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[GrizzlyAdamz]

The one the soviets shot down was hundreds of miles off=course and strayed over Russian territory twice, during a US recon mission. That was understandable to be taken as a threat.

From the looks of it, it had more to do with Russian officers getting canned for failing to shoot down US fly-overs of the Kuriles than k-007 'being threatening'.
But yep, looks like it was a blunder- firing 'warning shots' without incendiaries or tracers, no attempted radio contact, issues getting the interceptors vectored in time for their fuel to hold out, & what seems to be a rather unfortunately-timed altitude adjustment, (all this backed up by flight/voice recorders). Then the cover-up..

Technically, (the US' downing Iran-655) should considered as an act of terror.

Agreed.

-though, it's easy to pass judgement on the captain in hindsight.
I'd wager shooting down the civilian craft was based heavily on the price of the captain's ship and ironically being 'safe rather than sorry' from his selfish perspective.
So, was it criminal? Yeah, he gave the order to murder those civilians in spite of (at least) some contradictory evidence. In Iranian waters no less.
But I wouldn't say 'shooting down a civilian plane' was in his terrorist mission planner; only 'being a prick and harassing Iranians just outside their waters'.

Honestly, they wouldn't be rebels if the other lot hadn't staged a coup detat. So both groups are rebels based on who you ask.

It's not a situation of a peaceful elected government, then these rebels causing trouble. They HAD an elected  government of the other lot, then this other lot of particular rebels took over the country, forcing the supporters of the previous government into armed opposition. Our media just supports the last lot of rebels as the "legitimate government" because they signed a deal with the EU. It's a fully-fledged civil war with neither side having a "right" to rule as such.

You forget only Yanukovych fled the country- almost all of the MPs from the Party of Regions are still there. Further, the 'impeachment' resolution hasn't been found unconstitutional *yet*, and a pragmatist would note it was ratified by a 73% majority.

They killed about 30000 in a single year there, 100 times as many as died on that plane. And it was all deliberate with oversight and supplies, funding from the USA. I don't hear America apologizing for that.

Euch I've already stayed up 4 hours longer than I intended. But I'd like to note here: if we could find the willingness to be riled up over 30-year-old events, we'd be angry with whichever leaders are responsible. Many of us still are, from what I've seen and heard. No idea what the official story is though, at least not till tomorrow.

[Sergarr]

Where's Yanukovich right now? I think the last time I've heard anything about him in the news was like 3 months ago. Are we sure that he's still alive?

[LordSlowpoke]

yanukovich is now the ceo of singapore airlines

confirmed confirmed

[10ebbor10]

-though, it's easy to pass judgement on the captain in hindsight.
I'd wager shooting down the civilian craft was based heavily on the price of the captain's ship and ironically being 'safe rather than sorry' from his selfish perspective.
So, was it criminal? Yeah, he gave the order to murder those civilians in spite of (at least) some contradictory evidence. In Iranian waters no less.
But I wouldn't say 'shooting down a civilian plane' was in his terrorist mission planner; only 'being a prick and harassing Iranians just outside their waters'.

He might not have known about the specifics of the plane's situation, but that doesn't mean he should have been there. Besides, the crew should have known the plane to be civilian.

At the moment of the attack, the ship was more than 3 miles within iranian waters. Officially, it was coming to aid tankers being harassed by iranian forces. Tankers that later reported no harrasment, or even didn't exist.

As for the mission, we'll never know. Logs and such are classified. Just for that day, btw.


Then again, the us was practically at war with iran. They blew up half their fleet not long after.

[Sergarr]

-though, it's easy to pass judgement on the captain in hindsight.
I'd wager shooting down the civilian craft was based heavily on the price of the captain's ship and ironically being 'safe rather than sorry' from his selfish perspective.
So, was it criminal? Yeah, he gave the order to murder those civilians in spite of (at least) some contradictory evidence. In Iranian waters no less.
But I wouldn't say 'shooting down a civilian plane' was in his terrorist mission planner; only 'being a prick and harassing Iranians just outside their waters'.

He might not have known about the specifics of the plane's situation, but that doesn't mean he should have been there. Besides, the crew should have known the plane to be civilian.

At the moment of the attack, the ship was more than 3 miles within iranian waters. Officially, it was coming to aid tankers being harassed by iranian forces. Tankers that later reported no harrasment, or even didn't exist.

As for the mission, we'll never know. Logs and such are classified. Just for that day, btw.


Then again, the us was practically at war with iran. They blew up half their fleet not long after.

what

[10ebbor10]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis

Edit: my bad, the us blew up the fleet before shooting down civilians.

[Sergarr]

Let me guess, if it was Russia to do all this instead of USA it'd get sanctioned and universally condemned by everyone...

Double standards, eh?

The Middle East was and is a really fucked up place...

[10ebbor10]

The USSR also supported Iraq,  being it's primary weapon supplier.

As a perhaps suprising note, Israel was one of the few nations (covertly) supporting iran.(known and accepted by the us).

The iran-iraqi war is one long decade of double standards, in which othernations conspired to extend the war as long as possible.

[GreatJustice]

Germany isn't likely to leave the Euro for the obvious reason that the Bundesbank is basically running the show, so the ECB's policies are generally at least somewhat to Germany's benefit. That influence is basically the reason the ECB hasn't gone as far as the Fed, the BoJ, etc have in terms of economic stimulus.

Let me guess, if it was Russia to do all this instead of USA it'd get sanctioned and universally condemned by everyone...

Double standards, eh?

The Middle East was and is a really fucked up place...

America is incapable of doing wrong when it comes to foreign as opposed to domestic policy. American leaders are wise defenders of global democracy against evildoers, and if not for their efforts the Hammer and Sickle would be flying over London right now. Putin himself must be held back because he's the Russian reincarnation of Hitler and is actually trying to recreate the Russian Empire circa 1815.

[Dutchling]

if not for their efforts the Hammer and Sickle would be flying over London right now.

Well, if you think about it, it would have been either that or the Swastika.

[MarcAFK]

Yeah it was terrible, with all the support both sides got the west/everyone else were just supporting what was one of the longest bloodiest wars since WW2...
What's currently flying over London right now? Oh right, surveillance cameras and economic uncertainty, a definate improvement.

[mainiac]

It is and it also gets a lot of benefits from being in the Eurozone and in the EU.

You are ignoring the biggest thing which is the exchange rates.  Suppose that they did a new Mark which started off with an equal value to the Euro.  Very quickly the currency traders would raise the price of the Mark because Germany is selling a lot more then it is buying.  Meanwhile the price of the Euro would decline because the rest of Europe is buying more then it is selling.  And because Germany's buys most of what it does buy in Europe, the decline in the Euro would further skew the German balance of trade, driving up the Mark even more.  So suddenly that German export oriented economy has to deal with the fact that German goods now effectively cost much more to foreigners and all their domestic retailers suddenly have a strong motivation to substitute foreign goods for German ones.  And all those german banks and corporations with foreign investments now have to deal with the fact that what were previously stable positions (one Euro in Italy or Greece or France will continue to be worth one Euro in Germany) is suddenly very unstable (one Euro is suddenly only worth .75 Marks and wildly fluctuating).

The rest of Europe would actually get off pretty lightly.  All their debts are held in Euros and they would control the supply of Euros.  The EU isn't going to run out of Euros ever, they can print an unlimited supply especially if they dont have german resistance.  And the real decline in value of their currency would do a lot to correct the imbalance in labor supply which is normally slow to correct due to downward price stickiness.

Germany stays on the Euro because right now the trade deficit means that Germany sells real goods like cars, computer chips and heavy machinery and gets financial assets in return.  It's not a free lunch in any way shape or form and Germany isn't paying for the bailouts out of pure altruism (although there is a degree of solidarity).  The Eurozone is a wonderful investment environment for Germany.  They have neither the desire nor the stupidity to abandon something that is so good for them.

[aenri]

Yeah it was terrible, with all the support both sides got the west/everyone else were just supporting what was one of the longest bloodiest wars since WW2...
What's currently flying over London right now? Oh right, surveillance cameras and economic uncertainty, a definate improvement.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[GreatJustice]

if not for their efforts the Hammer and Sickle would be flying over London right now.

Well, if you think about it, it would have been either that or the Swastika.

Presumably if the US didn't get involved in WW2 for whatever reason the Soviets would have ended up taking pretty much all of Europe, if at a much greater cost. The reason local Communists in Western Europe didn't basically seize power when they had the opportunity is largely because Stalin suggested that they subordinate themselves to various anti-fascist, socialist/social-democratic coalitions (whereupon they were basically ostracized when convenient and lost most political power), so there would be plenty of friendly locals to put into power. In the long run, Communism would fall anyway due to its unviable economic system and inherent inefficiencies, and Western Europeans would get the same healthy cynicism that Easterners tend to have (barring the nostalgic 70 something pensioner that remembers "when the Americans feared Soviet power" and is still a Communist Party member). To be honest, I wouldn't necessarily say such a world would be any worse than the one we have right now, and might even be improved when it comes to future outlook. But that's all crazy alternate history stuff regardless.

[palsch]

Two interesting pieces from Aviation Week.

An overview of the Buk system and why it's design lends itself to this sort of accident.

A straight up mockery of the idea that an SU-25 shot down the plane.

The first is that the Ukrainian air force shot the Boeing 777 down itself, using a Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot carrying an R-60 Aphid air-to-air missile (the only AAM normally carried by the Su-25). This would require some remarkable timing and a pilot immune to nose-bleeds, because the Su-25 can manage Mach 0.82 flat out, on a good day, and a 777 can do 0.89, and furthermore the Su-25 is unpressurized and has a normal service ceiling of 23,000 feet. No doubt coincidentally, on the day this claim was published, a Wikipedia editor with a Russian address was found trying to insert a 33,000-foot ceiling on the Su-25 page. As for the R-60, the 3 kg warhead's ability to assure a kill on a large aircraft with highly redundant systems is dubious at best.