US kills Iran's General Soleimani

Caporegime
Joined
29 Jan 2008
Posts
58,898
And now flip that round and swap Iraqi for American and American for iraqi.

“I remember when the Americans invaded my country, when they bombed my next door neighbours house and killed my childhood friend and his family” etc...

Now who’s to blame?

This action is a direct result of Trump authorizing an attack on a top Iranian general.

Which was in response to continued Iranian attacks...
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Mar 2008
Posts
32,741
Which was in response to continued Iranian attacks...

Which was in response to US-UK corruption leading to the downfall of a democracy and the support of a dictator (doesn't really matter if he was far better, he was still a dictator)... and the supply of arms to Saddam in the Iraq-Iran war... which we then used as a pretense for invading Iraq and ******* it up...

Could do this all day.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2007
Posts
7,865
Location
Stoke/Norfolk
Yeh but they could clearly see where the airliner was taking off from. Do military planes not take off from military airfields?

I'll split the answer in two bits -

1. The vast majority of ME airports are combined civil/military ones, including the one I'm posting this from, which means that both types of planes will be taking off from the same runways.

2. "They could clearly see..........." - How do you mean "clearly see"? They can't do so visually as the operator sits inside an armoured vehicle looking at a radar screen. So do you mean via the radar screen, in which case I would agree that they should have monitored the screen with 100% concentration but that isn't in anyway realistic, nor does that match my experience of work-ethics from the region. My pure guess would be an operator "missing" the take-off due to distraction (they love their mobile phones!) and therefore "suddenly" seeing a Pop-Up profile target on his screen which isn't showing any IFF/SSR codes (which could look like the terminal phase of most cruise missile flight profiles) and the rest is know, however thats all just pure guesswork for myself.

Having lived here in the ME for over 2 years now, I've found that trying to apply "Western" logic, thinking, experience etc to try and understand why something in the ME has happened is a false ideal. The people here don't think like us in most respects, they won't act like us in a given situation and their thought processes which lead them to act are far different to how a Western person would do the same thing. So seeing quite a few Western people on here discussing how ME people react without 1st hand knowledge is interesting. I mean I've been here 2 years and I still don't understand most "reasons" behind simple decisions done differently to how I expect.
 
Last edited:
Caporegime
Joined
29 Jan 2008
Posts
58,898
Which was in response to Ameri-British corruption leading to downfall of a democracy and the support of a dictator (doesn't really matter if he was far better, he was still a dictator)...

Bit of a stretch tbh... might as well blame it on colonialism etc... pretend they have no agency/control over their actions since then... nah tis all down to the evil west because they did something years ago, anything else that happened since then no one can take any blame for.
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Jul 2005
Posts
8,273
Location
Birmingham
It doesnt matter whether we cause the war or dont cause it. Or whether its USA fault or not. If there is a risk of someone being able to get hold of missiles (try doing that in Britain) then its a no fly zone. Simple. We should not be flying over the entire middle east, pakistan or rebel russia.

I would never go on a journey that crossed that region.
 
Caporegime
Joined
23 Dec 2011
Posts
32,910
Location
Northern England
Bit of a stretch tbh... might as well blame it on colonialism etc... pretend they have no agency/control over their actions since then... nah tis all down to the evil west because they did something years ago, anything else that happened since then no one can take any blame for.

Waiting for 'but but Crusades'
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Mar 2008
Posts
32,741
Bit of a stretch tbh... might as well blame it on colonialism etc... pretend they have no agency/control over their actions since then... nah tis all down to the evil west because they did something years ago, anything else that happened since then no one can take any blame for.

Hardly, we had a direct effect on the rise of the Islamic revolution in Iran with actions years prior, to pretend otherwise is farcical, this isn't ancient history either, some people are still alive from then.

Lack of understanding is why there are several hundred dead British soldiers and several thousands suffering, just thinking that Iran has no justification for **** is unhelpful, and leads us precisely nowhere in resolving it. It's a bit like like wondering why Germany went for a second world war since we gave them such a 'good' deal in Versailles.

That doesn't mean Iran should get away with continued aggression, we don't rightly have to put up with it, so we shouldn't, but that doesn't stop them having a valid agitation at the West even if it was a paternal sin. One can only hope Iranians can find a way to end their own torment without handing it to another demagogue, thankfully the likely person that would have been (Soleimani) is dead, so that's a bonus. The tit-for-tat does Iran no good, nor the does it do anything for the West either.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2006
Posts
23,304
Bit of a stretch tbh... might as well blame it on colonialism etc... pretend they have no agency/control over their actions since then... nah tis all down to the evil west because they did something years ago, anything else that happened since then no one can take any blame for.

I blame the Romans.

Waiting for 'but but Crusades'

Thing is the crusades started as a response to the Moors attacking Europe :D
 
Caporegime
Joined
25 Jul 2005
Posts
28,851
Location
Canada
There has been regional conflicts, but within the area of EU integration, there has been no war since 1945.

I didn’t say the EU, I said Europe.

There have been plenty of wars in Europe since WW2, heck, even one going on now in Ukraine. Obviously that doesn’t directly affect flight paths over Western Europe, but neither does a war in one part of the Middle East directly affect the ability of planes to fly over another part.
 
Caporegime
Joined
25 Jul 2005
Posts
28,851
Location
Canada
Which was in response to continued Iranian attacks...

Which was in response to continued American attacks...

really want to go back to this argument?

We get it, you’d fit in well with the hardliners in washington and Tehran that seem to think nothing is their fault and it’s all the other sides fault...

Edit: The fact is the “hot” war started with the US directly targeting and killing an Israeli general. That resulted in retaliation from Iran and the potential for a rocket attack on Tehran and jumpy trigger fingers for AA guns in the area.
 
Last edited:
Caporegime
Joined
25 Jul 2005
Posts
28,851
Location
Canada
It doesnt matter whether we cause the war or dont cause it. Or whether its USA fault or not. If there is a risk of someone being able to get hold of missiles (try doing that in Britain) then its a no fly zone. Simple. We should not be flying over the entire middle east, pakistan or rebel russia.

I would never go on a journey that crossed that region.

Or South/Central America, Eastern Europe, SE Asia/Korean peninsular...

Perhaps we should route all planes up and down the Atlantic and pacific over Antarctica, and not take off or land in most countries in the world?
 
Man of Honour
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
29,509
Location
Surrey
Or South/Central America, Eastern Europe, SE Asia/Korean peninsular...

Perhaps we should route all planes up and down the Atlantic and pacific over Antarctica, and not take off or land in most countries in the world?
Too risky. Malaysian Airways flight 370 tried flying only over the ocean and look what happened there.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Jun 2004
Posts
19,437
Location
On the Amiga500
The ME has long seen conflict way before we were ever involved. In some instances the West have exacerbated situations and then in others they've rectified. One thing is for certain though, whether the West is involved or not, the ME will be in conflict, particularly due to the power struggle of Saudi and Persia.
 
Caporegime
Joined
29 Jan 2008
Posts
58,898
Waiting for 'but but Crusades'

Lol surprised the Iranian apologists haven’t gone back that far already tbh... :D

Bottom line is Iran was actively attacking US & Coalition forces, the US finally takes direct action in a surgical strike against the guys directly responsible for it, Iran has a fit, ends up with dead civilians thanks to poor crowd control, poorly coordinated air defence. And the usual suspects are like... but but the west/merica...
 
Permabanned
Joined
28 Nov 2009
Posts
2,582
Location
İzmir
It's interesting to see the different responses from both countries.

With the US Vincennes incident, the US never apologised. Then slapped a medal on the Captain to add insult.

Iran have apologised and are bringing those responsible to court. Of course let's see what happens to them.

Both tragic mistakes in a time of war. The responses however are telling.

Has Britain ever apologised for stealing Iran's oil and for overthrowing its democratically elected government? Both of those things happened within living memory, and both are big reasons why we've come to this situation.

Iran's oil was once under control of Britain. After Mossadegh nationalised Iran's oil (because Britain refused to share with Iran), Britain approached America for help, but the British instigated and were full partners in the overthrow. Obviously the overthrow was successful, and Britain continued its economic rape of Iran for a while longer...until Khomeini & co's takeover. The latter was largely just a reaction to Britain and America's crimes.
 
Associate
Joined
18 Jul 2015
Posts
439
Location
London
Well it was deliberately fired at a plane, it was very likely the result of a mistake (believing the plane was hostile/American) though.
Could it be the case that the missile was programmed to visit the American base in Iraq but encountered something more immediate so decided to take it out.

If that was an American plane with American passengers.... its goodnight Vienna.
 
Back
Top Bottom