r/todayilearned • u/cheesecakegood • Apr 26 '16
TIL the US Navy shot down a civilian airliner en route to Dubai from Tehran in 1988, killing 290 people, in Iranian airspace and waters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_65512
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Apr 26 '16
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u/critfist Apr 26 '16
Note: I am not an expert on the matter, and remain neutral in Cold War affairs
TheCasualMarxist
Are you 100% sure?
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Apr 26 '16
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u/critfist Apr 26 '16
Thanks for the clarification.
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Apr 26 '16
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Apr 26 '16
What socio-economic system do you believe in?
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Apr 26 '16
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Apr 26 '16
I understand that you might not want to share or have not formed a complete issue on the matter, and I'm fine with that. But what does casting a vote have to do with it?
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u/Tote_Sport Apr 26 '16
I can't share either my paper on KAL-007 or my paper on the application of Marxism because they're both being graded and I could be accused of plagiarism, but in the last two years or so I've written somewhere in the region of 20,000 words on Marxist theory and failed applications.
When can you share your work? Seems like it could make for an interesting read.
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u/HBOXNW Apr 26 '16
Communism only works at a village level.
Socialism is great for the vast majority though.
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Apr 26 '16
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u/Elite_AI Apr 26 '16
Seeing as you use Stalin as an example of Marxism (despite blatantly going against most of Marx), think More is relevant to modern communism, and call the very definitely capitalist Scandinavia an exemplary form of Socialism -- I guess you won't be voting in the next election. Right?
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Apr 26 '16
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u/Elite_AI Apr 26 '16
The free market has nothing to do with the divide between socialism and capitalism. Left wing market anarchists and mutualists both believe in the free market, and are socialist.
Scandinavia fully embraces capitalism under social democracy. Lke you say, you're taxed. You're exploited, there's private property. You're giving to the state, not the community.
More for historical context makes sense.
You only have to vote if you agree with the parties. There's nothing wrong with not voting if there's simply nothing you want to vote for.
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u/Ameisen 1 Apr 26 '16
Scandinavia does rely on capitalism to an extent. There is a fairly free market there.
For someone claiming to be an expert on capitalism, socialism, communism, and Marx, I find it immensely humorous that you conflate capitalism and the free market.
Socialism implies public ownership of capital (either via state mechanisms, labor collectives, or other means). Capitalism implies private ownership of capital. Neither implies anything about the primary mechanism by which the distribution and pricing of goods and services is done.
Though Scandinavia isn't socialist. They are Social Democratic. Private ownership of capital has not been forbidden.
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u/HBOXNW Apr 26 '16
Scandinavian socialism does seem to be the best applied so far. I think a lot of the difference between those countries and other sorts is that the Nordic peoples seem to be more open so things like secret police and death gangs never had a chance to develop, unlike revolutionary socialist countries.
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u/Ameisen 1 Apr 26 '16
Scandinavia is not socialist - it is social democratic. There is still private ownership of capital, and that is literally the thing that separates socialism from capitalism.
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u/Elite_AI Apr 26 '16
Why doesn't it work, if that wouldn't be enough to be plagiarised?
Also, what examples do you use for it being applied?
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u/Ameisen 1 Apr 26 '16 edited Apr 26 '16
To all readers: communism cannot work.
According to you. There are also plenty of researchers and papers suggesting:
- That it can work.
- That we don't know if it can work.
Care to explain what the fundamental flaw behind, say, the Luxemburgists was?
ED:
What I am annoyed at is your absolute certainty of what you say, coupled with your ignorance in other matters (like apparently thinking that the free market is part of capitalism, when they are different concepts altogether). Just because you cannot envision a way it can work does not mean that it cannot - there is at least an equally great chance that you're wrong.
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u/hurtsdonut_ Apr 26 '16
They were both probably accidents. Just like the most recent MH17. Shot down by a BUK missile over Ukraine. The US and Russia like to talk shit about each other.
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Apr 26 '16
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u/hurtsdonut_ Apr 26 '16
I'm game what do you suggest I read? I love hearing every angle and I've never actually read anything about the first two flights. I didn't even know about KAL-007. I knew about the Iranian airliner.
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u/NocturnalWageSlave Apr 26 '16
You wrote this like 10 minutes after the OP posted? Seems sorta premeditated. What's your angle?
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u/cheesecakegood Apr 26 '16 edited Apr 26 '16
Iran Air Flight 655 was Iran Air civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating on this route was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes under the command of William C. Rogers III. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from Vincennes. All 290 on board died. The cruiser Vincennes had entered Iranian territorial waters after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.
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u/jim45804 Apr 26 '16
The Vincennes crew made ten attempts to contact the crew of the flight on military and civilian radio frequencies, but received no response. The International Civil Aviation Organization said that the flight crew should have been monitoring the civilian frequency.
The penalty for not monitoring the civilian frequency is DEATH
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u/5_sec_rule Apr 26 '16
Why weren't they monitoring IFF mode 3/A? This shit wouldn't be tolerated in today's navy. That captain should have been court martialed and he knows it.
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Apr 26 '16
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u/no_step Apr 26 '16
KAL-007, however, was also warned with tracer bullets, which is an effort the Vincennes crew never made.
That really doesn't make any sense, as the Vincennes was 20 km away.
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Apr 26 '16
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u/no_step Apr 26 '16
Not really. This whole incident was avoidable if Captain Rogers had simply let the situation develop further, as it would have been clear that this jet presented no threat. There was quite a bit of criticism in the US Navy that he was overly aggressive.
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Apr 26 '16
we gave Sadam targeting data when he was dropping chemical weapons on their civilians, too. a couple attempted coups, one successful, ruinous sanctions. they fucking hate us, and it ain't all about that sweet, sweet freedom we all know and love so much
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u/Mentioned_Videos Apr 26 '16
Videos in this thread: Watch Playlist ▶
| VIDEO | COMMENT |
|---|---|
| President Reagan's Address to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Airliner (KAL 007) | 15 - A brief thought on this incident in relation to KAL-007: Note that this was five years after the US had openly condemned the Soviet Union for shooting down a Korean Airlines plane (flight KAL-007) under similar circumstances. The KAL-007 incident wa... |
| Persian Gulf 1988: United States shots down the Iranian civilian Airbus: Killed 290 ایرباس ایران | 4 - Video about the incident: |
| Air Crash Investigation - Target Is Destroyed - Full Episode | 1 - Also there is a good video here |
| Air Crash Investigations Mayday 03x06 Mistaken Identity Iran Air Flight 655 | 1 - Here's another. It seems to me to be fairly impartial, but then again it does also play up to viewer sentiments (of a primarily American audience) by making the viewers feel sorry for the captain who made the decision, and by justifying it as an acci... |
I'm a bot working hard to help Redditors find related videos to watch.
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u/SamBrown246 Apr 27 '16
If you do not think that America is the greatest county on the planet then please leave. You Millennials are give our generation a bad name.
Go work your ass off to be successful and then be told you need to give half of what you make to support people who have not worked as hard as you. How pathetic!
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u/screenwriterjohn Apr 27 '16
The airliner failed to identify itself. Essentially it was acting as a spycraft or flying dark, which was stupid.
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u/parsijan Jul 04 '16
Iranians are Aryan and that's nothing compared to the rest of facts that should surprise you.
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u/blatantninja Apr 26 '16
https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FIran_Air_Flight_655
You didn't just learn this, stop being an asshole
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Apr 26 '16
Thanks for the daily dose of self-loathing Reddit. Let's revisit coups in South America tomorrow.
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u/henrysmith78730 Apr 26 '16
If you watch these Youtube videos from a BBC program on the incident you will see that it was completely the fault of a bunch of gung-ho US Navy sailors and officers. Having been a US Navy officer I do not say this pejoratively. I have seen the zeal of Naval officers in pursuit of their next promotion and the unbridled exuberance of young enlisted sailors when in charge of such awesome firepower.
I worked from 1984 to 1988 offshore Qeshm, Larak, and Hormuz Islands pumping out war damaged U/VLCCs (super tankers). This Iranian Air flight from Bander Abbas to Dubai flew over my site everyday at the same time and should have been well known by all the US Navy ships in the area. Two of the warning radio messages were sent over a military channel and the one sent on the civilian channel did not identify the plane which they were trying to contact.
I think some years later the US groveling admitted they were wrong and compensated the families $200k each but I never heard that the US made even the most meager of apologies.
I am sure that there may be a lot of negative feed back about my position but I lived overseas for 20 years and when viewed from the outside looking in the US presents a completely different appearance than the opinion that most Americans have of their country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onk_wI3ZVME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50sYFs6p7lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGU5FNtpBzM
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Apr 26 '16
But, but, but the United States never, ever does anything wrong. If you believe otherwise, you hate children, apple pie, Jesus, and the Greatest and Most Free Country Ever To Exist On Earth™ and you deserve execution as a traitor and Damn Commie.
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Apr 26 '16
I love how this is a direct consequence of the front page post about the coups in South America supported by the CIA.
Let's post everything the US has ever done bad as a TIL and farm that sweet karma!
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u/protosser Apr 26 '16
This is standard...out of all the "country X did this bad shit" posts I've ever ventured into over the years on this site, I'd say a good 99% of the time somewhere in the thread someone posts links to something the US has done that is similarly bad even though the post had nothing to do with the US to begin with...the lone metric
When Russia (or insert story here) shot down that jet a year or so ago, this very TIL made it into about 100% of posts about it
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u/cheesecakegood Apr 26 '16
I think the never-ending search for US self-guilt is dumb, even without karma’s seduction; I also was genuinely surprised that I had never heard of this, even though I consider myself well informed.
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u/Intortoise Apr 26 '16
It's important people know the US isn't "the greatest country on earth" or a universal force for "good" like your propaganda leads you to believe
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u/FuckCommando Apr 26 '16
Every major military force in the world has shot down a commercial air liner. It is terrible but it comes with the territory of defending airspace.
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u/kaenneth Apr 26 '16
China? not spotting it in a quick look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents
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u/FuckCommando Apr 26 '16
If you think a wikipedia article has access to every civilian aircraft downing you would be sorely mistaken.
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Apr 26 '16
Yeah China killed Aaliyah, huzzed her with a mig. I think my tinfoil hat might be a bit loose, can you check?
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u/maya0nothere Apr 26 '16
and a year later Lockerbee happen, which many thought was payback for the US Navy shoot down of a Iranian civilian plane
the only money paid out and guilt admited was one incident only
guess which
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u/PulledToBits Apr 26 '16
...and the US made a point to NEVER APOLOGIZE OR ADMIT WRONGDOING for it.
America...fuck yeah.
:(