The downing of a Ukrainian airliner near Tehran earlier this week was indeed the result of it being hit by an Iranian missile, Iran’s military confirmed on Friday. The incident was a mistake, which they attributed to “human error.”
The plane took off from Tehran’s airport and was flying to Kyiv. Iran says it flew close to a sensitive military site and someone mistakenly reacted. State TV said that those responsible would be held accountable.
Iranian officials had initially denied being involved. It’s not immediately clear how this changed, though Iran had requested Canada and other nations blaming a missile provide the information to them. Fairly quickly Iran’s military came forth to correct the record.
Nobody really thought this was an intentional shoot-down. Rather, this came amid Iran firing missiles at US targets inside Iraq, and was likely on high alert for US retaliation. Still, accidentally hitting a civilian airliner and killing nearly 200 civilians is an embarrassing mistake to have to admit to.
Iranian officials said concern of US retaliation had led to an increase in US flights around Iran, prompting an increase in radar activity across the country. That, and the airliner getting close to a sensitive site, apparently led someone to jump the gun.
Iranian officials referred to the site in question as a sensitive Iranian Revolutionary Guard base, and took the “rotation” of the plane as meaning to move directly over it.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif issued apologies to all victims, affected nations, as well as to the Iranian people for the embarrassing incident.
Analysts say Iran is particularly sensitive to the shoot-down of airliners because of the 1988 US attack on Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 people. Iran has long been deeply critical that the US never apologized for this attack, and clearly wants to contrast that with a quick apology of their own.
With a number of the victims on the Ukrainian plane also dual-Iranian citizens, this is potentially a major domestic problem for Iran, and officials seem to believe being honest and apologetic is the best strategy.
Speaking of coming clean. In 1988, US missile cruiser Vincennes deliberately and cold bloodedly downed an Iran Air Airbus A300 over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 passengers and crew including 66 children. The U.S. military said it mistook the airliner for an Iranian fighter jet. (Yeah right. Just about the same size) US never officially apologized and the crew and the captain were rewarded with medals for their devilish act.
George W Bush said:
“I won’t apologize for the United States, I don’t care what the facts are.”.
Given the circumstances, practically a war situation, with the US bullying and killing General Soleimani and the Iranian retaliation soon thereafter, Iran did the right and honourable thing and apologized after a thorough investigation. US never did.
Bump-bump-Booom! The U.S. and Iran had been bumping each other’s elbows so much hoping to set off a trigger finger, they finally did.
They didn’t set off WW IV, but that’s cold comfort to the victims of Ukraine Flight 752
“Donald Trump gets impeached—63 Canadians die”
“Scott Gilmore: There are effects of the Trump presidency. Some will be felt in the decades to come, others are immediate and tragic.” – Scott Gilmore, Maclean’s, Jan 9, 2020.
https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/donald-trump-gets-impeached-63-canadians-die/
Gilmore’s article lays too much blame on Trump and oddly repeats the meme-omission of the Terhan Hostage Crisis, but not a bad assessment.
I think you meant to say George H.W. Bush not W.
And I remember the destruction of TWA 800 where, in my opinion, the subsequent investigations lent credence to the possibility of the US committing the same ‘mistake’ to a plane full of their own citizens but rather than admit it instead covered it up. Truth and responsibility and the claims of the US government are like oil and water, they are forever incompatible
No assassination and that airliner flies safely. But we had to do it because the Don said the general was going to blow up four embassies after all.
“Analysts say Iran is particularly sensitive to the shoot-down of airliners because of the 1988 US attack on Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 people. Iran has long been deeply critical that the US never apologized for this attack, and clearly wants to contrast that with a quick apology of their own.”
Or maybe the Iranians actually have empathy. Just because we’re ruthless bastards who would lie to our own grandmothers to cover our asses doesn’t mean the Iranians are the same way.
Ruling elites are all alike everywhere; the IRGC came clean but Iranian President Rouhani and his PR flunkes tried to pass it off as psychological warfare.
It was a result of psychological warfare, but Iran somehow dropped the ball and shot down Flight 752.
Iran accidentally shot that plane in the same manner we accidentally killed that General.
What does this even mean? The men who fired the missile were on edge and thought it was a US military plane. So yes, they purposely fired the missile, duh.
the headline in Drudge is that demands are made for the Ayatollah to quit over this accident. i busted out laughing. America has slaughtered millions since 1945, overthrown governments assassinated leaders, destroyed nations and no President had to quit over that.
Expecting reasonable commentary from Drudge is like… I don’t know, drinking piss but hoping it’s whiskey. Consider the source.
I mean, of course. I agree that America is incomparably worse.
Those demands are by the Iranian people. I wont speculate as to their numbers, but you realize the SL LIED about the impossibility of it being a shootdown.
Well we shot down an Iranian plane in 1988 and killed all the passengers. No one had to step down for that. As for lies DC is not the paragon of virtue
Well dude I’m sure there are some neocons that bust in these comments, but I am at antiwar.com, the recognition of the evil of the US government is a given.
There is a big difference between flight 655 and the Ukrainian Airlines shootdown and that is that WE shot down THEIR airliner, here Iran did it and killed their own people then lied about it instead of admitting the mistake, only to admit the mistake. Appealing to the fact that our evil government murdered all those people on an Iranian flight and has never apologized for it or punished anyone is illogical here.
As I said, the demands to step down come from WITHIN the country, among its electorate, who are we to say they are wrong to demand the redress of grievances?
I find it highly commendable of the Iranians to make such a demand because if the shoe was on the other foot and Tehran killed our top General and we shot down an Iranian commercial jet filled with mostly Iranians during a military retaliation done either accidentally or deliberately Americans would be cheering the President and commenting that the Iranians deserved what they got. I cannot see Americans take to the streets and demand our President step down
We tend to side with our military and DC regardless if their actions are right or wrong. this does not include those who come to Antiwar . com.
Not even close, my friend.
The highest ranking political element (POTUS & friends) in the USA murdered a high ranking Iranian official via deliberate attack at an airport shortly after he traveled to Iraq (which last time I checked is not in the USA.)
An Iranian SAM battery fired upon an aircraft inside Iranian airspace during a retaliatory attack following up that high-tech murder and multiple threats of utter destruction from the head of state of the ‘most powerful nation on earth,’ which would understandably put them on a hair trigger alert.
One of these scenarios is a murderous thumb-in-the-eye of a made-up ‘mortal enemy’ conspired upon by the *head of state* and his flunkies, for chrissakes, and one of these scenarios is a nervous crew of probably teenagers or 20 year olds, looking to defend their country from attack by the most bellicose nation on the planet.
I call bullshit.
It was much worse. America is an invited guest in Iraq. We killed General Sulaimani after inviting him to come to Bagdad to negotiate a peace deal. We set a trap in a foreign nation, using their security to kill a General of another nation.
Iran is expected to be incompetent, but this incident really needs to be investigated more thoroughly especially by Russia, as its Tor AA system is involved. Trump gets lucky, but its like everyone expected something like this to happen. Bang-bang–bang with clockwork precision.
Was possible the Iranian AA system was spoofed by a MANPAD or device on the jetliner? Maintenance records indicate it was last serviced Jan. 6, by a non-Ukrainian flight maintenance company. If the Tor can be spoofed, than in any real war Iran had no reliable air defense. Not that war can happen, given the globalist quadrillion dollar oil derivatives bubble that would be burst by such an event.
Ukraine Flight 752 was following a regular flight path, and this path crossed into IRGC sensitive airspace hundreds of times with no problems. Furthermore, this is a predictable five-day a week path by some reports. Canada and Iran have no direct diplomatic connections, so Canada-Kiev-Tehran was a regular and predictable travel route.
The U.S. reports two missiles launched; were there more? Iran admits one missile hit; how many AA’s were launched and what triggered the launches?
AA’s tend to be highly automated systems. A few years back French peacekeepers in the Golan Heights almost shot down an Israeli warplane hotdogging it; they had to pull a chip to abort launch once radar locked.
With so many MANPADs liberated from Syria and Libya, and Israel’s assassination program against Iranian scientists, this at first seemed like one of their ops. Add to that, in our new era of 5G warfare, social influence between Israel and Iran in third countries like Canada becomes a hard battleground.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-flight752-crash-timeline-1.5419572
Shadow warfighters may need to be pulled back from expanding the civilian victim pool.
The U.S./NATO narrative seems a typical propaganda half-truth.
Maybe the Iranian military did shoot down Ukraine Flight 572 – but what caused the airliner to cross into IRGC airspace in the first place?
Iran civil aviation claimed the jetliner remained in its legit flight corridor till hit.
The IRGC claimed to have fired only after the jetliner turned into its airspace.
This timeline is confirmed by many MSM reports; the plane was hit by something, turned, and crashed. If the IRGC hit them on the turn, they never caused the initial hit.
What then, caused the plane to be knocked of course? The plane was probably already hit by something or disabled by a bomb; the IRGC may have simply simply finished off a doomed airliner, or made a badly damaged one impossible for the pilots to recover.
The airport was open, probably to prevent economic losses from a shutdown. Flights were taking off normally throughout the supposed highest military alert, when a real high military alert would shut the airport down and leave the airspace clear only for military traffic.
There was no chance of U.S.-instigated war and the Iranian politicos knew it. There’s a quadrillion dollars in oil derivatives that would blow, leading to global economic depression and financial slaughter of many global elites.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/financial-n-option-will-settle-trumps-oil-war/5699905
The Iranian leadership should resign for losing Soleimani alone, let alone inept security theatre and incapacity for finding and telling truth..
European and US banks still hold billions of Iranian assts including what gold Iran had in Foreign banks when the first embargoes went into effect.
When Trump and Hawks talk of Obama paying Iran for stoppi g its nuke programs, what they leave out tat the paymentbwas only around 20% of US held Iranian assets.
Canada has on hold a quite large sum of Iranian gold andbassets from clear Back to last Iranian Revolution.
before I go further: A sovereign Nations Gold Deposits in any Forign Sovereigns belongs to original owner not the foreign holder.
It, according to International laws and Worlds Gold Trading organization. under London as Major controller, cannot be used by holding action for own purposes.
Now in US we tell world screw you, any gold within US sinUS gold and it uses and sells to whomever it wants.
PS, Under Twin Towers there was a huge foreign gold deposit vault!
In past as with Libya and twice with Cuba US courts let people bring suit and determined they deserved payments from those nations, Canada, Britain did same for their citizens.
For a nation such as Iran today whose economy is teetering on National Bankruptsy due to US and Europe actions, those victims surviving relatives of shot down plane will as in past cases be awarded 10’s of millions, if not hundreds, from whatever Frozen Iranian assets are in any and all foreign banks.
And the Ukraine which does not have a pot to piss in, will with European and US leaders get a big chunk as well.
Iran knows it, just as they know that if they did not step forward immediately and admit their military screwed up the European, Israeli/US propaganda machines would be going full bore.
Another tie bit, not all Airbus and Boeing planes are owned by foreign nations or their airlines, in fact , especially in ME and Central Asia the vast majority are leased.
If Ukraine plane assessed by US Agency under US laws was classified as an investment to a foreign company or nation, it will be covered as are all domestic firms and insured by US Government from losses, and taxpayers of US will pay for next Boeing airliner to lease to Ukraine.
That one US Agency has always been a sticking point during international talks of Government subsidizing its industries to gain an unfair trade advantage in world markets.
Complicated world we live in, but the downing of a non national airliner I.n a war zone, yes US by its assassin action of Iranian was an act, declaration of war by the US, so who was actually at fault.
Ever hear of an entity called US Security, Great Britain has a similar entity and at times they act as one and same.
US. Security,( Think “Securities”) was the hardest hit firm when towers fell, over 700 employees died, and then look for first Official Act by US.Government that immediately gave to Britain and Canada billions, and the reason why was because all trading on Boards was stopped and there was no clearing house for their international currency movements.
Complicated and very corrupt world we live in, and the Powers That Be will keep US blind to it.