tommyo@ihuxw.UUCP (09/02/83)
First off, you KNOW there`s no way the Soviets are going to get out of this one very easily. All the facts that have been gathered by intelligence sources give a pretty grim picture of what happened. The Soviets are really behind the 8 ball this time. Beginning nuclear war is no answer to the problem. I can not advocate more senseless killings because of some senseless killings. There are many alternatives which Reagan can take - boycots, curtailing all landing priviledges for Soviet aircraft, recalling our ambassador, etc. It is known that S. Korea and the U.S. is asking for a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council, but resolutions don`t do a heck of a lot. It was very interesting to watch "Nightline" last night. Conservative congressman Jesse Helms really turned on the flamers, saying that now we really know what kind of people those Russians are. There were other American political advisors and such who gave the same type of opinion. We need to know exactly what happened. Did Soviet planes actually make contact with the airliner? Who gave the orders to fire the missile? Why did the Soviets persue the plane for 2 hours before doing anything? How did the plane end up in Soviet airspace? Unfortunately, I don`t expect to learn all the answers. The Russians aren`t going to open everything up to the world. But the bottom line is over 250 innocent people were killed, and the world deserves to know what happened, and deserves an apology from the Russians. Tom O`Connor