streiff: Did Iran Shoot Down That Ukranian Airliner?

And if so, did they shoot it down accidentally, in some kind of panic, or did they shoot it down, hoping to kill citizens of a Western country whom the US would not feel obligated to avenge?

The Ukraine isn't super-popular with Americans right now, outside of Jen Rubin and Alexander "Strategic Pastry Reserve" Vindman.

So: Was it panic fire or a calculation about which Western country's citizens they could murder with relative impunity?

Bear in mind: Iran seems to have deliberately "missed" any Americans with its missiles. It wanted a media story about shooting missiles at Americans, without the risk entailed in actually killing Americans.

Also worth considering: Iranian president ominously tweeted about vengeance and shooting down airplanes before the Ukranian airliner went down, referencing an Iranian plane mistakenly shot down by the US:

#IR655 was the call number of the Iranian plane shot down in 1988. There were 290 casualties.

Why is the president of Iran bringing up an Iranian plane shot down by America in making threats about Iran's capacity for retribution, if not to suggest that they might start blowing up airplanes again?

streiff writes:

The wreckage had hardly stopped bouncing when Iran blamed mechanical failure. This excuse was made without benefit of investigation or even access to the 'black boxes' which Iran now refuses to turn over.

More and more, though, the crash of PS752 is looking like a shootdown.

For instance, these are the tracks for the aircraft from takeoff until it disappeared from radar:

The Track log for Ukraine Airline 752 shows a flight of about 2 minutes before end of tracked messages.

The plane was climbing above 2240m at and accelerating beyond 513kmh when it stopped giving ADB messages. Suspect this is NOT a technical problem. pic.twitter.com/cgI5zNJn0u

— Jean-François Mezei (@jfmezei) January 8, 2020

There was no MAYDAY call from the aircraft. Everything was routine until the plane disappeared from radar and reappeared on the ground.

Hit the link for more.

I would never suggest a target list for Iran to hit -- I leave that to Democrats like Ilhan "Omar" Nur -- but it seems to me that if Iran really wants to hit targets which will result in huge amounts of media coverage, but which Trump will not feel obligated to avenge, well... there's a large and loud industry in America which is deeply unpopular with half the country.

Sure, that sector is now openly siding with Iran, but Iran doesn't mind sacrificing its foreign proxy forces in the interests of scoring a propaganda victory.

posted by Ace at 06:03 PM

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