Braddock wrote:
I would seriously doubt it but I'd imagine that's scant consolation to the relatives of the people who died. As Bertster pointed out, the same situation in reverse would have most of the Americans on here screaming for an invasion of Iran and yet no one seems to possess the empathy to understand Middle Eastern aggression towards the US when they continually meddle in that part of the world.
I don't know about that. Imagine if instead of 9/11, (4 airliners, etc, destroyed intentionally) we had one airliner shot down mistakenly...the response would be a bit different...I mean yes there would be some people irrationally wanting revenge, but if it's an accident...
Also there was a war on at the time, between Iran and Iraq, and it was threatening allies and oil shipping lanes, so yes we were "meddling"
Wiki wrote:
Starting in September 1980 the war between Iraq and Iran had begun to witness attacks against oil tankers and merchant shipping of neighboring countries. Iran struck a Kuwaiti tanker in Bahrain's territorial waters on the 13th and a Saudi tanker in its own territory on the 16th. For the next five years, attacks continued until Kuwait petitioned the US for help in 1986, and even then Iran attacked 29 ships between September 1986 and June 1987.[9] Besides the obvious damage to Kuwaiti and Saudi business interests, they also affected the flow of oil to America. In May 1987, USS Stark was struck by two missiles launched by an Iraqi Mirage F-1, killing 37. No weapons were fired in self-defense during the attack.[10]
In July 1987 eleven Kuwaiti-owned oil tankers were reflagged under the U.S. flag, and the Navy instituted Operation Earnest Will on the orders of President Reagan to protect these and other U.S. registered shipping.[11] They also undertook, again under Presidential directive, Operation Prime Chance. Following months of low intensity conflict, in April 1988 the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine, leading to a retaliation by the US called Operation Praying Mantis. The US Navy was operating under what Admiral Crowe called "the air of terrorism and peril that pervaded the Gulf at that time."[12]
On 29 April 1988 the U.S. expanded the scope of the U.S. Navy's protection to all friendly neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf outside of declared exclusion zones, which set the military scene of the shootdown incident.[11]
Helps to know the background IMO, we didn't just waltz in there and shoot an airliner out of the sky one day.
Worth noting that the Stark was attacked just a year previous, and hadn't even fired back. Maybe they were aware of that incident and didn't want a repeat - could have led to the crew on the Vincennes being too trigger happy.
Last edited by Vax (2009-01-31 10:57:23)