Scrutable

GeenDienst wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 2:55 pm Two theories of history, conspiracy and cock up.

Martin_B wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 4:03 am

Herainestold wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 12:58 am

lpm wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 11:39 pm

Will he carry out this threat now? Or will he have forgotten he made it - one advantage of his dementia - and nobody in the military reminds him.

He will go after the cultural sites. They are undefended.

Many cultural sites (mosques, old temples, old habitations, etc) do have a military presence. Islam has sects (mainly Sunni & Shiite, but some others) and some extreme groups from one or the other side do occasionally target cultural sites, as otherwise soft targets; hence the positioning of some (not usually many) soldiers around them as a deterrent.

But this means that if the US does attack cultural sites, they can be more easily counted as an attack on the military.

Dave Weigel on the twitter wrote:Quote of the day so far, from a Dem member of Congress reacting to Iran’s limited strikes: “You need two crazy leaders to start a war, and fortunately, Iran doesn’t have one.”

Herainestold wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 5:17 pm Now the Americans are claiming Iran shot down the Ukraine plane filled with Iranian passengers. By accident, I presume.

Martin Y wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 5:35 pm

Herainestold wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 5:17 pm Now the Americans are claiming Iran shot down the Ukraine plane filled with Iranian passengers. By accident, I presume.

Well, as mentioned upthread, it wouldn't be the first time a civilian airliner got shot down in error. On the other hand, a flight which just left the capital city's main international airport shouldn't take even an alert and nervous military by surprise.

As the flight took off just after 6am I wondered if it was the first flight of the day. This was just hours after the Iranians had fired missiles at a US airbase in Iraq; someone may have been a bit too alert for a reprisal attack. On the other hand, Wikipedia is saying the plane's departure was delayed by about an hour, which rather hints that other flights may well have taken off before it. (Unless of course military operations were the reason it was delayed.)

UK sources told the Guardian that British officials had seen intelligence that suggested that the plane was hit by an Iranian air defence missile.

According to satellite data, one U.S. official said, the Ukrainian International Airlines Boeing 737-800 bound for Kiev was airborne for two minutes after departing Tehran when the heat signatures of two surface-to-air missiles were detected.

That was quickly followed by an explosion in the vicinity of the plane, the official said. Heat signature data then showed the plane on fire as it went down.

TimW wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 6:08 pm Is there some sort of rota for shooting down airliners?

Not in chronological order:
US shot down an Iranian airliner
Iran (maybe) shot down a Ukrainian one
Ukraine shot down a Russian one
Russia shot down a Malaysian one

TimW wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 6:28 pm Of course I couldn't actually answer that off the top of my head, but it turns out to have been 2001.

Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people.
Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake.

Herainestold wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 3:23 pm Iran admits they shot down plane.

https://twitter.com/HassanRouhani/statu ... 9997984768

Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people.
Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake.

Mike
@Doranimated
Iran’s latest propaganda video is a doozy. The Qods Force blows up the Capitol dome, captures the White House, and kills Donald Trump — to avenge Qassem Soleimani.

JQH wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 4:36 pm

Herainestold wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 3:23 pm Iran admits they shot down plane.

https://twitter.com/HassanRouhani/statu ... 9997984768

Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people.
Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake.

If I were the officer who gave the "fire" order I think I'd withdraw to my quarters with a loaded revolver.

Pucksoppet wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 9:57 pm

JQH wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 4:36 pm

Herainestold wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2020 3:23 pm Iran admits they shot down plane.

https://twitter.com/HassanRouhani/statu ... 9997984768

If I were the officer who gave the "fire" order I think I'd withdraw to my quarters with a loaded revolver.

If your process's success depends on individual humans not making occasional mistakes, your process is not fit for purpose. People can deliberately choose not to follow a process (See Chernobyl), but unless malicious intent can be demonstrated, I would not be looking to punish someone who made a mistake. While some might say the person who pushed the launch button should not have, and therefore it is their 'fault', I would say that the process that accidentally allows an armed SAM (or maybe several) to be launched against a civil airliner following a filed flight plan has quite some deficiencies (the same applies to the USS Vincennes incident).
Rather than encouraging officers to commit suicide, we should try and encourage more people like flotilla commodore Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov and Lt Col Stanislav Petrov.