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Comment by otoburb | Hacker News Reader

The touted 95% accuracy was the primary reason US expats would sometimes leave their houses when the sirens sounded with their home cams to try to catch the Patriots intercepting incoming Scud missiles during the Gulf War.

I lived on the civilian airport during my youth in Riyadh during the Gulf War. The other expats thought the Americans were crazy no matter what the supposed accuracy.

It wasn't until after the war that we all realized the interception rates in the field were so much lower.

Pretty surreal.

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I was in the Air Force in Riyadh during the Gulf War - living in "Eskan Village" - south west of town, and just north of a Patriot missle battery. Many US servicemen (including myself) went up on the roofs of their housing units to watch the Scud/Patriot fireworks every night -- I don't think anybody had any illusions that we were "protected" by the Scuds -- everybody knew the shrapnel would land somewhere, even if in slightly smaller bits -- people felt "safe" just because of the math of probability - the risk of you being hit by anything falling from the sky was quite low, given the size of Riyadh!

You could stand on the water tower on your roof and see lit cigarettes for blocks around (other guys up on their roofs watching the show). Ahh! Good times...

Seriously, thank you for your service.

>>I don't think anybody had any illusions that we were "protected" by the Scuds [...]

Maybe servicemen were in the know, but non-military US expats drank the kool-aid. Alternatively, maybe they were encouraged by the military personnel watching the fireworks and extrapolated their own conclusions from there.

Would have been sweet to connect back then and add your anecdote to my paper. I was an Computer Engineering major and this was the final paper for my only writing course. I learned a ton about the media on that project.

Well, it helped that the Scuds had a 5% accuracy rate.

The question then: is lying to people kinder than freaking them out with the truth?

This breaks down when your lie goes a full circle around the feedback loop and now someone above you is making the decision to pursue further a solution that was based on a lie.

I think that's a very interesting question. However, it is necessary to take into account the loss of credibility an exposed lie will produce, and how that will affect the efficacy of the technique in the future.

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