jball@aluxe.UUCP (09/10/83)
The key thing which should govern our response to the Soviet
military's murder of KAL 7 is that that Soviet military action
was catastrophically incompetent. The prime reason the Soviet
central government has hesitated to tell the facts and has lied
is that they know it was incompetent and they know that if the
Soviet people learn the facts, discover that it was incompetent,
then the Soviet people will severely censure the military.
There is no doubt the Soviet military acted incompetently.
They had over two hours to react to KAL 7's overflight and acted
murderously at the very last minute without sustained undeniably
clear warning and negotiation to avert culpability for murdering
innocent civilians all in an area where they could expect with
near certainty that every move they made would be monitored by
other powers. The opportunities they had to successfully censure
KAL 7 and put the blame squarely on its pilot, Korea, and the
West non-lethally are undeniable. They could have forced down
KAL 7, stripped its pilot of his wings and imprisoned him without
firing a shot simply by calling Washington, or Tokyo, or Seoul
with warning and demand. Instead they have murdered 269 innocent
people, or about 260 if one questions the innocence of the KAL 7
crew, in a manner catastrophic to their country's international
reputation, something which the Soviet people always and their
central government usually deem a very serious crime.
Our response therefore should not be to say that the incident
is what is to be expected of the Soviets or of communism, but to
insist that the Soviet people bust their military for incompetency.
If the citizenry of this country and others take that view and
impress the facts on the Soviet people, the Soviet people can and
will court-martial the culprits, send the information ministry
people who failed to inform them to administrative exile, and
force Ustinov, the defense minister, to resign.
Obviously a campaign for that purpose involves increased,
intense citizen contact, involves what you personally can do,
not what you want Reagan to do beyond feeding you the full details,
and is quite the opposite of "isolating the commies" in their
comfy containment cocoon oblivious to reality.
I propose we write letters and that we all, especially
aviation personnel and air-travelers wear accusatory black armbands
"KAL Flight 7 9/1/83
269 Muredered!
BUST USTINOV FOR INCOMPETENCE"
I have made up some armbands like that and will mail three to the
first fifty people who ask for them. Mine are only in English,
but the airport versions should all be in the home language and Russian
too.
Governmentally, this contact sport approach means cutting
central embassy relations to the bone while expanding consular
relations and citizen contact by all means, letting the Soviet
military and central government know that we are going over their
heads. Try it, you'll like it. Armbanders are beginning to sprout
here at Bell Labs - Western Electric Reading Works, and I've already
targeted three airports. Look at it this way - we'd rather not
have people as incompetent as Ustinov handling nuclear weapons.
As to the comment that it is unsavory to have a worldwide
campaign against the murder of 269 but not the 40,000 in El Salvador
etc., let me suggest that if we, the citizenry, the varsity,
do a good job with the 269, we'll soon be able to take care
of the forty thousand. It will begin to dawn on people that
organized lethal violence in particular and militarism in
general on the one hand, and competency on the other, are
mutually exclusive. I propose we treat the instance conveniently
at hand.
Jim Ballard
Quality Control
mhuxh!aluxe!jball