"Monte Davis" wrote in message
...
"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

An airliner on a course that approaching a US ship in a hostile zone...

A regularly scheduled commercial airliner...

Its course, schedule, transponder freq etc. in IATA publications
routinely distributed around the world (and routinely consulted by the
US armed forces, if not by Capt. Rogers)...

In a "zone" which the US had made no attempt to close to civilian air
traffic, and which the same flight (as well as hundreds of other
airliners, from Iran and a score of other countries) had routinely
transited numerous times before during that period.

I guess if you want to split hairs, it's more excusable than KAL 007
in that we didn't actually have fighters shadowing it before we
attacked. But neither incident was anything other than shameful.


There's no doubt the wrong decision was made. My point is that the wrong
decision was made in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

In the case of KAL 007 there was no immediate threat. In point of fact the
aircraft was leaving the area.

There was plenty of time during the engagement to make the decision NOT to
shoot it down. They chose to anyway.

In the case of the Iranian airliner, the USS Vincennes had just been engaged
in a firefight with Iranian gunboats within the previous hour. Also it was
as I understand it, 27 minutes late in its take-off, so while regularly
scheduled it was not flying at the time it normally would have been.

The Vincennes never made visual contact with the target (which is not
necessarily unusual in cases like this).
The Soviets HAD visual contact with the target and still shot it down.

In addition the US also compensated the families to the tune of $61.8
million. (granted, w/o admitting fault).

The Soviets as far as I know never made any such attempt.


So yes, both are tragic, but I'm more inclined to lay a far greater guilt
upon the Soviets.