From: orwell@reg.triumf.ca (BALDEN, RON)
Subject: Re: Usual libels against Chomsky
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 05:30:00 GMT


John McCarthy (jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU) [my ** emphasis]:
>... I'll make a little more of those chants.  They were not criticized
>by the mainstream of the "anti-war" movement.  The "no enemy on the
>left" produced some seamless alliances.  For example, at the time
>Reagan was carrying out the Carter-initiated plan to match the
>SS-20s by intalling the Pershings and cruise missiles, ***there was
>a seamless alliance stretching from four former U.S. Secretaries
>of Defense all the way to the Central Commmittee of the Communist
>Party of the Soviet Union.***

Anyone who can write about a "seamless alliance" in the manner above
is seriously decoupled from reality.  Or is there, unbeknownst to us,
a computer network gateway to an alternate parallel universe where the
names are all the same but the facts quite different?  Is the poster
John McCarthy from this alternate universe also a famous computer
scientist? 

For the benefit of those who do like to be coupled to reality, see
Tom Gervasi's "The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy" (1986,
Harper & Row) and even more interesting, his
"SOVIET MILITARY POWER -- The Pentagon's Propaganda 
Document, Annotated and Corrected by Tom Gervasi"  (published by 
Vintage Books/Random House, January  1988).  (Gervasi, an invaluable
ally of rationality, unfortunately died circa 1990 at a
relatively young age.) 

The latter "book" is in fact the April 1987 edition (160 pages) of the
U.S. Defense Department booklet SOVIET MILITARY POWER (which was
published every year or so during the Reagan Administration to justify
their trillion dollar arms buildup by presenting the  Soviets as 10 feet
tall militarily) reprinted on large paper size.  Gervasi's comments,
rebuttals, and debunking are printed in the ample margins, directly
opposite the Pentagon claims; this makes for very interesting browsing. 

Gervasi demonstrates that the claims in S.M.P. fall into 2 basic
categories of lies:

1)  Claims that the Soviets have (or will soon achieve) capability
"X" when their real capabilities are far less.

2)  Correct claims that the Soviets have capability "X" without 
mentioning that it is opposed by far greater U.S. capability --
2X, 5X, 10X.

Gervasi's cross-referencing also provides valuable insight into 
the propaganda mechanisms used --- e.g. on page "n" it is 
suggested that the Soviets **might** be developing a weapons
systems, but by page "n + 20" or so the weapons system is
treated as an accomplished fact. 

Gervasi's "The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy" (my quotes and page
references following are from the 1987 paperback edition -- 'tho it's large
format so I assume it's typeset from the same plates as the
hardcover) is a comprehensive discussion, packed with references (but
not turgid; 273 pages of this 548 page book is a well-written
discussion; the rest of the book consists of appendices, tables,
sources, etc.).  The focus of this book is on the propaganda claims
used by the Reagan Administration in the early 1980's to justify their
arms buildup, but Gervasi provides the historical context and shows
how U.S. government propaganda (aided by the various network
of lobbyists for the military-industrial complex and right-wing
think-thanks)  is willingly disseminated by the U.S. mass media to
deceive the U.S. public (and indeed, the citizens of 
all the Western democracies).  The book is invaluable. 

Page 67:
"  A critical element of the [Reagan] administration's campaign, 
therefore, has been a broad series of accusations, regularly repeated, 
of Soviet expansionism, Soviet violations of arms treaties, Soviet
intransigence in arms negotiations, Soviet initiatives in the arms
race, Soviet planning for nuclear war, Soviet use of inhumane weapons,
Soviet violations of human rights, and Soviet support of violence and
terrorism throughout the world.

   The book examines these accusations and finds that, **apart from
Soviet human rights violations** [my emphasis], which our press
heavily emphasizes over serious violations that occur in other parts
of the world, almost all of the remaining charges are wholly without
foundations.  It finds that many of these accusations are used not
only to create a general atmosphere of lasting distrust, but also to
suggest a Soviet initiative where America took one, as in planning for
nuclear war, or to suggest a Soviet initiative where America plans to
take one, as we now plan to produce a new generation of chemical
weapons and to expand into the lucrative but highly dangerous field of
weapons in space.  It also finds that focusing public attention on the
Soviet record has served to obscure the American record, which in
almost every area save [domestic] human rights has been far more
reprehensible."  [Tom Gervasi]

And Gervasi also notes the lie of the non-existent distinction between
"theater" and "strategic" weapons maintained by American nuclear
strategists and successfully sold to the public,
which in turn is the underpinning of the lie that Washington was
only "matching" SS-20s (pgs. 50-52):

"  The Soviets have always defined a strategic weapon as any weapon 
that could hit another nation's homeland, wherever it was based.
We have always defined it as a weapon of intercontinental range.  This 
is a convenient definition for us because it excludes weapons of much
shorter range based in Europe which can hit the Soviet homeland.  By 
excluding these weapons from strategic arms discussions with the 
Soviet Union, and calling them theater weapons instead, we have been 
able to protect this inequity and the additional strategic advantage
it gave us, while fostering the public impression that no such 
advantage existed.

  We continued to insist on our definition of strategic weapons until 
the Soviets placed missiles in Cuba [in 1962].  Then suddenly we
agreed with their view that weapons which lacked intercontinental
range still could play a strategic role.  After these missiles were
removed we reverted to our own definition again.  But one of the
reasons why the Soviets placed missiles in Cuba was to confront us
with the consequences of our definition, and require reciprocal action
from us in eliminating forward-based missiles that threatened both
superpowers. 

  It worked.  In 1958 we had placed sixty Thor missiles in England; we 
followed them with forty-five Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey.
These weapons threatened large areas of the Soviet Union in precisely
the same way Soviet missiles in Cuba threatened costal regions of
the southeastern United States.  ...

.. a Thor missile of RAF 77 Squadron stationed at Feltwell in England
had the capability to reach Moscow in nine minutes. A Pershing II of
our 56th Field Artillery Brigade at Heilbronn in West Germany is now
able to reach Moscow in only six. "  [Tom Gervasi]


     Ron Balden