Slashdot Mirror
Trojan Horse Caused A Siberian Explosion
An anonymous reader writes "William Safire of the nytimes [nytimes.com] has an interesting column this week describing how the Soviets purchased bogus computer chips from the West in the 1970's. These chips caused what "was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space." Fascinating story."
For some reason, I can equally imagine something like this happen from the Pentium I FDIV bug, can't you? :)
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
For the tin foil hat crowd, here is a register free link: The Story
In Soviet Russia, computer blows up you !
For a moment I thought you were talking about the recent explosion in Trojan Horses coming from Siberia (ok so its not exactly a trojan and its Russia not Siberia but what the hell ;^)
I rememeber that Russia once developed a base-3 computer called ``Trinity''. I cant find a link on it, but I know that it worked. I cannot imagine how logical operations would work on sutch a thing though.
It just makes for too nice a story. Why should we believe it?
this story has everything. technology, spies, massive explosions, and high ranking government officials dying. it doesn't get much better than this.
They must have planted an agent inside Microsoft...
Now is a time to remember that sometimes our spooks get it right in a big way.
Let's get this straight - Safire is bragging about the Americans blowing up gas pipelines???? I thought that was terrorism, at least if it is in Iraq. Lucky many weren't killed.
Deconstruct the State
Let's cause an explosion that could cause the death of hundreds (if not more), and then gloat about it.
Cold war or not, this is just callous disregard for human life.
Ich werde nie wieder denken
Man is it hard to think of a clever "In Soviet Russia" line on this one!
Instead, according to Reed -- a former Air Force secretary whose fascinating cold war book, "At the Abyss," will be published by Random House next month
:(
So, it's more an ad than anything else, isn't it ?
And the fact that it ended that dramatically just makes me kind of sceptical...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I just read the article and I obviously dont know the facts outside of the article, but even though nobody was seriously hurt (as said in the article), did the US know that when they got started in this whole fiasco or do you think they would have done it anyways if there was the potential for many (as in hundreds) people to get hurt/killed? If hundreds of people got hurt, it would have been easy to figure out who was behind it and this could have escalated the tension greatly.
1. Supply computer chips to Soviets
2. ??????????*
3. PROFIT!
*KABOOOOM!
Tin foil hat on...
This guy works/worked for the intelligence services. He was/is involved in "disinformation" operations. The intelligences services in the USA and UK are currently under increadible scrutiny for having goofed big-time about Iraq. This guy gets an article published in the NY Times about a very successful operation that helped finish the Cold War. There is no evidence, other than this article, and it can't be proved or disproved.
Draw your own conclusions.
Tinfoil hat time!
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
A risky business, but there were thankfully no (recorded) casualties. It does make you realise that for some things it's a really good idea to look at the code!
Nice, in a way, to see the French and US governments working together too.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
I mean...really....for someone who frequents a nerd site your deduction and extrapolatory skills are seriously lacking.
Blar.
Oh yeah, this is the country that took over twenty million casualties in WWII and didn't cave, but they toss in the towel from a gas explosion and some computer problems.
Too bad Adolf didn't know that cold wars are so much easier to win than hot ones.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
We have:
Clearly Mr Safire needs to take his medication more regularly._O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
My father was one of developers of top secret soviet chips in 1970's. Many of them were clones of western devices. We had lots of chips, transistors, Fortran listings and special books at home. Most of them were lost because we moved four times in last 24 years.
As far as we (me and my dad) know no chips or computers were purchased from "the West" before 1980's. We developed and manufactured clones of 360, PDP, VAX and others instead. They were software-compatible with Western ones but contained only Soviet (and other Eastern Europe) components.
Later we got VAXen (I remember two of them), Macs (no personal experience) and IBM PC.
wish to develop their own indigenous computer technologies industries instead of simply buying it from us and possibly subjecting themselves to this sort of intergovernmental terrorism? Had this explosion taken place in a populated area the blood would be on our hands.
It goes way beyond issues of economic competition. It's a question of independence, control and security.
Rather like your use of Open Source software.
KFG
I invite people to do a Google search on William Safire and assess for themselves his credbility and impartiality. I'm dubious about the first, but certain that he's not impartial.
The day after it was announced President Bush was setting up an inquiry on why intelligence was so bad over Irag, we get a story on how wonderful the intelligence services are
(ignoring the fact that they did stop the building of any military hardware but a civilian pipeline)
An opinion piece written by a guy who said he used to work down the hall from a guy who said he knew all about this. This sounds more like a review for a book than an actual article. Nothing like a nice post to get all the lemmings whining about loss of life, etc.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
The trans-siberian natural gas pipeline used technology by a UK company called Serck Controls. In those days, the telemetry computers were 6800 based and I believe they used DEC PDP-11s or more likely (because of export controls), Serck's own computers for running the main control system. I know they were working with a bundle of other western companies, but I thought they had the telemetry system side of it completely.
That old fucker, Safire, has been in the middle of a 4-5 year slide into senility on MTP. Here's the pattern: Russert poses question. Safire switches topic to some feeble discussion of presidential honor and George Bush's actually vast intellect. Russert says something to Broder. Broder gets two words in. Safire interrupts with some half-assed pass at whatever female is on the set using 'obsequiuous' in a sentence, thus being the only English speaker on the planet to do so in 6 weeks. Then he writes an article about how the Soviets couldn't weather a pipeline disaster or some shit and that vindicates Ronald Raygun's presidency through some implied leap of logic.
Remember Ronald Reagan died for your sins.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Good one. :)
instead, according to Reed -- a former Air Force secretary whose fascinating cold war book, "At the Abyss," will be published by Random House next month.
Sounds just like an advertisement for a new book to me.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." -Albert Einstein
Karma? There's a serial modder out there.
My dad work for Control Data (remember them and their Cyber, the great super computers before Cray left to found his own company?) in the 70s and 80s. At one time the Soviet's bought a computer from them, some several million dollar purchases. A lot of paper work was involved (The US won't just sell these without knowing it won't be used against us...).
The Soviet currency was not a hard currency traded on the open market. That ment control Data got in return cabbages and guns (single shot 12 gauges, great for cheap hunters).
Americans can have military and spy adventures abroad which topple governments, bring U.S.-friendly dictators into power, kill or main thousands, but it's not terrorism unless its another foreign power unleashing it.
Don't you get the underlying double standard yet? Besides which, Safire is a neocon lapdog fuckwit, getting strokes for cheerleading the conquering of other nations.
I know I know, this sounds like a troll, but if anybody still believes the U.S. really had a valid WMD pretense for its party with Death in Iraq, please explain in terms that don't include vague excuses like "it needed to be done" or "Saddam had it coming," because there are plenty of dictators still out there who the U.S. is still cozy with, and Saddam was one whom U.S. danced closely with.
One day (soon hopefully), american Democrats will pull their heads out of their asses and aggressively pursue the Republican's international war crimes the way they pursued the Clinton cigar story.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
why europe needs Gallileo Navigation system and china and India need their independent space and energy programs.
Imagine if they'd created a Beo.. but I really couldn't be ar**ed.
...Probably would have taken out half the galaxy.
AT&ROFLMAO
Anyone who has read Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" knows that the events which kick off the 3rd World War are indeed a Siberean oil line being blown up, thus damaging their oil reserves unrepairably. Knowing Clancy's tendency to discover little details like this, and his incredibly acurate rendering of "What if" I can't say it would supprise me at all if this were a true event. Indeed the funniest thing to me is that Clancy except for a few years of ROTC never served in the military at all. (I believe he was an insurance salesman but I could eb wrong about that detail) When he first published his books the government tried to courtmarshall him only to find he had no military experience.
This is not a sig
If you read the article, you know there were no known casualties. It's not a very in-depth piece, but I would guess it was planned that way from the beginning. I'm not usually one to defend the CIA or the whole concept of espionage, but I'm damned glad we won the Cold War, and doing so through intelligence activities involving no loss of life is better than through military action with the potential for nuclear war and mutually assured destruction and all that.
Besides, at least it's an example of the CIA doing what it's supposed to do. If I hear one more story about the CIA directly violating their charter by gathering domestic intelligence, well...I guess I'll just hate the CIA even more and not really do anything about it, but that sort of thing really pisses me off.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
"Farewell stayed secret because the blast in June 1982, estimated at three kilotons, took place in the Siberian wilderness, with no casualties known."
.
- 1982.html)
I consider this highly unlikely, due to both the lack of information about such an event, and the events that followed shortly after. .
June 18, 1982-
* President Reagan widens a ban on sales of US oil and gas equipment to Russia, which is building a gas pipeline from Siberia to Central Europe.
July 22, 1982-
* France orders French licensees of U.S. firms to honor all contracts for the Siberian gas pipeline.
November 13, 1982-
* President Reagan lifts his ban against the use of U.S. technology for the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Western Europe.
So, at the same time this supposed blast occured, Reagan is banning the sale of equipment and technology to the USSR, France is requiring all the contracts to be honored by U.S. companies, and not a damn soul knows that it has either been destroyed, or is about to?
And then, a few short months later Reagan changes his mind, feels bad for the 3 kiloton trojan horse, and decides to make it up by selling them the information they need to rebuild a place we just barely destroyed.
Forgive me if I scoff.
(Source: http://www.cedmagic.com/museum/press/ced-timeline
Basically, the Soviets got suckered because they outsourced the software and chips to US firms.
Doesn't anybody see the similarity between what companies are doing now (with outsourcing) and the Soviet Union did 20 years ago?
And in case you're wondering, this is why Congress is afraid of cyber-terrorism - we literally used computers to kill people in Siberia in the 80's. Perhaps they are scared that the same thing could happen here?
I realize the fears of cyber-terrorism are overblown, but it is a real threat. The threat isn't from outside hackers, but rather, from insiders who plant trojan software programs and sabotage hardware. What would happen if a nuclear power plant computer was programmed to silently vent small quatities of nuclear waste over a period of months or years? By the time it would be noticed, it would be too late to avert disaster.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
From the article:
President Francois Mitterrand of France also opposed the gas pipeline. He took President Reagan aside at a conference in Ottawa on July 19, 1981, to reveal that France had recruited a key K.G.B. officer in Moscow Center. Col. Vladimir Vetrov provided what French intelligence called the Farewell dossier.
This little bit of information is more or less correct. "Farewell" was the code name assigned to Col. Vetrov by his French DGSE (French CIA) handlers.
The next time you are tempted to say that France is not an ally of the USA, just remember that little bit of transatlantic cooperation. I personally think Mitterand was a crook, a thief and a sleazeball -- and I am trying to stay polite, here... But, ultimately, he may have done the right thing here.
But Safire glosses over the saddest part of the Farewell history (emphasis mine):
Vetrov was caught and executed in 1983. A year later, Bill Casey ordered the K.G.B. collection network rolled up, closing the Farewell dossier. [...] Now is a time to remember that sometimes our spooks get it right in a big way.
What Safire does not says is that:
In short: every good intelligence in this story was supplied by the French, and the USA made a mess of it, an important source was killed and years of hard work were wasted.
A little bit like the recent situation with a middle-east country with vast oil reserves, but I digress... You can mod me down now. End of Rant mode.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
I think you're showing your age...
Just what age was the original poster showing, hmmm? Are you saying that people who didn't live through the Cold War are incapable of understanding its meaning? I don't agree with the parent post, either (see below), but I don't dissent by making ad hominem attacks.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
Uh... care to explain how? Assuming this guy's not just talking out his ass to hype up CIA wins in the past: The U.S. initially simply turned down the purchase order for the technology when the Soviets approached them, but a KGB man told them that an agent was being sent in to steal it. The U.S. booby trapped the stolen technology which forced the Soviets to reevalutate the viability of ALL the technology they'd STOLEN over the years. So, it's facist to booby trap technology that your enemy is stealing from you for their own gain? Yea... that makes sense. Add in the fact that a blew up a pipeline in the middle of nowhere so nobody even got hurt...
Of course, if you'd read the article, you'd already know all this.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Even if true, they have ONE explosion and they suddenly suspect ALL the technology they've "stolen" from us?
""The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire," writes Reed, "to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds."
They even "stole" the software?
"But all the software it had stolen for years was suddenly suspect, which stopped or delayed the work of thousands of worried Russian technicians and scientists."
Personally, I would have suspected user error or home-grown sabotage first. But that's probably why I don't work for the KGB.
"Farewell stayed secret because the blast in June 1982, estimated at three kilotons, took place in the Siberian wilderness, with no casualties known."
Something blows up in the wilderness and they suspect stolen US technology was the culprit.
"Now is a time to remember that sometimes our spooks get it right in a big way."
-compare/contrast-
"Col. Vladimir Vetrov provided what French intelligence called the Farewell dossier. It contained documents from the K.G.B. Technology Directorate showing how the Soviets were systematically stealing -- or secretly buying through third parties -- the radar, machine tools and semiconductors to keep the Russians nearly competitive with U.S. military-industrial strength through the 70's. In effect, the U.S. was in an arms race with itself."
So, we have the FRENCH to thank for this success?
That's what they get for outsourcing their software.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
So, how do we know that our current chips don't have something like this in them, in case the CIA wants to shut us down for whatever reason?
I'm just asking. I don't know. Do any of you? Or am I at risk of being in the middle of a massive nefarious plot and have the government smirkingly pull the plug on me, leaving me screaming "Damn You iBook motherboard!!!"
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
For those of us that feel the government is not as out to get us as big corporations here is a link to the CIA account of the event.
This is not a sig
If there is some truth in this article Russia will be really pissed off. Expect queries in the russian parlament, diplomatic notes and investigations. Just what everyone need with war on terror and staff...
you somehow think only the west did nasty things during the cold war and the soviets hugged trees?
exactly how do you fight someone bent on killing you? you sing campfire songs to him?
nice warped view of history and human nature you have there
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When I was twelve I also believed that adding 'fucking' to every sentence would make my argument any stronger. Trust me, in 10 years you will also realise that's not true.
http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/96unclass/farewell. htm
contaminate his world view?
Clear, Dark Skies
"Wait. They did not fully cooperate. They kept balking and stalling at the inspection sites. They even went as far as to kick out the inspectors a few years ago. If they had fully complied, the inspections would have been completed 10 years ago."
Yes, they did refuse to cooperate. They interfered with and then outright stopped inspections when they learned the US was planting CIA agents as American inspection team members. This is what the whole "we'll let inspections resume if there are no Americans on it" thing was about.
"No, it decided that it would retaliate against Iraq unless it stopped terrorism and complied with the cease-fire requirements. It gave Iraq plenty of time to comply."
I'm sorry that like most Americans you missed the news cast the rest of the world got where half the administration is busy saying (CYA) they have no evidence that Iraq was linked to terrorist groups. Oh, and that whole WMD BS... Speaking of that, we really did give him all that stuff he gassed the kurds with back in the 80's. And sorry, I know you think a WMD is forever, but alot of that stuff actually has something known commonly as an "expiration date." Where the scumbags that put and helped that scumbag, and we're the scumbags removing the old one and probably going to end up putting in a new one. By the way, if you care so much about the kurds, you should see what all that depleted uranium we dumped over there in ammunition is doing to them.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
What did the US do to help win the Cold War? First of all, it's always mentioned in US schools or corporate media how the Russians occupied Eastern Europe with it's armies. What's not mentioned is that the US occupied Western Europe with it's armies. Until 1956 in France, the communist party (PCF) was the most popular party in elections. In Italy the communist party was so popular the US had to result in subterfuge and election tampering to keep Italy from going communist. In fact Italy was the main focus of the Cold War starting with Truman, and as late as 1976 communists were winning over one third of the vote, and coming in The US said it had to do this because of the USSR. The US idle class said they would not have foreign bases if not for the USSR. Yet the USSR collapses and - nothing changes. The US continues with it's military bases and personnel on over half the countries on earth, military spending stays near cold war levels, billions go to Colombia to put down worker movements there, or Israel to pay for the Palestinian occupation. In fact, the US doesn't have the USSR to check it's power any more so it becomes even more bold since it has unilateral power. Nothing could prove the premise of the cold war was a lie like the actions of the US elite post-Cold War, who are making war on the world. Now they say they are against "terrorism" which apparently means anyone who does not like US troops in their country (Osama Bin Laden), and doesn't like having the US idle class take over the land and natural resources and exporting the profits back to the US. It should be noted of course that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are old friends of the US elite who armed them during the 1980's, even though they had the same disregard for human life back then as they do now. If they didn't, the US ruling class would have never supported them.
How has this helped American workers? Not at all - blue collar jobs were shipped out for decades, and now white collar jobs are being shipped out. Mexicans and H1-Bs are imported for the jobs that are left. The US economy has been stagnating since the late 1960's (albeit a bump in the late 1990's) with a tepid growth of production while the rest of the world has been catching up - the EU's GDP rivaling the US's and Japan and the Asian tigers as well with China growing 8% a year or so. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US is below what it was 35 years ago. Hours worked per year by worker have increased in the three-digit level. The economy has been in a sandrap for three years.
I guess Safire is telling us we should stop and think about how "great" it was that "we" "won" the Cold War. That before the decade of rest before the US has gone once again into a permanent warlike state like Orwell describes in 1984, this time a "war on terrorism". I'm sorry, but I look back at things such as Safire boss Nixon's support of the democratically elected government of Chile overthrow, replaced by a bloody tyrant, as a tragedy, not as something to celebrate. And 35 years later US workers are worse off, although the very small wealthy elite on the very top who are perhaps S
Unlike some people who have complained about loss of life, terrorism, etc I actually read the article.
I think at best the story is plausible. Look at in terms of two companies in the same field trying to get the better product out: Both companies are working hard to make their products better, but company A is pulling ahead (noticeably). So someone at Company B decides a little corporate espionage is in order and starts trying to get information and copies of Company A's product to backwards engineer and copy. Company B finds out and, rather than try and crack down (which would just force Company B to find another method of doing the same thing), Company A decides to deliberately make misinformation available. Company B takes said misinformation and unwittingly keeps up their own programs of spying and reverse engineerting, until a blatent error occurs that shows them they have been wasting time and money heading down the wrong trail and will need to go back to where they were several years before and start again from the beginning. Company A, on the other hand, doesn't have the 3 year loss and continues on ahead, widening the distance.
This seems like a good solution to me. If someone is leaching information about your research, deliberately mislead them, it's a lot cheaper than trying to crack down on security even further. If you know who the spies are, use that knowledge.
Now the part where software was mangled in order to cause problems with the pipeline, this also looks plausible and, considering the tensions at the time, a lot safer. Look at it this way: two countries facing off, both creating a larger and larger number of nuclear warheads and other forms of destruction. Instead of a massive killoff, a piece of software is altered to damage a pipeline (loss of money) and throw their last few years of research into question (costing more money and probably quite a few lost jobs).
The people who are crying about the damages of the exploding pipeline should sit down and seriously examine the tradeoffs between that and continued mounting pressures and growing numbers of weapons.
Now while the story sounds good, and it's the kind of thing we (well, some of us) want to hear (hostilities being resolved without bombs or deaths), I don't see enough proof in one article to fully believe it. The fact that this did come from a closed file makes it a little more believeable (those of you that thought this was just a story told to him from the guy down the hall need to RTFA) in that it should be possile to check the story against those files.
I think the story is plausible, but with only one source, and that being someone about to publish a book, I'm wary about believing it without a little more proof. I would like to believe it, but I'll hold off until I either see more articles about it (not connected to this author) or someone publishes the actual files.
--- Sidenote ---
For those of you who will continue to whine that this was an act of terrorism, please go look up the word terrorism and note that the target is to inflict terror. I thought that was pretty clear but obviously the point has missed a few of you who think that blowing something up is terrorism, or even leading someone else to blow up their own thing. The act of blowing something up is not automatically an act of terrorism.
Oh, and if you hate the US so much that you will take any tiny hint of wrongdoing and blow it all out of proportion, move.
Whee signature.
...that the record companies might be reading this article and taking notes?
Here is an article Gus Weiss wrote on the CIA's website that includes some other interesting tidbits. Including the design of the Buran (soviet space shuttle) being a rejected NASA design that was leaked to them as a part of this stuff.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Okay, sure. I'll explain my thinking. Here are some simple facts:
first, a definition of fascism, from the dictionary:
Fascism
- A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
- A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
Every single American President has been a dictator, it is allowed for by the terms of the Republic. America is all about strict socio-economic controls, puh-lease. CFR, anyone?
Note that it says 'through terror and censorship'.
You may not think of Vietnam as having been an act of Terrorism, but I know plenty of Vietnamese people who do. However, lets not get stuck on 'nam, after all, that war was 'lost'
American Terrorism and Acts of War - The List
And, lets see
Project for a New American Century
I'll leave it at that. I'm sure there are plenty of holes in my thinking, go for it
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
What did the US do to help win the Cold War? First of all, it's always mentioned in US schools or corporate media how the Russians occupied Eastern Europe with it's armies. What's not mentioned is that the US occupied Western Europe with it's armies. Until 1956 in France, the communist party (PCF) was the most popular party in elections. In Italy the communist party was so popular the US had to result in subterfuge and election tampering to keep Italy from going communist. In fact Italy was the main focus of the Cold War starting with Truman, and as late as 1976 communists were winning over one third of the vote, and coming in less than 5% behind the Christian Democrats (center-right) in Italy. The US ruling class supported the Spanish dictatorship because resistance continued even after the civil war was lost. Stalin agreed to not interfere with Greece, yet the resistance there to English/US meddling was so great that the US had to militarily take over the country and supprot dictators there as well. Not to mention the dictators and attacks on popular movements the US supported in Latin America, Asia, Africa and so forth.
The US said it had to do this because of the USSR. The US idle class said they would not have foreign bases if not for the USSR. Yet the USSR collapses and - nothing changes. The US continues with it's military bases and personnel on over half the countries on earth, military spending stays near cold war levels, billions go to Colombia to put down worker movements there, or Israel to pay for the Palestinian occupation. In fact, the US doesn't have the USSR to check it's power any more so it becomes even more bold since it has unilateral power. Nothing could prove the premise of the cold war was a lie like the actions of the US elite post-Cold War, who are making war on the world. Now they say they are against "terrorism" which apparently means anyone who does not like US troops in their country (Osama Bin Laden), and doesn't like having the US idle class take over the land and natural resources and exporting the profits back to the US. It should be noted of course that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are old friends of the US elite who armed them during the 1980's, even though they had the same disregard for human life back then as they do now. If they didn't, the US ruling class would have never supported them.
How has this helped American workers? Not at all - blue collar jobs were shipped out for decades, and now white collar jobs are being shipped out. Mexicans and H1-Bs are imported for the jobs that are left. The US economy has been stagnating since the late 1960's (albeit a bump in the late 1990's) with a tepid growth of production while the rest of the world has been catching up - the EU's GDP rivaling the US's and Japan and the Asian tigers as well with China growing 8% a year or so. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US is below what it was 35 years ago. Hours worked per year by worker have increased in the three-digit level. The economy has been in a sandrap for three years.
I guess Safire is telling us we should stop and think about how "great" it was
> The Soviets stole Canadian software to control the operations of the pipeline. The Americans added a trojan horse to the software.
Not precisely true. The Americans sold technology to the Canadians, but wouldn't sell it to the Soviets. Soviet agents posed as Canadian defense contractors to get purchasing rights. The Americans knew they were doing it, and fed poisoned devices to those agents. The agents took the tech home to Russia and BOOM!
Virg
And by 70's, I mean 80's.
Idol Star Astronomer
" all engineered by a mild-mannered economist named Gus Weiss -- helped us win the cold war."
Error: the EPATRIOT condition indicates that a person thinks that their country "won" an unwinnable situation.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"Wait. They did not fully cooperate. They kept balking and stalling at the inspection sites. They even went as far as to kick out the inspectors a few years ago. If they had fully complied, the inspections would have been completed 10 years ago."
They were probably just getting pissed off with hoards of Americans wandering around with cameras making a nuisance of themselves
"No, it decided that it would retaliate against Iraq unless it stopped terrorism and complied with the cease-fire requirements. It gave Iraq plenty of time to comply."
No, it's quite clear the invasion was going to occur anyway regardless of anything Iraq or Saddam Hussain did. You only need to listen to the ever changing series of justifications being pumped out by Tony Blair to see how they had already decided on the action and were just looking for the justification.
Also Iraq has never been involved in Terrorism ( no more than the US was anyway ) so how could it stop doing something it never did in the first place ? This again is just an example of some kind of justification being tacked on to the events in order to sell the idea to the public.
"It gave Iraq plenty of time to comply."
No it didn't, the evidence the US was looking for was evidence of WMD, since these didn't exist in the first place there is no way they would have ever been satisfied no matter how long they waited - it was just a sword of damocles hanging over Iraq's head.
Face the facts, that war was fought for control of the Iraqui oil and the benefit of the US Oil Industry. Goodbye Karma
I certainly don't see myself "winning" anything by the collapse of the USSR, with it's 0% unemployment rate and lack of poverty
The USSR had a certain % of unemployment. However, it was illegal to report on it. Poverty was quite rampant in the USSR: with large quantities of people living in hovels, and millions dying of starvation over the course of its existence.
First of all, it's always mentioned in US schools or corporate media how the Russians occupied Eastern Europe with it's armies. What's not mentioned is that the US occupied Western Europe with it's armies
Both were always mentioned. However, it was well known that the Soviet armies in the USSR were an enemy occupying force to keep places like Poland as a Soviet colony, while the Allied forces remaining in Western Europe were to prevent Soviet invasion.
The US idle class said they would not have foreign bases if not for the USSR.
The idle class (the American unemployed) do not speak like this.
billions go to Colombia to put down worker movements there
The movements in Colombia are quite anti-worker.
In fact, the US doesn't have the USSR to check it's power any more so it becomes even more bold since it has unilateral power.
There is no "unilateral power". Even the retaliation against the terrorists in Iraq last year had a coalition of 60+ nations.
and doesn't like having the US idle class take over the land and natural resources and exporting the profits back to the US.
That has not happened for decades. Besides, the unemployed (idle class) are not really involved with this.
". I'm sorry, but I look back at things such as Safire boss Nixon's support of the democratically elected government of Chile overthrow, replaced by a bloody tyrant
You forget the FACT that while Allende was elected, he quickly destroyed democracy and turned Chile into a single-party terror state controlled by the USSR. He invited East German stormstroopers to put down the Chilean people. Allende was the true bloody tyrant. His overthrow is truly something to celebrate.
as there are many out there who are unhappy about their imperialism, as well as their class war against workers at home.
There are no examples of US imperialism post-WW2. "Class War" is also a myth, created by ignorant bigots (similar of mind to those who try to create "race war").
courtesy of schlockmercenary.com
And the fact is, you're wrong.
The Soviets bought those chips from Canada. They didn't steal them.
I'm sorry, but this isn't really a double standard.
Terrorism, particularly the state-sponsored terrorism as opposed to the usual group of sociopaths like McVeigh and the D.C. snipers (who just need to be caught and it ends) is really a form of warfare. Really.
When for usually domestic politics or for some other reason you want to engage in warfare without massing armies, you send in specialists who engage in random acts of violence: I.E. _TERRORISM_
The USA doesn't direcly send in the usual thugs you see around from other countries. We got instead "Special Forces" who can go in and really muck stuff up. Most of these units are organized along conventional military heirarchies, but don't let that fool you that they march around in parade dress acting like soldiers. These are real mean S.O.B.s that you don't want to even think they are after you. Not only will you be dead if they are, but so will your kids, wife, lovers, pets, animals, plants, and anything ever connected with you. On the other hand, if they are your friend you can rest real easy at night.
The only mistake to note is that terrorism will only be responded to with other terrorism. From my viewpoint, the only reason why Israel doesn't fight back harder in its fight against the seemingly constant terrorist attacks is that they don't (yet) want to take on the entire Arab world simultaneously in one big war. So they tolerate the current situation. The Arab nations don't want to escalate beyond the current terrorism mainly because they don't want to have the USA breathing down their throats if they are that overt. Hence the current stalemate in Israel.
Throughout most of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA there was a series of insurgant groups sponsored by both superpowers. Notable places where this really came to the front included Vietnam, El Salvador, and Afghanistan. Notably in both Vietnam and Afghanistan those terrorists came up against conventional military forces...which had to retreat from both to scale back to terrorists on terrorists.
The mistake of Al-Queida (whatever the current tranliteration spelling... it doesn't always work from Arabic to English) is to assume that an overt terrorist attack on the mainland of the USA is going to be met with a reciprocal terrorist attack on their homes. It shouldn't surprise anybody that after 9/11/2001 that territory was added to the USA (even if it will be given up again, but that is a domestic policy, not anything that really matters what world opinion of the idea of US occupation of Iraq).
If you are discussing this incident in Siberia as an example of a terrorist incident gone bad, you really don't see the whole picture.
BTW, my hometown has essentially been destroyed because of a deliberate Soviet-funded attempt to undermine coporate America. If you want details I can, but it reeks of tinfoil-hat conspiracies until you see what the results have been to a Midwestern small-town in the hartland of America. I do know this has gone both ways. Terrorists come in a good many colors and varieties.
To sum this up, most "Terrorism" is actually formally encouraged and funded by governments trying to get back against (usually) another government. As an American, I don't deny that the USA has also used terrorism against our enemies.
here's a cluebat: if someone intends to murder you, you need to defend yourself
the soviets were bent on destroying the west
what part of that last statement don't you understand?
you are supposed to help the weak and the poor in life, not the guy with the gun pointed at you
do you understand that general concept?
it amazes me, the myopic way some people view human nature and history
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Occasionally our intelligence agencies do their jobs.
(This is important because the intelligence agencies were more correct on the Iraq situation than the Cheney/Rumsfeld homebrew intelligence group established at the Pentagon to spin the intelligence as they saw fit).
Oh - and SafLiar is an idiot.
Penguins are so sensitive to my needs - Lyle Lovett
We give the Soviets bad chips. They give us TETRIS. Productivity drops to ZERO on both sides. Sounds fair to me.
I couldn't find any info on this "most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space". I searched Russian sources as well (Russian is my native language). Anybody had more luck with this?
What I've found was the story about Reagan trying to expand technology sanctions against Western companies participating in the construction. This measure was indeed enacted in June 1982.
Here is one interesting link about the pipeline.
As you can see, there is no mention of any disasters, and the project is considered as a major success of the USSR that brought it a significant steady stream of hard currency. This was in fact one of the few Soviet victories during the Cold War.
Please show me any society which has exterminated tens of millions of it's own civilians and explain what that has to do with communism rather than dictorship governments.
While on the surface this might seem pretty clever, I can hardly imagine a more hare-brained scheme to implement in the midst of the Cold War. You are introducing technology that can induce massive catastrophic failure unpredictably in your enemy's infrastructure (and possibly weapons), without even telling those on your own side who monitor for unusual activity. That borders on begging for someone to start pushing the wrong buttons. The number one rule in a deadly stand-off is not to act unpredictably!
It's like the security tags on clothing.
Bad analogy. It would be like those tags when the software made the harddisc crash or the monitor burn out. Then the software would destroy the computer just as the ink packet destroys the clothes.
If you want an analogy for the blowup of the pipeline try securing clothes with handgranates, oh wait, that doesn't quite match it, how about a little bit of tnt so that the whole block blows up when an item gets stolen. Are you still gonna blame the thief then?
If this story really happened the way it is told than you don't need much sense to see that both sides are to blame and both sides had good reason to shut up about it until this silly journalist brought it up again to brag about it.
Anyone who generalizes about slashdotters is a typical slashdotter.
This is why Brazil, China, Europe, Japan can't trust monopolistic softwares controled by one corporations in one contry.
This motivate every country oveer the world to seek independant software enginering and develop their own operating systems based on open source.
You may find this assertion a troll, but how could non-us trust softwares from Miscrosoft and hardwares from Intel ?
Here you know why China and Japan decided to develop their own CPU and chips as well as their own operating system.
You forget the FACT that while Allende was elected, he quickly destroyed democracy and turned Chile into a single-party terror state controlled by the USSR. He invited East German stormstroopers to put down the Chilean people. Allende was the true bloody tyrant. His overthrow is truly something to celebrate.
Being war-happy is something I do not understand. First, Allende was not a tyrant and never was. He simply was a good-meaning idealist turned into a loose cannon. He tried to push his ideals too quickly and too straightforward, and things went soon haywire. He never had a single East German stormtrooper (oxymoron, stormtroopers are a Nazi concept) as his aid, but he did have Cuban aides which refused to return home from a visit to Chile and poured more gasoline onto fire. In the end the economy collapsed and military, backed by CIA, arranged a coup.
If Allende was a sickness, Pinoched was too strong a medicine. It was like treating a bent knee by amputation. Pinochet turned Chile into a military dictatorship and ruined Chilean economy furthermore. His politics destroyed the Chilean middle class for good.
There are no examples of US imperialism post-WW2
Iraq, Grenada, Nicaragua, Philippines, Guatemala, Chile, Vietnam, you name it. Granted, often there was a red risk involved, but Vietnam was simply a blunder. US managed to turn Ho Chi Minh, a lukewarm Social Democrat admiring US constitution, into die-hard Communist.
Well "Holly Fuck" certainly sounds like an intriguing concept but you should probably have just left out the rest of your comment.
Did Safire get his dates mixed up? There was a huge petroleum gas explosion in the trans-Siberian pipeline in June 1989.
From this site:
Capitalism also makes it easy for the ruling class to gain the most power as is clearly demonstrated by the amount of money it takes to run for office as the US President however I agree that a lot of dictatorships have been nominally communist regimes.
I'm still curious though about which countries have exterminated tens of millions of their citizens in the last 20 years or so.
Any parallels to contemporary situations are left as an exercise for the reader.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
BOOM!
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
I don't want to spend a lot of time replying, but as one of a minority of slashdot readers who can actually remember 35 years ago, here is a brief summary:
The USSR's "0% unemployment rate and lack of poverty" is like saying that everyone in a prison has plenty of work to do and a place to sleep.
Comparing NATO bases in Western Europe with the Soviet Warsaw pact occupation of Eastern Europe is utterly ludicrous. When the Hungarians in 1956 and the Czechs in 1967 wanted to hold free elections, the Soviets rolled their tanks down the streets as a sign of authority. Do you seriously expect anyone to believe the US did anything remotely comparable in Western Europe?
As for the average inflation-adjusted wage being lower than it was 35 years ago, I can't really say, maybe you have studied government statistics that I have not. In any event, I don't see what it has to do with the cold war.
Yes he was. Specifically:
He annexed large tracts of the Chilean economy to his personal control.
He has his masters in Moscow send in stormtroopers from East Germany to kill the restive Chileans.
His "reforms" made Chile into a one-party state (ensuring him a lifelong dictatorship, if he had retained it.
He simply was a good-meaning idealist turned into a loose cannon
A man of such naked greed who sold his country to the USSR is not "well meaning".
He never had a single East German stormtrooper (oxymoron, stormtroopers are a Nazi concept)
Yes he did, and it is not an oxymoron, as fascism was alive and well in East Germany under Soviet occupation.
If Allende was a sickness, Pinoched was too strong a medicine
True. While Pinochet killed far fewer people that would have died if Allende had been allowed to run rampant, these people should not have died. Pinochet went (almost went to court?) for example for killing enemy foreign agents in his country. He should have deported them instead.
You still have given no examples of US imperialism. Most of what you named in fact were examples of the U.S. helping nations fend off imperialists.
US managed to turn Ho Chi Minh, a lukewarm Social Democrat admiring US constitution, into die-hard Communist.
You are mistaken in this. He was just a few degrees shy of Pol Pot. Even as early as the 1950s, Hi Chi Minh was executing thousands of farmers who were objecting to being put on slave plantations.
In Soviet Russia, computer crashes you!
Evil is the money of all root.
Perhaps Chinese interest in Linux as opposed to Windows makes more sense when viewed in the light of lrojans, software backdoors etc?
In the USA only Congress can declare war. So when the USA was bombing Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. that was a police action or a training exercise or something.
Col. Vladimir Vetrov provided what French intelligence called the Farewell dossier. It contained documents from the K.G.B. Technology Directorate showing how the Soviets were systematically stealing -- or secretly buying through third parties -- the radar, machine tools and semiconductors to keep the Russians nearly competitive with U.S. military-industrial strength through the 70's. In effect, the U.S. was in an arms race with itself.
Maybe it took Safire thirty years to figure this one out (the guy doesn't seem to be too bright, despite his reputation), but the Soviets themselves were saying it at the time, as were the Europeans. Of course, they didn't put it as "we need to steel technology in order to keep up", they put it as "the US is forcing this arms race upon us".
"The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire," writes Reed, "to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."
Apart from the scientists and engineers this could have killed, it may also have condemned many civilians to a miserable existence and even killed them. Depriving civilians of heat and energy really is terrorism, whether it is perpertrated by the US or anybody else.
The Soviet Union was not a nice regime. But the end does not justify the means, and it is far from clear whether the downfall of its government and the resulting chaos is making the world safer. These kinds of dirty campaigns may have blowback a century from now, just like US intervention in the Middle East decades ago is hurting us now.
The last chapter of the history of this is not at all written yet. But one thing we can already be certain of: people like Safire, who gloat about such dirty tricks, are morally bankrupt.
For instance, you put a bear trap inside of your living room window and a theif breaks in and gets his leg mangled, you are liable.
See what locking into proprietary software gets you? If they had chosen an opensource vendor then they could have reviewed the code and maybe discovered the trojan!
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Whether this particular plausible story is tue or not, it does illustrate a very real and fundamental flaw in Soviet strategy. Their system did not generate as many breakthroughs as ours, and they at some point decided that it was a good idea to start obtaining Western science and technology through whatever means, which became a widespread practice.
However, the fundamental problem with copying is that you will ALWAYS be behind. The next problem is that if you don't wnat to get even farther behind, you will not take the time to check and re-test the technology that you obtain, thus leaving yourself open to disinformation, trojan horses, etc.
When the history was actually revealed, it turned out that we were far further ahead of the Soviets in almost all areas than anyone suspected. This was partly because western intelligence services had a bias to interpret their scarce data to elevate the Soviet's capabilities (legitimate caution to avoid being blindsided, bureaucratic impeitive to increase budgets, etc), but there wre also some genuine alarms from misread or misleading data.
My favorite was one I heard from a guy that works in the aerospace industry designing satellite and weapons systems, which I believe occurred in the mid-70s. They apparently got some dispersed radar data inticating that a MIG had taken off from Lybia and flown towards Egypt at an almost insane speed, indicating a huge technology breakthru. This data really got the attention of the right people, and of course the engineers in the classified aerospace programs were challenged to explain and beat this achievement. Some weeks later, they figured out that the plane had crashed, and the data was erroneous. But think of the engineers who had to receive this challenge -- talk about outrageous demands from management!
Who knows what else went on during the cold war, after all, once countries start to enable "big systems failiures" in other countries, perhaps there are all sorts of time bombs waiting out there (chips/software in Nukes)...I can't wait until some current and future nuclear millitary power accidentally causes an explosion which could lead to a small nuclear war somewhere on the planet...I can't wait to end up breathing the resulting nuke fallout that that "arranged accident" could produce...oh, wait a minuite, didn't chernobell result from a cold war experiment gone wrong?
They were probably just getting pissed off with hordes of Americans wandering around with cameras making a nuisance of themselves
Usually these are called "tourists."
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
The whole sordid story care of Cryptome
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
If he won legitimately, he could have done a lot better at proving it.
After all, if he won fairly, why are people up in arms? If it was as legit as some people would make it seem, there would be no problem.
Just take a look at key military technology in the '60s and '70s:
First men in space: Russia (implies better ICBMs)
First operational jetfighter with thrust-vectoring (MIG): Russia
First working long-term space stations: Russia (also used for spying)
First undedectable stealth fighter dedected and shot down by: Russian technology in Yugoslavia (nice done, guys!)
World's most powerfull rocket: Russia (Energija), implies that they could launch a BIG amount of plutonium for a BIG shot.
Most reliable rocket technology: Russia
First figher plane with look-and-lock systems (you look at your enemy and the rockets automatically lock onto that target): Russia (IMHO the MIG25)
Well, sure, USA has a great deal of hightech gadgets lying around, but the Soviets are the guys that actually made them working.
There was also a big fuss about that the USSR stole the space shuttle technology for their Buran shuttle. Actually, the Buran uses a more modern design, has a much higher capacity, better aerodynamics and even can fly completly on automatic (whereas the US shuttle must be landed per joystick).
Sure, the USSR stole *some* technology, but the US wasn't any better. Didn't they steal MIG's whenever they saw a chance, just to try out how to beat them in air combat and integrate russian thruster-design into US fighters?
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
It's not like they didn't try to convince the public thru the media that they were discovering WMD evidence during the aftermath. Remember the uncovering of barrels of 'poision' and "possible chemical weapons?".
Few of these stories had much followup to turn public opinion back. The excitement of the announcements were key to keeping skepticism low. Possibly part of a campaign to build up bits of evidence in peoples mind which balances the equation, Saddam==WMD.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
why the US needs to get back its' manufactuering base esp with concerns to the military.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah, the ruling class in America has absolutely no power, and the Nazis were socialists.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The story is total crap.
I served in Strat. Int. and I can say with total confidence that -if- such a thing happened heads in the community would roll.
In a time of all out war, yes it would be ok.
But the Cold War was not all out war and such a thing would have been an act of war, and not worth the risk.
The Nixon and Reagan administrations would have been stupid enough to risk GTNW for a feather like that, but nobody else until GB2.
The pipeline was not a proper target for such an action.
You get a clue, USA pays the cheapest damn price of any nation (except iraq) for petrol.
You guys have bigasses SUVs, which now bush gave you a tax break for business of up to $100k, so now everyone goes and buys one. Not only that, SUVs are except from emmision standards and millage standards.
The benefits arent now for usa, they will be later once the 2nd depression hits, oil tripples in price for the whole planet (except usa) and usa can use dirt cheap $1/hr labor in iraq to pump out $100 crude for $5 each, with $95 profit, while the rest of the world (with high inflation yes it will come) will have to dig oil at $80+ raw costs with $20 profit or maybe ZERO profits.
Thats the truth, inflation will kill the oil industry except if you have it free and have cheapass labour.
Whos ass was saved? Only usa's , there is no loyalty to the rest of the world, aslong as usa benefits #1, if usa's friends get a 5% kickback then thats ok, but usa is #1 to usa ofcourse. But usa wont care if it makes the rest of the world even poorer as long as usa is still #1.
Dont forget politics and war now are a longgggg 40-50 year chess game, you or I dont know all the moves or plans, neither does usas foes. And if we do decifer their shortterm goals, we can't do anything to expose em, or they don't care and will do it any way, and still be filthy assed rich.
Face it, freedom is not what people in charge think, coz if they did, we would have zero income taxes, no illegal drugs, free education and self determined education, and a real freemarket.
DOn't think for one moment that the people in charge will give up anything, not even your greedy ass CEO gives up his perks , so why do you think the rockerfellas and rothchilds and oil guys will give up their power.
Welcome to the 21st century same as the 1st, we are all slaves, but getting paid enough that we think we have it all. Relatively the powers at be have 1000000x more than the common man, just like in ancient times, nothing has changed.
Maybe things will change, ie end of myan calander etc. 2012, the fourth age of aquarius (ie like LOTR) etc...
At least we live in interesting and potentially super uber dangerous times, 40000 nukes is something to worry about and an impending mini ice age in north america/europe.
Stock up, mass migration like 10000s of years ago wont happen, we have super controlled borders like uber large prison cells now.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Here
No GNU has been Hurd during the making of this comment.
It went exactly as it did before?? Jeb did what he did twice?? For Bill??? Jeb had his hand in falsifying lists of felons who moved into Florida. Funnily enough, that list (over 10,000 names) was false. Lots of people were labelled as felons (and so unable to vote), and those people were predominantly black. It's well known the majority of black people don't vote republican, so those were mainly democrat seats.
Again, if they had nothing untoward to do with the process, they could have done a LOT better at representing that. How can you say that Grey Davis was as biassed towards Gore as Jeb was to HIS OWN BROTHER?? err... BROTHER - did you miss that term? He has the same political bias that Grey has towards Gore, but he has a family tie on top - surely that adds bias, not removes it.
The "haters" as you put it aren't kicking up a stink because of who he is, but because he blatantly stole the election. The Republican party has done little to strengthen its air of legitimacy (breaking into democrat computers hardly helps their already tattered image). The "haters" are those who vehemently stand up for democracy. Republicans only stand up for it because their guy won. Those opposed to it are the real fans of democracy. They're the real advocated.
Every argument you put forward for the "haters" to hate, equally applies to you "lovers" to love. Your argument carries no water. Your point about 20% is pure speculation.
The thing about Democrats and other left-wing people is their true respect for democracy. They don't mind the other guy winning if he won fairly. That's what this is all about. Whether he won fairly or not is beside the point - the fact remains that he won in highly dubious circumstances. No amount of right-wing "leftie bashing" can negate the fact that the Pres's brother was instrumental in deciding the outcome. That is a fact you can't deny.
The elected president has to prove to people he won fairly. Usually it's not a problem as most people win without causing so much doubt in people's minds. If you want people to stop questioning his presidency, get a decent report published into the election. If over half the country claims he didn't win, something's up. Obviously.
This action is clearly a terrorist act of sabotage.
Obviously, CIA does not only not care about their allies' (UK and Germany) interests but also about the potential loss of life.
It could have happened in a town, I guess. And then, what? Huge explosion, 10.000 people killed?
Success? Next thing they tell you is that they were also responsoble for the reactor accident in Chernobil, Ukraina (highly successful, for the region will be contaminated for 1000s of years).
What's the difference between the CIA sabotaging gas pipelines and Al Qaida, say, Hoover Dam?
Are countries that use terrorist methods better than terrorists?
I don't need a signature.
Technology theft was a very big deal back in the 70s and 80s. There were many cases where Soviet chips were direct ripoffs of American designs, even to the point of including non-functional details from the American designs. The KGB and GRU invested huge amounts of effort into stealing Western technology. Stolen Western computer designs also allowed the Soviet Union to steal Western computer software.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I guess then people like Martin Luthor King, Mother Therssa, Ghandi, and Enstien are all idiots comepaired to you.
I will agree that killing for God is inane. Living and sometimes even dieing for your God is not. Since you have declaired that there is no God prove it. If you where as rational and as logical as you would have stated that you have found no proof of Gods and or dieties.
Your statment is based totaly on your faith that there is no God. Your statment that people that believe in god are not rational and are idiots is just as offensive as those that believe that everyone that does not believe the same as they do are not as good as they are. In fact it is the exactly the same.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Rock / Paper / Scissors / Spock / Lizard is properly "law of fives" compliant.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The primary difference between acts of war and acts terrorism is the target. When al Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers, that was terrorism. When they crashed into the Pentagon, that was war. Terrorism is the specific targetting of civilians for the purpose of inspiring fear.
:)
That said, certain elements of the US media would do well to remember this distinction. If I hear Fox News calling attacks on military installations in Iraq "terrorism", I'll start suspecting them of bias.
In addition I do not believe this story at all. The whopper "Geting control software with pre arranged datapoints" Who in their right mind would write such code let alone install it.
With data hardwired it most certainly could not be used anywhere else.
This articlwe makes Jason Blair look good.
Help fight continental drift.
There was a coal mine once that detonated 8 million pounds, or 4 Kilotons of ANFO in one shot. The Russians registered the blast on siesmographs and thought at first that it might have been nuclear.
what sig?
Here's some info about the fall which killed Gus Weiss:
washinton post article and Nashville Tenessean obit
Notice that Audrey Wolf, mentioned in the latter obit, is Joseph Wilson's literary agent.
Not that that should mean anything...
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
So they steal our technology, it blows up, and now the Russians somehow have a right to complain? Notice how they didn't.
...has some tiny chance of being appropriate.
Actually, they bought the technology and tested it before they used it. It was against our laws for them to buy it, but they paid for it. That's not the same as stealing. And the article clearly states that the software was designed to pass tests and fail in actual operation.
Since this thread is about whether the U.S. cared whether it killed people or not, the fact that it was in the middle of Siberia is only relevant if the terrorists who planned the operation knew it would happen in a place where no one would be killed. They didn't.
This one might actually be right.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
early computers often worked in decimal (!) at the hardware level. They did this by having different voltages on the lines representing different values, and then reading those voltages.
Getting this right is difficult though because of the hardware involved is slow, complicated and has a tendency to fail. Errors are more difficult to correct and more common...
-
Have you actually done any research on depleted uranium? It's less radioactive than you are--you contain C-14, DU is almost pure U-238, which has no noticable decay over a period relevant to human lifespans.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
And a double-dumbass on the idiots who moderated it up.
No country invoked intelligence to the contrary either - except perhaps Iraq. And yes, most other nations wanted an inspections regime, which is what I support further on.
The impression I got at the time, and my things have changed, was that the general assumption was that Iraq had lots of weapons back in the day. We got some in Desert Storm. More were found and destroyed 90s. Inspections were never completed and inspectors were held out of the country. There were probably some left - most of which would be well hidden.
I didn't go out to write a comprehensive arguement for the war. If I did, I would have done the needed research, choosen some better language and probably spell checked. It's unfair to dismiss my arguement altogether because of an early mistake.
Again, the WMD arguement was real, but not the strongest reason for going to war.
Also again, I'm not the best person to defend the war as I have very strong doubts as to wether it was the right course of action.
Whether the report is true or not, it's certainly evident after a little googling that the Russians had some serious QC issues constructing this pipeline. Which smells suspiciously like sabotage of SOME sort, given the cash cow this thing was supposed to become. I.e., you'd think the incentive would be there to really try to get this thing right.
As for the previous posts doubting the lack technological advancement (or even doubting the Soviet's troubles effectively implementing stolen tech), I say go there and see for yourself. Things may be a little better now, but I was in Moscow and then St. Petersburg in March of 1993. What a sad, sad place.
In our "luxurious" Moscow hotel (The Cosmo), I saw what sort of looked like a TRS-80 clone at a concierge desk on my floor, and I asked the girl sitting behind it all about it. She said they didn't actually use it for anything. "But it looks cool, doesn't it?" she asked.
The sad state of technology I witnessed was almost as depressing as the piles of dirt, curtains of cobwebs, and virtually non-existent security for or basic protection of the treasure trove at the world-famous Hermitage art and antiquities museum in St. Petersburg.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from an interesting article by Warren Norquist appearing in a 2003 issue of the Intelligencer (you can find the complete article here):
SPOILING SOVIET OIL PLANS
After martial law was instituted in Poland, "President Reagan on December 29, 1981 ordered all U.S. firms to break any contracts involving the Siberian dual pipeline and not to enter any new ones." (Shultz, 1993, p. 5) This order also halted a Japanese Soviet oil and gas venture. Gone were four billion dollars in hard currency the Soviets had counted on from 1986 onward. (Schweizer, 1994, p.72).
After first agreeing to honor U.S. sanctions, the Europeans bypassed them with a new interpretation. The U.S. responded in June by "extending the sanctions to include European firms operating under American licenses." The French "minister of industry...threatened to 'requisition' any French companies that did not ship...." (Ibid., p.111)
Reagan responded: any company that used "U.S.-licensed [pipeline] technologies" would be denied U.S. markets. (Ibid., p.124, interview with Robert McFarlane) This led to a compromise by November 13, 1982: "...no new contracts for Soviet gas...strengthen...controls on transfer of strategic items...[start] monitoring financial relations with the Soviet Union and work to harmonize our export credit policies." (Shultz, 1993, p.142)
The pipeline reduced to only one pipe suffered further delays from turbine breakdowns and fires. The two-year delay cost the Soviets over $15 billion and a projected loss from plan of $15 billion in hard currency per year in the 1990's. (Schweizer, 1994, p.216, interview with Roger Robinson) The Siberian Pipeline delay and reduction was a critical turning point in the Cold War because it reduced the currency desperately needed to buy and borrow from the West.
Now we know where the Earth-shattering kaboom went
Typical Saphire piece - look at what we can do when we "get it right" and "no casualties reported." I wonder how many old people died of exposure because their gas heat failed. Espionage when successful has human costs that are never discussed. Where else were the chips used? Chernobyl perhaps?
Now we just build the entire factory in communiest lands to make it easer for them to steal it...
Well, if you actually do your homework you will see that the commies are in the lead and pretty far, in fact.
Please show me where the US killed "millions" with their police actions. Yes, there were hundreds of thousands of deaths, but nowhere, even close to the amount of deaths cause by communist of fascist regimes. Even remotely, vaguely close, in fact.
Look at the following very detailed website if actual numbers interest you:
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/war-list.htm
and
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm
In Vietnam, the famous bugbear of all the hippies US-caused casualties were greatly outweighed by what the NVA and Vietcong did. But recently during the typical anti-american rage I saked a friend what was the second worse war after WW2. Her answekr? "Vietnam". Why? Because she hates Americans.
Vietnam was by far the most serious police action the US undertook in the 20th century. Only 1.2 million people died DURING THE ENTIRE WAR. Most of them were not caused by the US, nor did the US start the war. That does not excuse them for their intervention, although one might ask what would have happened if they did not intervene. Here's a hint: the North Vietnamese were not going to the South to give them Christmas presents. Nor would Pol Pol have murdered less Cambodians in the DRK period.
The problem is that this is a grey area thing. Lets get this straight: Nobody is lily white. The US is not lily white and no one can excuse some things they did. But they are not pitch dark black either. The problem is that you liberal hippies see anything that is not lily white as being totally evil.
There is a bloody reason people are not executed for stealing a bread but are for murder. The reason is that some crimes are worse than other ones. The world is not a simple angels and devils, black and white thing. If you think it is, welcome to hell.
And just because the US killed hundreds of thousands of people and cannot be excused does not put them or anyone in the West on the same moral level as the communists and the Nazis.
Comprehendo?
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Haven't they been reading the news? It's a worm, folks. Or a virus. Anything bad is a virus worm. or worm virus. Written by hackers. Who use linux.
Stupid reporters.
So THAT is the real reason why those cell phones were exploding. So I guess if you start hearing key tones on your cell, it's time to hang up. And here people were worried about cell phone radiation. HA!
Hi! I am a completely random person posting anonymously on an internet forum, but I double-promise you that I used to work in Strat. Int. (You can tell I'm legit because I use a lot of abbreviations and acronyms!) I can say with total confidence that I'm not not fat sweaty nerd who's read too many Tom Clancy novels!
The pipeline was not a proper target for such an action. There, didn't that sound impressive and like I know what I'm talking about? Why should you believe a columnist for the New York Times when there's a fat swea... I mean, a former Strat. Int. operative like me to get your information from!
FORTRAN provides a trinary logic switch where you can test a numeric result for equality to zero and branch on <0, equal to 0, or >0. That's a form of trnary logic. I remember that from when all we had to work with was woodburning computers... kids today have it so easy.
When I took my first computer courses, they waived the phys ed requirement for us 'cuz we all got our exercise hauling around boxes of Holleriths and emptying the bit buckets.
There's a link elsewhere on this thread to ternary logic that uses True, False, and Fail states. Sounds sort of like a built-in, very low level exception handler scheme...
Did you even bother to read the links before replying? The sources they're cacheing, the ones to which I linked, are the mainstream Washington Post (conservative rag), New York Times (liberal rag), and some independent journalists.
You cannot even compare Iraq's totalitarian "socialism" with today's defining examples of socialist states.
The term "socialism" is an unfortunate catch-all for what has become a broad spectrum of political systems, ranging from totalitarian dictatorships (some of these despots supported by the US, such as China) all the way over to "soft" socialist states, such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Canada, and last, but not least, The United States of America.
Yes, the USA is a socialist state, by definition, because of its huge social spending policy, and that approximately half its voters belong to a socialist party known as the Democrats.
The other half, Republicans, disavow socialism, but exhibit strong socialistic tendencies by the very fact they accept huge quantities of social pr0k spending each year, on seniors, medical, corporate welfare, etc.
And how, dear AC troll, exactly did the U.S. "reduce" death and destruction? Did you include the twelve years of U.S.-demanded sanctions, which the U.N. estimated killed over 500,000 children alone in your estimation? Did you include the estimated 10,000 civilian deaths in Gulf War II?
How is it that Americans rationalize all this death as somehow being okay? When Saddam orders a few thousand deaths with WMD, it's justification for a unilateral invasion and take-over of a nation. When Bill Clinton and George Bush order up war and sanctions, it's somehow okay. But when a despot, fallen out of favor with the U.S., does it, its major crime. Somebody please explain this to me?
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
I'm sorry, but I'm really getting tired of the whole "[the US] really did give him all that stuff he gassed the kurds with..." crap. It just isn't true. here is a good starting point for a little more realistic idea of where and how Saddam was armed. Most of our support was in terms of intelligence and training, not weapons and money, dating back to before the Iraq-Iran war. If you have any actual information to the contrary I'd like to hear it.
So "You Fail It" IS a valid statement?;-)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
The US killed many more people than communists - that's a given. The US techniques of napalming vietnamese towns just shows the pure disregard the US has for civilian life - that's the main reason people around the world vehemently dislike the US.
You seem to have the idea that criticising war, or the US Gov't is criticising America. That's a common misconception present in right-wing America. The goverment isn't the same as the country, and you can stand up to it without being Un-American. Unfortunately, people like you see it as an easy way to come back against those who are talking smack about the US. You think it's a valid argument. It's not. The real americans are those who are standing up to the man, not those bent over (like you). You're happy to sign away your rights because it's convenient for you. You can stay there, waving your little flag, secure in the knowledge you're a Patriotic American. If everyone did that, there'd be no America left. Bush has removed swathes of the constitution, and you're letting him. If you were a real American, you'd stand up to him. You'd rebel.
In the civilised world, people aren't even executed for killing people. Please don't drag the rest of the modern world down with your barbarian practices. Sheesh - it's the 21st century.
Your last point about nazis and communists doesn't even make sense. I'm not bunching the US together with the West - the US is on its own when it comes to insularity, barbarity and ruthlessness.
Another pipeline built in 1981 exploded recently, look at this Source: http://www.svanhovd.no/abstracts/ab_2003/gov_2003/ mnrnews_oct2003.pdf
20.10.2003 Gas explosion in the Perm Region
The State Service for Control of Nature use and Ecological safety started investigations of the
reasons of why a gas explosion happened 17.10.2003 in the Perm region. The diameter of the
damaged pipeline (Permtransgas) is 1420 mm. The irrecoverable natural gas loss is estimated
to 10 million 846 thousand m3 on the 1461st km of the main gas-line Urengoi-Petrovsk. The
pipeline was built in 1981 and taken into use in 1982. Imported materials were used under the
construction.
The story is absolutely true, with just a minor error: the great Siberian explosion didn't take place in June 1982, as described, but in June 1908, over Tunguska river valley.
... the junk mail. As the chip itself was designed in 2005, when no firewall or firefence could stop the spammers, and sent back to 1981, its on-die flash memory was filled with thousands of junk e-mails offering cheap SCO licenses and silicon wafers enlargement. This led to flash controller failure, that was fixed by self-ctrl-alt-deling, but not before the bomb reached 1908.
One more inaccuracy: the purpose of the stolen chips was not to operate a gas pipeline. Instead they contained a secret technology developed by CIA to move back in time and space. The Soviets planned to end the cold war in its roots, by exploding the Los Alamos laboratory in 1945 and stopping the US atomic research altogether.
However, a trojan planted by CIA was supposed to blow up the 1957 Sputnik launch in Baikonur instead. But it never happened, the actual explosion as we all know took place in 1908.
What caused such a huge error? When the coredump was finally located 3000 kms away from explosion site, the reason turned up to be pretty obvious.It was
Nevertheless, everything else this NY Times guy wrote is absolute truth. Despite the fact that after noticing such huge inaccuracies in the reporting no sane person would believe a single word of his.
No, a Canadian operative bought them from America; the U.S. had no embargo against Canada.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
(nt)
1) Why does this story sound like something that should have started out with "Dear Slashdot".
2) Why does "Dear Slashdot" not NEARLY have the ring that "Dear Penthouse" has?
Dear Slashdot,
Today, one of my friends and I were looking though my dad's drawer and we found...
contrasted with
Dear Penthouse,
Today, one of my friends and I were looking though my dad's drawer and we found...
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
(6-hz at double voulme) COLD FIRE
Motorola might have issues with having their trademark associated with a movie about a chip designed to sabotage the systems it is installed in--ingenious plot or not.
The CIA actually has a fairly long article (study?) on their website about this incident here
I'm not sure which news agencies you're watching/listening to, but a few of the lesser reasons we all heard over here dealt with human rights violations (I remember the strong arguement that Iraq wasn't the only country --read Saudi Arabia-- that was guilty at the time), intelligence that led to a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al-Quaeda/Osama Bin Laden, Iraq's refusal to allow weapons inspections to continue and their mockery of the inspections that had been previously allowed, etc..
I hardly think that the MAIN reason was geo-political in nature, although I'd be an idiot to think it wasn't part of the consideration. Iraq had 12 years to prove they'd eliminated their WED programs, and never could come up with any proof.
Even in business you keep an audit trail. Show some books that say you spend $$xx on manhours and materials to dispose of these weapons or convert them into something useful. At one point everyone in the world knew they had them. The burden of proof rested on Saddam Hussein's shoulders as to the disposal of those weapons, and he refused to prove it. You do the math.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
As I understand it, a Ternary System would require less hardware, less circuit complexity, which is definitely worthwhile. So while this isn't a comment on the utility of the abstract logic, it is a comment on the usefulness of the logic to simplify hardware requirements.
Not knowing what I am talking about, I might theorize that perhaps miniatuization efforts might be able to leverage the reduction in hardware complexity. But does a change fom e.g. +1 to -1 actually take longer than a change from +1 to 0?
Alright, sure it's been 50 odd years, but remember, the first nukes were droped deliberately on civilians to achieve the greatest effect. Sound familiar?
And to add. Imagine if those planes flew into the World Trade Centre at 11:00 am. When everyone would be in there working. The death toll would be much much higher.
Of course things have changed since ww2, but most people don't forget. Smart bomb are much much better than carpet bombing, sure, but they still do hit a hospital once in a while.
Meanwhile elsewhere in Russia, forensic scientists investigating the Tunguska Event of 1908 have discovered the remains of what may be a large wooden rabbit near the epicenter of the blast. Dmitri Bedeverov, lead project scientist, stated that this "trojan rabbit" evidence may rule out the competing "holy hand grenade" theory of what may have caused the blast....
I wonder if all that flying saucer technology that the gov copied for space-shuttle tile design will have similar problems......Doh!
Table-ized A.I.
Yeah, obviously Saffire's piece is a complete fabrication. It's obviously the product of a disinformation campaign or of an age-addled "neocon" brain.
Whatever. Say what you want about Saffire, but he gets some cool scoops every once in a while, no doubt. As for the allegation that Saffire's article is a response to recent criticism of intelligence services regarding the issue of Iraq's weapons programs, I say yes, it probably is, at least to some degree. And why shouldn't it be? Why shouldn't we stick up for the brave hard-working men and women who devote their lives to these noble challenges?
Who knows if the details of the dramatic pipeline explosion are true, but there's plenty of evidence suggesting it is. We know with near certainty that Saffire's exposition of the context is dead-on. The story doesn't even need the explosion to still be damned interesting.
Isn't that just a little shortsighted? I mean, if the CIA, or any other government three-letter-agency, can't find a couple of non-American agents I'd be very surprised...
There's plenty of documentary evidence showing that construction was severely delayed and the scope scaled back considerably due to all kinds of catastrophic events, including fires. The Soviets kept working on it though, despite these setbacks. A 3 kiloton explosion at an isolated section of the pipeline would certainly be a signifcant setback, but that doesn't mean they'd necessarily abandon the project altogether.
What always bothered me with ternary logic :
:
(and especially with this definition)
What is the value of : FAIL AND (NOT FAIL) ?
NOT FAIL = FAIL (because NOT TRUE =/= NOT FALSE)
FAIL AND TRUE = FAIL (because FALSE AND TRUE =/= TRUE AND TRUE)
FAIL AND FALSE = FALSE (because FALSE AND FALSE = TRUE AND FALSE)
FAIL AND FAIL = FAIL (because FAIL AND FALSE =/= FAIL AND TRUE)
Therefor : FAIL AND (NOT FAIL) = FAIL AND FAIL = FAIL
However : be f(x) = x AND (NOT x)
- f(TRUE) = FALSE
- f(FALSE) = FALSE
-> f(FAIL) = FALSE
Therefor
- FAIL AND (NOT FAIL) = FAIL
- FAIL AND (NOT FAIL) = FALSE
=> Contradiction
So this model is flawed.
And this is the main problem of ALL ternary logic.
Intuitively (and according to your rule !), f(FAIL) should be FALSE
However, any normal definition of the basic operators makes it FAIL.
The problem is that x AND (NOT y) with x = FAIL and y = FAIL should be FAIL, if x = y however, it should be FALSE.
So we'd have to make a difference between "both unknown" and "both unknown, but known to be equal".
This, however, is impossible in pure ternary logic, so it is bound to be counter-intuitive.
Your rule is only useful to construct the thruth tables of the most basic operations, otherwise you may introduce inconsistencies.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for my post which this sig is too small to contain.
"Why not help the Soviets with their shopping? Now that we know what they want, we can help them get it." The catch: computer chips would be designed to pass Soviet quality tests and then to fail in operation." :P
*meep*
This dubious article is just a puff-piece for a book about to come out...!
*meep*
I think the article was talking more about the 70s and 80s seeing that they the example given was during the Reagan administration.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Global Thermonuclear War and Game Boy Color.
Did you hear a kind of whooshing noise as my point went right over your head? I was suggesting that CIA (or whomever) agents on the inspection teams wouldn't have to be American. Or is that still too subtle for you?
NO! Al Queda = Bush administration. The U.S. Marines have simply been mis-appropriated by Bush. Unfortunatly for all of us, the Marines' only alternative is to start a civil war.
Come on monderators, grow up. You shouldn't be modding stuff down just because you don't agree with it.
Aw crap, ninjas!
We should judge whether a war was "justified" or not based on all the factors surrounding it, not just those the people in charge chose to emphasize.
We should judge the leaders (and elect or not elect them) based on the veracity of what they emphasized to the public leading to war.
But all-in-all, you are right. The Palestinians have done more to shoot their own cause in the foot than they have ever done to damage Israel or convince them to leave.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I have never been in Yugoslavia, but I live in Russia, so my guess would be:
1) everyone was able to join labour unions
2) the home might have been owned by the state, but that didn't really matter after all
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Paragraph 3 of UN Resolution 1441:
"Recognizing the threat Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,"
It would appear that the UN security council who for better or for worse is the best representation of "everybody" was generally under the impression the WMD and deliver mechanisms were in Iraq's possession.
But apparently I'm the only one ...
"The KGB is trying to buy stuff we don't want them to buy. Let's make sure they do get stuff, but that it fails spectacularly. We know this could and probably will cause an explosion or some other disaster, possibly killing thousands. But they're only Soviets."
If people had been killed in that pipeline explosion, it's my opinion that Mr. Casey and his crew would be indictable for MURDER. Manslaughter at the least.
Well then they should have just damn well done the right thing and bought it instead of pirating it.
KFG
I'm not surprised that you pump out this type of appology for fascism as AC. No, Pinochet did not 'execute', he had people murdered. There were 4,000 murdered during the coup alone. The figure of 40,000 is well established.
But lets imagine for a moment that he 'only' murdered 4,000. Was the Nixon administration justified in putting a murderer into power?
There is of course no evidence whatsoever for the claim that Allende was not elected by the people or that he planned any form of coup. Of course there are a lot of people who will make these claims to try to justify the coup, but they have no more substance than allegations that Saddam had WMD "that are ready for use within 45 minutes" as Tony Blair claimed.
Similar is true of the fascist Mossadegh. The Shah held off the advent of the much worse Khomeini reign of terror.
Mossadegh was no fascist, he was a nationalist whose 'crime' in the eyes of Eisenhower and Churchill was to insist that BP pay a fair price for the oil they took. Operation Ajax was justified to Eisenhower by claims made by the Dulles brothers that the USSR was plotting an invasion through the North. The fact that Stalin died before operation Ajax was not allowed to affect this analysis.
Justifying operation Ajax by what followed is ridiculous. The mullahs could not have taken over if Mossadegh had not been replaced by the Shah. The mullahs are the result of operation Ajax, not a justification for it. Next you will be claiming that the Versailles treaty should have imposed harsher conditions on Germany to prevent the rise of Hitler.
This happened only rarely. The CIA overall has been quite successful.
There actions have backfired far more frequently than they have succeeded. Noriega and Saddam were both CIA proteges, Pinochet, the Shah of Iran were installed in CIA led coups. Meddling in Guatelmala, Honduras, Nicaragua led to civil wars. And those are just the cases where the CIA were the principal actors.
The record of the CIA is by any objective standard a failure. The problem with the macho posturing they engage in is that you have to have brains and a strategy for realpolitique. The CIA strategy has been to prefer a strong man they feel they can control no matter how repressive and corrupt. This strategy fails because the strongmen who can be controlled can rarely control their own populations who depose them and the strongmen who can control their populations tend to refuse to be controlled themselves. Iraq and Iran show both modes of falure of the CIA strategy.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
For those who will critique the above as not being a full sentance, please read the resolution. UN resolutions often take the form of a bunch of Recongnizing, Noting, ... verbing paragraphs each ending in a comma to give justification to what they Declare later.
I live in Austria near the border of Slovenia (former Yugoslavia) and i can tell you one thing: Western companies "helped" Slovenia by making the situation worse than before the fall. An example: Many exporters to Slovenia would only take German Marks (now Euros) or US-Dollars for their goods; helping Slovenias currency to fall into the dump. Nice - NOT :-(
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
AFAIK, this story is about as accurate as Iraqi wmd. The technology used for the telemetry and control system was British not Canadian. The Canadians may have been involved somewhere but I doubt it.
This back and forth is a brilliant comparision of strongly left and strongly right views. It's almost comical.
1) US Puppet Governments: We've done things similar to this, but not very often. I'm not convinced we ever took out someone who was truly democratic though. I think we may have taken out tyrants and replaced them with people who turned into tyrants. This could happen again in Iraq without extreme care. Mostly this happened when we were "saving the world" from Communism. I think we've mostly learned our lesson.
2) The "We supported Saddam arguement" Members of the government did. That was probably a mistake. As noted, we did stop and we've had less to do with him recently than many other countries in the world - notably France and Russia.
3) "Go it alone vs big coallition" We didn't get UN authorization. That's pretty close to going it alone. That said, we did get a few big countries to back us - England, Spain, Poland and many smaller nations. We got enough of Eastern Europe with us to really piss off France, make Chirac look like an ass, and boost the influence of the new EU members while lessening the stranglehold France and Germany had. Still it's striking when most of the permenant members of the UN Security Council are against you.
4) Moral high ground: This was a wonderful exchange. In deciding to go to war or not, one must find the moral high ground. You want to do what's right. I can't see attacking that without showing that the claim is false. Likewise, I see it as slander when someone who is against the war is described as pro-Saddam. That's like calling someone who want to open trade borders with Cuba a Communist sympathizer.
>> Finally, the CIA would have no way of knowing that their goosed up control system would not have found its way into a nuclear plant.
You would need to know the extent and nature of the CIA's penetration of Soviet institutions before you can make such a claim. One reasonable scenario is that relatively few chips were passed to an individual who was able to ensure they were used only in pipeline construction. Or, given the failings of Soviet nuclear plant construction techniques, they might not have worried about it one way or another. A reactor explosion could be plausibly blamed on faulty construction.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I knew people who were the subcontractor for telemetry and control subsystems. There was no canadian software there. And the highest technology chip was the 6800.
Good point. Members of the intelligence community take an oath to never (as in, never) divulge classified information. Maybe Safire's old buddy told him something that's been declassified. Otherwise, he was risking a jail term. Something to think about when we read this kind of stuff in the press.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Weren't proper terrorists? After all, they often gave (sometimes inadequate) warnings to evacuate people.
I never claimed the UN did consent. You attacked my assertion that the commonly held believe before the war was that Iraq had WMD. I answered that with a small bit of evidence that suggests I'm right on that. If you think that this is only the result of Powel's presentation, I can go dig up older resolutions. Have I convinced you that there was broad based assumption that Iraq had WMD? If I have we can discuss what was the appropriate way of dealing with that, if not I'm giving up hope of dealing with you in a rational way.
You'll see elsewhere in this thread I've discussed how striking it was that most of the key members of the Sec. Council were against the war.
Btw, I'm comfortable with my position and have logged in. Do you feel your position is so weak as to not want to log in?
Again my general position: WMD was one of the weaker arguements for going to war. Going to war was still not neccassarily the best thing to do. I'm not sure what was. However, WMD arguements were based on fairly decent premises. We knew Iraq had them and hadn't confirmed we'd destroyed them. In the meantime Iraq defied the UN inspection regimes routinely. Several Iraqi defectors told the rest of the world that Iraq had these weapons. Iraq's continued possession of said weapons was unacceptable.
OK. I'm not trying to belittle you; I'm trying to help you. Keep that in mind as you read this.
They interfered with and then outright stopped inspections when they learned the US was planting CIA agents as American inspection team members.
No, they began interfering with inspections from day one. Ken Pollack's book, "The Threatening Storm," contains a good, readable chronology of all of Saddam's many, many, many efforts to delay, confuse and/or obstruct the inspection process. You really ought to read it.
Let's ignore your stupidly patronizing "like most Americans" comment for a moment. I notice that somehow, despite the fact that half the administration was saying something, you somehow managed to avoid including a *single example*. This is because the belief you are clinging to is, quite simply, wrong. Whether you belief Iraq had any connections with Al Qaeda or not (see here and here, for example) Saddam had a long and rich history of working with a wide variety of other terrorist outfits. Remember where Abu Abbas turned up? How about Abu Nidal? Why would *any* member of the administration (much less *half* of them) say this when Saddam himself announced he was going to pay money to the families of suicide bombers in Israel/Palestine?
We really did give him all that stuff he gassed the kurds with back in the 80's.
Another reply to this post already debunked this, so I won't go into it, except to point out that Saddam didn't NEED the U.S. to obtain chemical weapons. Any state with even a small amount of resources can easily synthesize those. It's just that most states DON'T.
if you care so much about the kurds, you should see what all that depleted uranium we dumped over there in ammunition is doing to them.
See here for a comprehensive overview of the "threat" surrounding depleted uranium. The scientific consensus: It's bunk. As for the claims you make in another post, about the increased cancer rate, you can't find any authoritative source for that, since there are none. Those numbers were invented out of whole cloth as pure Iraqi propaganda, meant to convince gullible suckers who will believe anything that casts the U.S. in a bad light.
Sound familiar?
- Alaska Jack
In regards to Unilateral - 75 may be a bit of an overestimate of the countries actually supporting the war when it started. However, we can be more than sure that it was at least 2 and thereby not unilateral. :)
I suppose that's why the vast majority of fox viewers thought that Sadam was involved in 911.
(he wasn't)
It is clear that all you know about the NY times comes from Fox.
It does takes a certian amount of intelligence to read the times.
Oh, Absolutely. I've personally just got a shipment of a dozen of these rare old boxes just in from Chekoslahungary, so check out my new auction here. Here's your chance to own a piece of history...
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I've see the 3/4 step dot-com business plan joke tons of times.. but wonder what the origin is of it.
Anyone know? Thanks.
"Ahh, looks like the Republicans have got mod points again. Exactly what part of the political analysis do they consider to be wrong?"
I read your post completely and contemplated each of your points. They all seem quite valid and interesting. But your first comment, the one quoted above about Republicans, still doesn't make any sense to me.
Could you elaborate on that.
I honestly don't get it.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Hell, I'm center-left over here. My Republican wife refuses to talk politics with me.
2) I say mistake because it was a decision of high risk global power play. We made the decision to help one bad dude - Iraq, limit the expansion of the bad dude we found more scary - Iran. We later recognized that further support of Iraq was bad idea. Sure, giving chemical weapons to him would be a terrible thing to do, but there was a strong arguement for supplying conventional arms to a secular government resisting radical Islam.
Finally, if you're so intent on saying the US is soley to blame for Iraq's weapons - you should admire the administration's desire to go in and "fix" the mistakes of previous administrations.
3) A handful of countries supported this action in a serious way. It clearly wasn't truly unilateral with Britain's support. I'd also note that many of the countries which supported this action were the ones most recently under tyrany - Eastern Europe. While poorly equipped to supply meaningful help, they did what they could. No, it wasn't close to the true coalition of GW1. Not even close. Not even a little bit. But it was disctinctly more than unilateral. However, if you're looking for things the current administration has done unilaterally, the list is endless. Your unwillingness to concede even the smallest point - like dropping the word "unilateral" suggests you are immune to reason. I think I've conceded several points.
4) I'm not trying to justify the administration's PR, so I won't even to point out your fallicies in describing it. I'm saying there were decent arguements for going to war. You started by asking if there was any way to say there was a real WMD arguement. My response has been that yes there was, but it probably wasn't strong enough on its own to justify war. Other factors are more likely to make a justifiable war. As a center-left type I have my doubts, but I'm still not about to call the administration war criminals.
Btw, I'm comfortable with my position and have logged in. Do you feel your position is so weak as to not want to log in?
You are so weak in your position that you are making such non-sequitur attacks that have nothing to do with the facts at hand.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Nah, I'm just argueing with several differant ACs right now and it would be easier to follow threads when I know who's answering.
Sure, several of the countries involved had financial interests in Iraq. But I think that being their major motivation is as likely as the US going into Iraq to steal its oil. While a tempting view of global corruption, I don't buy it. Everyone had financial interests involved, but to assume that was they're basis for acting is just too damn depressing.
China's actions are more understandable. They don't want to see the world getting in the habit of attacking dictators with long records of human rights abuses who aren't being super aggressive. They like to think of themselves as safe so long as they don't go attacking people.
"The sanctions killed no-one."
You are high on crack, you conservative rag. Care to link any statistics, troll? Infant mortality skyrocketed in the rest of Iraq during the sanctions years. Lack of access to medicines, clean water, basic nutrition.
Kurdistan was not under Hussein's direct control, and had relatively free trade (smuggling) with other nations, especially Turkey. They therefore circumvented the sanctions, which were mostly enforced in international waters, air cargo, and major highways into Iraq.
The Washington Post is a conservative rag by leftist standards. You avoided answering any of my statements with facts or links. What I get for arguing with an AC troll. Time to browse again in +1 territory.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
That is just an old russian saying. It is applicable to any country though.
:)
What appears to be silliest in the story is the conclusion how stuff like that has 'won' the Cold War.
That war is over not because US pulled some magic tricks. USSR is gone because it simply could not stand. It was rotten and of course, from the head. Incompetence of power is an inevitable byproduct of a tyranny that gets only worse with time and is aggravated by its size. That incompetence ultimately resulted in all the problems USSR had - being one of the most resource rich countries and having been one of the largest agriculture producers in the world back in 1913, it could not feed its population well let alone sustain the technological race or competition on the free market. Eventually not only the government got rotten - the same incompetence dominated industry and academia. When that happens, the regime is doomed. How soon the doom is however uncertain.
Could USSR have kept sticking up longer? Look at Cuba or North Korea... they haven't been around for as long as USSR yet, but they are worse economically than USSR been most of the time. All the US spooks could not bring them down for decades and not for the lack of trying. I suspect short of an Iraqi-style regime change, they will stick until something inside them triggers an unstoppable avalance and then they will crumble like USSR did.
So what really triggered its fall? Mostly it was Gorbachev. He opened up too big a can of worms and could not contain it (unlike chinese commies). When the rest of the power elite realized it is going to fall apart, it was too late.
Now, if Gorbachev was a CIA plant, then of course hats off to the spooks
I generally agree. The situation in Tibet is tragic. I believe at this point it is beyond hope due to the large numbers of Chinese who have moved there.
The Taiwan situtation is frightening and has indeed been on the edge of disaster for years. However, Tiawan is doing well for itself generally. As long as they remain open to a 'one China' solution, I think the threats will remain threats - particularly as China is increasingly dependent on being a world economic player.
I'm not saying China is a peace loving hippie. I'm saying that they would be more comfortable if they thought only by actually attacking Taiwan would there be a chance for us to mix it up with them. That's better than the world deciding they are dictators with nukes and have to go.
Sadly, I think Tibet is done. Nobody is going to rush to their aid with military force and challenge a Chinese occupation. The major players seem content to pretend it isn't happening.
Apparently a major and deliberate act of sabotage was committed against their economy. How is this different than if they had sent a team of trained demolition experts to our country to sabotage a pipeline here and create a large non-nuclear explosion? They were certainly our military rival but we were not at war with them and we did not have any more of a moral right to commit acts of sabotage against their economy than did the Al Quaida terrorists to destroy office buildings in NYC. If everyone resorted to using large explosions when they disagreed with something, there would be a lot less discussion, more explosions, and no resolution of disputes.
So, how is it justified calling an attack on a Navy ship a terrorist act?
After the media abuse of the word "terrorist" that surrounded that story, I firmly believe that the word no longer has any meaning, and is ONLY used by persons trying to sway opinion.
Not a non-government force: The UN??
Not an un-declared attack: Bin-Laden called for war on the US long ago.
Not an attack on civilians.
Not an violent action to change political opinion: The US does that all the time.
It seems that there is no definition of terrorism that the US doesn't fall into - except "Anything that somebody we don't like does"
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Mosadegh nationalized the oil fields after Anglo-Persian refused to allow him to even have the books audited. It was well known that the Iranians were being cheated of the megre share they were allowed of the oil revenues. Even the US administration thought that Anglo-Persian had brought the crisis on themselves. Had they offered a 50:50 split they would have kept their place.
No, they were not. The Shah, secular whatever his faults, kept their power down.
The installation of the shah as dictator was never going to be very stable for very long. The Shah was only the second of his line, his father had replaced the previous monarchy only 40 years earlier. The way the Shah was installed meant that he would never be seen as anything more than a foreign puppet and his eventual fall was inevitable. It was highly unlikely that the mullahs would ever have gained control if operation Ajax had never taken place.
What are you smoking? Saddam's involvement with the CIA was brief, and long after he put himself in power.
Saddam came to power in a party coup with US support. The CIA provided him with lists of opponents to liquidate. The US supported Saddam from the very beginning of his rule, all the way through to the invasion of Kewait. Even that would have been allowed if he had only kept the northern oil fields where the Kewaitis had been under-drilling Iraq's oil fields which was the original agreement.
Iran did have CIA involvement. However, Saddam put himself in power, and the CIA only helped him (along with many others) during a brief part of his long reign.
The CIA was mucking about in Iraqi politics ever since the British left.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
"Indymedia doesn't count them either. They just make up stuff for the hell of it: fiction writers masquerading as columnists. In the article linked to, they merely quoted some opinion pieces by political pressure groups (no accurate sources welcome at Indymedia)"
I'm guessing it's not the easiest job in the world, to do accurate investigations in a war zone, but their main source, iraqbodycount seems to be referencing news articles and reports of varying reliability, and they seem to be taking care to include their margins of errors in the report, and providing details of each case counted. They list some 20 or so people as working on the website, so you'd imagine they've got enough people. I'm not sure we can really critisize them for not carrying out inquiries and post-mortems though, especially if the reports of US army being actively hostile to such inquiries are founded.
Stealing technology is still common place even after the Cold War. I remember some articles about US companies acquiring the specs for German Leopard II tank by buying a Spanish supplier. We obviously do not need spies anymore.
For the reading impaired..
but a few of the lesser reasons we all heard over here dealt with...
means I agreed with the initial reason given for the war was based on WMD, but that there were other reasons discussed at the time as well, rather than the only other reason suggested in that parent, which was geo-political.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
For the thousandth time. There probably aren't any WMDs in Iraq. That doesn't mean that prior to going in, anyone outside of Iraq actually knew that. And without knowing that was the case, most assumed that weapons would be there.
For sake of nerddom, a slashdot appropriate anology:
Let's say Iraq is a closed box. It's got a cat inside. The cat is dead if this radioactive doohickey pings the box. If the cat is dead, the scientists have 10 minutes until the box explodes destroying the lab and probably killing some scientists. The scientists rap on the box but the cat doesn't meow back. The cat is either alive or dead - or if you're really into quantum - it's both. As a scientist, I think I'd have to open that box and diffuse the cat - even if I have to break the box to do it.
- please don't take that too seriously.
Back to spies. My understanding is that US and USSR treaties allowed third party verification of weapons destruction. Isn't that somewhat similar?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/opinion/02SAFI.h tml?pagewanted=print
Safire's op ed piece calls to mind the Inslaw Affair, also from the Reagan era. The plaintiff in a lawsuit alleged that the Dept of Justice (DOJ) stole a software app called Promis (Prosecutors Management Information System), case mgmt software for prosecutors developed by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and later sold to a private party who improved it. The scheme allegedly worked something like this:
The DOJ would license the software and implement its use
The DOJ would renege on the contract and force the company that owned the software rights into bankruptcy
The DOJ would engineer the liquidation of the bankrupt company and steer the purchase of the software copyright to a "friend"--a sweetheart deal for someone owed a favor and who could be trusted
The "friend" would provide some shady characters--expert hackers--with a copy of the software and they would add a secret "back door" to the code so the CIA would have access to the data and records of anyone using the software
The "friend" and his company would sell the software abroad, keep a cut of the proceeds for his efforts and launder the balance into a secret CIA account in a corrupt bank or S&L
The buyers of the software would invariably copy it and use it widely
The laundered money would be used to fund other projects and the Congress would never have to know about them
Read about it here: http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/INSLAW/
Were the Inslaw Affair and the Weiss plot the tip of the iceberg, part of a massive scheme to use software to gain advantage over foreign adversaries? And, if true, how did this foray into hacking affect the attitude of the govt toward "amateur" hackers, rouge coders who may or may not be working for the other side. Is it possible that at least some of the govt reaction to hackers was really motivated by the govt knowing the plots that it had hatched and fearing that the enemy was counterattacking?
thankfully slashdotters aren't taken in by yet more of safire's spook guff. every couple of columns, that prat rehashes some lie that his "intelligence" friends fed him. my favourite remains the czech spook tale that he still flogs as "proof" that the hijackers had iraqi support. safire is a complete idiot. bless the nytimes for providing him a soapbox from which to howl his groteque rants...
REPORT ALL OBSCENE MESSAGES TO YOUR POTSMASTER
"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."
Until the fires in Iraq War Senior, and possibly Iraq War Junior, but with the Space Shuttles grounded, and journalists embedded, there's not a lot of witnesses, in space or in front of TVs.
These preemptive strikes over oil and gas pipelines sure do make some big explosions. What a waste of all that good plastic feedstock.
--
make install -not war
While we're argueing over the number of countries involved (not that it really matters as far as justification is concerned) here's one person's description of who is in the coalition
The obvious problem with these lists though is that many countries added themselves to the list to help in peace keeping who opposed the war. I don't really vouch for the validity of the list and don't feel like being attacked about it, I'm just trying to be helpful.
An astronaut made it into space just 3 weeks after Yuri. I'm still waiting to see Russian footprints on the moon.
First working long-term space stations: Russia (also used for spying)
When you have spy satellites that can tell what change someone is given at a hot dog stand, you don't really need two cosmonauts looking out a window. Eventually Russia lets astronauts into their space station and they see what a dump it is. Later the US decides to let Russia help with the new International space station, but they can't complete what they are supposed to, leading to cost overruns.
First undedectable stealth fighter dedected and shot down by: Russian technology in Yugoslavia (nice done, guys!)
Are we talking about 60's and 70's? Wasn't this in 1999? Shouldn't it be 70's and 80's anyway as that is what the article talked about? In any case, the fighter in yugoslavia was shot down with AA fire, not exactly cutting edge technology. I guess if you fill enough of the sky with flak you will eventually hit something.
World's most powerfull rocket: Russia (Energija), implies that they could launch a BIG amount of plutonium for a BIG shot.
Wouldn't upping the amount of deuterium be better than plutonium? And don't forget, Russia got their nuclear technology from spying on the USA. They probably would have been a decade behind if not for that espionage. Here's a quote about Energia:
The research and development for the Energia Buran began in the mid-1970s. The prime organization for this was NPO Energia headed by Valetin Glushko fresh from his triumph over the N-1 Moon Rocket. His Designer-in-Chief was Boris Gubanov who directly headed the program.
Is that the same N-1 "triumph" that resulted in all four launches ending rather abruptly less than two minutes after takeoff? Reliable rocket technology indeed... Did the Russians develop the Tomahawk cruise missile that can hit a target with high accuracy from hundreds of miles away?
First figher plane with look-and-lock systems (you look at your enemy and the rockets automatically lock onto that target): Russia (IMHO the MIG25)
Wow, cool! Now if a single F14 hadn't just locked onto 6 incoming migs from outside of visual range (40+ miles away) and fired a self-guided missile that can pull over 30gs (impossible to outmaneuver) at each of them...
There was also a big fuss about that the USSR stole the space shuttle technology for their Buran shuttle. Actually, the Buran uses a more modern design, has a much higher capacity, better aerodynamics and even can fly completly on automatic (whereas the US shuttle must be landed per joystick).
And it was only flown once...
Well, sure, USA has a great deal of hightech gadgets lying around, but the Soviets are the guys that actually made them working.
I find it interesting that they would come looking for technology from the west and then have to steal it when it wouldn't be sold to them. Did the west come looking the the USSR for technology?
So typical of the right wing where personnel attacks take the place of intelligent discourse.
A poll by the University of Maryland Found that 80 percent of people who relied on Fox as their primary new source believed that Suddam was supporting Al Qaeda (He was not.) compared with 55 percent who listen to CNN and only 23 percent of NPR listeners. So much for "fair and balanced".
I read a number of different news sources ranging from the Wall Street Journal on the right to Mother Jones and The Progressive on the Left. The New York Times, the Washington Post, along with the LA Times and the Boston Globe seem to be in the middle.
I consider Fox to be more entertainment. Kind of like E or MTV, No real content, just fluff.
Safire is a Nixonite who runs cover for his "intelligence" buddies at every opportunity. At least his epilogue to this story shows his hand, in throwing a bone to his heroes in the covert war business. His success story is 30 years old, dubious, and totally irrelevant to the total fiascos cooked up by his buddies in the modern Bush (/Reagan/Cheney) age. Anyone who knows Bill Casey's career knows that he was head of the SEC when it sabotaged Carter's economy numbers, then Reagan's campaign manager when he sold out the Republicans to Bush's agenda, then directed the theft of Carter's debate briefing books, then succeeded Bush as head of US intelligence with Bush as his boss and covert operations across Central America and Iran as his mission. That's why he's best remembered for "Iran-Contra" - it was the crown of his career.
These clowns are at best fighting the European land war against the Soviets they missed during the 80s, claiming to be prosecuting a terrorwar against Al Queda. At worst, they're running unaccounted covert wars, killing thousands, making billions, off their devil's brew of oil, weapons and drugs. And Safire has the nerve to drag this old Bond yarn out, right when its author evades journalistic investigation by dying. Although an unprofessional journalist, Safire is the only competition for the venial Robert Novak in the fascist mafia advertising biz.
--
make install -not war
"Wait. They did not fully cooperate. They kept balking and stalling at the inspection sites. They even went as far as to kick out the inspectors a few years ago. If they had fully complied, the inspections would have been completed 10 years ago."
Why is it that the story about Iraq kicking our weapons inspectors has been so easily accepted?
Some contrasting news reports on the weapons inspectors leaving Iraq:
Example 1 - ABC
The U.N. orders its weapons inspectors to leave Iraq after the chief inspector reports Baghdad is not fully cooperating with them.
-- Sheila MacVicar, ABC World News This Morning, 12/16/98
To bolster its claim, Iraq let reporters see one laboratory U.N. inspectors once visited before they were kicked out four years ago.
--John McWethy, ABC World News Tonight, 8/12/02
Example 2 - USA Today
Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov criticized Butler for evacuating inspectors from Iraq Wednesday morning without seeking permission from the Security Council.
--USA Today, 12/17/98
Saddam expelled U.N. weapons inspectors in 1998, accusing some of being U.S. spies.
--USA Today, 9/4/02
Example 3 - New York Times
But the most recent irritant was Mr. Butler's quick withdrawal from Iraq on Wednesday of all his inspectors and those of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iraqi nuclear programs, without Security Council permission. Mr. Butler acted after a telephone call from Peter Burleigh, the American representative to the United Nations, and a discussion with Secretary General Kofi Annan, who had also spoken to Mr. Burleigh.
--New York Times, 12/18/98
America's goal should be to ensure that Iraq is disarmed of all unconventional weapons.... To thwart this goal, Baghdad expelled United Nations arms inspectors four years ago.
--New York Times editorial, 8/3/02
There are plenty more at:
http://www.fair.org/extra/0210/inspectors.html
I wonder why the press changed their story from 'inspectors pulled out due to lack of cooperation' to 'Iraq threw inspectors out' over the course of 4 years?
I wonder why we, the public, let them get away with it?
Dan.
"Yeah, that's exactly right: you don't work for the KGB, and have little idea what the paranoia of the Cold War was like, especially among the intelligence community. In any case, what do you think the KGB could say to their bosses? Yeah, we screwed up, and our own billion dollar pipeline created the largest non-nuclear explosion in history, OR those damn capitalist bourgeois pig Americans are responsible!!!! Which explanation will let you keep your life and your job?"
Or the third option of finding some nobody working on the pipeline and blaming him for the explosion. If it even came back to the KGB to be investigated.
The KGB seems to have been very effective. They turned a lot of US citizens. I don't see why they'd have to resort to blaming the US (even if, in this case, it was the US) for an error that might not even be associated with the KGB.
Again, if a pipeline blew, I'd suspect user error first. No matter how paranoid I was. It was rather common for materials to be stolen or replaced with inferior ones.
Anyone who was so paranoid as to suspect the US in such things would not be a very effective spy. He'd be seeing US activity in simple blackouts.
- First space mission training/preparation casulaty: Valentine Bondarenko, 1961.
- First space mission casualty: Vladimir Komarov, Soyuz 1, 1967.
- Worst ever rocket disaster: the Nedelin disaster at Baikonur, October 24, 1960. Over 100 people died.
- Failed to replicate the US's manned moon program.
Your own list has more than a few inaccuracies: This is simply incorrect. Mir went operational in 1986. Skylab was in use in 1973. Energia did not fly until 1987. It was not equiped for the instant launch required for a nuclear exchange. It launched from Baikonur which would have been an early target. Basically it wasn't a weapon. You better back that up. From what I've read the USSR's rocket technology was not at all reliable, although it has become so over time. Take a look at the number of failures that occured during the USSR's moon program. Do some research on the N1 program: 4 failures from 4 launches, including the liftoff failure of #5L which destroyed the launch pad (pictures here. When the US put a man on the moon in 1969 the USSR haven't demonstrated that their 7K-L1 platform can take a cosmonaut around the moon and return him safely and haven't even successfully launched their main luna platform, the N1. Buran flew only once, in 1988. It was a technically superior vehicle to the Space Shuttle, but that is not suprising as it was designed later, with the lessons of the SS program in hand.You said key military technology of the 60's and 70's and then listed a bunch of later achievements. In the 60's and 70's the USSR were clearly behind. At the time it was not obvious but it certainly is now.
As many have pointed out, the main reason was geo-political in nature.
Pretty damned close though.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Ok, I asked around, and rather than swipe credit for other people's digging, how just reading their own replies.
Cross forum link
*Goes back to reading*
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
This story is full of it! If you are into cold war history, the link to the original text written by Mr. Weiss seems to be a much better source.
The article is a shame for NYT.
The Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science and Technology
Human intelligence is Directorate of Operations. Weird tech stuff is under the aegis of the Directorate of Science and Technology, and they do a LOT of it.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Evidence that came out later indicated that much of the so-called "missile-gap" was imaginary.
First undedectable stealth fighter dedected and shot down by: Russian technology in Yugoslavia (nice done, guys!)
I can't believe you are congratulating a communist/fascist force for their success in shooting down the stealth fighter. That simply disgusts me - so I will assume I am misunderstanding you.
And as jgoemat states, "if you fill enough of the sky with flak you will eventually hit something." This reminds me of the circumstances of the soviet interception of Gary Power's U2 - it later came out that they had fired something like 10 missiles at the plane before they hit it, and one of those errant shots brought down a pursuing a MIG!
There was also a big fuss about that the USSR stole the space shuttle technology for their Buran shuttle. Actually, the Buran uses a more modern design, has a much higher capacity, better aerodynamics and even can fly completly on automatic (whereas the US shuttle must be landed per joystick).
Not true. The US shuttle can be landed completely automatically, by software, and it HAS been done. The fact that it routinely is landed manually is due to the fact that American pilots insist on this control, not to any absurd inferiority to soviet technology. At any rate, the fact that the soviets stole such an awful design as the shuttle (and any child can see that the buran is an obvious copy) is testament to their own lack of engineering judgement and sense of technological inferiority.
eikimartinson.com
Singer X goes on stage, singing live. Singer sings note Y offkey. The Pitch Regulator(tm) picks the fault and produces the intended voltage/sound and snaps the note to its intended target, before it gets heard through the stage speakers.
So why can't simple non-oscillating ternary voltages be controlled in realtime? Off, "mid" and "top" when fully defined in specs for a ternary circuit are
The main problem, perhaps, is how many "regulators" ensure reliable coverage of ENTIRE circuits, and/or how much higher the top voltage needs to go to ensure that we have enough 'resolution' to catch bogus voltages and boost or reduce 'em to normal. Your own network repeater, is a voltage regulator.
"Wireless : LAN
The last word in the second line is bogus (no such word in russian) so it could be the author meant something else. Filling that word by context would give more or less 'when you gonna learn that the real thing is better'.
Citizen, it doesn't look like you have an Ultraviolet security clearance...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I am simply stating that more intelligence in a time of crisis will help the individual's chances of surviving.
:)
Unfortunately, the bulk of our genes are made up from those that could breed the most. Today, those seem to be the same people on wellfare. Breeding at half the age and twice the rate of those who are educated and strive for more in life.
So, in essence, we are interfering with these people's evolved survival ability. They do not have the intelligence to support themselves, thus nature gifted them with the ability to squirt babies out at an astonishing rate -- since back in the old days, most would have died. Nowadays, these babies get raised on wellfare and learn to spit more babies out at an astonishing rate once they reach reproductive age. Without natural selection, we are doomed to evolve into a species that breeds a lot to survive. Intelligence and positive evolution of the brain is not really going to count towards the bulk of genes being passed on.
Do you even know what a fascist is? (Hint: it's not merely somebody who you find offensive in some way.)
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
Saddam came to power in a party coup with US support. The CIA provided him with lists of opponents to liquidate. The US supported Saddam from the very beginning of his rule, all the way through to the invasion of Kewait. Even that would have been allowed if he had only kept the northern oil fields where the Kewaitis had been under-drilling Iraq's oil fields which was the original agreement.
You're a lying sack of scum. Back up this lie you liar.
To paraphrase Uma Turman, it is the spirit of uninhibited innovation that USSR lacked, not the persistence and meticulousness (is that a right word?).
Several people mentioned it already and they are right. None of the hardware/software stolen in the 70-ies was used 'as is'. Hardware was reverse-engineered to the last bit, including peeling off the layers of the microchips to reveal the logic. The logic was validated and reproduced in the clones. Any abnormal piece of logic would inevitably surface. The software was butchered too, including replacement of all literal strings and production of 'design' documents that complied with USSR's own industry conventions/standards (which means all branching logic had to be analyzed).
Yes, the sheer amount of effort required for this has perhaps exceeded that of doing an independent design. But that was of secondary concern for the power elite - doing an 'own thing' requires taking responsibility for the results, which in the USSR's tradition might have meant rather unpleasant consequences. Enough to discourage true innovation on the top and supress it on the bottom.
All that said, I find this story too hard to believe. I knew several people directly involved in oil/gas industry in the 90-ies and they had only started introducing real computerized control systems into the pipelines (using western harware/software, LOL). To blow up in '82, a project of that magnitude would have to be started around '75 (Soviet economy had 5-year planning cycle). Control systems introduced in that period relied largely on analog designs and computers of pre-cloning-era vintage (cloning really took off in mid 70-ies). They were built using plain transistors (no chips), ferrite-solenoid memory, magnetic drums and tapes, punchcards/punchtapes. The one I worked with had 45 bits in a word. It was still on active duty in '93. And that was space field, not just some pipeline...
You have so far failled to back any of your own allegations, folk can judge you by your posts. You like dictators, you like Bush, you peddle the type of conspiracy stories spun by Wolfowitz and Perle.
The infamous statement by the then US ambassador to Iraq on the Iraq dispute over the Kewaiti oil fields is well established "Washington has no stake in this local dispute".
Equally beyond dispute is the assistence given to Saddam during the war he started against Iran and in which he used the chemical weapons.
You would have to read a history of CIA operations in the middle east to verify the other claims, these are not online but easy enough to get hold of.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I'd be inclined to say that you might not be able to speak for the entire US intelligence community...
It is well know that our good friends the Saudi's were the hijackers. A billionare Saudi was behind it. Funny they call them Arab terriorists, or Muslim Terriorists but never billionare terriosts.
You need to read more carefully. No one said "ordered". The poll indicated that people thought there was a connection between the Iraq and Osama. It was an impression that our un-elected president was more than happy to make to try and justify his war.
I know you think that liberals eat their young. But if you think the right wing spew that comes from Rupert Murdoch's media empire is "Fair and Balanced" you need to get out more. Did you ever wonder what motivated them to adopt that slogan? If it was Fair and balanced, why would they need to hype that?
Cogito Ergo Sum.
Q: Over what resource was the Cold War fought?
A: The Minds of the People.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
This is not a new story, although the mention of specific names (and the Mitterand connection) involved is new to me. I read this story 3-4 years ago in the book Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Peter Schweizer, which is fairly extensively footnoted and on the record. The interviews with the Reagan officials may of course be self-serving, but it seems reasonably well sourced. The tech details, like this Safire piece, are not that informative, but I wouldn't expect them to be really. Used hardback copies are $2 on Amazon.
--LP
"OK. I'm not trying to belittle you; I'm trying to help you. Keep that in mind as you read this." ...
...and thats all I can dig up at the moment.
"As for the claims you make in another post . . . Those numbers were invented out of whole cloth as pure Iraqi propaganda, meant to convince gullible suckers who will believe anything that casts the U.S. in a bad light. Sound familiar?"
You have a funny way of not trying to "belittle" someone. *cough*
"No, they began interfering with inspections from day one. Ken Pollack's book, "The Threatening Storm," contains a good, readable chronology of all of Saddam's many, many, many efforts to delay, confuse and/or obstruct the inspection process. You really ought to read it."
I'll keep it in mind if I spot it. But, since I can't read it on the spot, I can't argue for, agains, or just agree.
"Let's ignore your stupidly patronizing "like most Americans" comment for a moment."
What, you think people in the US magically get the news? Few people know the names of politicians outside of the President, much less pay attention to news abroad. The media here is slow and extremely cautious in reporting anything negative of our current government because it is a great way to get figuratively lynched job wise. For instance, in the US it is reported that "we" captured Hussien, while the rest of the world reports that he was handed over by an unnamed iraqi group.
"I notice that somehow, despite the fact that half the administration was saying something, you somehow managed to avoid including a *single example*." etc...
Well, since I can't find info discrediting all links, I'll back off and say a link to Al-Qaida.
NYT reprint: Colon Powel covering his rear.
Didn't O'Neill mention something about the Al-Quida-Iraq thing? I'm too tired to hunt for that one. From what I have read so far tonight, looks like a hint at it. But, nothing direct.
Dick Cheney is still holding strong to his original assertions, though.
"Bush has since conceded there was no link between Saddam and the Sept. 11 attacks and there has been no proven ties between the deposed Iraqi leader and the Al Qaeda terrorist network."
"See here for a comprehensive overview of the "threat" surrounding depleted uranium."
Ok, despite the link initially not working and the fact this is from someone's personal blog ie: internet diary instead of a fact source, I did eventually get to reading it. The fact he starts up with accusations that these are scare tactics and lies dreamed up by the "anti-war left" without documentation doesn't help his or your cause.
Ok, first the claim that DU is not harmfully radioactive. Yes, it's primary decay is alpha. In fact, I looked it up and found a nice table and graph. Now, I'm not an expert in thermonuclear physics, but I do realize when something radioactive decays it turns into another isotope and/or another element. Potentially the new atoms can be much more radioactive and have different decays. Please note the different half lifes of the varying steps on the table. And because of the pricipal of half life, DU doesn't magically decay at 4.5 billion years, that is a measurement of rate. Some of it decays much faster than the rate, some slower. This passes down through the decay process. Notice on the graph how around 9th and tenth decays it lets off ~.2 MeV w/ a halflife of 26.8 minutes and ~1.5MeV of Gamma radiation respectively, with halflives of 26.8 minutes and 19.9 minutes respectively. Whereas, U-235 AKA
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
generally agree with jgoemat and redwizzard, couple comments: The soviets were engaged in a desperate race with Skylab. They lost, but did get a Salyut station up in 1974. Also, re: quality of Russian rocket designs, IIRC, Air & Space magazine had an article on how some of the latest Energomash designs were opened up to Western aerospace firms in the '90s. They were supposedly considered somewhat more advanced that the current Western designs; Russian launch vehicles are often used nowadays in joint launch consortiums with various US aerospace companies. The other thing was, once Eisenhower sent the U2's and the spy satellites over the Soviets, it became clear that Khruschev's boasts about the ICBM's he had were nothing but wild exaggerations, which became known metaphorically as his Potemkin villages... (re: the posting about the Francis Power U2 shootdown, apparently it happened the day Khruschev was making a speech on the May Day military parades. The Soviets kept scrambling fighters and couldn't shoot the plane down until it was well into the USSR; Khruschev was pissed..)
It's not pejoritive to call a self-declared member of a religious sect by that sects proper name. Calling all jews Zionists is pejorative. Calling members of the Zionist sect of Judeism Zionists isn't pejorative, it's accurate.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
No, I guess I should have made that clear (you did read my disclaimer about Reich and the Orgone institute, right?)
:-)
The book has absolutely nothing to do with Orgone theory. Not everything Reich did was wack.
And the BC/BCE thing is not just for anti religious nuts. All evidence points to Christ's birth occuring at least 3 years BCE (you couldn't say BC in that sentance, it wouldn't make sense
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What was there to be "proud of" for the USSR? The numerous invasions and conquests and annexations of countries in an ever-expanding evil empire? That is like being proud to be from Nazi Germany.
It is a better place to be proud of now that it is not a ravaging benighted empire. Yes, there is Chechnya, but that is insignificant compared to past invasions.
That's simple bullshit. Yes, we did invade Finland (to protect St. Petersburg from Nazi ally, and we paid for it with many lives). And we invaded Czechoslovakia. And Afganistan. Both were not annexed, but occupied to support a friendly regime. An evil empire? Hardly. That bullshit is not even remotely believable. Unless you are a USian, then, of course, you are probably brainwashed enough to believe that USSR was an evil ever-expanding empire and the US attacking 3 countries just in the last few years is the protector of all that is good in this world. Sure, whatever...
However, there were some positive accomplishments in the arts, and don't forget the space program. Is this what you are referring to?
Science, art and a society that was quite pleasant to live in (not utopia, though), unless you only cared about material posessions. We also supported third world countries and helped many of them (in Asia, Africa and America) on their way to a better future. And I was also proud to live in a country, which to a very large extent was driven by a desire to build a better world, a world where people would enjoy freedom from fear, freedom from need and freedom to express themselves. A world of communism. Sadly, we failed, but not for the lack of trying. When communism is eventually (in a few decades) built in Europe, the US and other parts of the world, we will all remember Soviet people for being the first.
I'm not so sure that was the case. How many people are being executed and starved to death these days? The Soviet Union killed 30,000,000+ of its citizens through mass executions, "disappearances", and purposeful famines: averaging to 500,000 a year.
Please, stop that averaging. Stalin was crazy and evil. But for the rest of the Soviet history only a few people were killed by the state. And if you want to average, let's calculate how many dead Indians and Negros the US averages per year (starting from the Declaration of Independence, of course).
And right now men in Russia have life expectancy of 56 years, which is the lowest we ever had (after the WW2) and much lower than in any developed country. So yes, it IS worse today, except, of course, for those who managed to steal our common property. As for executions, fortunately, we (like the rest of civilized countries) have a moratorium on death penalty.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
> Measured from the center, the Washington Post is leftist.
Funny how 'the center' is always 'where I am'.
There is almost no media left in this country that is left of where the 'center' was defined to be 20 years ago. Fortunately, there is never any shortage of pundits willing to redefine the center such that the media can always be called liberal.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
If you had ever read Micheal Moore instead of listening to Fox talk about him you would know I was paraphrasing him.
3 /1 1/07_fair.html
Clinton balanced the budget and over saw 8 years of strong broad-based economic growth. Clinton also won the popular vote. After millions spent digging into his past the best they could come up with was a blow job. Do you thing GW could withstand that kind of scrutiny? Cocaine (not denied) Drunk Driving, questionable millitary records. Bush and Chenney have both been arrested. The first president ever to come into office with a record.
If you thing Al Gore got a fair deal in Florida, where Bush's brother was Governor and his father was the former head of the CIA, then you have been listening to way too much Fox news. Even the republican thugs that went down there to stop the recount thought that Gore would have won. That is why they were against a recount. Do you think that if that kind of crap went on in a third world country, we would consider the election free and fair?
http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/fox-main.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/0
"There ought to be limits to freedom."
George Bush-- Texas State House
May 21, 1999
It sounds like the intelligence community is attempting to discredit the New York Times BEFORE they start reporting stories on their "intelligence failure".
...and in other news today, the CIA & FBI narrowed down the intelligence failure to the commander in chief.
That excuse (CIA Agents) is a load of bull. Not that the inspectors didn't contain some CIA agents, but because all it takes to be a CIA agent is to report to the CIA at some point and because every other member of the party was reporting to one or another intelligence service. (I'm sure there were a few civilians on the inspection teams, but who really expects them to be able to evaluate the situation?)
Evaluating evidence of weapons production is a matter for intelligence agencies. They can correlate the stories with satellite photos and intelligence reports, they'll have agents on the ground getting corroborating stories, etc.
It's painfully obvious that Saddam was just using the CIA agents thing as an excuse. By seeing how far he could push and what the UN response was he could judge how much leeway he had.
And as for the war itself, whatever pathetic excuse Shrub came up with, it's been popular among all the Iraqis I've talked to. Both expats and current inhabitants want him gone. The only concern I've heard is that the USA isn't going to stick around and the UN is going to rubber-stamp any collection of locals, despite a strong religious or racial bias, and the country won't be any better off. Nobody (except Saddam's family, etc) wanted him to stick around. He and his sons were violent and arbitrarily cruel and they've had a very large number of people killed over the years.
Nobody wants to live in a war zone but a short war that led to a free country seems better to most than living in fear all the time.
Oops! I'm sorry--he's our ally! We're using his bases. Never mind.
The claim is that, as well as the designs for VAXen and the like, the Soviets stole some oil pipeline control software from the Canadians. The West was forewarned with the aid of those cheese-eating surrender monkeys whom Safire and his fellow wingnuts love insulting, the French. Therefore, before the software was stolen, somebody was able to arrange to put a trojan horse in the software that caused the system to malfunction, and, voila, a massive explosion occurred.
Now, it's certainly conceivable for the US to insert a trojan horse in the software. I would find it surprising that such a trojan horse would be enough to cause such a massive explosion on its own, though. Catastrophic failures almost always result out of a complex chain of events happening, and trying to orchestrate that in a system for which you don't have details of how it's going to be configured and is probably going to include a lot of fail-safes sounds awfully difficult to do - and, then again, how did the CIA know they weren't going to kill hundreds in the process of pulling this off?
In any case, the point of the exercise seems to be to make the Soviets of using stolen Western technology. This seems like an awfully cavalier way to go about it, and thus still implausible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Were you able to join labor unions? That's a funny "free America" versus "unfree Eastern Bloc" comparison. About a year ago, Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley law forcing ILWU workers back to work. Taft-Hartley has been invoked in the past, along with other laws, forcing striking union workers back to work with the authority of law. Being as a strike is the only weapon a union ultimately has, you might as well say the US has no unions. It's like saying someone can have a car, but they can't put any gas in it. Normal hypocrisy, Reagan was praising Solidarnosc in Poland at the same time he was firing PATCO air line traffic controllers and replacing them with scabs (which cost the taxpayer more than if the union had been given what it wanted).
I am not an expert in any of these fields, but reviewing the basic facts...well I think it's just not plausible. No, I think that anyone who posits something so outrageous and fantastical needs to be able to back it up, and to have already consulted experts in the field and be able to answer the inevitable questions that come up. I don't see Safire as having done this. Looks like more hack reporting.
Hrm. That's an interesting observation. Perhaps it might be worth studying this apparent phenomenon systematically.
No, clearly there was no proof of them. If not, then where exactly is this proof? Why are so many people demanding it from the bush administration but not receiving it?
Does Saddam Hussein weigh 500 tons? And why does noone know where these weapons are now, even with Hussein and his cohorts in custody and available for questioning? The Bush administration sure had a pretty good idea on their whereabouts just before the invasion.
And why are you calling them 'terrorist' weapon systems now? Were they 'terrorist' weapons systems when the US equipped Hussein with them in the 80s?
You read which article, Mr. AC? The Saharasia article I linked to? I just re-read the thing to be sure. Absoletely no references. Nice try, troll.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
brilliantly said.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
Yet he also said, "God does not play dice with the universe". I had never seen that letter. Interesting. However I will stand by the others in my list.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
As a Finn, this sentence caught my eye:
Yes, we did invade Finland (to protect St. Petersburg from Nazi ally, and we paid for it with many lives).
Finland wasn't Germany's ally 1939 (Winter War). Finland was neutral then. Winter War was a tragic mistake - it drove a lukewarm neutral country into Nazi camp, making a possible ignorer into a certain enemy. In hindsight, Stalin should have bought all cellulose and other strategic materials from Finnish suppliers - Finnish industry recovering from depression would have been more than happy to run the factories with cogwheels glowing, and this trade sure would have secured Finland far better than any military intervention.
Inanite oblige.
I'm somewhat sad on what is happening east of our borders. In the Finnish eyes, USSR was no evil empire - no more evil than any other empires, including US. Certainly far less evil, than, say Mongols or Aztecs. Personally I saw little difference between USA and USSR anyway. In one empire you were screwed by the government, in another by the capitalist. What's the difference?
Russians were good trade partners, provided generous markets and paid well. Now all this is gone. The purchase force of Russia is almost nil, unemployment in Finland has stayed in double figures for fifteen years now, we have bread lines and war-crazy nationalists are driving this small, traditionally neutral, country to NATO which is a war alliance. Now today the only organized thing in Russia is crime. Almost all Finnish investments have gone to Baltic countries as they have managed to organize their system better and avoid the total collapse.
If US won the Cold War, it sure was a Pyrrhic victory. Of course Communists lied about Communism, but they told the truth about Capitalism. Then again, Finnish economy is protected from the outsourcing to India and proletarization of the middle class by odd language and strict employment laws. In the long run the winners are not the laissez faire market economies, but the countries which can keep the production and work force (and purchase power) in their own countries and prevent it slipping abroad - countries which can find the most productive balance between costs and benefits.
What is now going on in US is brazilification: the middle class disappears and impoverishes as their jobs slip to cheap countries, the rich get filthy rich and the poor become Lumpenproletariat. In the end there will be collapse: the corporations will collapse and go bankrupt as well as middle class jobs have been outsourced, the publich has gone broke and the public no more have purchase power. Nobody will buy their products anymore. This will lead either into Fascism or Neo-Barbarism.
I must say I miss the 1980s and the balance between USA and USSR. Healthy competition kept world in balance. Sure Stalin (kaputt 1953) was a paranoid lunatic, but how about Warren Harding in comparison? Again, I'm far better off than in the eighties, but not everyone in my country is, and I miss the stressless, peaceful life back then.
You must live in an alternate universe.
The only correct thing you said was that the popular vote does not elect a President. HOWEVER, the popular vote in Florida did decide which candidate got all of Florida's electoral votes and hence the election. The Republican's brought the legal challenges to the courts (nor Gore). The Supreme Court, when the matter was brought to then by the Republicans, returned an unbelievable and partisan decision that it was more important to get the election results quickly than have them be accurate - a clear advantge to Bush.
The Supreme Court ignored the Constitution and its established method of the transition of power. The election winner in November is only President-elect until January. This waiting period was partly designed to take away the kind of rush-to-close mania that can result in the wrong person being sworn in as President - as happened in the 2000 election.
Your post gives the feeling that you blame the CIA only for the US politics since the end of WW2.
But of course all this overthrowing of (nascent) democracies and support of fascist dictators, that has been going on for so long, was a full part of the US policies in the context of the cold war.
This very deliberate policy was not decided by CIA executives. It was not only accepted, but also actively decided and supported by the various presidents of that time. (and while the context has changed, I don't get the impression that the rest has changed much, but that's getting even more off-topic).
If it can be proven that people fed Saddam chemical weapons knowing he'd hit civilians, they should be prosecuted. Honestly, my research on that isn't great. What I did read suggests that the US classified him as an ally which allowed private companies to sell him things that could be used to create WMD. After Iraq committed some horrible atrocities the US, together with most of Western Europe, continued to fund fund Iraq and provide logistical support against Iran.
Feeding him chemical weapons can't be defended. Letting companies sell Iraq the building blocks for these weapons - dual use products - is frightening. It's either gross ignorance or callous wrong behaviour. The documents suggest that folks in charge didn't really care. They knew he'd kill who he wanted to and whether he used bullets or gas wasn't their concern. Scary.
Feeding him conventional arms could be argued for. When I say that it may have been a mistake to do that, I'm not making euphimisms. There was a strategic choice to be made. Let Iran form a fundemental Islamist empire across the ME or aid a nasty but secular dictatorship in resisting. When you aid a dictatorship you know some of that aid will be diverted to propping up the dictatorship - that's part of the deal.
When you talk conventional arms, you see the same problems in Afganistan. The warlords, and many who went on to form Al-Queda, cut their teeth fighting the Soviets and were Western trained and armed. When I say Western, I of course mean US - nobody else has the funds. There have been simply aweful consequence from that. Certaintly, not providing aid to Afganistan in its post-war rebuilding was a critical error. Was aiding it against the USSR? Probably not.
All of this taken into account, it doesn't affect the core arguement very much. While the past suggests that several members of the administration should not still be holding public office these days, where Iraq got their weapons doesn't have much to do with what to do with them later.
You should have disarmed Saddam, searched and destroyed the WMD and controlled the influx of food/medicins/oil back when you had won the first GW.
I agree that Iraq should have been disarmed after GW1. When you say, "you should have disarmed..." I take that to mean the US should have taken unilateral responsibility for search and destroy within Iraq as opposed to the plan of the UN which was to insist Iraq disarm itself and provide proof to inspectors in the same fashion the US and USSR verify the destruction of nuclear weapons. You've made the right wing here in the US very happy. They always thought it was a mistake not to "finish the job" at the end of GW1. That approach would have lost the support of the other ME countries though. Perhaps, it would have been better that way. God knows that trusting Iraq to disarm itself and document that didn't work. Frankly, when the inspectors stopped being verifiers and started to be the ones doing search and destroy was when it was pretty much doomed.
You're also right that the UN did a terrible job of controlling the flow of humanitarian supplies into Iraq. They trusted the leadership of that country to spend its income saving the lives of its people - what a bonehead move. To suggest Americans control those supplies is much better. We'd of course have to form a.. uh.. "peace-keeping" contigent which the US army is \ was badly trained for and secure distribution centers throughout Iraq. From there we could do our best to see that food and medicine got to those who needed it.
In the last two sections, I mostly jumped all over your use of the word "you". I think you're placing the responsibility and blame soley on the Americans for an international system and responsibility. I think if the Americans had to do it all, this is how it would have to be done. I think in effect, you suggest that the correct action after GW1 was GW2. I don't think so, and I don't think that's what you really mean to say.
Actually as I reread what you say, I
What is it with these people implying I wanted Saddamn to stay in power? Shit, he shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Written before the war.
http://sqft87.pisem.net/tiger/iraq.html
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
You have so far failled to back any of your own allegations, folk can judge you by your posts. You like dictators, you like Bush, you peddle the type of conspiracy stories spun by Wolfowitz and Perle.
So you can't back it up then? If you think I haven't bring it on, here or in the original threads where those things were discussed to death.
The infamous statement by the then US ambassador to Iraq on the Iraq dispute over the Kewaiti oil fields is well established "Washington has no stake in this local dispute".
And what is the relevance?
Equally beyond dispute is the assistence given to Saddam during the war he started against Iran and in which he used the chemical weapons.
Oh, that's never been disputed. However, it only represents support of the lesser evil against the other. It's easy for you to snipe - you were not the one faced the imperitive of success with very limited choices.
Nope, you said "Saddam came to power in a party coup with US support. The CIA provided him with lists of opponents to liquidate." Please provide proof for your own accusation.
Did they shoot it down or did it malfunctiion?
It wasn't the first one we lost. We've lost I think two others to various malfunctions, one of them at an airshow. Ouch! You can even get footage of it crashing into a forest.
Thanks for the memories, Saddam
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Yes, I can just see Bush and his advisors sitting around a table...
Thank goodnes the Iraqis are tougher than all the stupid, paranoid people we have in this country...
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
1. Mustard gas != nuclear weapons, don't be silly.
2. You watch Fox? I hope that's not your single source of information.
3. So, Bush is the one who violated the Constitution. But let's talk about Clinton instead. Clinton did nothing to dismantle the Constitution, but he would have in a heartbeat! This sounds a lot like the logic behind the invasion: Saddam doesn't have nukes, but if he did, he'd launch them on missles he doesn't have, but if he did, we'd be in big trouble. Let's Roll!
4. My point was that the toppling of the statue was a photo-op, something to trot out on the nightly news. It was the "iraqis meeting us with flowers" moment that Rumsfeld predicted. And it was largely a sham.
5. Saddam Hussein is not a terrorist, at least not when it comes to the U.S., because he wears a military uniform and represents a sovereign nation. He may have committed atrocities against his own people, but those didn't really affect America. Or are we fighting a war on Terror on behalf of brown people everywhere now? If so, when do we go after Sharon?
6. Letters to the editor are not embedded journalists. Plus, the Stars and Stripes isn't even distributed within the USA. The letters there are basically "preaching to the choir" since the paper's audience is US armed forces personnel and their families stationed overseas. I will grant you that I was surprised by some of the frankness in the letters, but they're just that: letters. They are not journalism, they are opinion.
If you scroll up, you'll see that my argument is, simply, five shells of mustard gas "aren't the droids we're looking for."
Wow, you're still pretending Clinton dismantled the constitution, when in fact, by your own words, it is Bush who has done so. There's a difference between what somebody might do and what they actually do. It's not a crime to daydream about the US getting nuked, as Saddam might have done, or Jerry Bruckheimer might do in a Hollywood movie. You're giving Bush a pass for what he has ACTUALLY done, and you've pilloried Clinton for what he MIGHT have done. Please, remove your head from your ass. Once you do that you might notice that the needle on your record player is stuck in the year 1997.
If it wasn't a sham, the iraqis would have pulled down that statue themselves. But we did it. Hence, it was not an expression of the Iraqi people, rather that of the U.S. army.
I don't think I'm racist, but let's say I am. So what? Does that mean my arguments are automatically invalid? That's bullshit.
Sharon, the "butcher of Haifa" has been indicted by the war crimes tribunal in the Hague. Pursuing terrorists who happen to be Jewish is not antisemitic, just as prosecuting criminals who happen to be black is not racist. While we're at it a big chunk of America probably is anti-Semitic, and racist to boot.
Journalism is more than opinion; it involves some degree of research, and it's also dispassionate. Nobody expects an unbiased view in a letter to the editor, but the reportage itself should be less colored by individual beliefs. Of course, if your choices are Fox, which is incedibly biased, and C-SPAN, which simply provides a window into Congress but no analysis, maybe all you're seeing is opinion.
Try signing in, AC.
First time I've ever heard of a military base with a population of 5.6 million.
Only in a few limited respects, and in nearly all cases they do not support us as the "liberators."
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
So you admit they were purchased, then.
You're right, wrong place. My bad.
try this:
http://www.indictsharon.net/
I'm surprised your pathetic attempt at a google search didn't find that, since it was the first hit for "ariel sharon war crimes."
They made remarkable progress in refining tyranny and oppression, exceeded by very few. The regime was nothing but savage and brutal. When Lenin overthrew a fledgling democracy, he set Russian progress back.
Have you lived in Soviet Union? Have you lived in post-Soviet Russia? I did and still do. It seems to me that I am more qualified to judge it than you do. The "savage" and "brutal" regime was the first in the world to grant extensive rights to workers, it was the one to support art and science to a great extent, one that defeated what was admittedly the greatest evil on this planet ever - the Nazi Germany, the regime that changed an agrarian country into a powerful industrial economy in just two decades and repeated this feat after a devastating war with Hitler, one that gave equal rights to women first and lead to the feminism revolution in the West a few decades later. It was the regime where everyone was guaranteed quality free primary, secondary and university education, free health care, free/very cheap access to priceless works of art and culture, the regime that to a very large extent supported rational thinking, science, understanding and taming of the nature, the regime that beleived general publi? should be well educated, the regime that supported sports and healthy lifestyle, the regime that contained the seeds of a better society - communism.
Yes, it wasn't the Utopia, it had many flaws, lack of openness, freedom of speech and discussion, lack of feedback were among them, as well as the rigid and ineffective system of government. But to diss the truly monumental achievements of the Soviet Union is folly.
This was a failed experiment, failed not because it had inherent fatal flaws, but due to a unique combination of unfortunate circumstances. But those who lived there, those who know history, those who managed to understand some of the reasons of its fall, will never forget it and look with anticipation to humanity's next attempt to build a better future.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I guess this means you're one of those people who can't distinguish between anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-Zionist.
Let me ask you, if not supporting Israel's right to exist makes one an Anti-Semite, does that mean that not supporting the ETA means I'm anti-Basque? Or wanting to keep a unified Iraq makes me anti-Kurd? Am i anti-Tibetan if I buy Chinese goods at Wal-Mart? Am I anti-Irish if I don't support the IRA or Sinn Fein?
Sharon has killed a lot of people that didn't deserve it. Someone with your education must know this. Instead you're playing games, trying to paint me as some sort of racist.
This whole "right to exist" thing is kind of a joke. There is no right to exist. The only land any country possesses is what they can hold, usually through military means. It's a dog eat dog world, not one where magical mandates from some dusty old parchment (here I could mean either the Torah or the Declaration of Independence) confer any real legitimacy upon anything.
Saying Israel doesn't have a right to exist is not the same as saying the people living in Israel should be eradicated. The US led a war against Iraq, but they didn't commit genocide. Being against a state is not the same as being against its citizenry.
Israel, my anonymous friend, is a political abstraction, as are all nations. People, on the other hand, are people.
Can you differentiate between Israel and Jews? How do you account for the millions of non-Jews living in Israel? By your logic, being anti-Israel makes me anti-Semitic. Then I guess I must be anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim and anti-Christian too, since all those people and more reside in Israel.
Interesting comments by many who obviously have never been in Russia or any of the CIS states. The USSR hasn't existed for a long time. Russia is a fabulous country from what I've seen of it (geeze, it spans 7 timezones!).
There are basically three classes of people - the Rich, the normal and the out-of-work poor. The latter constitutes a significant part of the population which, is very sad.
The people are very proud but bothered by the current state of affairs there. But, they are probably more interested in politics than Americans are. They really know and understand their history and the present. They've lived through hell with Stalin and yet continue on.
So please don't slam Russia unless you've been there. It is very obvious that most of the statements about Russia or the old USSR are by people who don't know what they're writing about.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Israel = "the Jews" like Italy = "the Catholics", and Skull & Bones = a "frat", as any logic would demonstrate. But I guess that's why you, Anonymous ignoramus Coward, didn't graduate from Yale (just guessing). Common sense and evidence exculpate "Israel", no matter how demented Sharon's fascism elsewhere, from complicity in the bin Laden planebombings. There's plenty of evidence pointing at the blood on the hands of Bush Sr & Jr, and only a fool would exonerate Cheney's Halliburton from any wrongdoing anywhere, unless there's solid evidence that they were busy screwing someone else to death.
--
make install -not war
In a cruel irony, Anonymous clueless Coward, the Nazis combined nationalism and socialism (hence their name in German, "Nazi"), to organize their definitive fascist rule through terror and force. Sharon is not as fascist as Hitler, of course, or even Mussolini, or Hirohito, or many others, possibly including Bush Jr. But he too rules Israel through terror and force, manipulating the Knesset and population with his perpetual war.
Don't give me that hairsplitting about the "W." vs. the "H. W." - I don't care what Barbara calls them. You're not going to get me to call the monkey in chief "Dubya", or the old spook "Poppy", or any of the other cute names for these crooks. Senior and Junior suit them just fine.
If you're able to ignore all the culpability of Bush Jr in allowing a window for bin Laden's planebombs, you've got some kind of agenda that deprioritizes America's security. And if you've forgotten who trained bin Laden in Afghanistan, I remind you that Bush Sr ran the CIA, then moved up to command a variety of covert operations as President VP "under" Reagan, while creating that monster.
--
make install -not war
TV antennas are put on top of civilian builings all over the world, simply because they are civilian devices.
Now I do think Saddam got what he deserved, and believe the fault lies with former Western leaders who did nothing to stop him. But that doesn't make it right to lie or to target civilians. That this happened makes it next to impossible to maintain enduring peace anywhere. Think the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin