Going back to the original point of the thread... let me play Devil's Advocate...

Put yourself in the position of the Kremlim. You've been fighting a series of proxy wars for a couple decades. Your primary adversary is the USA. You have made clear to everyone that airspace violations can and likely will result in a shoot down. One dark night a plane flying from the USA violates your airspace near a very sensitive and secret defense installation. You believe that the plane has just gathered some piece of intelligence and is heading for international airspace again. This intelligence may give your adversary an advantage in the ongoing "cold war".

You have only about 30 seconds to make a decision because it needs to be done before the plane leaves your airspace. What would you do?

Gen. Anatoly Kornukov upon orders from the Kremlin ordered the shoot down. As I see it, he had two options:

#1 Let the plane go placing not only himself and his family at risk, but potentially weakening his whole nation IF it was a spy plane.

#2 Shoot the plane down. Possibly killing several hundred innocents but possibly protecting millions of Russians IF it is spy plane.

I can't say I agree with the decision that was made, but I sure do understand it.

bingo hit nail on head

Why the hell can't they apologise for the mistake instead of pointing fingers at the CIA?? Who the hell cares about the families killed? (Or the families killed on the Iranian airliner?) I mean the Lockerbie families were compensated, granted this was a deliberate act but still doesn't help.

Negr: I am no fan of Bush and the current USA foreign policy and the attitude "our way or the highway" in fact I am glad to see you got the point of the comparision with the USSR...except of course some of the US enemies really are dangerous (North Korea) others are just comic and not a threat imo (Venezuela).

But we went off topic, there still is a tendency (I know many Russians, ex-Soviets and ex-Yugoslavs, took one year of Russian as well) to never admit mistakes (like many neo-conservatives in the USA). The USSR was well within its rights to declare no-fly zones over its territory, but they should have come clean and said we made a mistake and offered compensation (did they in fact?). Instead you went off on a tirade and never answered what happened to the KAL 007? Did it exist? So what happened to those people? Like the friend of my boss' brother in law?? Just curious as to what happened to the Boeing 747 regardless of if there was a spy plane or not.

Well, I can say the same: some people in this topic are paranoin about commies, USSR and Russia :D And, you see, some latest political moves force some people to... err... worry about the USA ;)

I don't think NK is SO dangerous. Yes, they possess a Nuke. If it's not a bluff, one or two warheads are not a serious threat. Russia, which borders upon NK, must worry rather tha USA ;) Koreans, afaik, haven't missiles or any other delivery means to reach USA. However, who knows...
What about Venezuela - yeah, Chavez sometimes can be really funny, so firehearted as early revolutioneers :lol: Though, he provides the idea of many LatAm citizens. The last Americas' summit dispalayed it: not all, but more and more SouthAmericans feel ill-willed with U.S.

Yes, it's true, that many Russians still have that "Imperial" behavior - though Empire is no more. And, evidently, many our present rulers have the same.
But why do you think "they can't apologize"? Boris Yeltsin officialy apologized before South Korea in 1991 or 1992. The same time, ICAO conducted reinvestigation. You can find official ICAO's conclusion somewhere in the Net.
Anyway, "The Truth" classified Top Secret in both countries - USA and USSR/Russia.
Will any side declassify it once - that's the question.

What about the Libyan airliner (Flight 114) that was shot down by Israel in 1973? In this case, they definetely knew it was a civilian plane they were shooting at. :o

http://www.jerusalemites.org/crimes/massacres/9.htm

http://www.qadhafi.org/Libya/LIBYAN_...LIGHT_114.html

These sites appear to be very subjective, but I can't find much else (I am not going to take a side in this argument, as I don't have a completely objective account of what happened). Some sites only briefly mentionned the incident, others have set out to condemn Israel anyway, but all criticize the country for the incident. It seems pretty black and white from what I've read.

The United States refused any criticism of Israel, unlike in the case with the USSR, despite the fact that the destruction of the civilian plane was intentional.

I'm just wondering what people's thoughts are on this incident, especially in comparison to the two incidents that have just been discussed.

PS - If anyone can find a more objective site on the incident, please post it ASAP. Thanks.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19730221-1
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8744/tragedy.htm
http://www.washington-report.org/bac...830919003.html

Indeed, now we know the American Invasion plan Hugo Chavez likes to talk about so much was a friendly training operation with the Spanish Air Force back in 2001.http://images.indymedia.org/imc/cana...ion_Balboa.pdf

He's not a threat to the US, but sadly he's a threat to his neighbors.

http://www.midiasemmascara.org/image...l___Chavez.jpg

That is called double-moral standards. Everything is fine in Saudi Arabia and pretty bad in Iran.

What about the USS Liberty that was attacked in 1967? Still seems to be a lot orf controversy surrounding this attack.

This is a timetable of events.

http://home.att.net/~texmextex/USS_L...Start_page.htm

These sites all blame Israel.

http://www.ussliberty.com/

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/moorer-liberty.htm

http://home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/

http://www.rense.com/general26/ally.htm

http://www.washington-report.org/bac...93/9306019.htm

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ussliberty.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/margolis12.html

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51a/023.html

http://hometown.aol.com/generalissimomh/

http://www.rense.com/general39/pilot.htm

Thess are Isreali sites exonerating Israel.

http://www.israelnewsagency.com/ussl...rael10034.html

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...y/liberty.html

This is a site with a list of articles which take Israel's side. I found a US site too, but lost it.

http://pnews.org/art/ussliberty.shtml

This site presents both sides of the argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

I really am not sure which side to believe. A lot of people seem to blame Israel though. :-?

Re: Korean air 007 should it have been shot down?
 

Iceland and the UK.

Re: Korean air 007 should it have been shot down?
 

When? You talking WWII?

We needed the American sailor's blood to bake matzahs.

iceland and uk -- "cod war"

not much of a war, though.

india and pakistan both were and are democratic indopak war 1971

Well Pakistan today has a dictator. And i wouldn call either one best exsamples of parlamentarism. :roll:

Trust me, he is much better than the previous politicans and the presidents. The people around him, aka his spoons, were in the previous governments.

Sure he is, from our point of wiew, only way to control a majority mob that are Islamists. ;)

History repeats itself every eight years and eight months?

I don't think so, but this old poll is a reminder ...

Look at the first question:

As necromancy goes, that's pretty epic.

http://i589.photobucket.com/albums/s...cs/zombie1.jpg