Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:So, reading through a lot of the chatter on the interwebz, apparently the flight out of the airport was delayed an hour and it's probable the Iranian government had a breakdown in communication between the air traffic control and the air defense command.
- Doc
And some would have us believe Iran has the military and political competence capable of being a formidable force towards a WW3?
The people worried about WWIII don't imagine it being Iran vs. the US. The imagine that alliance entanglements bring in more powerful nations like Russia.
I think this is an unlikely, if not impossible, scenario. Iran will not be easily conquered and held, though, and crowing about the countless lives and trillions of dollars lost on folly because it's not quite WWIII is pig-headed.
EAllusion wrote:Has global opinion turned against them?
The majority of the world opinion that Trump is both dangerous and insane holds steady at 70%. However, if you change the wording to dangerous and narcissistic the percentage rises to 98%.
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:I guess where I’m confused is that there’s an airport RIGHT THERE. If the video is to be believed, the airplane was ascending away from the airport, which you’d totally see on radar, so I have no idea why a SAM site cdr would authorize a shot. 4/chan conspiratards are claiming there were informants on the flight who were leaving the country, but, you know, 4/chan. I guess where I’m hung up is why in the world do you shoot down a single aircraft clearly taking off from an airport?
- Doc
A civilian airliner is a big fat slow moving target with no counter-measures. If I had to guess what happened, it would be that there are more militias with shoulder-launched SAMs than there are competent operators of SAMs. Because of the number of different militias in Iraq, I would imagine there is less command and control.
So my hunch would be that an under-trained and over-enthusiastic member of some auxiliary militia group pulled the trigger. Just my guess.
How did the Iranian admission unfold? For three days, Iran denied reports its missiles had brought down the plane, with one spokesman accusing Western nations of "lying and engaging in psychological warfare". But on Saturday morning, a statement read on state TV accepted the plane had been shot down. Brig-Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the Revolutionary Guards' aerospace commander, explained what happened. He said a missile operator had acted independently and alone, mistaking the plane for a "cruise missile". "He had 10 seconds to decide. He could have decided to strike or not to strike and under such circumstances he took the wrong decision," Gen Hajizadeh said.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth? ~ Eiji Yoshikawa
I do mourn for those poor people on that plane. I saw on some website (I can't remember which one) and it had pictures of the individuals. Man, just sad, sad stuff. I don't know what to make of it all sometimes. :/
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
There was an incident from the 1991 Persian Gulf War that came to mind. It involved the HMS Glouchester shooting down an Iraqi Silkworm antiship missile with seconds to spare. The story behind it is used in discussions over split second decision making, and I suspected this incident in Iran was a mirror of that one. Sorry this is a link to some pages from a Google book, but it's a reasonable account if interested:
Putin was responding to a question about U.S.-Iranian tensions after the targeted killing of a Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Iraq and the downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet near Tehran by a missile that Iran said was fired in error. “We would like to avoid major military actions,” Putin said. “If this happens, it will be a catastrophe not only for the Middle East region but for the whole
Kek. He's so stoopid. What a snowflake. What an emotional hair fire. Kek.
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
EAllusion wrote:Has global opinion turned against them?
The majority of the world opinion that Trump is both dangerous and insane holds steady at 70%. However, if you change the wording to dangerous and narcissistic the percentage rises to 98%.
I'd vote for dangerous and narcissistic but could be easily convinced of insanity if he pulls another one of these knee jerk reactions. One wonders what those in charge of briefing the president are thinking now? Do we tell him everything? Where's the nuke button? Should we have Johnson placed between the President and the nuke button whenever briefings occur in the future? Why aren't the politicians impeaching him for Solemanni?
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen