Sixteen minutes was enough time to draw parallels, for example, with the Ronald Reagan-neocon-type reaction to the opportunity afforded by the “deliberate” Soviet shoot-down of KAL007 on Sept. 1, 1983. The U.S. lied in saying that the Soviets knew it was a passenger plane — as Alvin A. Snyder, one of the State Dept. types involved, admits in his book “Warriors of Deceit.”
But Snyder had a job to do: producing the video that his superiors wanted. “The perception we wanted to convey was that the Soviet Union had cold-bloodedly carried out a barbaric act,” Snyder wrote.
Only a decade later, when Snyder saw the complete transcripts — including the portions that the Reagan administration had hidden — would he fully realize how many of the central elements of the U.S. presentation at the UN were false. …
It was clear to Snyder that in the pursuit of its Cold War aims, the Reagan administration had presented false accusations to the United Nations, as well as to the people of the United States and the world. To the Reagan administration, the ends of smearing the Soviets had justified the means of falsifying the historical record.
More telling still is the moral Snyder draws:
Acknowledging his role in the deception, he draws an ironic lesson from the incident. This senior official wrote, “The moral of the story is that all governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The key is to lie first.”
And so it goes.