I noticed that Venik updated, professionalized, and streamlined his site. He's probably bucking for becoming a Russian Stratfor, eh? Ad sponsorship to help him underwrite the project. It's sleek, but for on-line reading, the line length needs to be about half of what he's got at the moment.
Doss is probably busy but when he has a chance, it'd be interesting to hear if there's any scuttlebutt about Sokhomlin.
Also, Tiago, I think you might be right that the casualty figures are stretched too far. I have no doubt that more are dying than we have been told, but not by _that_ much. I hadn't realized that CNN.com and other news sources are listing all the names of those killed. If that's the case, then the families, friends, communities _can_ check and if the person they know has died, but not listed, the discrepancy becomes apparent.
------ Forwarded Message From: "Stephen D. Poe" <sdpoe at acm.org> Organization: Nautilus Solutions Reply-To: sdpoe at acm.org Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 21:42:48 -0600 To: dave at farber.net Subject: Venik & iraqwar.ru Follow-Ups
Dave -
There's currently several newsgroup threads discussing iraqwar.ru (see sci.military.naval:"The credibility of Iraqwar.ru or lack thereof" and smn:"Intel evaluation 2003.03.25", in rec.aviation.military:"The Noted Waterhead: Venik" and even in alt.engr.exploisves:"Russian analysis of the ongoing battles in Iraq").
Regarding Venik and his site at http://www.aeronautics.ru; I suggest a few minutes spent on Google will be informative. He's well know to both sci.military.naval and rec.aviation.military posters and lurkers.
Historically he's not known for his accuracy. He's probably best known for his heated assertions during the Yugoslavia conflict as to how many planes NATO lost, NATO's "deliberate targeting of civilian targets", and NATO's "use of chemical weapons". His claims of multiple shoot-downs of everything from F-16s to B-2s and B-52s were somewhat quickly quashed given the hobby of tail spotters worldwide. Many of his other claims, such as "A NATO pilot admits that civilian targets were deliberately attacked during the operation "Allied Force" and that NATO aviation used chemical weapons" were likewise not later confirmed. See: http://www.aeronautics.ru/natodown.htm and a Google search for "Venick B-2 Shoot Down" as examples.
I would have to view anything with his name associated with it with suspicion.
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------ Forwarded Message From: George Michaelson <ggm at apnic.net> Organization: APNIC Pty Ltd Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 11:09:28 +1000 To: dave at farber.net Subject: venik, iraqwar.ru, truth + lies ...
Dave, I've begun to appear on the end of a chain of email quoting this guy Venik, translating iraqwar.ru into english. From what I can tell, the source is a Russian speaker living in the USA claiming to channel the GRU decoding US military radio.
Frankly, it looks like bullshit. But its interesting how the counter-propaganda machine might work. Web searches for Venik show he's been doing reportage on war since Kosovo or before, and has fans, who claim he is 70-80% correct in his summaries. And opponents, who take a contrary view.
Rather than me seed this into you, if it appeals to the spirit of 'where does the truth lie in war' you might try some websearches in google, on venik and aeronautics.ru, see if you find the same kinds of links.
Me? I think both sides lie to advantage their cause. But if the GRU was this overt in being able to break US Military battlefield comms, I think we'd be hearing a bit more about it. So I personally don't buy the analysis because I don't think the claimed prime source is really very plausible.
have fun
-George
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