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.