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That seems very likely. They probably had anti-aircraft and anti-missile missile systems fully armed and something either automatically mis-categorized the aircraft as a bomber or missile and shot at it or someone got nervous and trigger happy.
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A possible explanation might be that the guys who actually fired the missile have spent three days trying to avoid blame, and that it's taken that long for the truth t make it's way up the leadership ladder. I suspect if I was an army grunt who'd fired of a shoulder launched missile only to realise just too late that it was a civilian airliner, I'd be AWOL and in hiding for _way_ longer than three days...
It was a large vehicle launched missile. That ordinance is individually tracked and multiple soldiers would know about any firing.
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Europe depends on Russian gas or they freeze so not really an equal comparison.
I'm not sure your exact point, and where it conflicts with mine. You're saying that Iran would have preferred to sweep this under the rug? Well obviously. I'm only saying that unlike the Russia incident they didn't even seem to attempt an organized cover up.
People need to not forget these events and I'm worried one "good" (read: expected) act from them is going to make them forget.
I've lost family members to this corrupt country, so I'm a bit biased when I hate any sort of praise when they do the expected thing.
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It was a large vehicle launched missile. That ordinance is individually tracked and multiple soldiers would know about any firing.
Possibly multiple soldiers all decided to lie to keep it secret. Maybe their commander ordered them to keep it secret so he wouldn't get in trouble.
What an absolute tragedy. Well done to Iran for coming forward, admitting it and expressing their regrets over it. It's a stark cry from the utter denial others have expressed when similar accidents have happened, and astronomically further than when George H. W. Bush proclaimed "I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy." when the N…
No this isn't well done. It took them three days to say this. How did it take them three days to realize they shot a missile? Especially since they had a denial campaign going on for three goddamn days. This was just external pressure on Iran forcing them to do this. If this flight wasn't an international one it would've been swept under the rug.
Think of how many level of people are there.
There are the guys that shot the missile. The ones that command those guys, the ones that command those and commanders above those.
In the chaos of the tragedy, no body wants to open their mouth, in case they are executed for saying something that is against the direction which the nations top leaders want to take.
Then come the top leaders. With the escalating tensions with the US, having recently sent a barrage of missiles to Iraq, they are holding on to the horses of the country, on the edge of a cliff.
They have to discuss and deliberate a myriad of issues that are consequential to their every word.
They cannot be too rushed to say that they shot the plane down. It might create a chance for the US to spin this as a deliberate murder.
And all these are humans. Humans that run nations, whose millions of peoples lives are at stake.
Three days is perfectly OK.
I am glad Iran is honest enough to admit it's mistake, unlike Russia, for example.
What an absolute tragedy. Well done to Iran for coming forward, admitting it and expressing their regrets over it. It's a stark cry from the utter denial others have expressed when similar accidents have happened, and astronomically further than when George H. W. Bush proclaimed "I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy." when the N…
That’s a commonly repeated bit of fake news. Bush did say that, but it unrelated to Iran Air 655. Here’s the actual context: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4763550/user-clip-george-h-w-...
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Even if it was external pressure, we’re still waiting for Russia to say the same. Iran actually did.
> Iran actually did. No, Iran was _forced_ to do so, they don't two shits otherwise. Not so much preasure on Russia in case of MH17
It chose not to deny. However, I would suspect it did so, just to demonstrate the crazy things a world on the brink of war can bring about.
Perhaps it's leaders calculated its to their benefit to own up and then say see what happens when nations are teetering on the edge of armed conflict.
OTOH, in case of MH17, even if there was no video, there were a lot of signs directly pointing to Russia. Russia was also forced, but it didn't give a shit.
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Oh I agree. I'm just saying there never seemed to be an organized or vigorous campaign of denial. The government was denying it while at the same time, the aviation authority seemed to be signalling that it welcomed international assistance. >They would be left alone against the US. They had to. That didn't deter the Russians in Ukraine. They still tried to cover it up. Badly.
Europe depends on Russian gas or they freeze so not really an equal comparison.
The Dutch are the ones who led the investigation and are now charging Russian citizens
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No this isn't well done. It took them three days to say this. How did it take them three days to realize they shot a missile? Especially since they had a denial campaign going on for three goddamn days. This was just external pressure on Iran forcing them to do this. If this flight wasn't an international one it would've been swept under the rug.
It didn't. I assume it took them three days to decide whether or not they could establish plausible deniability. Then the cell phone video of the second missile hitting the plane came out. It's easy to own up to mistakes when your hand is forced.