It was not a Stealth bomber carrying nuclear weapons. It was not an intercontinental ballistic missile. It was not an Imperial Death Star ready to destroy the earth. It was just a goddamn great big balloon. Give me a break!
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Nor was it a giant fortune cookie!
Long distance takeout straight from China luckily looks like the upside of this technology
I was surprised that in the age of high-resolution satellites, a balloon is used for espionage. Or are we overestimating China's capabilities in this technology?
This may seem petty, but it is a matter of air space sovereignty. Whether the balloon presented an actual risk to our security is irrelevant. Most countries assert sovereignty over their airspace up to the Kármán line, which is the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space. The Karman line lies at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) above the Earth's sea level. Had the United States sent a balloon that size over China, there is no question that China would have taken action to bring it down. It was hypothesized that China was using this as a “trial balloon” to see how much the U.S. would tolerate. The U.S. had to respond that we would not tolerate it. Countries cannot allow a trespass into their sovereignty with impunity. Far more innocent accidental ventures into another country’s airspace have had far more serious and tragic results, e.g., Korean Air Lines Flight 007, which was shot down by the Soviet Union after the passenger plane accidentally strayed into Russian airspace, killing all 269 passengers.
In the early 70s, I was an "air intelligence officer" in Korea and my job was to monitor air traffic around the DMZ and the border of the Soviet Union, just to the east of North Korea. When the shoot down of the Korean Airliner 007 happened I knew the following: it was being tracked well before it entered Soviet airspace, the person who then had my old job (with technology 10 years advanced from what I was involved with) could have contacted the pilot in real time, could have listened in to American intelligence collecting platforms in the air, in real time, in the area 24/7 whose focus was the Kamchatka peninsula where the USSR tested missiles, and general back and forth fighter jet interceptions.
Of special concern was obtaining information as to the capabilities, beyond radar monitoring, and who would be making decision and from where on the Soviet side. I believe that the US knowingly allowed the civilian airliner to penetrate Soviet airspace because of the intelligence windfall. Further, I had the ability to contact the military personnel linked to the White House if I thought the situated warranted - all in real time.
I think the situation with the Chinese balloon was similar in that the US probably let it float about the US in order to garner intelligence. It also has been reported today that during Trump's term, similar Chinese spy balloons penetrated US airspace and Trump did nothing.
In the early 70s when intelligence collecting satellites were just getting started the most advance platform was the SR-71, which flew on the edge of space at, at least, mach 3 and probably much faster than that. By the time the North Koreans detected it on radar, it had completely left North Korean airspace. So I don't know what intelligence collecting systems China and the US have today but I can't imagine the balloon does much of anything accept perhaps in collecting intelligence when and if a shoot down occurs. Trump's failure, or the failure of his military, to shoot down his balloons was probably the best course of action.
Jerry,
You indicate that you were an intelligence officer in South Korea during the early 1970s. You then state, “I believe that the US knowingly allowed the civilian airliner to penetrate Soviet airspace because of the intelligence windfall.” This is nothing but rank speculation on your part, consistent with your repeated accusations on this blog attributing nefarious motives for everything the U.S. does. The fact is that the Korean Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviets on September 1, 1983, long after you were no longer an intelligence officer working in South Korea. You base your conclusion on your speculation that your successor would have had even more sophisticated technology and was probably tracking Korean Flight 607 and deliberately failed to alert the Korean pilot that he had strayed off course. You have no support for this speculation, especially in light of the fact that Congressman Larry McDonald was on that flight, and died as well. So, you are claiming that an American intelligence officer deliberately allowed a Korean passenger plane to enter the Soviet airspace because the plane was gathering intelligence about Soviet missile defenses on Kamchatka peninsula, thereby resulting in the death not only of 269 passengers, but a U.S. Congressman as well. Unfounded rubbish.
The downing of Korean Flight 007 is not the only deliberate attack on a passenger plane because it strayed into the sovereign airspace of another country. In 1978, the Soviets shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 902, carrying 109 passengers, when it strayed into Soviet airspace over Murmansk. Two of the passengers died; 107 passengers survived after the pilot made an emergency landing on a frozen lake. There is no indication that this Korean airplane was gathering intelligence.
In 1955, an El Al passenger plane, flying from Vienna to Tel Aviv strayed into Bulgarian airspace and was shot down by two Bulgarian Air Force MiG fighter planes. All 51 passengers and 2 crew members died. There is no indication that the El Al plane was gathering intelligence over Bulgaria for Israel.
Sorry to deflect this thread to another topic, but I have a question about US constitutional law for our resident expert, Marc S.
Marc: In a recent Apple + series, "Now and Then," a police officer (played by the terrific Rosie Perez) tries to get a warrant to plant concealed microphones in the apartment owned by a woman who is the partner of a suspect in a murder investigation. However, the officer is refused the warrant. She then obtains the permission of the owner of the apartment to plant the devices, and plants them. Later, she is severely upbraided by her superior officer for violating the fourth amendment prohibition on unlawful search and seizure.
That judgment puzzled me, since the Perez character had the permission of the undisputed owner of the apartment. What is the actual law on this matter? In planting the microphones without a judge-approved warrant did the police violate anyone's constitutional rights?
It is also a fact that Russian planes violate the airspace over the Baltic States and Scandinavia on a daily basis. Each violation triggers a reaction from national or NATO aircrafts. The first 10 of these actions may have had the purpose of testing the reactions. In the meantime, it is a mixture of provocation and bragging.
David,
Interesting question, and thank you for the compliment.
The television producers and script writers got it right. The rule is that a landlord, even if the landlord has the right to enter an apartment to, e.g., perform repairs without the tenant’s permission, may not waive the tenant’s right under the 4th Amendment not to be subjected to a search without a search warrant issued by a judge. So, for example, in U.S. v. Warner, 843 F.2d 401 (9th Cir. 1988), the landlord had rented a home to the defendant. The landlord went to the property to mow the lawn and smelled what he thought were illegal chemicals. He called the police. The police officer, who did not have a search warrant, asked the landlord to use his key to open the garage, where they found boxes of illegal chemicals. The landlord also allowed the police officer into the house, where they found more illegal chemicals. The officer contacted the police and the fire department, who confiscated the chemicals. At trial, the defense attorney moved to exclude the evidence of the chemicals based on an illegal search. The officer defended his conduct, claiming that he had the permission of the landlord to enter the property. On appeal, the 9th Circuit sustained the trial court’s order, stating, “[S]earches conducted outside the judicial process without prior approval by judge or magistrate are pe se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment – subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions. … This court will ‘uphold the district court’s findings of fact at a suppression hearing unless they are clearly erroneous …. The ultimate issue of whether exigent circumstances justify a warrantless entry and/or search is resolved under the de novo standard.” [i.e., anew by the appellate court] The 9th Circuit, in a 2-1 majority opinion, held that the landlord did not have the authority to allow the police officer to enter the garage or the home while the tenant’s lease was still in effect. In addition, there were no “exigent circumstances” justifying the warrantless search.
By contrast, consider the facts in United States v. Manning, 440 F.2d 1105 (5th Cir. 1971). The defendant was suspected of being involved in robbing a bank in Ohio. After the robbery, Manning and his wife flew to California with the stash, and rented a house in San Bernandino, where they then left their car behind and drove up to Oregon in a different vehicle. The issue at trial was the admissibility of an airline coupon which was left in the car which they had left in Bernandino, but which the FBI recovered from the car without a search warrant. The coupon provided evidence that they had been in Ohio and flew to California. The trial court held the airline coupon was admissible, and the 5th Circuit affirmed, on the following facts: “It is undisputed that the Mannings’ rental period had expired on May 5 and that the owner of the premises gave the FBI permission to search the car. Furthermore, it was clearly established that even though the Mannings had rented the San Bernandino house for thirty days, they departed after the first day leaving no personal belongings. The door was unlocked, food was on the table, and dishwater was in the sink. Thirty days later the same condition prevailed. Moreover, the decayed food created a stench, the grass was uncut, and the weeds had grown high.” The appellate court ruled that the evidence indicated that the Mannings had abandoned the house, allowing a search without a warrant.
In Walker v. Peppersack, 316 F.2d 119 (4th Cir. 1963), wherein the plaintiff had filed a petition for habeas corpus relief after having been convicted of armed robbery, and was sentenced to a term of 20 years. The robber had stolen 15 “Genova” watches and some money from a jewelry store in Baltimore. The robber had been living in an apartment in Baltimore with a woman who was “sometimes referred to as his common-law wife.” On the day following the robbery, a police sergeant and 3 detectives showed up at the house, and without a search warrant, entered the house, found the jewelry and $6.91 in pennies. They immediately found the defendant and arrested him. During the habeas corpus proceeding, the federal court held, “Walker had ‘standing’ to object to the use of illegally seized property discovered during the search of the apartment … . The evidence showed that he was actually occupying the apartment, living there for the time being. At the very least, he was there with the permission of Estelle Jackson, the other occupant. It is thus clear that Walker is in position to claim the constitutional protection against an unreasonable search and seizure. At the trial in Maryland state court, the defendant’s court-appointed defense attorney failed to file a motion to suppress, and failed to object when the evidence of the jewelry was offered by the prosecution. After the jewelry was admitted, the defense attorney finally woke up and filed a motion to strike the jewelry’s admission. The trial court denied the motion, ruling that it was too late and had been waived. The 4th Circuit reversed the trial court’s ruling and held that the State of Maryland must decide whether to retry the defendant without the jewelry as evidence.
I think that answers your question, David.
This weekend I am preparing for my defamation trial which is scheduled to begin in federal court on Feb. 15. I have an anecdote about how sneaky and disingenuous some defense attorneys in civil lawsuits can be. As I have indicated in a prior post, my client is a former instructor at a police academy. As part of his instruction, he used certain techniques which are recognized as legitimate techniques in training cadets to become police officers, e.g., a groin tap to train male officers to stay focused and vigilant; tickling in order to distract an arrestee in order to get handcuffs on him/her. Some of the cadets objected to the use of these techniques, and a Michigan state agency responsible for issuing police standards and accrediting police academies conducted an investigation of the allegations by the cadets. While this investigation was being conducted, the Undersheriff of the county in which the cadets were already employed sent an email to the employee of the state agency conducting the investigation, inquiring when the investigation would be completed and stating: “Our employees who were mistreated/victimized by MCOLES certified instructor [name] deserve an explanation of the findings by your agency.” My client learned of the email, and sent the Undersheriff a letter demanding a retraction, under Michigan law. The Undersheriff refused to issue a retraction.
(Continued)
So, the question at trial is whether the Undersheriff’s assertion that my client, by using the techniques in question, had “mistreated/victimized” the cadets. The Undersheriff had not been an eyewitness to the use of the techniques, or how they were used. For reasons known only to the Undersheriff’s attorneys, they failed to list the cadets as witnesses on their witness list. They were intending to get the cadets’ testimony in by offering the agency report, which incorporated the cadets’ interview statements, as an exhibit. But without the cadets testifying, the Undersheriff may not testify regarding how the techniques were used, because such testimony would constitute inadmissible hearsay under the Federal Rules of Evidence, i.e., an out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. So, when they realized their error, the defense attorney filed a motion two weeks ago – 1 month before trial – to amend their witness list. I opposed the motion as being too late and prejudicial to my client, since because the cadets had not been listed as witness, we had not taken their depositions. We had the hearing on their motion on Thursday, and the federal judge agreed with me that it was too late to amend their witness list. He also ruled that the report issued by the agency was not admissible as a “business record” because it contained the inadmissible hearsay statements of the cadets.
Friday, the day after the hearing, I received the defense attorneys’ trial brief, in which they are now arguing that the statement in the email by the Undersheriff was not a statemen of fact, but rather a statement of her opinion, and therefore the cadets’ statements should be admitted because they are not hearsay – they are not being offered to prove the truth of their statements, but only being offered to prove the Undersheriff’s “state of mind” when she sent the email. Today I am writing my own trial brief, in which I am going to argue that this “opinion” gambit is specious – that the Undersheriff did not state, “In my opinion, Mr. [ ] victimized/mistreated the cadets.” I have a Supreme Court decision, Milkovich v. Lorain Journal, 497 U.S. 1 (1990), to support my position.
Marc:
Before I read your long response, from which I know that will learn a lot about fourth amendment law, I just want to clarify one point: In the drama the target of the investigation was not the apartment owner's "tenant," he was her fiance and she lived there with him. He had no legal claim on the apartment, it was hers to do what she wished in it within the bounds of the law.
So, the question I am raising is: does she, as owner, have a legal right to grant the police permission to plant bugs in her own apartment? And, if she does would the fruits of such surveillance be admissable in a court of law?
Thanks for your attention to this.
Addendum:
Marc:
Is the following the pertinent element in Walker v Peppersack?-- "The evidence showed that he was actually occupying the apartment, living there for the time being. At the very least, he was there with the permission of Estelle Jackson, the other occupant. It is thus clear that Walker is in position to claim the constitutional protection against an unreasonable search and seizure."
One difference between this case and the drama is that the person in the drama who gave the police permission to plant the bugs was not just "another occupant" but the owner/occupier of the apartment. Does that make a legal difference?
Thanks.
David,
Your clarification demonstrates why the facts of a case are critical. One of the first things they teach in law school is that the unique facts of every case are what determine the outcome, even though the legal principles applied to the facts may be the same.
In the Walker v. Peppersack case, the determinative fact was that the common-law wife had not given her permission for the search. In the facts of the TV episode, however, the actual tenant did give her consent for planting the bug. As the tenant, she had the authority to do so, and the search without a warrant was legal. The only reason that Perez’s supervisor would have a right to find fault with her procedure is, what happens if at a suppression hearing the tenant recants and claims she did not give Perez verbal permission to place the bug. Under these circumstances, the court would be required to give the benefit of the doubt to the tenant’s boyfriend to protect his 4th Amendment constitutional right. If Perez had obtained an order from a judge, the planting of the bug could not be objected to.
David, are you considering becoming a lawyer? It is challenging and a lot of fun.
Marc:
Many thanks for your illuminating comments.
I can see how getting a warrant would protect the prosecution against any future ambiguities and/or disputes about the apartment owner's permission for the bugs.
But what I take away from your comment is that in the drama the investigator's superior got the law wrong--- in that, legally speaking, the apartment owner's permission was in itself enough legally to justify the electronic surveillance.
I have no doubt that being a lawyer is challenging and, when pursued with Susselman vigour, also logts of fun.... but at 80 I am way too old to apply to law school.
Yes, putting aside the possible recantation by the tenant, Perez's superior got the law wrong.
With your superior analytical skills, law school would be a breeze. You could take extra courses and finish in two years, which, if your health is good, would leave you another 13-15 years to practice law, and get to argue with people like me.
Colombia located one of those balloons in its airspace and guess what, they didn't shoot it down.
So maybe the U.S. shooting down the balloon isn't what "normal" countries do, but, as Chomsky points out, we own the world.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombian-military-confirmed-possible-balloon-flying-over-its-airspace-2023-02-05/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7EmLiFWeI8
Please let's not get sidetracked into irrelevant legalisms. Relevant legalism apropos international relations wd. be ok. But reflections on the ir aspects of the case wd. be better, as wd. reflections on just why the US and its media have been making such a big deal about this. As s.w. observed, other countries have dealt with similar situations in a much less (deliberately?) hysterical way. The military-industrial-media complex strikes again?
There is a significant difference between the Chinese surveillance balloon and Albert Lamorisse’s Red Balloon. We would all love a world like that which John Lennon Imagined, but we are not quite there yet, and probably will not be there for several centuries. In the meantime, we live in a world in which conflict between super-powers is the reality, and in which “irrelevant legalisms” are relevant, a world in which many of the commenters on this blog can’t handle the truth.
s.w. and anon, perhaps Columbia and other S.A. nations don't have the capacity to bring the balloon down (the Canadian AF attempted to shoot down one of their errant weather balloons that was smaller and hit it with ~1,000 20 mm shells - six days later it came down). Per the maps I've seen, the balloon was barely over Columbia and and headed towards Venezuela and then Brazil. Probably not a good idea to shoot around/try and bring down a large and heavy object near the border of another nation. Also, unlike open ocean, people live there. Firing a missile towards the open ocean seems less problematical then over land/near national borders.
One nation hovering a large object with all sorts of electronics over the nuclear assets of another nation isn't going to be tolerated. The U.S. choosing to bring it down within U.S. territory is entirely reasonable. Doing it over shallow water instead of putting folks/property at risk by shooting it down over land seems prudent. Water also increases the odds of an intact (more or less) recovery.
The freak-out on the Right once again demonstrates that Republicans can't be trusted. One has to wonder what's going on with China. I'm sure we have our methods and play cat and mouse with each other.
There are no "normal" nations . There are four large (population and area) and diverse nations with nukes - most of the others are artifacts of European colonialism. Two are flawed democracies and two are authoritarian dystopias (and one of those is looking to eat the other's lunch). It's cat and mouse inside that club.
May be of interest:
https://ourworldindata.org/democratic-world
who is "we"???
would it be any more likely to injure people and property than do those decayed satellites (I mean the space ones, not those that willingly or unwillingly are attached to this or that empire) that fall to Earth quite frequently?
Anon, espionage is pretty much universal, limited only by resources so "we."
Yes, it would. Most (~70%) of the earth's surface is water and a good chunk of the land is un or lightly populated. Large ones can often be steered and almost all burn/break up on reentry.
Anything that falls from 60K' is going to hit the ground more or less intact and below where it was disabled. So yes, shooting down a large heavy object over even a lightly populated area carries unacceptable risk to folks/things on the ground. Ditto, for firing missiles and heavy bullets.
Isn't most of the continental USA "un or lightly populated"? And I'm pretty sure I've heard reports that a crashing satellite might impact some populated areas.
But this is all quite silly. My point was--as best I can remember--why has there been such a to-do about this one balloon at this particular juncture.
This--
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php?a=home-hero&utm_source=cjr-org&utm_content=homehero
-- is marginally relevant.
PS. I think that was our host's initial point too.
Interesting take:
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/02/that-downed-chinese-balloon-wasnt-exactly-for-spying-it-was-a-trial-balloon/
LFC, on another topic, the new AP guidelines seem to make it easy for a teacher to avoid the recent backsliding on civil rights like voting and gerrymandering. They more closely adhere to the conservative trope that MLK made one speech in his life and that speech consisted of one sentence and then everyone went "of course" and history ended.
By "read the room" I meant that the AP folks looked at things post Youngkin and allowed some wiggle room for the rubes so the course would still we widely available.
The nuclear "club" as of now is: U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council), India, Pakistan, Israel (though it doesn't officially admit to having them), and, in all likelihood, North Korea. Several other countries had nukes or were very close and relinquished them, including Ukraine, South Africa, and, if memory serves, Brazil.
aaall,
On the AP guidelines, I haven't read them, so I'm reluctant to comment.
Anon, I see a problem with involuntary Russian roulette, you seem not to. Of course, I live in a lightly populated/empty area, you may not. I see that bit with satellites from time to time but it never seems to work out.
The "to do" is wingnut and media fed. Recall that CNN did wall to wall over the missing Malaysian plane for way too long. Wingnuts seem to need something to scare them, not my sandbox. On the other hand, letting a reconnaissance device hover over nukes on U.S. territory and then letting it just move on seems unwise.
A better take on your link:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/02/columbia-journalism-review-jeff-gerth-trump-russia-the-media/
Perspective on Republican hypocrisy: Biden authorized the balloon shoot down on Tuesday, but the generals said wait. Republicans cried wolf. If Biden had shot the plane down immediately, Republicans would have complained he didn't follow his general's advice. Rinse, repeat, regardless of issue.
Marc,
If you can stop with the personal insults, you might grasp what I am saying, which is this:
IF I were at my old desk with all the very large screens, teletype machines, and real time opportunities to communicate verbally with pilots, I know I would have been able to wave off the airliner.
But yeah, the good ole USA would never do something like that. Tell me, were you old enough to serve in Vietnam or some other war zone? I would love to tell you about the docs I held in my hands, but it appears that you embrace the "necessary illusions".....they feed us endlessly. So be it. Yes, as MLK said the US is the worst terrorist nation on earth - when he was alive - I'm not happy about this; I went to a military school/college (VMI) because I drank the kool aid too. And put my 4 years in on active duty, during a war, spending over 600 days in Korea and leaving the Air Force as a Captain. What was your military service? But the most important misunderstanding in your note is this: my point was not that the Korean airliner was gathering intelligence. My point was that by allowing the airliner to penetrate into Soviet airspace, the US was able to watch and listen in on the interception carefully: when was the aircraft picked up on radar, from where? what communication by way of decision making were US military intelligence types able to monitor? who made the decision to shoot down the airliner; how many people were involved in that decision, from where? What aircraft made the intercept, from which base, with what weapon? And so on. This type of information was/is important and it is precisely the type of information I would brief American pilots on when they got into their aircraft in South Korea to bomb NK and the USSR if push came to shove. " You will be picked up on this type of radar here, you are likely to be intercepted here at this point, by this type of aircraft with this type of weapons, you will be able to mitigate these threats using these counter measures, and on and on.
Yeah, I'm just a crank. Are you denying that 5,000.000 Indochinese were murdered by the US for the crime of defending their homeland? And how many more have died in Vietnam since 1975 due to all the poisons and personnel weapons dropped on that country? I think if you wrote less here and read a little more widely, you wouldn't be as naive as you are?
Thanks Jerry for explaining.
Now with the balloon, which Colombia laughed off as a danger, the same folks are preparing us for a possible war with China.
Jerry,
If you had been reading my many comments on this blog regarding my military service you would know that I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1971, before you were in the military, performed my basic training at Ft. Campbell Kentucky, was given an MOS in artillery, and completed my artillery training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma in 1972. I experienced pretty intense pro-U.S. brain-washing during those years about the Vietnam war. I never served in Vietnam, but I engaged in numerous protests against the war, even while I was serving in the Army Reserve. The primary reason I find your account dubious is that the military must have known that Congressman McDonald was on that flight and would likely be killed if the Korean airliner was not warned that it had strayed into Russian airspace. Anything is possible, but your account would have the U.S. sacrificing the lives of 295 passengers, including a U.S. Congressman, in order to obtain rather skimpy intelligence about Soviet air defenses. I agree that if this were the case, it would make the U.S. government into a sinister foreign policy actor, which, my protests against the Vietnam war notwithstanding, I do not believe was the case. I attribute the Vietnam war more to U.S. blundering and ignorance than to premeditated genocidal or hegemonic intentions. As for my being naïve, my work as an attorney for 44 years has disabused me of any idealism regarding the U.S. government and its legal system, but if I were to be prosecuted, I would prefer that it occur in the U.S. than any other country, particularly Russia. As long as I have been reading Prof. Wolff’s blog, I have never read any comment by you that has stated anything positive about the country that you have apparently disowned.
aaall
"A better take . . ."? Well, it is a take. But why better? Doen't it just demonstrate that the bitter debate about how to interpret a particular chunk of the world rages on? I'm not, by the way, siding with anyone on this. But I imagine lurking somewhere are criticisms of Gerth's account coming from the Trump crowd and others.
I know I should just let it go, butI can't let pass the other claim by someone else, that he'd rather be prosecuted in the US than in any other country. Ask Julian Assange about that!
Bonnie Raitt wins Grammy Award for song of the year, Just Like That, a tribute to organ donation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skd0XR3twCA
Marc,
You are right about one thing; I don't read your postings. On occasion, someone will arrive on this blog who posts excessively. You are that person these days. I counted ten separate postings just in this set of comments alone and you're likely to respond to this comment too. You don't appear to be self-conscious about taking up so much oxygen but I find it self-indulgent so I skip over nearly all that you have to say.
I do remember, however, - long ago - when you offered up the National Labor Relations Board as a shinning example of how just and responsive the American political economy is to the needs of exploited workers. Speaks volumes.
"...I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1971, before you were in the military...." I went on active duty in January 1971. Why it matters and why you assumed you were there before me is revealing as well.
I apologize to the Professor and others for getting into this boring tit for tat exchange with Marc; but sometimes the "love me, love me, I'm a Liberal" styled personal attack is just too ripe and inviting to ignore.
Jerry Fresia,
You’re right, I can’t let your gratuitous remark go without a rebuff. What the hell have you ever done to protect American workers from exploitation? All you have done is write an academic dissertation criticizing the merits of the U.S. Constitution, the very Constitution which allowed Congress to pass the National Labor Relations Act which gave American workers who work for capitalists the right to organize. I have represented such workers before the NLRB. What the hell have you done to represent their legal rights, except take pot-shots at the Constitution from the peanut gallery?
And the reason that I commented on my military service was because you suggested I did not know what I was talking about because I had never served in the military. You were wrong, and I, unlike you, continue to stand up for the legal rights of Americans here in the United States, instead of running away to Italy.
I'm sorry to say, Jerry, you're on a loser. Even ignoring him doesn't work. It's been complained about so often on this blog that he who shall be nameless again and again turns every thread into an excuse to try to celebrate his own ego by writing at enormous length about whatever it is he wants to write about. RPW's initial remarks quickly get thrown to the wayside and we're back to it being in effect he who shall be nameless's blog. RPW did ban him once as I recall. But (like Elon Musk) he just let the miscreant return.
I guess the only sensible thing to do is to go elsewhere and comment where appropriate elsewhere and hope he doesn't follow you. Best wishes.
Jerry,
I hope that you keep commenting on this blog. I find what you have to say very valuable.
As you've probably seen, I've had my problems and disputes with Marc and I've learned first of all, not to get into an insult contest with him. Insults hurt, I know, but it's best to ignore them.
Second, I try to answer him rationally because he has reasonable viewpoints, generally very well defended, although I'm skeptical of what we might call "the mainstream consensus" that he represents.
After a while, one gets used to him. You and I have lived long enough to have dealt with lots of people like Marc and to have learned how to live and let live with them.
Jerry Fresia submits a comment making the rather outrageous claim that in 1983 an American air traffic control military officer working in South Korea, under orders of his military superiors, deliberately allowed a Korean passenger plane to stray into Soviet air space, with the almost certain likelihood that the passenger plane, with an American Congressman on board, would be intercepted and shot down by the Soviet air defense systems, with the almost certain likelihood that all 259 passengers and the crew members would be killed. And this act of deliberate murder by the American military was supposedly conducted in order to obtain information about the location of the Soviet air defense systems. Fresia makes this claim based on his experience as an officer in the U.S. Airforce in the early 1970s having been responsible for monitoring similar flights out of South Korea. I call Fresia out on this rather outlandish claim of deliberate murder by the U.S. military, and I am accused of being insulting.
The problem is that I am the only commenter on this blog who challenges a lot of the nonsensical opinions expressed on this blog by its far left enthusiasts. For this I am labelled a – oh my God – a traditional knee jerk liberal. Well, it has been the traditional knee jerk liberals in this country who have been responsible for advancing most of the liberal legislation in this country – the National Labor Relations Act; the Social Security Act; Title VII and the Civil Rights Voting Act; the Family Leave Act - against difficult and stalwart opposition from the Republicans on the right – for which those in the middle class and lower income class owes them a debt of gratitude. But because they have not succeeded, or even attempted, to turn this county into a Marxist paradise and eliminated capitalism altogether, they, and I, bear the mark of Satan. As long as such views are espoused on this blog, I will continue to speak my mind and expose those opinions for the ultra-liberal nonsense that it is, and if that seems insulting to those on the far left, so be it.
Insults: in your email above, Marc, you used the following words which most would qualify as insulting: outrageous, outlandish, nonsensical, nonsense.
You could have disagreed with Jerry's opinion without calling it "utter rubbish".
You have convince more readers, I believe, if you moderated your language, that is, if you are really interested in convincing others instead of disqualifying others.
Anon, I believe it's necessary to also factor in Russian interference in other European elections (including Brexit - how's that working out?). If one reads populist/nationalist/Christianist/fascist elements on the American/European Right, the Russophilia is obvious. There's also this:
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/kremlin-linked-group-arranged-payments-to-european-politicians-to-support-russias-annexation-of-crimea
The stakes preclude an "on the one hand..." attitude.
I assume that fair trials are typical for a number of nations around the world, not just the U.S. Assange seems an obsession with the Tankie Left, which given, the source of the Clinton emails, makes sense.
Of course, it wasn't the U.S. Constitution that allowed the Wagner Act, it was the electoral shift over the Great Depression and the "switch in time." Just give the current Article Three courts time...
s.w., I believe it's useful to differentiate between the often disingenuous freak-outs on the U.S. Right and the legitimate concerns over a vehicle loaded with various electronics passing over ICBM installations. There are a number of disturbing possibilities so probably not "harmless."
"The problem is that I am the only commenter on this blog who challenges a lot of the nonsensical opinions expressed on this blog by its far left enthusiasts."
Then there's the guy who introduced "tankie." Chopped liver?
(Skipping over most of the above comments ...)
Jerry Fresia,
Do you believe that the balloon was in fact being used for espionage and not solely, as alleged by the Chinese, for meteorological or other civilian purposes?
From my perspective it is highly problematic that the corporate media were echoing the US government's designation of the balloon as a "spy balloon" without, as far as I am aware--and I freely admit I haven't followed this story at all--public release of any evidence demonstrating that the balloon was actually being used for espionage.
I would not be suprised if the Chinese really were using it for surveillance. (Why wouldn't they??) But the media blitz at this particular moment appears to be a psyop to continue trying to shape public opinion to support a conflict with China.
One other thought--
One of the curious contradictions of the US police state and empire is that while the government has truly astonishing capabilities when it comes to gathering information, it also regularly makes truly astonishing mistakes, or what appear to be mistakes.
A few examples:
- A few years ago a retired postal worker protesting government corruption flew a gyrocopter from Pennsylvania to Washington, DC, entered restricted airspace, and landed on the Capitol lawn. He had told a reporter of his plans months in advance, and the flight was livestreamed.
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/services/files/9f06187f-c0b5-441b-b5c2-70231018b2f5
- During the Obama admininstration, a mentally disturbed combat vet armed with a knife managed to evade Sec Svc protections and enter the White House.
- In recent years, there have been multiple collisions and other mishaps, some resulting in deaths, involving US ships in foreign waters, ships which presumably were equipped with all manner of the latest high-tech surveillance and anti-collision equipment.
- January 6, 2021 & 9/11.
Despite what we are led to believe, the Empire is neither infallible nor invincible.
Eric,
You seem to have a somewhat one-dimensional view of the U.S., in which it claims to be an infallible "empire" while in fact making numerous intel and other kinds of errors. But the U.S. "official" line, of course, is that is not an empire. And U.S. officials (that is, serious civil servants and policy makers) certainly know about the mistakes etc that have been committed, and even sometimes acknowledge them. Indeed, no one, irrespective of his or her politics, could look at the foreign-policy record of the U.S. and conclude that it is one worthy of uncritical celebration. The interpretive difference arises betw those who see everything the US does as part of a scheme to advance the interests of corporate capitalism and those who have a somewhat more nuanced view of things.
Marc,
Your claim that you are the "only commenter on this blog who challenges a lot of the ... opinions expressed on this blog by its far left enthusiasts" is absurd and self-aggrandizing.
aaall is not on the "far left" esp not on foreign policy, and I have certainly challenged some opinions, about foreign policy in particular, that others have expressed.
The difference is that I prefer not to mount a rhetorical high horse and present myself as a lone, courageous crusader for Truth who has (all) the answers.
LFC,
I'd say that among regular commenters about half of us are "far left enthusiasts" like myself and about half have more mainstream views. That's a rough approximation.
LFC,
"Absurd" and "self-aggrandizing" - that's insulting, and I will not stand for it!
s.w.,
I'm not sure of the exact labeling and the exact breakdown, but there's clearly a mixture of views here.
And btw, I don't have time to object to every view I might disagree with. I happen to have an old friend whose father was very involved in researching the KAL 007 incident and came to some unconventional conclusions about it (though I don't think they were precisely Jerry Fresia's conclusions, they weren't the US govt's conclusions either).
But whatever I might think about Jerry's views on KAL 007 or anything else, I'm not inclined to jump in every time someone says something I disagree with or even find really "out there." This is a blog and it's almost in the nature of the blogosphere that there is a certain amt of making of claims that are well, "out there" or will strike some that way.
Marc, on the other hand, can't resist jumping in and objecting whenever what he sees as an "outlandish," "nonsensical" or whatever opinion is aired. It's a fool's errand, because minds are rarely changed. Jerry Fresia is not going to change his politics or his worldview no matter how many times Marc tells him he is a contemptible hater of the U.S.
You know that famous cartoon depicting a cohabiting man and woman (presumably husband and wife) and the wife asks the husband to come to bed and he, sitting at a desk looking at a computer, replies "Just a minute. Someone is wrong on the Internet." Well, yes, someone is always "wrong on the Internet." It's the Internet! One has to pick one's objections and one's "battles."
LFC: You seem to have a somewhat one-dimensional view of the U.S., in which it claims to be an infallible "empire"
I don't recall having said that.
s. wallerstein: I'd say that among regular commenters about half of us are "far left enthusiasts"
You have a very broad definition of "far left."
Eric,
There was some irony behind that comment.
LFC,
Actually, I do not respond to every comment I disagree with. In Fresia’s case, however, I found his assertion that the U.S. military intentionally murdered 259 passengers, including a U.S. Congressman, simply to find out where the Soviet Union’s air defenses were located, so offensive and absurd that I could not let it go without a refutation. And calling it “absurd” or “utter rubbish” is, in my opinion, rather mild given the comment’s implications. And it is not my intention or objective to change his, or anyone else’s, point of view. My objective is to let them know that not everyone agrees with them.. After all, silence is a sign of concurrence, according to Thomas More in “A Man For All Seasons.”
rpw (2018-12-02): I have been thinking about the transition to socialism and how it could go down.... For purposes of this post, let us assume that we do not mean full frontal socialism – collective ownership of the means of production and all that jazz – but rather what now passes for Democratic Socialism in these parts: single payer health care, high national minimum wage, punitive death taxes on the rich, large scale redistribution of wealth, protections for unions, environmentally friendly clean energy, free education through college, and lots and lots of local and regional cooperatives....
How might all of this actually come about? Well, not by way of violent revolution, that’s for sure.... [T]he most efficient part of the federal bureaucracy is the military. So it is going to have to be the good old fashioned way, by elections, legislation, and the enforcement of duly enacted laws.
https://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2018/12/41.html
rpw (2016-12-21): In the past few days, there has been a certain amount of talk on this blog about revolution and socialism, so perhaps it would be appropriate to say something on these topics....
How might the American economy make a transition from capitalism to socialism? There are three plausible ways.... The third way is violent revolution, which is to say the extra-legal seizure, by force, of the means of production by the people....
Meanwhile, the Governor has been alerted to what is going down. She activates the National Guard, which moves on the seized facilities across the state with tanks, assault rifles, light artillery, gas grenades, and as much of the Air National Guard as can be found. The battle is fierce, and our revolutionaries fight nobly, but they are vastly out gunned, and pretty soon the mopping up begins....
The conclusion is clear. Our only hope for socialism in America is through the ballot box and the peaceful transition via expropriation of the expropriators.
https://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2016/12/an-academic-exercise.html
aaall
I’m not sure I’m the anon to whom you were referring when you raised the issue of Russian intereference in European elections, but I’m cynical enough to believe—and I think historical studies would support my belief—that lots of countries “interfere,” i.e., try to influence electoral outcomes in countries they regard as significant to themselves. (I know it’s waving a red flag to mention, e.g., American “interference,” but keep in mind the attempts to influence Yeltsin’s election and re-election and so much else in Russia—with shall one say unpleasant consequences.) I’m not supporting such attempts to influence. But I do think it’s important to recognize such actions as a factor in international politics.
As to Brexit, the typical response nowadays is the one you put forward: “Brexit- how’s that working out?” But what this doesn’t begin to engage with is that there were and are serious criticisms to be directed at the organisation and functioning of the European Union and that these were what led some to support Britain’s leaving it. See, e.g., https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n01/perry-anderson/ever-closer-union
Finally, does one need to be a “tankie leftist” to hold that the persecution by the British and American establishments has been brutal and that his successful prosecution will put yet another damper on whistleblowing, on the public exposure of the wrongdoings of governments and their agents?
anon (and could you all not use the same name), Brexit was done under distortions and outright lies (where's all that promised NHS funding?). Every arrangement will have problems but Brexit was about solving the EUs. Lying press lords and oligarch funding; cui bono - not the average person in the UK.
I find it hard to cry hard times over someone who helped Putin and his orange asset (besides he didn't take proper care of his cat).
BTW, this is horrible:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=35.95587,35.25527&extent=38.66415,40.66054&updateNotifications=true&range=week&format=shakemap&showUSFaults=true&baseLayer=terrain&distanceUnit=mi
A 7.8 and a 7.5 less then a day apart in the same area plus lots of fore and aftershocks.
I am casually (not so much) struck by Jerry Fresia's offhand reference to "tit for tat." Struck enough to leave a comment. A number of years ago, I left a comment on this blog where I referred to Theodore Draper's book, "The Roots of American Communism." (1957) I will gamble and say that I am about 96% sure that no one reading this blog has read the book. If you do read the book, a nagging fact that Draper hammers home is that a hallmark of the history of the American left (which I am sure is a similar feature around the globe with respect to other leftist movements) is that it is plagued by endless disagreement, infighting, undermining, backstabbing, and more or less other "tit for tat" arguments. (Somes of these disagreements are vividly portrayed in the Warren Beatty film "Reds" [1981])
Look, all that I want to do, in my limited capacity, is to try and somehow make the world a better place. Is it too much to ask that we set aside the petty tit for tats and get on board with the larger project of global improvement? Why not go all out and prove Draper wrong, prove Trump wrong, prove the climate deniers wrong? Seems like a better use of time, resources, and mental energy.
I expect this comment to fall on deaf ears. Oh well.
-- Jim
aaall
Thanks for your reply. Now I know exactly where you're coming from==but it isn't really a surprise.
Jim,
Your comment has not fallen on deaf ears, at least not in my case. The ultimate question is whether the “tit-for-tat” is counter-productive to the ultimate goal. I do not believe that it is, because our visions of what the ultimate goal is do not necessarily coincide. I regard myself as a liberal. Jerry Fresia scoffs at that nomenclature as not being sufficiently radical. Although we are both on the “left,” so to speak, we do not share the same vision of what the ultimate objective is, and the fact that we do not agree is important, and should not be minimized as just being a form of “tit-for-tat.”
Engagement in “tit-for-tat” is not limited to the left. It also occurs on the right, e.g., in 2016, between the far right supporters of Trump, and the more moderate supporters of Jeb Bush. I am going to do a bit of armchair, off-the-cuff sociologicalizing here. It does appear that those on the right are better able to put aside their differences and coalesce behind a single candidate or cause. I hypothesize that they are better at doing this than the left, because the goals and objectives of the right vs. the left are diametrically different. The goals of those on the right involve the assertion of power and the concentration of wealth. Therefore, it is natural for them to exercise the use of power within their ranks to quell dissent. Those of us on the left view our goals as being more humanitarian and noble. We are therefore less inclined than those on the right to exercise power in order to unify in support of the same vision or objective. Hence, tit-for-tat has a longer shelf life on the left, than on the right. Jerry Fresia and I are both, generally speaking, proponents on the left, but we do not have the same vision or objective, and therefore will never agree on tactics or strategy. I am, for example, willing to support Joe Biden’s candidacy in 2024. Jerry Fresia, and those who support his vision, scoff at this and will never support Joe Biden. This may be “tit-for-tat,” but it is important “tit-for-tat,” because I regard the objectives of those on the far left as endangering the efforts of more moderate liberals, and their more moderate goals, by enabling those on the right to unify and ultimately prevent the more moderate goals of the moderate liberals from materializing. In this context, the tit-for-tat is important and, although counter-productive in one regard, is ultimately critical to differentiating our different goals and visions. This dynamic within the left has repeated itself throughout history, e.g., Napoleon, and is portrayed in literature, e.g., The Red And The Black, by Stendhal, and more recently in the conclusion of The Hunger Games. But I do not view it as really counter-productive, because, as in the lyric “New Boss, same as the old,” those on the far left who ultimately prevail have a tendency to become more like their former adversaries on the right – authoritarian and suppressing free speech. So, ultimately, the tit-for-tat on the left is not counter-productive if it prevents these authoritarian tendencies on the far left from reaching fruition.
There are ways to disagree without being disagreeable, e.g., don't call an argument "absurd" even though you might think it is. Insults and ad hominems never converted anyone. The goal is to make converts, not to condemn heretics.
David,
Calling an absurd argument "absurd" is not an ad hominem insult - it is, at least when I use the word, an accurate assessment of its validity. And, as I have stated above, my objective is not to convert anyone who would stoop to using an absurd argument. It is to let them know that I know that it is an absurd argument and that they should not interpret a failure to critique the argument as implicit concurrence. I will never be able to persuade Jerry Fresis and those on the left who think like him, to my point of view. So there is not point in being polite on the fool's errand of trying to persuade them.
Marc,
True, you will probably never convert me or Jerry Fresia, but there are many, perhaps hundreds, of people who read this blog and never comment.
Some of them are young and have not fully developed a political posture, and others for many reasons may not have defined political positions on many issues, beside seeing themselves as progressive.
I'm fairly sure that your style of insulting others turns those potential converts off completely. Just watch all politicians (besides Trump, ha ha) and they are uniformly polite, courteous and do not insult their political adversaries.
s. wallerstein,
Your point is taken (but not likely behavior modifying).
Regarding U.S. politicians, living in Chile, you probably have not heard what the likes of Lindsay Graham and Tom Cotton say about their political opponents on the left; or what Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler say about those on the right. I believe that unadulterated candor has its place and that mincing words only results in minced arguments.
Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton et al are not trying to convert Adam Schiff or Jerry Nadler. They are throwing red meat to their supporters. Their goal is to win, not to find the truth.
Okay, David, so was Jerry Fresia trying “to find the truth” when he asserted that in 1983 the U.S. military deliberately allowed a Korean passenger plane, with a U.S. Congressman on board, to stray into Soviet airspace with the near certain knowledge that the Soviet defenses would shoot the Korean plane down, with the near certain likelihood that all 259 passengers and its crew would be killed, just so that the U.S. military could find out where the Soviet air defenses were located, i.e., the U.S. military deliberately made sacrificial lambs out of 259+ innocent people just so that it could acquire some rather limited military intelligence? This is not the statement of an individual who is seeking the truth. This is the statement of a person who is so biased against the United States that he is inclined to attribute to the United States the most sinister, evil, and vile motives possible. So don’t tell me that my “insulting” comments are counter-productive to the attainment of truth.
I'm not sure about insults being complete turn-offs. Probably most readers of the blog can do a decent job of spotting logical fallacies, and thus resisting the leap from "So-and-so is being an insulting asshole" to "So-and-so's beliefs are untrue." And probably everyone gets that there can be such a thing as being a "poor representative" of a belief-system, from which it follows that it can be a sensible thing to suspend judgment on the grounds that "Perhaps the advocates I've seen so far haven't managed to do their viewpoints justice."
Also, I think it's very hard, maybe impossible, to take anything like a firm, dedicated stance on questions of ethical-political-ideological value without tacitly "insulting" (at minimum, taking an unfavorable view of) the people who are furthest from that stance. Conservatives, ISTM, are bound to think that leftists (qua leftists) have poor or warped judgment and/or a faulty moral compass or character deficiency - and vice-versa. And when conservatives are especially aggressive and unabashed in expressing this, they might use words like "libt@rd" or "snowflake" (or various sexist/homophobic slurs), etc.; when leftists want to be insulting, they might speak of "superstitious, gun-toting cretins," etc.; and each side charges the other with conformism and mindless groupthink.
Insults can just be regarded as something that unfortunately comes with the territory, IMO, and it isn't always good policy to dismiss a viewpoint on the grounds of its being "insulting."
Marc,
Probably not, but your response seems unlikely to convert him. You might better have thought of him not as opposing counsel, but as the the judge or the jury whose misguided views you need to correct.
The readers (who do not comment) whom I imagine waver between your posture and that of Jerry on many issues. They identify with both of you at times.
Thus, they are turned off if you insult or disqualify Jerry.
They are not turned off if you insult Trump or Putin.
I don't follow U.S. politics that closely, but as far as I can see, Trump's political strategy of insulting other Republicans during the 2016 campaign (Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz) was very unusual (Republicans don't usually publicly insult Republicans nor do Democrats usually publicly insult Democrats).
It worked for Trump because of the incredible resentment and hatred brewing up inside many Republican voters.
It usually, however, turns off voters to see politicians insult people from their own party or from a similar political posture. For many people you and Jerry are both leftists.
It's important, I believe, to try to keep arguments from polarizing--at least if you want to get something done.
I've been reading a bit of history in recent years, and found that there is a similar debate going on, with regard to US history, between the "contextualists" and the "presentists." The contextualists argue that we should judge people by the standards of their time; presentists contend that we should judge by the standards of our time. There no easy answer to this question, but it has proved to polarizing much of the time.
One group, for example, glorifies the country from its founding to the present day. The other condemns it as rotten to the core from 1619 to today.
Both, in my view, are wrong. The country, as I see it, is a mixture of both. It is, after all, one of the liberal (in the classic sense) states that has an immigration immigration problem. There's something that attracts people. Not many are trying to get into Russia or China.
I don't know what led Jerry to move to Italy. The country has many attractions, but I'm sure that he didn't see Burlosconi (sp?) as one of them.
Persuade Jerry Fresia that he may have been mistaken in claiming that the U.S. military deliberately sacrificed 259+ passengers in order to determine the location of the Soviet air defenses? You saw his response. Good luck with that. And this blog is not a court of law where, in the interest of my client, I have a professional obligation to avoid insulting the judge or jury, even if they are biased against my client.
Isn't it more likely that the U.S. military allowed the KAL flight to enter Soviet airspace for counter surveillance purposes and simply miscalculated that the Soviets wouldn't shoot down a commercial airliner? At worst, possibly, malfeasance in not warning the pilots at a point prior to deep penetration, requiring the Soviets to act?
Major,
This alternative explanation would not make sense. since if they anticipated that the Soviets would not intentionally shoot down a Korean passenger plane, they would not be able to obtain the intelligence regarding where the Soviet air defenses were located, as Fresia claims was the purpose for allowing the plane to fly off course.
Errors like this occur frequently even in the U.S., with air traffic controllers failing to see the potential collision of planes taking off from an airport, while an incoming plane is about to land on the same runway. There have been many near miss situations, including one this past week-end.
Most likely, the U.S. Airforce serviceman in Korea was distracted by a conversation he was having; or he was taking a lunch break; or he was tired. There are a thousand possible explanations which do not involve attributing a sinister motive to the U.S. military.
As Napoleon reportedly stated:
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
s.w.
While hundreds of people may read RPW's posts, my guess is that hundreds of people are *not* reading the comment threads, except maybe for a thread on a controversial topic like the Colorado web designer case.
And if that guess is correct, then what happens in most comment threads doesn't much matter. They are mainly a form of diversion for the participants.
Marc,
I suspect that you’re right about the chances of persuading Jerry. It seems to me he has pretty much made up his mind on these issues. But so what? Why insult him or anyone else on this blog? My guess is that a civil statement of a case has a better chance of persuading people—including other readers— than a statement laden with insult. And if you want to make progress in a democracy, persuade people what you need to do.
P.s. to clarify, my comment @12:22 is not intended as an endorsement of insults, just as a rumination.
LFC,
Too late. You cannot retract the implication of your comment at 12:22. The 10 minute statute of limitations expired. 18 U.S.C. 3286.
LFC,
You have an especially disciplined intellectual mind.
So you may not understand that many of us are less disciplined than you are and cannot resist a comments section with a good or even bad argument. We enjoy arguments just as others enjoy boxing or wrestling or pro-football.
Not so many people admit to it, but there are a lot of us.
scientific proof of inevitability also, was just a goddamn balloon.
There seems to be a genuine interest in this topic. Here's a more detailed summary of my experiences. For what it is worth:
My politics, as it were: what I am critical of are institutions, in particular private economies/capitalism (I hope I'm not vilified for that on this site) and "our" political system which was designed intentionally to thwart democracy. (I trust, again, on this site that that statement isn't controversial).
What is "foundational" in "our" system is not democracy but the relentless confrontation of our institutions by ordinary Americans to make it so (this is what I resolutely applaud about the US) and much as been achieved in that regard and much has been rolled back in large part due to the structural elevation of corporate interests over the common good.
My intelligence experience: 1. briefings pilots who were part of SIOP, which in those days was the US plan to use nuclear weapons against North Korea and the USSR (in my corner of the world). Needless to say, it was imperative that we learn everything possible about what these aircraft might encounter en route to their target, ie, what were the enemies' capabilities regarding the detection of our aircraft and the possible destruction of them.
2. My job that pertains to the shoot down of the Korean airliner: picture this: my desks -there were several - might be understood as being situated in the balcony of a movie theater where on the screen was a very large electronic map of the entire Korean peninsula. On this map were icons of various ships and airplanes both in North and South Korea tracked by radar. If a jet were headed toward the DMZ from North Korea, for example, I would focus on that movement and then turn to other sources of information, primarily the communication of our pilots who were flying intelligence collection platforms near the DMZ around the clock, and electronic intelligence which would permit me and others to listen in on (translations) of what enemy ground radar personnel were saying, in near real time, in order to assess the nature of the situation. Further, on a daily basis, "intercepts" were an essential activity: NK fighters, Soviet, and US jet fighters would fly directly toward the DMZ, simulating an attack, and then veer off at the last second so as not to cross the DMZ. Each side would study the other's monitoring capabilities. The routes taken, for example, by our fighters would be changed regularly so as to allow people like me to see how well the enemy radar detection followed these changes or not. Often we would see that the enemy would punch in the old data regardless, alienated workers I suppose.
CONTINUED BELOW
CONTINUING...
At that time the US could intercept nearly all air-to-air and ground-to-air/air-to-ground communication. Of critical importance was to understand who made decisions, at what level, and from where. This was difficult because much of that communication was ground to ground. So you can see where a civilian airliner, unlike our intercepts, that actually penetrated enemy airspace would provide an intelligence bonanza. Were something to occur like that on my watch, I would immediately contact my superior on base and simultaneously open a locked safe, the lock combination of which would be changed daily. Inside the safe was a phone that was a hotline to the Situation Room in the White House.
3. I was stationed at the Strategic Air Command HQ, in Omaha, 6 floors underground. My office door was like the vault door you see in large banks. We would punch a code to get in. Outside this door were stationed two enlisted types with automatic weapons, guarding the corridor. One day in December of 1972, there was a sudden uptick in the level of conversation one could hear in my office. Eventually, I understood what was happening. I held in my hands a clipboard with about 40 pages. On each page were about 25 lines and each line would identify a target, the time over target, the platform (airplane) and the ordinance (bomb load). ALL B-52s in the US arsenal had been sent into the Vietnam "theater." They would be raining bombs continuously over Hanoi. Or to put it another way, 703 B-52s would be bombing a major Vietnamese city indiscriminately.
If you wish to get a sense of this, watch Hearts and Minds, a film on the war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzxNRoGoSKU&t=562s&ab_channel=GHoogeveen
and if you wish to just get a sense of the "Christmas Bombing" as it became known, start at:1:36:14. But I STRONGLY urge all of you to watch the entire film if you haven't seen it.
One final note: I wrote a short piece following the targeting by the US of an Italian activist who had been captured in Iraq trying to help the people of Fallujah. It may be of interest to some of you.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/03/11/targeting-guiliana/
Finally, the information provided above, after, 40 years, is not sensitive.
Jerry Fresia,
Your detailed account above regarding how the surveillance/intelligence functions you performed as an Air Force officer in South Korea during the early 1970s does not, in my opinion, enhance the credibility of your claim that in 1983 the U.S. military deliberately allowed a Korean civilian passenger plane, with 269+ passengers on board, including a U.S. Congressman, to stray into Soviet air space, when it could have warned the Korean pilot of his error and prevented the plane from being shot down, in order to test the air defense systems of the Soviet Union. If anything, your account makes your claim even less plausible, and further discredits you as an individual whose judgment regarding the U.S. foreign policy and its motives can be trusted. According to your account, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and North Korea regularly engaged in cat-and-mouse military airplane maneuvers in order to test the air defense and surveillance capabilities of the opposing sides. Given this, why would the U.S. use a civilian passenger plane to perform this same function, when it already had abundant data regarding the matter based on its use of military aircraft?? Why would the U.S. deliberately risk the lives of 269+ innocent civilians to obtain additional intelligence about Soviet air defenses, when it already had that capability using military airplanes? Such an act would be an egregiously sinister and vile act by a nation and clearly violative of international law, yet you ascribe such a sinister and vile act to the U.S. when there are ample alternative explanations, per Napoleon’s statement, which could attribute the incident to incompetence on the part of the Air Force officers who were on duty that day. Such incidents of air traffic disasters and near disasters occur in the U.S. with respect to domestic air flights on an almost daily basis. Yet you prefer an explanation, as is your wont, which attributes the occurrence to sinister U.S. objectives in international affairs.
Your reference to your article in CounterPunch regarding the lie by Gen. Casey regarding the source of the intelligence relating to the death of Italian General Nicola Calipari as somehow buttressing your claim about the deliberate murder of the 269+ passengers on KAF 007 is specious. General Calipari died while trying to shield the body of Italian reporter Juliana Sgrena, who had information which was critical of U.S. military operations in Fallujah, Iraq. Sgrena had been rescued from being held hostage by Iraqi personnel and they were on their way to the Baghdad airport when they encountered a U.S. security detail which had been deployed to protect U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte. Gen. Calipari was shot in the head and killed by a National Guardsman in the security detail, Mario Lozano. Whether Lozano shot Calipari accidentally or deliberately was never resolved. Somehow, you seem to think that Gen. Casey’s purported prevarication about how the U.S. military knew of the whereabouts of Sgrena, and allegedly deliberately intercepted the vehicle she was a passenger in order to prevent her from reporting on the U.S. military operation in Fallujah, buttresses your claim that the U.S. military deliberately allowed the KAF flight 007 to stray into the Soviet airspace. But the claim that the U.S. military targeted Sgrena, which is still a matter of dispute, and that Gen. Casey lied about the source of U.S. intelligence which located Sgrena, buttresses your claim that the U.S. military intentionally allowed a Korean civilian passenger plane to stray into Soviet airspace, with the almost certain death of 269+ innocent civilians, is tenuous, to say the least. And the fact that you are willing to make this tenuous correlation, for me at least, raises serious questions about your analytical judgments regarding the role and motives of U.S. policies in general.
(Continued)
Likewise, your comments about the indiscriminate bombing of Hanoi by B52 bombers in 1972, as if such bombing also vouches for the validity of your claim regarding the downing of KAL flight 007. There is almost uniform consensus that the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam civil war between the Communists in the North and the semi-democratic government in the South was a major blunder on the part of the U.S. As part of that major error in U.S. international affairs, the military actions taken by the U.S. in that conflict, however objectionable, were taken in the course of an active military conflict in which unquestionably thousands of North Vietnamese civilians were killed by U.S. armaments. But thousands of South Vietnamese also died at the hands of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. The tragic consequences of that conflict attributable to military exercises on both sides can hardly provide analytical support for an alleged deliberate sacrificing of 269+ innocent civilians killed as a result of a passenger plane straying into Soviet airspace. Again, you are inclined to make rather general statements indicting the U.S. for having sinister motives by correlating totally unrelated historical events.
Your tendency to do this relates to your general scorn for the U.S. government and the U.S. Constitution, which you regard as nothing more than a document which insures that those with money and power will dominate over American citizens who are less powerful and less wealthy. You outlined the basis for this conclusion in your critique of the drafting of the Constitution in your work “Toward an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution and Other Illusions,” which I have read. In that dissertation you argue that the Constitution was drafted by colonists who owned real estate property and who therefore included in the Constitution provisions, such as the composition of the Senate, which would ensure their continued supremacy as power brokers and which continues to have adverse consequences for Americans of more modest means down to the present day. Be that as it may, your perspective ignores the fact that the Constitution was a revolutionary document for its day, and was drafted by imperfect humans with limited abilities to predict the future, and disregards the many provisions, including those in the Bill of Rights, which guaranteed American rights not enjoyed by most of the people on this planet, including the 4th Amendment’s limitations on searches and seizures, which, for example, allowed a criminal defendant in the case I cited above in response to David Zimmerman’s inquiry, Walker v. Pappersack, to have his conviction overturned based on a warrantless search which yielded as evidence the property he had stolen, a result which would not have occurred in any other country on this planet. But it is your skewed and deprecatory critique of the Constitution and its effects on U.S. politics which drives your invariable condemnation of U.S. policies and its actions in international affairs, and your willingness to attribute the most criminal and nefarious motives to everything which the U.S. does, including your willingness to attribute such motives to the death of 269+ who had the misfortune of being on a passenger plane which strayed into Soviet airspace, an occurrence which you claim was deliberately planned, or allowed to occur by the U.S. military.
(Continued)
Why am I making such an issue of this matter? Because your conclusion attributing the death of 269+ innocent civilians to sinister motives of the U.S. military is indicative of the kind of judgments you make, judgments which you offer on this blog on all sorts of issues relating to U.S. politics and U.S. diplomacy, judgments which I submit are not trustworthy given your skewed animosity to the U.S. as demonstrated by your claim regarding the cause of the downing of KAL flight 007. And those judgments are intended to influence the thoughts and beliefs of those who read this blog, judgments which are intended to persuade others to share your skewed and hostile view of the United States and its policies. And if your claim regarding what caused the downing of Korean flight 007 is typical of your analytical thought processes – and I believe it is – then your judgments regarding U.S. policies and its motives in general do not deserve to be given credence.
Nothing I have written above contains any insulting, ad hominem language, so it cannot be discounted as the ranting of a splenetic critic.
And if your claim regarding what caused the downing of Korean flight 007 is typical of your analytical thought processes – and I believe it is – then your judgments regarding U.S. policies and its motives in general do not deserve to be given credence.
Marc,
When you disagree with someone, there is absolutely no need to cast doubt on their "analytical thought processes". That is insulting.
No, I don't believe that your answer to Jerry is a "rant" (to use your term).
It is very complete well-thought-out answer and it is to your credit that you answer Jerry so carefully and with so much research. However, for me at least you weaken your case by disqualifying Jerry.
I used to teach college composition and without your disqualifications of Jerry, I'd have given you an A, with the disqualifications, I'd give you a B or B-.
Thanks, Jerry.
None so blind as those who will not see:
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
s. wallerstein,
Wow, you are a tough grader. One sentence knocks me down from an A to a B minus.
Marc,
There are several other derogatory remarks in your text above. I didn't bother to list them all.
Seriously, you write very very well and you do the homework, the research unlike me. Why not make a small effort to eliminate the insults and disqualifications?
For example, if I may mention names, David Palmeter and aaall share your positions on many issues, but they do not produce negative reactions such as you do because they do not insult others.
Sorry, I believe that aalll has been guilty of some insults, but perhaps not as consistently as I.
I will try, I will try, but I am an old dog - and you should see what some defense and insurance attorneys do.
Anonymous @12:49PM,
Sey Hersh just confirming what many of us suspected from the beginning. There was never a rational explanation for why Russia would choose to bomb its own pipeline when they could just turn off the spigot (as I showed when discussing the recent history of the Russia-Ukraine conflict back at the beginning of the Russian invasion). It was the US & NATO partners who were constantly trying to block Russian energy sales to Europe, that was one of the main goals of the sanctions. And now we hear evidence that it was the US, specifically Biden, along with Germany & Norway (and probably the UK, although I don't recall Hersh mentioning them in that article), who are guilty not only of the act but also of lying about it to the citizens of their respective countries.
The whole claim that 'it was the Russians!' has been a psy-op all along.
Now watch how the corporate media & the DC blob, dutifully manufacturing consent, bring out the knives to attempt yet again to discredit Hersh and call this another conspiracy theory.
Quoting myself & F lengyel:
"F Lengyel said...
Mr Biden's use of the vocabulary of sovereignty doesn't extend as far as Germany. He talks about the sovereignty of Ukraine, but why does he get to tell Germany, a presumably sovereign country, where and how they can get their gas? If anyone needed any more proof that US commitment to free and open markets is unmitigated bullshit, Mr Biden's talk of shutting down Nord Stream 2 is it. "
"Eric said...
F lengyel,
Thank you for bringing up that point, which I was about to comment on myself.
(In the US Congress, one of the loudest foes of Nord Stream 2 is Ted Cruz, the senator from Oillandia.)
I guess Biden just says 'freedom' and 'democracy' and we're supposed to forget that his son was paid over $80,000 a month to sit on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company, despite having no relevant experience whatsoever."
None of the main points in that discussion from a year ago have changed.
https://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-rams-bengals-shirley-jones-and.html
I'm curious what Germans outside the government think of this.
Achiem?
(sorry, meant Achim)
A question to clarify? KAL007 began its course deviation while still over Alaska. The Kamchatka Peninsula is way north and east of the DMZ. Would the area between Alaska and that part of the then Soviet Union be monitored by the Korean facility.
There seems to be various theories (and books) about the incident. As the U.S. regularly sent various reconnaissance missions over that area, why bother with using a civilian flight? Also since the deviation began so early after take off, how many folks would have to be involved?
The Constitution was written by late enlightenment elites just prior to the invention of the cotton gin (and the Industrial Revolution/capitalism) who were dealing with a failing Confederation in a predatory world so maybe some slack is in order. Folks criticizing that should offer a back-then alternative. That, of course, doesn't excuse the current self-serving, just-so veneration on the Right. We know the flaws and they are fixable.
Anon, Guccifer and Roger Stone weren't "whistleblowers." Reality Winner got a raw deal; at best Assange was played. There are lots of independent journalists.
Marc,
I'm not going to nag you about this point any more.
I just listened to an interview with Natalia Pergentili, president of the PPD, which is like the mainstream Democrats in the U.S. and before listening to the interview, I detested her because her party is going to face the next election in a separate list from that of the government, which is more leftwing and which I support.
Pergentili was so charming, so polite, so willing to admit her own mistakes and apologize for them and above all, so intent on framing the separate list not as a strategy to weaken the left, but as one to strengthen it by broadening its electoral base that I ended up first of all, amazed by her intelligence and political ability and second of all, vaguely tempted to vote for her because she is so politically adept.
So being charming and open towards others many times brings one political dividends. There are those whose political identification is very solid and unmoveable, but most of us can be swayed by a skillful politician.
"Sorry, I believe that aalll [sic] has been guilty of some insults..."
Moi?
Who cares who blew up the pipeline? It was a bad idea from the start (putting your economy in thrall to a bunch of kleptocrats and oligarchs, really!). Anyway, Putin's stupidity and a warmer then usual winter along with being able to ramp up LNG storage and other measures seems to be fixing that mistake.
Ending the pipeline (again, who cares who?) is but an exclamation point on the end of a failed experiment. And Ted Cruz is from Texas, Hitler loved the autobahn - one leg at a time - whatever.
I went to Hersh's substack and read what seems to be based on one unidentified source - OK.
Not impressed but this item in the article was interesting:
"Something like this had been done before. In 1971, the American intelligence community learned from still undisclosed sources that two important units of the Russian Navy were communicating via an undersea cable buried in the Sea of Okhotsk, on Russia’s Far East Coast. The cable linked a regional Navy command to the mainland headquarters at Vladivostok."
"A hand-picked team of Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency operatives was assembled somewhere in the Washington area, under deep cover, and worked out a plan, using Navy divers, modified submarines and a deep-submarine rescue vehicle, that succeeded, after much trial and error, in locating the Russian cable. The divers planted a sophisticated listening device on the cable that successfully intercepted the Russian traffic and recorded it on a taping system."
"The NSA learned that senior Russian navy officers, convinced of the security of their communication link, chatted away with their peers without encryption. The recording device and its tape had to be replaced monthly and the project rolled on merrily for a decade until it was compromised by a forty-four-year-old civilian NSA technician named Ronald Pelton who was fluent in Russian."
Question: If the U.S. military could do something like that in the 1970s, why would a one-off commercial flight be needed to assess soviet capabilities in the 1980s?
Never overestimate the intelligence of the intelligence services.
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