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Comment by itsoktocry | Hacker News Reader

>That’s a stupid comparison because the USSR intentionally shot down a plane without trying to contact it and then didn’t cooperate at all on search efforts.

I don't know much about either incident, but your summary sounds exactly what the OP is saying: "Here are the reasons the Russians did it. It's different, because they're evil".

One side was lying about thinking it was a spy plane, but the other side legitimately thought the plane had missiles on it?

It's actually astonishing that anyone who's been on this planet for more than a couple decades can take any of these narratives seriously.

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Russia has declassified documents that confirm what the GP said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007#So...

> It's actually astonishing that anyone who's been on this planet for more than a couple decades can take any of these narratives seriously.

The only astonishing thing is that you reflexively rushed to Russia's defense instead of looking up the facts.

These are two separate incidents, with similarities but also important differences.

We don't know how the US military would've reacted if Iran Air 655 would've overflown restricted airspace above the US.

For sure the Soviets fucked up by not trying to call on 121.5 MHz, but is that worse than the US fucking up by being so close (arguably intruding) another country space, and yet not having equipment to monitor civilian air traffic control in the area? I'm not sure.

> and yet not having equipment to monitor civilian air traffic control in the area? I'm not sure.

Did you not read the linked article in the thread you’re replying to? The US did have an IFF detection system, it was a core part of how it worked. The issue was a UI failure which confused identification by mixing up two different (real) IFF indicators one from military and one from civilian and made it seem to the captain that the military one was flying towards them. That’s a legit honest mistake.

They had 4 minutes from the “take off” to when it was almost overhead. Navigating Iranian air traffic control radio isn’t exactly a solution in tense situations.

> We don't know how the US military would've reacted if Iran Air 655 would've overflown restricted airspace above the US.

Restricted US airspace has been violated many times in history. As have Russians. And many other countries.

Yet, the USS Sides steaming nearby identified it correctly as a civilian flight with no difficulty.

Presumably because their operator did not make the same mistake as the one on the Vincennes?

And because they knew that flight went out the same time every day.

> We don't know how the US military would've reacted if Iran Air 655 would've overflown restricted airspace above the US.

We have to deal with the facts and reality as it exists, not as it "could have been" in a reality that does not exist.

And in the reality that exists, the US acted with infinite more grace and compassion than the Soviet Union. They found the wrecking and kept it a secret for years. I find it extremely unlikely the US would do anything like that in any circumstances even remotely similar.

> is that worse than the US fucking up by being so close (arguably intruding) another country space

It's not so much about that they messed up, but how they dealt with it. Do you accept responsibility and take action to prevent it in the future, or do you lie and cheat and do everything you can to weasel your way out of responsibility?

> "Here are the reasons the Russians did it. It's different, because they're evil"

No. The OP was talking about generally thinking that the Russians are evil and the US is great. Whereas the comment you're replying to gave specific malicious things that happened in the Russian case and didn't in the US case. The difference between the way people acted in the two cases is clear and doesn't require any particular political persuation to understand.

actually I agree with itsoktocry. You assume all those things to be facts, but nobody discussing here was personally present in any of those events. I can assure you that the version of "Russians knew it was a civilian airplane" is not recognized as true in Russia. This even without being able to speak Russian, nor ever being in Russia. But of course, they are bad people :-).

Indeed, if you ignore all the evidence, including the declassified Russian documents[1], you can conclude that Russia did nothing wrong with regard to the KE007 flight.

To be honest, the persistent blind contrarianism of this community is really tiring.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007#So...

I didn't say they didn't do anything wrong, it's really not about that. The comment was on the coverage of the incident that happened in 1983. Nobody in 1983 knew anything about what will be declassified in 1992. You're stuck in a good vs bad box which is what my comment was actually about.

> To be honest, the persistent blind contrarianism of this community is really tiring.

s/this community/a small faction that is very active on this community/

It's not a lot of them but they are really doing overtime.

Exactly, you would think people would start seeing the games being played.

Look up “mass control hypnosis” if you’ve never heard the term.

Are you trying to quietly introduce the term? It brings up some music videos, some fringe conspiracy theorists, and TV Tropes.

sorry, it's Mass Formation Hypnosis

It’s “Russia made no efforts to contact” and “Russia made no efforts to search” both of which indicate it was because Russia was up to no good.

Funny how you ignore the reasons the commenter you’re replying to gives to indicate Russia did it because it was evil, reasons which do not apply to the U.S. case, and pretend they never gave those explanations at all.

The point is that 1) those reasons are themselves assuming a particular value system in order to judge evil (for someone who believes national sovereignty is absolute, neither country need give any reason to justify such decisions), and 2) those reasons are simply the propaganda you've heard, not necessarily what actually happened.

I mean it looks like the private internal memos regarding the Soviet incident were released in 1992, so this is not propaganda. Or if it were it'd make the USSR look better, not really bad.

You can't judge evil without a backing value system to do so. Not assuming a value system presumes there is no such thing as evil. Which sure, if that's what you want to advocate for then go for it.

But for those of us who do have a value system we'll continue to use it in deciding whether something is evil or not.

> 2) those reasons are simply the propaganda you've heard, not necessarily what actually happened.

It’s declassified documents from the USSR. If you don’t want to believe them in your support for the USSR, who are we supposed to believe?

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