http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/07 ... c-j19.html
In respect to this terrible accident... here is a very good article about who was potentially to blame.On July 3,1988, as the Iran-Iraq War as approaching its conclusion, the USS Vincennes, a US Navy Ticonderoga class cruiser, was in the Strait of Hormuz as part of a mission ostensibly to protect commercial shipping in and out of the Persian Gulf. The US had been intervening on the side of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the brutal eight-year war against the Iranian regime, providing money, weapons, and military intelligence.
Forty minutes prior to the downing of Flight 655, one of the helicopters based on the Vincennes, while on a surveillance mission, purportedly took fire from Iranian gunboats in Iranian territorial waters. The Vincennes proceeded to pursue the gunboats into Iranian territorial waters.
The US government claimed that the crew detected a plane that was transmitting signals which identified it as a military aircraft and that it was rapidly descending towards their ship; these signals resulted in the crew mistaking the large Airbus A300 for a much smaller F-14 Tomcat, one of a handful of warplanes still remaining in Iran’s arsenal from the days of the blood-soaked US-backed regime of the Shah.
The Vincennes sent out multiple warnings to the plane on military channels, but since it was a civilian aircraft it could not possibly respond to such warnings. When Flight 655 was twelve and half miles from the cruiser, the ship fired two SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles, both of which struck the aircraft, blowing it out of the sky and killing everyone on board.
President Ronald Reagan, in a statement released shortly after the attack, called the shooting down of Flight 655 by the crew of the Vincennes a “proper defensive action.” Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, justified the downing of the passenger plane, saying that commanders on the ship had “sufficient reasons to believe their units were in jeopardy and they fired in self-defense.”
The US government’s initial claims about the circumstances surrounding the attack were eventually revealed to be false. Flight 655 was transmitting signals which clearly identified it as civilian and rather than descending as if to attack was ascending away from the Vincennes. Electronic records from the ship showed that this is exactly what the crew just prior to the attack detected.
The Pentagon eventually blamed human error as the ultimate cause of the attack and no one on board the ship or elsewhere in the US Navy was ever disciplined. The commanding officer of the Vincennes during the deadly attack, William C. Rogers, III, was awarded the Legion of Merit for “exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements” in 1990.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/07 ... s-j19.html
By far the best article so far on the crisis I have read.The remarks Friday by President Barack Obama on the tragic crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine raised far more questions than they answered.
Obama continued the mind-numbing propaganda barrage from US officials and media, denouncing Russia and pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine for shooting down the plane and demanding the surrender of the separatists to the Western-backed regime in Kiev. However, his remarks themselves underscored that this propaganda campaign has no factual basis whatsoever and is leading Washington into an explosive confrontation with Russia.
Obama said: “Here is what we know so far. Evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile that was launched from an area that is controlled by Russian-backed separatists inside of Ukraine. We also know that this is not the first time a plane has been shot down in eastern Ukraine. Over the last several weeks, Russian-backed separatists have shot down a Ukrainian transport plane and a Ukrainian helicopter, and they claimed responsibility for shooting down a Ukrainian fighter jet. Moreover, we know that these separatists have received a steady flow of support from Russia.”
Reread Obama’s comments carefully. You will see that nothing he said proves that pro-Russian forces fired a missile at MH17. Separatist rebels have shot down low-flying Ukrainian military aircraft with portable anti-aircraft missiles, but this does not mean they had either the intent or the capability to destroy a jumbo jet flying at 33,000 feet—an act they knew would hand Washington a massive propaganda weapon.
As for Obama’s claim that the separatists control the area from which the missile was fired, for which he presented no evidence, this means nothing given the chaotic conditions in eastern Ukraine. In the city of Donetsk, the stronghold of the anti-Kiev separatists, forces loyal to Kiev control the airport, from which they routinely shell the city. In fact, shortly before MH17 was allegedly destroyed by a BUK missile near Donetsk, the Kiev regime reinforced its anti-aircraft batteries in the region.
Remarkably, Obama went on to admit that his administration does not know who shot down MH17 or why. He said, “I think it’s too early for us to be able to guess what intentions those who might have launched the surface-to-air missile might have had… In terms of identifying specifically what individual or group of individuals, you know, personnel ordered the strike, how it came about—those are things that I think are going to be subject to additional information that we’re going to be gathering.”
Again, reread Obama’s statement carefully. Behind all the conditional statements and verbal hedging, he is saying nothing about who launched the strike. Obama’s remarks directly contradict those of his own UN ambassador, Samantha Power, who had just stated that there was “credible evidence” that Russia was responsible for the crash, adding, “Russia can end this war. Russia must end this war.”
Obama proceeded to throw a question mark over the entire coverage of the MH17 crash: “I want to point out there will likely be misinformation as well. I think it’s very important for folks to sift through what is factually based and what is simply speculation.”
The picture of the situation that emerges from Obama’s account is remarkable. By his own admission, the United States and its allies are hurtling toward a military confrontation with Russia, under conditions where the White House does not know who is responsible for the MH17 crash and believes powerful political forces are feeding misinformation to the media.
Having already admitted that the CIA did not bother to inform him before spying on German officials, Obama is apparently trying to figure out what his own government is doing—all the while irresponsibly denouncing Russia.
