Last week’s downing of a Ukrainian airliner, killing 176 people on board, remains a major sore spot in Iran, where public protests began over the weekend, and are growing on Monday, with police trying to disperse crowds with tear gas and in some cases, live ammunition.
Downing a civilian airliner is a big deal in Iran, where the US shoot-down of Iran Air Flight 655 having been a major talking point for governments since 1988. This was a big part of why Iran so quickly came clean on accidentally downing the Ukrainian plane, but the delay is still a sore spot domestically.
This has Iranian officials denying any attempt at a “cover-up” for the three day period when they were denying culpability in the shoot-down. Iranian protesters are furious, and demanding the ousting of top officials over the matter.
The plane was shot down about 7,000 feet in the air, and Iranian officials have said that they were concerned about US attacks at the time, meaning more radar coverage. Iranian officials have apologized to Ukraine, and to the Iranian public over the mistake.
But with the protests dragging on, Iranian officials are also trying to spread the blame to the US as well, because the regional tensions were as much the US’s fault as Iran’s. Whether that is going to calm the protesters remains to be seen, but so far it looks unlikely that anyone will voluntarily resign, putting the onus on Iran to follow up with promises to punish those directly responsible for shooting down the plane.
BS. The English ambassador was caught agitating a number of trusted provocateurs and he probably had the terrorist cult Mujahedin e khalk with him too.
Hm, the Iranian government and army come clean on this in 3 days, including the part where they put all the information together and make sure they take everything in account, including the part where they could have been tricked into making a mistake by the US. This is excellent work.
Also, I don’t trust these demonstrations. There is always a component of Western interference and I suspect in this case it is considerable
This reminds me of something I will pay a bit more attention to. While libertarians are good on war issues and are generally antiwar, I think the attitude on general regime change efforts is a lot less clearcut and when empire attempts to overthrow regimes with other methods than outright war, libertarian points of view are divided and the empire factor is downplayed in favor of the legitimate native component.
Vermin Supreme won the New Hampshire “Libertarian” primary. any questions?
Yeah. How is it relevant? Trump did pull the antiwar card, and I believe with some sincerity. I would agree that means something.
Yes, I have a question: Why the scare quotes around “Libertarian?”
If they’re like most demonstrations in most places:
1) They’re partly genuine/spontaneous, partly contrived by various would-be power blocs;
2) They’re partly organic/native, partly funded/motivated by influencers abroad;
3) They’re partly about their supposedly central issue, partly a smattering of opportunistic attempts to promote other issues.
As for what the mix is in this particular place at this particular time, who knows? My view is that the LAST thing the US regime really wants is for the existing Iranian regime to be overthrown. It’s the convenient punching bag used to justify every US misadventure in the region, especially now that they don’t have bin Laden to kick around anymore. And if it was overthrown, its replacement would much more likely get cozy with Russia and/or China and/or India than with the US, in ways that don’t brook the current US “foreign policy by temper tantrum” approach.
Yes, it is quite amazing how such demonstrations unfolded practically overnight. And I believe most of the protesters are university students who have always been targets of outside agitation…
Iran should do what we did after the USS Vincennes brought down an Iranian airliner, killing almost 300 people—we handed out medals to our girls and boys.
PS: Lock-up these protesters and throw away the keys.
You people are insane.
Based on the military analysis I read, the actual operators of the missile system that shot down the airliner were not guilty of anything but of making a very dangerous decision with very little time to do so. So there is no one there to really punish.
Where the blame could actually lie is at the feet oft he commander who did not insist that such older missile defense systems not fire without direct confirmation from central command and the closing of the airport for normal commercial operations.
However, the causation of such a tragedy is a the feet of US and Israel as they were the ones that set in motion the events that would lead such a tragedy…
But like Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine, Trump’s attitude is “What me, worry?”…
I disagree. And apparently so does the Iranian leadership which is setting a good example for how to handle war crimes committed by a country’s own military. Rouhani announced that some arrests have been made and the government intends to punish all those responsible. Of course Trump is the prime instigator. But that is not an excuse for downing Flight 752 any more than Pearl Harbor excused the US attack on Hiroshima. Iran is responsible for war crimes committed by its military even if the IRGC are heroes combatting the evil empire.
Command and control is obligated to anticipate scenarios. An ABM battery on high alert operating near a civilian airport is an obvious scenario. Either someone didn’t order the airport closed, or someone ignored an order to close the airport. Someone in that chain of command is guilty of criminally negligent manslaughter.
As for the ABM operator, it is a lot like a cop who makes a split second decision to shoot an unarmed Black kid. The judicial authorities need to take the entire context into account. Was it lack of training? Faulty equipment? Or incorrect human judgment? Hopefully, for everyone concerned, the operator will have his or her day in court in a public trial.
I am impressed by how Iran is handling this so far. But I am waiting to see how far up the chain of command responsibility goes. How much responsibility will the high command and the civilian leadership ultimately take? Will they allow foreign countries to participate in adjudication of the charges.
So far, Iran is setting a good example for other nations in how to handle war crimes committed by its own military.
I do not disagree with your assertions that Iran should have taken far more care with either controlling its less capable defensive systems, which the Tor Mobile Missile system was (this was the unit type that shot down the airliner) or someone in the Iranian command structure should have shut down the Tehran airport for all commercial operations, which they had the power to do given the circumstances.
However, this was not a war crime by any stretch of the imagination unless it can be show that there was clear intent while engaged in a conflict. Common war crimes for example would be the targeting of civilian centers during bombing missions (something the US and Britain are both repeatedly guilty of during WWII).
War crimes are also the result of clear intent and not provable, accidental incidents where there was no intent to harm. Thus, as far as we know now, this tragedy has yet to rise to the level of such a crime.
And though someone in the Iranian command structure may have been lax in their control of the situation or even incompetent at what they were doing (which happens in every military force), this too does not rise to the level of a war crime, unless of course that person’s incompetence was used to facilitate such a tragedy.
If however, Iranian authorities find that someone in their command structure was in fact lax on purpose than it could
be considered a capital criminal offense but not even war crime since there was declared conflict at the time this tragedy occurred.
“Distinction” is one of the main principles in international law regarding war crimes. Combatants are responsible for distinguishing between enemy combatants and civilians. The Iranian regime understands that the downing of Flight 752 was a war crime,. Even though the tragedy was unintentional, it amounted to negligent manslaughter. Essentially like a cop shooting into a crowd would be responsible for the consequences.
“the regional tensions were as much the US’s fault as Iran’s”
Sorry Jason, but that is too far from the truth to be left unchallenged. It’s ALL on the US and/or Israel. You can go back to ’53 and the coup that removed Mossadegh or 1948 and the Nakba. The former for oil and the latter for AngloZionist world hegemony, ie full spectrum dominance. Iran has the right to exist, and the right to self-defense.
Unfortunately, the US/UK/France were also involved in getting the Shah to step down in 1979. The plan was to have “friendly” Ayatollahs in charge to start with, then replace them with the Shah’s son on the Peacock Throne. However, when Ayatollah Khomeini returned from France, the good old “law of unintended consequences” took over, just as it has in every country in the Middle East where we have messed up.
I have to wonder just how many of those camera-ready Iranian ‘protesters’ are on the payroll of some US black ops outfit. It’s not like we haven’t bankrolled professional protesters in the past.