63 Canadians killed after civilian airliner shot down.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't buy that at all, they shot into a civilian air corridor at a plane that was probably screaming hey I'm an airliner, while gaining altitude which is not the profile of a cruise missile or attack bird.



They were stupid or incompetent, that will hopefully be up to a court to decide.


If the American's had done this shoot down like the Vincennce incident in the modern day of the internet would people be as sympathetic towards the Americans? I have my doubts.

There shouldn't be sympathy or forgiveness towards Iran. But the US should share the blame for playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.

Both sides took their mini war too lightly and thought they could prove what they needed to prove without significant casualties. This is the kind of thing that happens when you ramp things up to that extent though.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Arbitrarily dividing the ME into countries was part of it too

Edit: deleted some drunken ramble

Persia was never conquered or colonized by the West. The modern state of Iran maps almost exactly to the historical Persian heartland. It's far from an arbitrarily constructed state.

It isn't obvious that if left free of foreign interference, Iran would have developed into a more prosperous, liberal, or pro-Western state.

Look at its neighbour Turkey. In the 20th century it did become prosperous, liberal (by the standards of the region), and pro-Western. But largely because its constitution was defended by a secular military cabal, with the backing of the West. And since the generals were shoved aside by a populist, conservative movement, the country has become less prosperous, less liberal, and turned away from the West.

People can badly #### up their own countries without any help from the West.

[burn_this_city]

I never said it was Trump's fault, that's plainly idiotic.

I'm inferring that in the fog of war, people in high stress situations make poor choices. This happened 3 hours after they attacked the bases in Iraq. For all those guys knew they just killed a bunch of US personnel and retaliation was imminent.

We will probably never know what they saw on their screen, how well they were trained ect. I just know I've never sat in a truck beaming my location out to every potential radar busting US missile flying toward me. I'm sure all the cool as a cucumber types here would be smooth operators, that's why accidents of every variety never happen.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Persia was never conquered or colonized by the West. The modern state of Iran maps almost exactly to the historical Persian heartland. It's far from an arbitrarily constructed state.

It isn't obvious that if left free of foreign interference, Iran would have developed into a more prosperous, liberal, or pro-Western state.

Look at its neighbour Turkey. In the 20th century it did become prosperous, liberal (by the standards of the region), and pro-Western. But largely because its constitution was defended by a secular military cabal, with the backing of the West. And since the generals were shoved aside by a populist, conservative movement, the country has become less prosperous, less liberal, and turned away from the West.

People can badly #### up their own countries without any help from the West.

While I wouldn't disagree with any of this and certainly Turkey is no shining beacon of democratic light these days, but Turkey, or the Turkish people don't resent or hate us the way much of the rest of the region does precisely because we didn't screw with them the way we did with the rest of the region, they haven't spent 40 years hating Israel or the West to any great degree, they have generally seen themselves as our equals, not our victims.


I'm not arguing that left to their own devices middle eastern countries would have become democratic bastions of freedom, just they wouldn't have spawned hundreds of thousands of western hating resentful Islamic wanna be martyrs led by equally resentful or at the very least opportunistic thugs that have harnessed that resentment for their own ends.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by nik-

Why do you assume it wouldn't have been better though? If the west wasn't there, are they simply replaced with the Soviets?

You'll never get me arguing that the Western policy in the ME has worked out. I mean it clearly hasn't, but the answer will never be to just dust off our hands and walk away. It just won't happen.

Oil was the old answer, and just because it led to a lot of this doesn't mean we can just say "oh the US wants oil so hurr durr and look what we did". Sometimes countries have bad actors and after a while they should be seen as such and not just excused away as an echo to past policy.

They've had 40 years to decide they don't want to destroy Israel. They've had 40 years to stop fomenting terrorism in their neighbouring states, often with nothing to do with Western presence. They haven't

The West has ####ed up, and will likely continue to, but Iran is still a problem independent of that.

I'm not even arguing we could or should at this point, I may think the Balfour declaration establishing Israel was an arrogant disaster for all concerned but Israel exists and isn't going anywhere, I view it in the same way I view my and white Canada's relationship with Native Canada, we are here and this is the reality now but it also behooves us to realise we are the cause of these problems, that we are not the good guys, that we will not hope to find a solution if we don't accept that we screwed the pooch, not because we need to feel guilty (although we probably should) but mostly because we will never find a solution if we don't understand Muslim anger is largely justified, by this I mean that if you accept your fathers and grandfathers treated Iraq, Syria, Palestine Egypt etc really badly maybe, just maybe you will realise invading them for any reason is going to go badly wrong no matter what your motive, that just because you might not plan on just stealing their oil and installing a compliant Government the way you did back in the 50's and 60's the locals are not going to see it that way.

[peter12]

Oh no, AFC doesn't believe Israel is a legitimate state.

[nik-]

I mean it was always right below the surface

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by peter12

Oh no, AFC doesn't believe Israel is a legitimate state.

Oh I do, I just recognise that is exists because we in the UK gave away a country that wasn't ours to give away and screwed over hundreds of thousands of the locals in the process, I accept that if I was a 21 year old unemployed Arab kid living in a slum on the West Bank or Gaza listening to my Grandfather talking about the little farm they used to have until '49 or 67 or 72 I would feel angry.

In a hundred years or so Palestinians will probably not be as angry but I understand why they are now, it is exactly the same as why my native foster kids feel angry, we have everything and for the most part they have nothing of a country that we took from them.

[peter12]

Nothing to do with the Holocaust then? Nothing at all?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by peter12

Nothing to do with the Holocaust then? Nothing at all?

well clearly that's a huge reason why the US and UK gave away a third country full of people that had nothing at all to do with the Holocaust, I just recognise if I was an Arab I might think Israel should have been put in some part of Germany, Bavaria perhaps rather than dumped on them, that telling some Arab kid the reason his family farm was taken away from his Grandfather was because the Germans 500 miles away did something unspeakable, isn't really likely to assuage his sense of resentment.

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by peter12

Nothing to do with the Holocaust then? Nothing at all?

Oh that little thing? Easily overlooked.

[Manhattanboy]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

I never said it was Trump's fault, that's plainly idiotic.

I'm inferring that in the fog of war, people in high stress situations make poor choices. This happened 3 hours after they attacked the bases in Iraq. For all those guys knew they just killed a bunch of US personnel and retaliation was imminent.

We will probably never know what they saw on their screen, how well they were trained ect. I just know I've never sat in a truck beaming my location out to every potential radar busting US missile flying toward me. I'm sure all the cool as a cucumber types here would be smooth operators, that's why accidents of every variety never happen.

There is no excuse for this tragedy. None.

[Manhattanboy]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

well clearly that's a huge reason why the US and UK gave away a third country full of people that had nothing at all to do with the Holocaust, I just recognise if I was an Arab I might think Israel should have been put in some part of Germany, Bavaria perhaps rather than dumped on them, that telling some Arab kid the reason his family farm was taken away from his Grandfather was because the Germans 500 miles away did something unspeakable, isn't really likely to assuage his sense of resentment.

Jesus. There is so much wrong with this I can’t even begin.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Jesus. There is so much wrong with this I can’t even begin.

Oh please try, if you can explain why a large chunk of mostly Arab land was given to create a Jewish state in order to make up for actions committed by Germans I would love to hear the moral rational, beyond the usual 'might is right' and the UK and US and then Israel ultimately were stronger and able to take the land by force.

How about you just explain why a Palestinian who's grandfathers farm was taken away should be happy with this

[afc wimbledon]

I should add I don't expect that farm to be given back, the land was taken by force, like most land, and as long as Israel can hold it its theirs, I just don't think their is any moral right involved and if the Coast Salish found a way to kick Canada's arse I would understand why they would chuck settlers like me off what was historically their land.

[81MC]

I’m usually super-duper keen on trying to cram incredibly complex issues into forums.
But honestly, the whole Zionist/Palestine history thing is probably one thing that will requires a lot more study than some forum.

[icecube]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I should add I don't expect that farm to be given back, the land was taken by force, like most land, and as long as Israel can hold it its theirs, I just don't think their is any moral right involved and if the Coast Salish found a way to kick Canada's arse I would understand why they would chuck settlers like me off what was historically their land.

That line of thinking ought to work for everything. I carjack you and take the car by force. It’s mine and I get to keep it unless someone can take it back. We should teach our kids that might is right too. Why expect anything to be given back when it was stolen?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CaptainCrunch]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1215951735363186688


I think we need a better explanation then this. A cruise missile isn't going to follow a civilian take off profile then that. Plus the whole transponder and size compared to a relatively stealth cruise missile that's tiny and would show up tiny on screen.


I think that if Iran wants to really fix this then beyond the black box, they need to deliver the data recordings from the battery that fired to see what they saw, as well as access to the crew of the battery and the commander of the areas air defense network.


I think that Trudeau and the other countries effected need to push on this pretty hard for answers and compensation.


At least they could have said we thought it was a bomber etc. This explanation is hard to buy into.

[CaptainCrunch]

Ukraine laying out what they want

https://twitter.com/user/status/1215891529321066497

[Azure]

Originally Posted by peter12

So just to be clear, the Americans launch a precision strike against one the most murderous thugs and warlords in the Middle East and the Iranians shoot down an airliner full of Canadians because they got jumpy.

I'm going to go ahead and fully say this completely destroys any moral advantage the Iranians had until this point.

Also, the double standard is deafening.