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Everything posted by Gurn
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I think he could be the winger that Horvat is missing.
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Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner
Gurn replied to CBH1926's topic in Off-Topic General
wonder if Drumpf gets product placement money, like in the movies? -
Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner
Gurn replied to CBH1926's topic in Off-Topic General
Here is a story that will make many question 'what the Americans say" https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2017/07/03/the-forgotten-us-shootdown-of-iranian-airliner-flight-655/ "On the rare occasions the US mainstream media refer to the US shootdown of an Iranian airliner in 1988, they sustain the myth it was simply a "mistake". 'Today marks twenty-nine years since the shootdown by the USS Vincennes of Iran Air flight 655, which killed all of the plane’s 290 civilian passengers. This shootdown of a civilian airliner by a US naval ship occurred on July 3, 1988, toward the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq War." " This incident is, of course, something that the people of Iran well remember. Americans who rely on the US mainstream media, on the other hand, would have to be forgiven for never having heard about it. Furthermore, in the rare instances when the media do mention it, to this day they tend to maintain official US government falsehoods about what occurred and otherwise omit relevant details that would inform Americans about what really happened. The lack of mention of the incident or, when it is mentioned, the deceptive reporting about what occurred illustrates an institutionalized bias in the media. The consequence is that Americans seeking to understand US-Iran relations today fail to grasp a key historical event that has helped to define that relationship. How the Mainstream Media Report the US Shootdown of Flight 655 If one does a quick Google search for relevant keywords specific to the shootdown, only a handful of US mainstream media reports turn up on first-page results. Max Fisher in the Washington Post wrote a piece about it several years ago, appropriately titled “The Forgotten story of Iran Air Flight 655”. For context, Fisher asserted that “the Vincennes was exchanging fire with small Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf.” As explanation for how the Vincennes “mistook the lumbering Airbus A300 civilian airliner for a much smaller and faster F-14 fighter jet”, Fisher suggested it was “perhaps” due to “the heat of battle” or “perhaps because the flight allegedly did not identify itself.” " The Washington Examiner a couple years ago ran a piece with the headline “Iran says 1988 airliner shootdown is why U.S. can’t be trusted”. The author, Charles Hoskinson, stated simply that “An investigation revealed that the cruiser’s crew mistook the airliner for an attacking F-14 fighter jet while involved in a confrontation with Iranian gunboats.” Fred Kaplan in Slate noted in a 2014 piece that the incident “is almost completely forgotten” (at least in the US). His article was appropriately subtitled “The time the United States blew up a passenger plane—and covered it up.” As a journalist who had reported on the incident at the time and challenged the US government’s official story, Kaplan noted that “American officials told various lies” intended to blame the Iranians for the tragedy. ' The government had claimed that the Vincennes was in international waters at the time, that the plane was flying “outside of the prescribed commercial air route” and descending at the “high speed” of 450 knots directly toward the Vincennes, and that the plane’s transponder was squawking a code over a military channel. In truth, the Vincennes was in Iran’s territorial waters, the plane was ascending through 12,000 feet at 380 knots within the established commercial air route, and its transponder was squawking the plane’s identity over a civilian channel. Like Fisher and Hoskinson, however, Kaplan nevertheless maintained the US government’s narrative that “the Iranian Airbus A300 wandered into a naval skirmish” and on that basis characterized it as a “horrible mistake”. These are the only three examples from within the past decade that appeared in initial search results for various relevant keywords at the time of this writing. It’s also helpful see how America’s “newspaper of record”, the New York Times, has reported it over the years, by searching its online archives. Doing various related keyword searches at the New York Times website turns up a smattering of articles. Without going further back, a November 1988 piece acknowledged that, contrary to the US government’s claims, “Flight 655 was behaving normally for a commercial jet”. The Times nevertheless maintained the government’s official line that “Iranian [air traffic] tower officials clearly are guilty of not listening to the dozens of radio warnings broadcast by the Navy and ordering the airliner to change course”. The following month, the Times revealed that this attempt to blame the Iranians was also untruthful. As the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) determined in an investigation of the incident, seven of the eleven warnings issued by the Americans “were transmitted on a military channel that was inaccessible to the airliner crew.” The other four were transmitted on the international civil aviation distress frequency. Of these, only one, transmitted by the USS Sides “39 seconds before the Vincennes fired, was of sufficient clarity that it might have been ‘instantly recognizable’ to the airliner as being directed at it.” The Times nevertheless sustained the US government’s narrative that Iran was at least partly to blame by “allowing an airliner to fly into the area at the time when warships were involved in an intense battle with Iranian gunboats.” WHOLE BUNCH OF PARAGRAPHS THAT WON"T CUT AND PASTE THEN THE CONCLUSION " Conclusion The US shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 receives only rare mentions in the US mainstream media despite being a key incident in the history of the US’s relations with Iran that serves as critical context for understanding how Iranians today view the US government. When it is mentioned, the media’s tendency is to characterize the mass killing as an honest “mistake”, resulting from an action any other country’s navy would have taken if put in the same position. Although it has long been known that the US government’s account of the incident was a pack of lies, the US media to this day characterize it as though the resulting death of civilians was just an unfortunate consequence of war. When Max Fisher wrote in in the Washington Post in 2013 that “the Vincennes was exchanging fire with small Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf”, it is hard to fathom that he was unaware that the US warship was in Iranian waters; and yet he declined to relay that critical piece of information to his readers. It is equally hard to fathom that he was unaware it was the Vincennes that initiated hostilities; yet this fact, too, he omitted. Fisher also unquestioningly parroted the US government’s claim that the Vincennes’ crew “mistook” the plane for an F-14, which he attributed either to “the heat of battle” or the plane’s failure to identify itself It may be true that, as the naval investigation determined, Captain Rogers imagined it to be an F-14. Yet, as Lieutenant Colonel David Evans wrote in the US Naval Institute’s Proceedings Magazine in August 1993, the information received by the American ships from the plane’s transponder unambiguously identified it as an ascending commercial aircraft. “Both Captain Rogers and Captain Carlson,” Evans noted in his essay, “had this information.” It is no less hard to fathom how Fisher could have been unaware of the fact that Flight 655 had been squawking its identify as a civilian aircraft, something even the most precursory research into the incident would have revealed to him. It is therefore difficult to escape the conclusion that Max Fisher’s purpose in writing was not to educate Americans about what happened, but to sustain the central myth that the shootdown was merely an unfortunate accident of the kind that happens in the fog of war. He was, in other words, dutifully serving his role as a propagandist. Charles Hoskinson in his 2015 Washington Examiner piece was hardly more forthcoming. Fred Kaplan was far more forthcoming in his Slate piece from three years ago; yet even in the face of his own contrary evidence, he still preserved the central myth that the shootdown was merely a “mistake” resulting from Iran Air Flight 655 having “wandered into a naval skirmish”. This is the same false narrative that America’s “newspaper of record” maintains on those rare occasions when the incident receives a passing mention. The real story, in sum, is as follows: Twenty-nine years ago, on July 3, 1988, US warships entered Iranian waters and initiated hostilities with Iranian vessels. The consoles of the radar operators aboard the USS Vincennes at the time unambiguously showed an aircraft ascending within a commercial corridor in Iranian airspace, with the plane’s transponder signaling its identity as a commercial aircraft. Captain Rogers nevertheless ordered his gunner to open fire on the plane, shooting it out of the sky and killing the 290 civilians on board. Subsequently, rather than being held accountable for committing a war crime, Rogers and his entire crew received awards for their actions. Like Captain Rogers, the mainstream media establishment seems to suffer from institutional “scenario fulfillment”, in which this action did not constitute a war crime or, at best, an act of international terrorism. In the case of the media, the preconceived notion is that the US is an exceptional nation whose government is sometimes capable of “mistakes”, but only ever acts out of benevolent intent. It is an assumption that, while deemed axiomatic by the mainstream media establishment, is no less self-delusional than Captain Rogers’ imaginary scenario of this “forgotten” episode in US-Iran relations. This article was adapted largely from material presented on pages 349-350 of the author’s book Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. See the book’s references for additional resources. -
Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner
Gurn replied to CBH1926's topic in Off-Topic General
strange how 'The Americans increasingly believe" becomes "the plane WAS shot down". -
[Signing] Hurricanes sign Justin Williams
Gurn replied to -Vintage Canuck-'s topic in Trades, Rumours, Signings
do you know of any other 38 year old, having missed training camp and half a season, that actually helped on a team he just signed with? I don't. Guy was a very good playoff performer, what is he now? time will tell. -
[Signing] Hurricanes sign Justin Williams
Gurn replied to -Vintage Canuck-'s topic in Trades, Rumours, Signings
Agreed. Yep. No training in the off season that we know of, no training camp and missed half the year. The odds of this working out are low, very low. -
Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner
Gurn replied to CBH1926's topic in Off-Topic General
Understandable, Iran is currently having great difficulty with the U.S. Why give a U.S. based company, that is heavily involved in the U.S. military anything. It tells me that a lot of people like to jump to conclusions, usually because it is the only exercise they get, other than their typing fingers. -
[Discussion] - Nashville “Open” for Business
Gurn replied to laddie's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
My first 3peat. -
[Discussion] - Nashville “Open” for Business
Gurn replied to laddie's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
People might want to wait till Shea Weber's contract is over before declaring a winner. Guy will be 40 in 2025/26 making $7,857,143 P.K.'s contract ends after the 21/22 season, he will be 32 and getting $9 mill a year. -
[Discussion] - Nashville “Open” for Business
Gurn replied to laddie's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
People might want to wait till Shea Weber's contract is over before declaring a winner. Guy will be 40 in 2025/26 making $7,857,143 P.K.'s contract ends after the 21/22 season, he will be 32 and getting $9 mill a year. -
[Discussion] - Nashville “Open” for Business
Gurn replied to laddie's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
People might want to wait till Shea Weber's contract is over before declaring a winner. Guy will be 40 in 2025/26 making $7,857,143 P.K.'s contract ends after the 21/22 season, he will be 32 and getting $9 mill a year. -
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He was out there.
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[PGT] New York Rangers at Vancouver Canucks | Jan. 04, 2020
Gurn replied to -Vintage Canuck-'s topic in Canucks Talk
Gino, looking a bit like Pat Quinn. So good to see him living life, long after what was suspected to be his last ever hospital stay.