US threaten Iran with pre-emptive strike

would seem like a hell of a boner to shoot a plane that had just taken off from your own airport, but yeah, can't say i know any better.

ouch that feels like a zing xp

no malice intended :)

fwiw yeah it's very hard for me to imagine iran accidentally shot down a commercial airplane taking off from its own airport but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

seems very weird to me too, for sure. but why else? the plane was mostly full of iranian and canadian passengers?

could damage iran's newly won reputation as the sane/prudent ones within the international community

this looks a lot like the ship exploded in hormuz in 2019
Iran never admitted

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/iran-plane-crash-investigation/h_cd561a085804f89f48ee4c2ffc264f93

fwiw

"The US increasingly believes that Iran mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian airliner, according to multiple US officials. The working theory is based on continuing analysis of data from satellites, radar and electronic data collected routinely by US military and intelligence.

The flight was downed following Iranian strikes on US forces in Iraq.

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization head, Ali Abedzadeh, said it would not hand the flight data recorders to Boeing or the United States after they were found on Wednesday."

seems like the kinda truly stupid thing we've come to expect countries to do in this dumb century

i can't even process how a thing like that might happen

fog of war? they had just sent some missiles toward US Air Bases, and much of the world was worried about escalating to WWIII and considering stocking up on gasoline. i'm sure they were assuming that missiles might come flying back toward them. yes, it all is very stupid but i think that kind of shit just _happens_ in war (even cold ones)

it's SO stupid, i hate governments and militaries

Yeah, I don't have too much difficulty believing Iran accidentally shot down a passenger plane with Iranians on board. I mean, if it was indeed brought down by a missile, it seems the most likely explanation by far.

I mean, possibly all it takes is one guy making a dumb decision

whyyyyyyyy were any planes at all allowed to take off from the airport at that time?

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization head, Ali Abedzadeh, said it would not hand the flight data recorders to Boeing or the United States after they were found on Wednesday."

whoops, that seems to be incorrect. from nyt, just now:

The comments from the officials came after the Iranians, through the International Civil Aviation Organization, invited the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States to assist in the investigation despite previous reports that the Americans would not be involved, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

I'm still stuck on this. Can't stop staring at it. pic.twitter.com/4JBb6nikhL

— Karl Bode (@KarlBode) January 9, 2020

some of those have to be joke answers

probably, but

Disappointed that no one said Antarctica, tbh.

shoutout to the people who picked the ocean

Aargh wtf this accidental fucking missile strike that killed random science students, architect, tech entrepreneur, etc from my city.

xp:

In peacetime, lower level air defense units don't regularly coordinate with civilian ATC. It's plausible that Iran's air defense command alerted units to be vigilant following its Scud retalliation, and some jr officer of a Mersad battery radar blipped the airliner, and either didn't follow protocol to contact ATC, or there was a delay in ATC responding that the plane had proper transponder codes and was under ground control.

Of interest to war nerds, satellite imagery of Ain Assad airbase depicts the impact points, and the ones that didn't fall short nearly all hit buildings and they targetted machinery storage sheds rather than barracks for Iraqi or Americans. Three key lessons: 1) these aren't dumb Scuds which would have had far more scatter, Iraq now has medium range ballistic missiles with terminal GPS (etc) guidance, and 2) as at Abqaiq, Iran had inside intel on aim points, and 3) Iran appears to have intentionally avoided casualties.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENxOYKoXYAAokR7?format=jpg

On 3 July 1988, a sophisticated US Navy warship, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian civilian airliner flying over the Persian Gulf.

All 290 on board the aircraft were killed, among them 66 children.

Rudy Pahoyo was a Navy Combat Cameraman who was filming on board the USS Vincennes that day.

176 people killed because of this stupidity.

We all believe this straight from the bat?

not necessarily. could also be politics to pressure release of black box. who knows

There is a natural tendency to believe a story that is understandable and fits into a tidy arc, as opposed to remaining in suspension, so that 'plane shot down - end of story' will always be more attractive than 'not clear what happened'.

There’s cellphone video of the missile strike now, but that won’t persuade the conspiracy minded.

Trudeau just gave a speech suggesting that's what happened.

I don't think "not automatically believing US Intelligence" until a story becomes clearer is conspiracy-theorising tbf

Thank you. That’s all I meant, too.

It was either mechanical failure, pilot error followed by mechanical failure, or jumpy Iranian air defense. I'm certain it wasn't US missiles, as some people unfamiliar with military capabilities have alleged.

WASHINGTON — An Iranian missile accidentally brought down a Ukrainian jetliner over Iran this week, killing everyone aboard, American and allied officials said on Thursday, adding a tragic coda to the escalated military conflict between Washington and Tehran.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said his country had intelligence that an Iranian surface-to-air missile brought down the jetliner, which was carrying 63 Canadians among its some 176 passengers and crew. Mr. Trudeau said his conclusion was based on a preliminary review of the evidence but called for a full investigation “to be convinced beyond all doubt.

“We recognize that this may have been done accidentally,” Mr. Trudeau said at a news conference in Ottawa. “The evidence suggests very clearly a possible and probable cause for the crash.”

United States officials had a “high level of confidence” that the Iranians brought down the airliner by mistake, one American official said. The official said that two missiles fired from an Iranian air defense system, the SA-15, shot down the airliner.

NYT with the cell phone video of the missile hit.

Maybe now Canada can go to war with Iran.

Thread

By measuring the time that it took for the camera to hear the explosion, we estimated the distance of the event (red circle), and cross-referenced it with the geolocation of the video and the flight trajectory of #PS752 (taken from from FlightRadar24). pic.twitter.com/76vw5zyM6Z

— Bellingcat (@bellingcat) January 9, 2020

waht

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/politics/us-army-fake-text-messages-military-draft-trnd/index.html

Ukraine is understandably upset that the US government / intelligence briefed Newsweek but hasn't shared any information / evidence with Zelensky yet.

they need to investigate Burisma first before we give them the deets

Sounds like somebody owes Zelensky a phone call.

more clarification from pompeo on the imminent threat from soleimani. we now know that the threat was "real":

During an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Pompeo defended President Donald Trump’s drone strike on Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani after Democrats and even two Republicans said the administration’s briefing to Congress on the strike did not sufficiently explain the reason for Soleimani’s assassination.

Pompeo accused the dissenting lawmakers of “using this as a political axe to grind.”

“There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks that were being plotted by Qasem Soleimani,” he said. “And we don’t know precisely when and we don’t know precisely where, but it was real.”

at least a 1 in 10 chance that the idea of this threat came to pompeo in a vision from god

a series of immanent attacks... We don't know precisely when

Politicians, reporters, family members, please explain the Caroline test to our appointed leaders.

I think it would be more meaningful if Americans had any interest in International Law

notification on my phone:

NYTIMES: The U.S. unsuccessfully targeted a senior Iranian official in Yemen on the same day a drone strike killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

any other assassination attempts on that day we should know about?

contrapoints got cancelled day prior

the Iranaian Official didn't take the free Hamilton tickets so the whole thing was called off

Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner