Hungary etc.

	3)	On the whole we would rather he stays in place making his slow
		and (hopefully) steady reforms, than be replaced by an old
		guard hardliner.

In comparison to the other issues, the issue of a news feed is a rather trivial
affair, and I feel anything that increases real communication between the
people of the USSR and those in the West will decrease paranoia generally.

If the Russian hackers get to know us and realise that we aren't all in
favour of turning their Motherland into a nuclear wasteland, then the Red Army
will have a much harder task of getting them to write ICBM programs etc.

Of course this can cut both ways, but in the light of some of the bigotry that
has been expressed here on this subject, I suspect there are possibly more
American hackers in need of enlightenment than Russians. I know who I'm more
frightened of.

So for the sake of the enlightenment of bigots everywhere - lets connect the
USSR up to USENET, we've got more to gain than them. I might even save up my
pennies and buy them a modem :-).

Please excuse the length of my ramblings, which aren't really approriate to
this group, but then this discussion should have migrated ages ago.

Andy Bray.