Iran Air 655 Incident- ACI last night.

[airpolice]

save for the bit about 800 hours in uniform etc... if people want to (and are daft enough to) work in those positions, it comes with the territory, I am afraid.

You don't need to be afraid, in the words of Colonel Nathan Jessup (you brought this into the debate) in court,

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

[con-pilot]

By the way- when questioned re an apology, this was GWB's response, which says it all....

No, this quote says it all when comes to your so called facts.

George W. Bush was not President on July 3, 1988.

George H. W. Bush was not President on July 3, 1988.

Roland Reagan was President of the United States.

You are a troll that will use anything, true or false to post a anti-American rant.

If I were you, I'd be too embarrassed to respond.

[FODPlod]

'Tis a wonderful thing, hindsight, isn't it? Shame it's just as irrelevant to decisions made over 20 years ago as it is to going out tonight to buy the winning ticket for last week's lottery.

[airpolice]

con-pilot...

Doc: Tell me, Future Boy, who's President of the United States in 1985?
Marty: Ronald Reagan.
Doc: Ronald Reagan? The actor? [rolls his eyes] Ha! Then who's vice-president, Jerry Lewis?

[Trim Stab]

The septics are not signatories to the ICJ, so Rogers will never be put on trial.

The US refusal to hold their military accountable for these sorts of "mistakes" does their country a great disservice and contributes to the negative image of the USA around the world.

[Jakey]

Con-Pilot



Ever considered that the apology was requested AFTER the actual event and enquiry?

Like when GWB had taken office?

Are you sure I should be embarrassed? Or should I be embarrassed for you?

[Jakey]

Airpolice

And look what happened to Nathan?

It's rare that Hollywood has a greater sense of moral issues than the real world, but in this case they succeeded.

[El Grifo]

You are a troll that will use anything, true or false to post a anti-American rant.

Come on Con, you are the balanced guy. Leave that garbage to the chuks and matari lot.

Seriously !

El G.

[Flightmech]

Jakey,
At the end of the day Rogers, whilst making a massive cockup with incorrectly identifying the incoming as an F14 and after making numerous attempts to establish communications, had to make a decision to protect his ship and his crew onboard. He made the decision to protect his ship in a high pressure environment under a supposed threat condition.

He did know knowingly and intentionally shoot down an IranAir A300.

I think you should let it be now.....................

[Jakey]

I actually fail to see where I've posted anything that is anti-American, other than factual examples of their conduct in this instance.

Criticising something a nation has done because you believe it is wrong does not make you xenophobic.

[Jakey]

Flightmech

Jakey,
At the end of the day Rogers, whilst making a massive cockup with incorrectly identifying the incoming as an F14 and after making numerous attempts to establish communications, had to make a decision to protect his ship and his crew onboard. He made the decision to protect his ship in a high pressure environment under a supposed threat condition.

He did know knowingly and intentionally shoot down an IranAir A300.

I think you should let it be now.....................

All fine...however, I would comment, that it would have been far more preferable to lose the ship rather than the aircraft, as most sane people would realise. If there was 1% of doubt, which there was, he should have backed off. Military service men have subscribed to serving to the death through choice; passengers on a civilian aircraft have not.

[Flightmech]

that it would have been far more preferable to lose the ship rather than the aircraft, as most sane people would realise.

You really have no idea

[Lonewolf_50]

There was no F14.

You and I agree on that fact. In fact, the person to whom you responded would agree as well.

That wasn't the point being made.

Go back and read the rest of his post, again.

As a diversion to some of the nonsense we are tossing about, suggest you look up the concept of Theta in air to air war. For a while (Cold War Vintage) that was usually used as the angle between the jamming signal and the radar returns of a group aircraft raiding (Backfire, Badger, Bear) where you could first separate the targets from the (jamming) noise on a radar scope.

With the proposed "but what if there was an F-14 up there too?" idea (of dubious merit) you can apply the same idea to angular or lateral separation between two aircraft in formation: Call it theta prime, if you like, and define it as that angle (or separation of signals) on a SPY-1's radar display between two aircraft in formation.

The point suggested seems related to some folks who believed that a tactic to set up a sneak attack on a ship in ISE would be an F-14 snuggled up close behind an airliner to "merge" two radar contacts into a single contact up until time to attack ...

Personally, I do not buy into the idea that the CIC crew nor Captain Rogers applied that reasoning to an air contact, and whether or not it was Hostile versus Unknown within their NTDS system, and inside their Brain Housing Units. As noted above, the target classification process didn't win any awards.

I actually fail to see ...

I understand. Myopia tends to be genetic.

Now, on to the silly part:

Lonewolf Once you've wiped the drool off your keyboard...

That's irony, Sir Oral Foam.

Would you believe an apology is in order?

If you look at the history, actions speak louder than words. A settlement was made, in cash, to victims families. Called by some "The Greenback Poultice." I'd call that an apology in form, but I guess you want pretty words. But I also seem to recall that it took a while to arrive at that decision. (EDIT: Clinton administration in office at the time that the money changed hands).

To be honest with you, I am not completely sure why President Reagan did not deem it appropriate to apologize for what was obviously a mistake. Or, given how long that investigation took, why GHW Bush didn't toss one out as a bone.

I don't think it would have hurt anything.

POLITICS being what it is, and the US and Iran being in the middle of a nice POLITICAL game of "I hate your guts" at the time, I am not surprised no apology was offered.

Would you consider that Rogers should be prosecuted? If not, why?

By whom? Competent civil and military authority in my nation deemed the answer to be no. That is who he was accountable to. You don't like that?
How droll.

PP: LW, how anyone manages to reach the age of 53 in Texas is beyond me?

Given your problem with reasoning and conclusions, that does not surprise me in the least. I recently went to a funeral of a man, a Texan through and through, who died at age 104. Please don't hurt yourself figuring that one out either.

Well, a driver of a motorcycle makes a mistake on a turn and kills someone and still he ends in a trial and probably jail time.
A man suffers an accidental discharge a kills someone and still he ends in a trial, probably jail time.
This man was in command of a Ticonderoga class Cruiser (with plenty of staff to support him, lots of systems to help in his decisions), fired missiles against a civilian jet to make a tragedy and walked home? And the punishment is he not ended as an Admiral?
In the other end, as a lawyer, I canīt see the "mistake" here. It is clearly a case of gross negligence. And, as Romans said culpa lata dolo aequiparatur .
Sorry, justice has not been done here.

From the Iranian point of view, that would be a fairer point were it not for the Greenback Poultice administered, see above.
In detail:
a. The U.S. government issued notes of regret for the loss of innocent human life. The government never admitted wrongdoing, and did not accept responsibility nor submit an apology to the Iranian government.

My guess: That probably has to do with, were an apology and "admission" be on record, a larger claim could be made in a court. POLITICS and LAWYERs are involved. Perhaps money too.

ALSO, you are reminded of the POLITICAL context of the time. The year was 1988.

In February 1996 the United States agreed to pay Iran US$131.8 million in settlement to discontinue a case --

Settled out of court. This is a common exercise of justice being done, of a sort. It appears that US$61.8 million of the claim was in compensation for the 248 Iranians killed in the shoot-down.

Here's the political kicker: The payment of compensation was explicitly characterized by the US as being on an ex gratia basis, and the U.S. denied having any responsibility or liability for what happened.

See above, my observations on POLITICS and LAWYERs being involved in any formal declaration made differently than was done. Welcome to the real world.

The septics are not signatories to the ICJ, so Rogers will never be put on trial.

So sad to see you unable to keep a civil tongue in your mouth, when you were doing so well.

The US refusal to hold their military accountable for these sorts of "mistakes" does their country a great disservice and contributes to the negative image of the USA around the world.

Has it ever occurred to you what contributes to the negative perception of Brits the world over?

What our government does is quite simple:

it sends out its people to the far corners of the world to do this, that, and the other. Part of the agreement in sending them is a vague promise of "we've got your back" as you go out to do things that often put your life at risk. The deployments made into the Persian Gulf since about 1979 have had associated with them a bit of actual risk, see Stark and Samuel B Roberts as but two data points, and in roughly the same region, USS Cole. By simply flying our flag, some people will want to shoot at you. The end result of our operations in the 80's in the PG was that the fuel flowed to the world, which included a lot of our trading partners, in Europe and Asia. If you don't like that, you are invited to perform a similar service.

Wait, you can't.

Likewise, if you don't like how our government handles all that, particularly when things go wrong, you are invited to do something about it. Mostly, what you seem to be able to do is whinge. Sad, pathetic even.

I am so sorry that you are from a "has been" Power, complaining about those who remain as a Power.

Sour grapes much?

The accountable party, at the political level, is and remains our government, who put the Vincennes there with the full knowledge that Vincennes and its Captain might cock it up. (As might any captain).

You will note that justice is rarely done at the political level. Ever consider why?

[Avionker]

Come on then Jakey, start ripping into the Russians for Korean 902 and 007.

Or maybe that will be your topic in 3 years time, as I see you posted in 2006, 2009 and now in 2012.

We all wait with bated breath for 2015, I'm sure.

[MFC_Fly]

Jakey...

If a doctor said you had a medical issue, prescribed a particular medication and you died from taking that drug would you be committing suicide? The answer would be no, you decided to act on the advise of a professional, the doctor, and take a course of action (i.e. take the medication) based on that advise. In this case the captain decided to act on the information fed to him by his team of professionals to defend, in his eyes based on the information he had been given, his ship and its company. HE did not commit murder, he acted in what he perceived to be, at that moment in time, self defence.

Don't forget, the whole incident was started when Iranian gun-boats opened fire on one of his helicopters, this was then followed by a naval gun battle with fire in both directions. There was also an Iranian P3 loitering and possibly providing targeting information to F14's based at the same airfield that the unknown track heading straight at them was seen to depart!

The fact that the information fed to him was incorrect was probably a case of inexperience, fear, excitement or incompetence is another matter. The captain has to trust and rely on his team to give him the correct data - what would you have had him do, take the radar operators place? What if there was an EW or acoustic situation going on simultaneously, would he also have to sit at those sensor positions too? Should he have held off until it was too late and his ship had been hit and some of his crew killed?

I find it gross incompetence the way the data on the airborne track was handled, the way the unknown track was challenged, etc, etc, etc, but I do not see the captain as having committed murder at all - he was simply acting on information given to him by his professionals in a threat environment.

MFC

[airpolice]

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate, Educate.

MFC, the crew were able to ADVISE the Captain by giving him ADVICE.

[con-pilot]

Ever considered that the apology was requested AFTER the actual event and enquiry?

Like when GWB had taken office?

Are you sure I should be embarrassed? Or should I be embarrassed for you?

Nice try, but you fail again. As I remember Reagan saying that.

And yes, you are an embarrassment.

Just curious, where is your outrage on KAL 007?

[Jakey]

Quote:
There was no F14.
You and I agree on that fact. In fact, the person to whom you responded would agree as well.

That wasn't the point being made.

Go back and read the rest of his post, again.

As a diversion to some of the nonsense we are tossing about, suggest you look up the concept of Theta in air to air war. For a while (Cold War Vintage) that was usually used as the angle between the jamming signal and the radar returns of a group aircraft raiding (Backfire, Badger, Bear) where you could first separate the targets from the (jamming) noise on a radar scope.

With the proposed "but what if there was an F-14 up there too?" idea (of dubious merit) you can apply the same idea to angular or lateral separation between two aircraft in formation: Call it theta prime, if you like, and define it as that angle (or separation of signals) on a SPY-1's radar display between two aircraft in formation.

The point suggested seems related to some folks who believed that a tactic to set up a sneak attack on a ship in ISE would be an F-14 snuggled up close behind an airliner to "merge" two radar contacts into a single contact up until time to attack ...

Personally, I do not buy into the idea that the CIC crew nor Captain Rogers applied that reasoning to an air contact, and whether or not it was Hostile versus Unknown within their NTDS system, and inside their Brain Housing Units. As noted above, the target classification process didn't win any awards.

Whilst I appreciate your clear articulation of the issues, there is a huge degree of paranoia there.

You also fail to realise that the US ship had NO right to fire on anything, if the truth be known. The ICJ ruled that "this.... cannot be justified as measures necessary to protect the essential security interests of the United States of America"

Occam's razor is the acid test in these instances. The simplest explanation, when presented with many, is normally the truth.

Quote:
I actually fail to see ...
I understand. Myopia tends to be genetic.

Not big, not clever, not cool. Let yourself down on that one.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Bit premature MFC he hasn't responded to your previous post yet.

[Jakey]

KA007- absolutely the same.

However, I would genuinely hope that a civilised and westernised nation would have greater moral compass.