Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

See however the previous extreme plane shootings, around 370 deaths total, by the US and Ukraine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

"shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes on 3 July 1988," "All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, died" "The Fogarty report stated, "The data from USS Vincennes tapes, information from USS Sides and reliable intelligence information, corroborate the fact that [Iran Air Flight 655] was on a normal commercial air flight plan profile, in the assigned airway, squawking Mode III 6760, on a continuous ascent in altitude from take-off at Bandar Abbas to shoot-down.""

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812

"shot down by the Ukrainian military over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001" "Ukraine eventually admitted that the disaster was probably caused by an errant missile fired by its armed forces.[1] Ukraine ended up paying $15 million to surviving family members of 78 victims ($200,000 per victim)."

This article isn't actually about the shooting down of any flights. It's about the more general way the Russian government operates. Maybe it would have been a better article had it not mentioned any flights, lest the conversation be derailed by debate over the causes & outcomes of the recent tragedy.

> This article isn't actually about the shooting down of any flights.

Have you read it?

It actually writes:

"The mass murder of passengers & crew of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 using Russian’s weapons and (most likely) by hands of Russian military squad exposed to the world that Russia is now complicit in committing crimes against humanity."

Now what do you think about proved US and Ukrainian plane shootings? Aren't they crimes?

>Aren't they crimes?

Absolutely and it's unlikely that those incidents resulted in sanctions against those countries.

It just highlights how hypercritical the US, Ukraine and the rest of the international community are.

All three of these states commit crimes - none of them should be excused.

Should we consider them all the "crimes against humanity"? Is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(19...

"on February 3, 1998, near the Italian town of Cavalese, a ski resort in the Dolomites" "Twenty people died when a United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler aircraft cut a cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway." "the subsequent acquittal of the pilots, strained relations between the United States and Italy."

Or is this "just a human error"? Where to draw the line?

The US never denied that it had shot down the Iranian 737. It paid compensation to the families of victims. Which is the third state you have in mind?

So by that logic if Russia admits supplying arms to rebels it's ok?

The three states are US, Ukraine and Russia.

to continue with the example above - would also mean that Russia engage in some sort of compensation with the victims

also see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_902

These two are even older, from 1978 and 1983 respectively. Also note that the 007 was some 500 miles away and that 902 was a few thousands miles away from its regular path. Not so with 655, 812 or MH17.

Most people will probably say the key difference is that the US incident was a mistaken attempt to defend an imminent attack, rather than a terrorist attack. Being perhaps more cynical, I would say the key difference is that Russia is not the biggest kid on the playground.

Summing all the evidence, I would say this was a mistake shot down too.

But presumably not a situation where the attackers mistakenly thought they were shooting down an aircraft that was about to attack them.

They definitely thought it was an Ukrainian military transport plane. I don't see how the distinction between enemy military transport plane and enemy fighter/bomber is of any importance here.

How do you know what "they" thought?

Version about rebels taking passenger plane for AN-26 seems plausible, considering that rebels themselves seemed to believe it in the first minutes after the event (I am judging by the reaction of their mouthpieces on Russian internet which I happened to see with my own eyes).

Anyway that's not the point, the point is that even if (people may still doubt) the rebels downed the plane, at worst they thought of it as of an Ukrainian military plane, ie they had no intention to kill noncombatants, it was definitely not an 'act of terrorism' as Ukrainian govt wants to paint it.

How can you know if "mouthpieces" are real rebel commanders or just some hotheads in their mommies' basements (or Russian equivalents of such)?

I am talking about Boris Rozhin's livejournal ('colonelcassad'). That's about as close as it gets to rebels' mouthpiece, being probably the most popular social media outlet with separatist viewpoint (not to be confused with Russian govt's viewpoint). Of course he is not an official figure of any kind, but if anyone can be trusted to be able to tell legit sources from 'hotheads in their mommies' basements', that's him.

It's a journalist from Crimea, Nobody you should consider to be fully informed with what rebels do. I can imagine he's now a kind of a war reporter, but in wars there are a lot of rumors. Nothing can be more probable than that somebody actually saw the crash and produced the rumor that that's an achievement of the rebels and the journalist repeated it.

Shooting down a military plane still looks like an 'act of terrorism' to me.

Oh, it's simple. Separatists were posting how happy they were about bringing down the Ukrainian military plane. In some hours it turned out it was MH17, the messages were deleted then. (I've seen the post myself, not a screenshot).

How can you know if separatist on the internet are real rebel commanders or just some hotheads in their mommies' basements or (gasp) other intelligence agencies? How do you know that nobody took over their digital identities? We're on HN we all know how easy it is.

I assume I know that since that account has a rich history of timely reports, quite a few with unique media content. The account is being continued to be filled with the same inside information which indicates it is unlikely to be hacked.

Really? What makes you believe that the incident a few days ago didn't happen for the exact same reasons?

We do not even know who shot the plane down, but what we do know is that the captain who shot down the Iranian plane received medals and was promoted after the incident.

Also promoted and received medals for making visual confirmation of a civilian flight and still shot it down: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

In the case of the Siberia Airlines Flight, I do not find it unlikely that Russia pressured them to admit it was them. At the time, Ukraine was basically a Russian satellite state. The evidence is inclusive, but Ukraine just suddenly admitted it was them.

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