Spectator's Journal/IA 655 KAL 007
Oberg, James
SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL IA 655 KAL 007 by James Oberg T n human terms, the equivalence of I the Iranian Airlines Flight 655 and Korean Airlines Flight 007 is clearcut. In both cases, almost three...
...the Americans agonized over the clearly military-related Iranian airliner signal...
...Even after the victims were dead, the Soviets could have significantly limited their public relations damage...
...Admission by the Soviets of their misidentification would have allowed mutual grief and deflected most ofthe world's ire...
...Soviet ex post facto claims of radio warnings are scarcely credible, since nobody else in the air (or in space) heard those alleged calls and since similar Soviet claims concerning previous border incidents were demonstrably phony...
...It can be hoped that the shock of this new human catastrophe might advance peace in the Persian Gulf, but the half-million lives already thrown away in the insane conflict between Iran and Iraq have been unable to motivate the leaders, and this event is being used by Iran to heat up the war, not cool it off...
...The Korean airliner fell victim to the pre-dawn lost-meter-reader mode of gunfire: shoot at a shadowy figure slipping over your back fence on his way out of your yard...
...Moreover, the flight paths during the attacks were absolutely opposite in nature...
...IA-655 was inbound on a course which coincidentally would take it over the American warships...
...But in practical terms, more careful comparisons and contrasts must be made...
...On the other hand, KAL-007 was destroyed over a region of the world which had been at peace for almost forty years...
...The short answer is that the cases really are fundamentally different...
...Following the KAL-007 attack, it was Soviet government reaction which received widespread denunciation...
...recent past...
...A dispassionate analysis refutes the widely expressed sentiment of many, that they cannot see any differences in the two tragedies...
...No Soviet forces were in the remotest way threatened when the Korean airliner was attacked...
...American intent was to defend, to prevent plausibly feared physical harm...
...Are the Soviets justified in feeling a bit smug as they recollect the American furor over their actions five years ago...
...Both did involve the use of deadly force against a poorly defined target...
...The Vincennes tragedy is unprecedented in the history of American military actions, but KAL-007 showed standard Soviet behavior...
...The Soviets in the past had systematically frustrated attempts to understand the causes of aviation catastrophes along their borders, particularly the 1978 Kola Peninsula incident and the 1981 destruction of the strayed Argentine cargo airliner over Azerbaijan...
...Indeed, it was within a few seconds flying time of international waters (if it wasn't over them already) when it was destroyed...
...But the inflexible Soviet pose of self-righteousness and aggrieved innocence has been generally interpreted as the hypocrisy it really is...
...even the most trigger-happy Texas circuit judge would balk at tolerating somebody assaulting a receding figure that threatened no physical harm...
...The diplomatic fallout of the KAL tragedy included the collapse of European objections to the Pershing deployments, and the subsequent success of the reciprocal INF accords on SS-20s...
...To perceive the incidents as equivalent reflects wish, not wisdom...
...Even the liberal court of Washington, D.C., could find no fault with Rowan's action...
...In terms of warning given, the two cases are again diametrically opposite...
...No evil intent has been ascribed to the hapless Iranian flight crew...
...The Soviets ignored the KAL radio transponder which would have established innocence...
...The American radio warnings are irrefutable, whether the Iranians chose to respond or not...
...News media and congressional briefings and press conferences THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1988 27 have been frequent and detailed...
...The IA-655 tragedy occurred over a war zone, in fact a battle zone, where combat operations were in progress and where hostile air feints and dodges had been occurring...
...KAL-007 was outbound, having completed a crossing of the narrow waist of Sakhalin Island...
...These differences are clearcut...
...American military forces had been attacked, and American lives had been lost, within the very James Oberg is the author, most recently, of Uncovering Soviet Disasters: Exploring the Limits of Glasnost (Random House...
...Such an assertion is a classic logical fallacy—!`argument based on imaginative incapacity...
...Instead, for days Moscow issued denials, evasions, and half-truths, and then began a campaign to shift the blame...
...Accusations of spying or of deliberate provocation comprised—and still comprise—the official Soviet version...
...In both cases, almost three hundred people died needlessly and horribly...
...But the Persian Gulf incident tends toward the Carl Rowan mode of gunfire: while standing in front of your own home and family, shoot at a figure approaching you in the dark...
...the Soviet intent was to punish, to destroy a transgressor which had already made its intrusion and was about to "escape...
...T he American reaction, by contrast, has been rapid and remarkably candid...
...The sacrifice thus may have contributed to reducing East-West tensions...
...Evil misperceptions have been corrected, not rigidly maintained...
Vol. 21 • September 1988 • No. 9
