The Polish President and numerous top officials died aboard a TU-154 while trying to land at Smolensk airbase.He was on his way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre which took place in the woods near that city. Lech Kaczyński “was an activist in the pro-democratic anti-Communist movement in Poland … During the martial law introduced by the communists in December, 1981, he was interned as an anti-socialist element. After his release from internment, he returned to trade union activities, becoming a member of the underground Solidarity.” A BBC blog soliciting reader reactions said “Mr Kaczynski has been a controversial figure in Polish politics, advocating a right-wing Catholic agenda.”
The New York Times described him as “a source of tension within the EU”. It described him as a firm believer in close military ties with the US, an arrangement which Kaczyński believed would keep his powerful neighbor at bay.
As soon as he took office in the presidential headquarters in the center of Warsaw, Mr. Kaczynski forged very close relations with Ukraine and Georgia, determined to bring them closer to NATO and eventually have them admitted to the American-led military organization.
But his staunch defense of these two countries often upset leading members of the E.U., especially Germany, which was concerned that an expanded NATO would threaten Russia, or lead to new East-West tensions….
He lobbied hard for the United States to deploy part of its controversial anti-ballistic missile shield in Poland, believing it would add to Poland’s security vis-à-vis Russia. Such plans, supported by President George W. Bush, were scaled back by President Obama.
Dozens of important Polish officials died with him. Among those in the crash were Poland’s first lady, the head of the National Security Bureau, the Chief of the Polish Army General Staff, the President of the National Bank of Poland and the Bishop of the Military Ordinariate of the Polish Army. In terms of loss it is a miniature of the decapitation event he gone to commemorate: the Katyn Massacre.
After Poland went down before the onslaught of Nazi and Soviet forces in 1939-40, Joseph Stalin and Lavrenty Beria decided to decapitate the country’s society. Since the Polish army required all university graduates to become reserve officers, the NKVD decided to kill two birds with one stone and eliminate the both the trained military manpower of Poland and its “intelligensia”. In 1940 the Communists shot more than 22,000 Polish officers in woods near Smolensk. These included an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, seven chaplains, three landowners, a prince, 20 university professors, hundeds of physicians lawyers, engineers and teachers, more than 100 writers and journalists among others.
In true Bolshevik style, there was a cover story: the Soviets claimed the Nazis did it. But although the Nazis were guilty of many other crimes, Katyn was not one of them. “In April 1943, when the Polish government-in-exile insisted on bringing the matter to the negotiation table with the Soviets and on an investigation by the International Red Cross, Stalin accused the Polish government in exile of collaborating with Nazi Germany, broke diplomatic relations with it, and started a campaign to get the Western Allies to recognize the alternative Polish pro-Soviet government in Moscow led by Wanda Wasilewska.” That government in exile continued until the end of Communist rule in Poland in 1990. In one of the crash’s cruel ironies of the accident, the last Polish President in Exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski, was onboard the doomed aircraft.
Two days ago, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the first “became the first Russian leader to ever commemorate the Katyn massacres with a Polish leader [Prime Minister Donald Tusk]“. But Putin stopped short of opening the archives on the subject, which are still sealed. According to Russian sources, the Polish Presidential plane clipped the trees short of the runway as it tried to land in foggy conditions.
Damien Thompson, editor of the Telegraph Blogs says “the conspiracy theorists will go crazy … because Poland, like most East European countries, is obsessed with conspiracies … these explanations are so much more emotionally satisfying to traumatised people than the likely truth: that the Polish politicians – like so many politicians in less developed countries – were accustomed to risking their lives in dodgy planes.”
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If this is enemy action, I doubt the ghosts of Katyn will be silenced.I’m sure Putin will shed copious crocodile tears.
Perhaps in the future the Poles should acquire a “Poland One” to move their head of state around.
The fact that Putin is heading up the investigation will only make it look to a lot of people like a whitewash.
If the perception takes hold that the current Russian government is only going through the motions of pretending to be civilized while behaving like gangsters, what will be the effect on its relations with the rest of the world, particularly the West? Will Obama care? And if it wasn’t an accident, and Polish foreign policy will not change now, then what was the objective? Sheer intimidation? And if so, why now?
The plane used by the president on Saturday, a Tupolev-154 which was at least 20 years old, had taken off from Warsaw. It crashed into trees during its approach to Smolensk and burst into flames. A Polish government spokesperson said there had been fog in the area. According to press reports, the pilots of the plane attempted to land four times.
…
According to the Associated Press, the Aviation Safety Network has reported that there have been 66 crashes involving Tu-154 jets, including six in the past five years. Russian flag carrier airline Aeroflot recently withdrew the aircraft from its fleet.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,688258,00.html
“I notice when you get to dislikin’ someone they ain’t around for long neither.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,688258,00.html
“Earlier reports stated that 132 people died in the crash, but the Polish Foreign Ministry is now reporting that 96 people died, of whom 88 were part of the Polish delegation.
The plane used by the president on Saturday, a Tupolev-154 which was at least 20 years old, had taken off from Warsaw. It crashed into trees during its approach to Smolensk and burst into flames. A Polish government spokesperson said there had been fog in the area. According to press reports, the pilots of the plane attempted to land four times”
Wow. A mini-Katyn on the way to a Katyn memorial.
According to the flight manifest onboard were among others:
* Lech Kaczyñski, the President of Poland
* Maria Kaczyñska, the first lady
* Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last President of the Polish government-in-exile
* Jerzy Szmajdziñski, Deputy Speaker of the Sejm
* W³adys³aw Stasiak, Chief of the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
* Aleksander Szczyg³o, head of the National Security Bureau
* Pawe³ Wypych, Secretary of State in the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
* Mariusz Handzlik, Undersecretary of State in the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
* Andrzej Kremer, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
* General Franciszek G¹gor, Chief of the Polish Army General Staff
* Andrzej PrzewoŸnik, Secretary-General of Rada Ochrony Pamiêci Walk i Mêczeñstwa
* Grzegorz Dolniak, member of the Sejm
* Przemys³aw Gosiewski, member of the Sejm
* Zbigniew Wassermann, member of the Sejm
* Janusz Kochanowski, Polish Ombudsman
* S³awomir Skrzypek, President of the National Bank of Poland
* Janusz Kurtyka, Historian and president of the Institute of National Remembrance
* Tadeusz P³oski, Bishop of the Military Ordinariate of the Polish Army
* Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, member of the Sejm
* Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz, member of the Sejm
* Aleksandra Natalli-Œwiat, member of the Sejm
Gen. Bronislaw Kwiatkowski (Commander Operations)
Gen. Andrew Blasik (Air Force Commander in Chief)
Gen. Tadeusz Buk (Commander of Land Forces)
Gen. Wojciech Potasinski (Commander of Special Forces)
Vice Admiral Andrzej Karweta (Commander in Chief of the Polish Navy)
Gen. Casimir Gilarski (Commander, Training)
which approach was in use: i.e., ILS (a precision approach), GPS (quasi-precision), or a non-precision approach (NDB,VOR,LOC, etc)…is there a flight data recorder, and will it show the actual data. A CAT-I ILS permits a decision height of 200′ above the ground (AGL), CAT-II and CAT-III, etc, ILS permits even closer approach all the way to Zero-Zero is properly equipped, certified, and trained. Non-precision approaches generally will get you to 400 – 600 AGL where you must be able to see the runway “environment” to descend further. “Clipping Trees” implies descent below 200′. Lost a buddy this way clipping the tallest tree on a hill about 4 miles from the threshold — did he bust the minimumns…probably. — furthermore, AC had, at least two altimeters, where they set to current baro pressure, and were they recently calibrated. Did the AC have a radar altimeter? Did the AC have GPS?
I’ve always heard that it is best to avoid Aeroflot whenever possible. Fly in but take a train, bus, or taxi, if you want to improve your odds of making it back. The international flight safety has “improved” but internal flights are “in transition.”
@ #6 – Don’t forget Anna Walentynowicz.
From wikipedia: Anna Walentynowicz (b. August 13, 1929 in Równe, d. April 10, 2010 in a plane crash near Smolensk) was a Polish free trade union activist. Her firing in August 1980 was the event that led to the strike in the Gdansk Shipyard that paralyzed the Baltic coast and led to the giant wave of strikes in Poland and eventually the creation of Solidarity, of which she became a prominent member. By September nearly a million workers were on strike in support of the twenty one demands, making it the largest strike ever.
This whole incident is one of the greatest tragedies that has ever happened to Poland, definitely at least in my lifetime. In one fell swoop the public life of Poland has been altered forever. My heart goes out to the People of Poland.
Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła,Kiedy my żyjemy.. (Poland has not perished yet, So long as we still live)
I do not have time for a long comment, because I am about to leave to be a delegate at our county Republican convention; but I want to say this:
1) While the morale blow to Poland is huge, losing their President; the government is still intact since it is run by their Prime Minister. If Prime Minister Tusk is still on Russian soil, one of the first priorities should be to get him home safely.
2) The blow to Polish National Security has been devastating. I hope the deputies at all levels are good people and up to speed. Even if nothing happens for the next couple of months, the Polish armed forces are going to be operating at less than ideal efficiency because of this.
3) No death of any Polish official on Russian soil is EVER non-suspicious, by its nature and the relationship between the two nations for centuries, let alone in the last century.
4) Having the deaths investigated by a former agent of the successor to those who perpetrated the Katyn Forest Massacre is not something that enhances belief in the accidential nature of the crash.
5) Poland knows it stands alone. It has no allies who will stand with it against Russian pressure. The United States abandoned Poland when Buraq unilaterally cancelled the missile defense agreement. One does wonder about any un-recorded codicils of the recent treaty he signed with Russia disarming us; codicils about Russian borders and spheres of influence.
As a passing note, if I was the Polish Prime Minister, I would make sure that no one from Russia or the United States was at the state funerals; because it would be an insult to the dead and the Polish nation.
6) The Polish people have always been strong, determined, and dedicated to their nation’s freedom. Each generation in this world has to face its challenges. For Poland, it always seems to come just a little ahead of the rest of the Western world. May this generation of Poles be worthy of their forebears, and may our generation not disgrace itself under the current regime.
7) #9 Sobieski, may I offer my condolences at this terrible time?
Subotai Bahadur
Second try. I forgot to uncheck the [multiple expletives deleted] automatic subscription until after I had hit submit and before it posted. Everything went away at that point, so I am trying again. If this turns into a double post, my apologies but I don’t have time to wait.
—————-
I do not have time for a long comment, because I am about to leave to be a delegate at our county Republican convention; but I want to say this:
1) While the morale blow to Poland is huge, losing their President; the government is still intact since it is run by their Prime Minister. If Prime Minister Tusk is still on Russian soil, one of the first priorities should be to get him home safely.
2) The blow to Polish National Security has been devastating. I hope the deputies at all levels are good people and up to speed. Even if nothing happens for the next couple of months, the Polish armed forces are going to be operating at less than ideal efficiency because of this.
3) No death of any Polish official on Russian soil is EVER non-suspicious, by its nature and the relationship between the two nations for centuries, let alone in the last century.
4) Having the deaths investigated by a former agent of the successor to those who perpetrated the Katyn Forest Massacre is not something that enhances belief in the accidential nature of the crash.
5) Poland knows it stands alone. It has no allies who will stand with it against Russian pressure. The United States abandoned Poland when Buraq unilaterally cancelled the missile defense agreement. One does wonder about any un-recorded codicils of the recent treaty he signed with Russia disarming us; codicils about Russian borders and spheres of influence.
As a passing note, if I was the Polish Prime Minister, I would make sure that no one from Russia or the United States was at the state funerals; because it would be an insult to the dead and the Polish nation.
6) The Polish people have always been strong, determined, and dedicated to their nation’s freedom. Each generation in this world has to face its challenges. For Poland, it always seems to come just a little ahead of the rest of the Western world. May this generation of Poles be worthy of their forebears, and may our generation not disgrace itself under the current regime.
7) #9 Sobieski, may I offer my condolences at this terrible time?
Subotai Bahadur
On first examination there may be a series of errors that culminated with this crash. There well be reverberations well into the future,
1. Way to many top level officials on one plane.
2. Crew training and abilities? I don’t know.
3. Condition and capabilities of the aircraft? I don’t know.
4. Airfield ILS equipment and condition? I don’t know.
5. ATC personnel abilities and training? I don’t know.
If you want my opinion I don’t think this was an intentional act be the Russians. This would be really heavy handed even for them. If any or all fault lies with the airport equipment or ATC personnel I don’t think they will admit it.
Prayers to the victims.
@ #10 Wretchard – The situation that you’ve lived through is very touching to me. My parents became a part of the Polish diaspora that fled Poland in the 80′s. Despite being so far away from the homeland, they – along with many others like them – put in great effort to support and organize for Solidarity abroad, so as a child I grew up around people not unlike Anna. While I didn’t know the significance of it all back then, I can’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for what they were able to accomplish. A great precedent has been set in the pursuit of freedom.
I will have to track down a copy of “Man of Iron”. Heck, my mom probably has an old VHS copy lying around somewhere collecting dust. She always did collect stuff like that in hopes that I might one day watch them when I grew older. I suppose now is a better time than any. The memory lives on..
@#11 Subotai – I really appreciate it. Tonight a nation mourns.
The worst happens. The terrible ifs accumulate. Will people submit quietly or choose to go down fighting?
If the Polish people en masse demand the expulsion of Russian agents and if the people of the Czech Republic follow then maybe the wolves can be faced down. The deliberate and provocative humiliation of the Czechs that Putin engineered by holding his victory lap in Prague of all places should have brought out a million man mob. For the Poles, the Czechs, the Israelis, the Indians, the Columbians etc, there is no upside in submitting. There are agents of liberty and there are agents of slavery. For over a hundred years the left has expropriated the imagery and emotional content of freedom to advance the interests that represents the true oligarchs. We need to take the symbols back from them. Solidarity showed the way.
Which side are you on boys?
I suppose this could have been a bizarre mishap. I doubt it, but it is possible.
This looks bad.
Who could this be? Who could have the motivation, the means, and the audacity?
This must be thoroughly investigated. Let us not jump to conclusions. We must consider the idea that somebody other than the usual suspects may have done this.
Let us hope investigators find the truth.
A joint effort at forensics between the west and the east is the only way to ensure transparency in the crash investigation. To have Putin take charge of it is troubling, to say the least.
All thoughts and prayers to Poland, especially relatives and close friends of the departed.
This is quite obviously an outrageous crime. In one stroke, Putin has now beheaded a government that was abandoned by the USA and has territories he would like to reclaim for Russia. How could he resist? No one on the face of the earth would stop him. He could either have taken years to destabilize Poland and reconquer it, or do what he has done. It is the move of a ruthless man–the kind who poisons and murders his opponents. We are in greater danger than we can imagine. It is the first fruits of Obama’s horrible foreign policy. What can be next?
May these poor people rest in peace. May we wake up from our own ignorant and complacent torpor.
It’s highly doubtful we will ever know the truth of this crash. It does however cement one aviation saying.
There’s nothing as useless as the sky above you
I do however get the feeling that there is some tremendous slippage in the West while our adversaries of the not so distant past are gaining unbelieveable traction, much of which we can attribute to our Marxist president.
Additionally the mid term elections could severly harm the current administration but Washington is a sh*t hole of bureaucratic sponges who now out number the US workers in the manufacturing sector. That must be addressed but of course never will be. They are too entrenched to possibly root out. Government employees should be barred from unionizing. If that remains and gains it is one more causa causans, ( an initiating cause)for the civil war we are headed for.
But then the horizon is a clouded conflict waiting to burst forth. Anyone see a silver lining in the next ten years in any aspect on this increasingly tragic, farcical, and deadly globe?
Okay,
So Putin says he will be at this years commemoration of the massacre. (This insures that all the Polish officials will be there to see such an event).
It would be difficult, but not impossible to arrange things so there was only one flight that was convenient to transport all the Poles to the event.
Blowing up planes in flight is easy, as we all know.
How do you arrange the fog?????
Crash site already scrubbed. A plane coming down for other reasons will clip trees. Thick fog isn’t uncommon for the area this time of year, (controlled) Russian controllers tell us what happened, the irony is too big and calamity too catastrophic to look like sabotage that would normally shy away from inviting world attention (or so rational people believe), and so plausible deniability. Why was old equipment picked for transporting
such an important contingent? That this tragedy is so convenient to Putin’s Russia is a close Occam shave.
Christ, may those Poles rest in peace, somehow.
I’ve been to that memorial, the air around thick with the clarity of betrayal and blood.
programmer,
There would have been two chances at the fog cover (god forgive that choice of words) story- coming and going. Also, the plane might have developed engine trouble were the weather not cooperating, as a back-up plan.
Was the pilot drunk?
Somebody ought to investigate who the pilot was. This really smells of gangsterism. The wolves are sharpening their claws. Is our president an incompetent boy uncomfortably wearing man’s clothes or is he worse, a Manchurian stooge who unlocks the gate and lets the wolves in? Either way, it’s horrid news to wake up to on Saturday morning. You have to feel the plight of the ex- Soviet slave states of eastern Europe now betrayed by the West. God help us all.
1. Who is going to say there wasn’t fog? No survivors.
2. The One is not going to jeopardize his agreement with the Russians now, by allowing bad things to be said against our new friends the Russians. The timing is impeccable.
3. Sadly even the Poles were hoodwinked. Are socialist states familiar with the provisions of key man insurance? Oh wonder, the Russians are finally owning up to the Katyn Forest Massacre, Stash. We must celebrate the world is changing, President Obama says so.
4. Setting a bomb off in a low-flying plane won’t get picked up by a camera.
5. What a great lesson pour d’autres in that part of the world.
Here’s a video of the wreckage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzDCK6nPfJ4&feature=player_embedded#
The people on board didn’t have a chance. My condolences go out to their families and friends.
…Shades of July 4, 1943 , and another Polish leader killed in a plane crash, Genl. Sikorski.
Frankly, Putin’s name on the investigation looks more like a badge of advertisement that they did it than merely “suspicious”. They want it believed that they were responsible.
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”. Maybe it was just a plane crash. It says a lot about the state of things that so many people leap to another conclusion but…
Who controls the air controllers who ‘guided’ the plane in for the landing?
5. Marie Claude
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,688258,00.html
A Polish government spokesperson said there had been fog in the area. According to press reports, the pilots of the plane attempted to land four times”
…..
It might be helpful to know something about the pilot.
how to fly IFR well
A License to Learn
The hard part of IFR flight after obtaining your rating is not the flying so much as surviving while you fill all the experience gaps not covered in your training. The last level of achievement will be in acquiring the confidence needed to fly IFR alone. Competent IFR pilots do not crash, often.
……..
There are more pieces needed to the info above. As to the air incident in the USA–
According to shepard smith last night the Qatari diplomat on the way to visiting the AQ guy in colorado maximum security–was smoking a dubie — and not a cigarette — in the bathroom of the plane. (Therefor the weed would make his sense of humor — make sense.)Flight attendant sees middle eastern guy enter the bathroom at the back of the plane. In moments the smell of smoke/weed starts filling the cabin. Flight attendant knocks on the bathroom door. “What’s going on in there.” Dubai junior diplomat opens the door and smiles brilliantly at the flight attendant. “I’ve lit a bomb in my shoe.” The flight attendant radio’s that and the seat number to the captain where he relays the info to whoever/agency. They scramble the jets. Was it a doobie? Scramble the jets definitely. The Qataris at first publicly complain and then when they get the details of the story–quickly hustle the junior diplomat out of the country.
Lee Kuan Yew once commented that the entire critical leadership of Singapore could be fitted into a single 747. Times have slightly improved in that we now have enough key people to fit in two, but there’s such an overriding paranoia of losing too many of our leaders in a single incident/accident that it’s long been my country’s policy to avoid squeezing too many top leaders into a single plane.
And they fly commercial at times too.
#17:
I doubt Putin did this.
Who has the motivation? Who has the means? Who has the audacity?
Who would have the desire to be remembered in the history books for such a deed? Who thinks he can get away with murder? Who has the hubris to think he would be admired for this?
Do you really think Putin has the audacity to do such a thing?
All of the landing systems can be dithered ( interfered with). GPS can be jammed locally with a low powered transmitter, barometric pressure can be misstated by the tower, ILS systems can be distorted in any number of ways. You don’t need a bomb, which would leave various traces. You don’t need a sucidial pilot, you just need a small set of techs who have knowledge and Bobs your uncle, one crashed Tu-154. No fuss, no muss, just one more tragic accident. I’m so sorry Uncle Albert.
#13 Sobieski
Dear Sobieski,
Those of us who were fortunate enough to be taught American history B.P.C. (before political correctness) will not forget Casimir Pulaski (1745-1779), a Polish nobleman who came to America to fight in the Continental Army during the Revolution. Washington promoted him to brigadier general of the American cavalry. After Pulaski died following the battle of Savannah in 1779, Washington issued a challenge-and-response set of passwords for November 1779 to identify soldiers crossing military lines: Query: Pulaski. Response: Poland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski
My sincere condolences to you also.
Realistically, it was most likely an accident.
Sobieski,
Condolences to you and the Polish people.
Some of our Polish friends
Special thanks to Wikipedia.:-)
Buddy and I were busy chewing this over in the wee hours of the morning on the Means and Ends thread.
History, including fairly recent history, is going to have every Pole in the world thinking conspiracy. Ditto for a lot of their neighbors. Putin and Medevev need to show a whole lot of uncharacteristic humility and show it muy pronto. Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton need to keep their traps shut and shut tight.
The geo-politcal scene is not like that of the Katyn Forest, which was an atrocity comitted after hostilities were already underway. It is much more like Saravejo in August of 1914. Back then, the lack of a dominant force in Europe led to innumerable multilateral entanglements. Then a trivial unforseen event started an uncontrollable chain reaction that nobody could stop. We are still paying the price for the 1914-18 “First Half”.
Finally, J. J. Pershing brought some order out of chaos. Then the POTUS, a narcisstic airheaded utopian with a racist streak, rejected the sensible idea of a Anglo-French-American precursor to NATO and insisted on a League of Nations which did the only thing it could do which was sponsor and enable the Second Half.
Since 1945, the United States (in conjunction with friends) has provided that essential element of dominant force and Europe has been (more or less) calm. So the current POTUS is doing his best to eliminate the dominant force and replace it with a series of multilateral entanglements. Europe thus stands a good chance of blowing wild again. The United States needs to effect some internal regime change and then go forth and repair the damage. Hope we can do it in time.
(BTW: According to the late Malachi Martin, Pope John Paul II was convinced that Europe would wind up being the Number One trouble spot. The one that was sure to be uncontrollable. Let us hope His Holiness does not look like a genius.
sobieski: Please put my condolences and prayers in there with Subotai’s and others.
33. Augetter
Hmm your point renders this story impenetrable. Why? Because if the Russian kgb/gru/mafia/whoever wanted to do any of those things they could have done so. Nor would anyone put it past them as they have a history of doing such things. Who killed JFK? What a shame.
there is this one problem with that scenario. it requires competence of the killers rather than the incompetence of the victims. So far the evidence points to the incompetence of the victims. That is, four passes at the airport tends to suggest incompetence from the pilot/air traffic controllers etc. (Yes, I understand the air traffic controllers could have been diabolical and let the plane attempt to land three times before ditching it on the fourth or after three passes or someone with a gps scrambler could have jumped in after the third miss.)
I have been passenger on flights into Asheville airport in North Carolina. That airport is in a valley up in the mountains of north Carolina. Those mountains are the smoky mountains. There is fog there often. Pilots fly in and out of there all the time IFR without incident. Scares me just as a passenger.
Does anyone know an atheist IFR rated pilot? just curious.
how comes, it’s Putin ? Some are too quick to jump on the conclusion that pleases t’em ! it’s not his interest ! Besides no Polish accused Russia for this accident, just it is a lack of chance
“Journalist Marcin Wojciechowski was in the President’s pool of journalists which landed in Smolensk just an hour before the crash. He gave his perspective on what happened.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL6IK4K193M&feature=player_embedded#
as far as the kind of same case, we had an airbus which crashed because of trees at Mont Odile sereral years ago !
39. Marie Claude
how comes, it’s Putin ? Some are too quick to jump on the conclusion that pleases t’em ! it’s not his interest ! Besides no Polish accused Russia for this accident, just it is a lack of chance
…..
ok I give up. what does “lack of chance” mean? Hmm. Ok 15 minutes in starbucks yields this interpretation.
Is this like “luck of the draw”.
Reading the speculations about who Obama will nominate for the Supreme Court. At National Review some are speculating he’ll tack right to try to help embattled Dems in November. I doubt it. I think in his delusional narcissistic posture, he’ll pick the most leftist candidate he can. ( maybe he’ll pick distinguished Northwestern University law professor Bernadine Dohrn). Obama’s reaction to criticism will be, “We won, get over it”
I appreciate the Sarajevo comparison. That was my first thought when reading the news of the plane crash. Intrigues in a tinderbox world.
7. Athorn
‘“Clipping Trees” implies descent below 200′. “
Well, the pilot evidently didn’t know that the trees had grown a couple of feet since the last time he landed there.
OH…he had never landed there before?
Never mind.
papa Ray
This is a terrible tragedy.
As anyone familiar with aviation would say, a 20 year old aircraft is not “old” if properly maintained. Realistically, it probably wasn’t but we probably won’t ever know the truth.
#23 Alexis. Let us answer your questions:
Who has the motivation?
Putin — to assert Russian power over Poland and reverse what he has called the greatest tragedy in history — the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Who has the means?
Putin — he runs the airports and the airlines. He could cause a crash easily.
Who has the audacity?
Putin — the man has brass cojones.
Who would have the desire to be remembered in the history books for such a deed? Who thinks he can get away with murder? Who has the hubris to think he would be admired for this?
Putin, he has pacified Chechnya by extermination.
Do you really think Putin has the audacity to do such a thing?
He could not run Russia, if he did not.
I think that all of the indicators you suggest point at Putin, not away from him.
#9 Sobieski: “This whole incident is one of the greatest tragedies that has ever happened to Poland, definitely at least in my lifetime.”
You must be very young to be able to say that.
@#34 PA Cat – While I am unfortunate enough to have been schooled (and I use that term loosely since I attended a public school) A.P.C., I am familiar with Pulaski. Another interesting Polish patriot which fought in the American Revolution is Kosciuszko, who was head engineer of the Continental Army and good friends with Thomas Jefferson.
His bio on wikipedia is quite interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosciuszko
@36 programmer – I am definitely familiar with GROM
Poland and the U.S. have a long history of friendship.
I appreciate the condolences.
Alexis @32:
“I doubt Putin did this.
Who has the motivation? Who has the means? Who has the audacity?”
I’ve rarely seen such complete self-contradiction in two short sentences.
This was probably just an accident. Unless the plane was retrofitted with a newer Thales or EADS ILS / GPS / flight-recording suite, we’ll probably never know if this was a tragic accident or an even more tragic “event”.
The reason everyone is so skeptical of the accidental nature of this tragedy is exactly because Putin is one of the only people with the audacity, means and motivation to carry such an attack off.
If you were aiming for sarcasm, bravo! It was a classic example. If you were serious, where have you been…forever?
If the plane had a modern fully functional avionics suite and still went in, it will increase the skepticism further.
Time will tell, but I won’t be surpised if the plane had 20+ year old Russian avionics that will tell us nothing except that it was flown into the ground.
@44 Fat Man – I’m an 80′s baby. I’m young enough to not remember where I was during the fall of the Berlin wall. Although I was already born by then, I had interests other than geopolitics at the time, i.e. helping Mario save the princess
@43 Lucy – Apparently the plane had just undergone maintenance. The original source is in Polish so the wiki entry will have to suffice: According to a Polish military magazine the airplane was serviced in December 2009 in Samara and received 5-year/7500-flight-hours warranty; the crash happened just after 138 flight hours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_Tu-154_crash
Thinking while walking my dogs: What period of recent history is like this. While we’ve heard the 1930′s comparisons, few of us were alive then. I can’t help but think of the 1970′s. The sixties were nuts of course with sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, the assassinations, Viet Nam, Woodstock, etc., but the 70′s were out of control. Watergate the palace coup, assassination attempts on Ford, the SLA, Soviet aggression in Africa,the Yom Kippur War, defeatism at home and then the last truly incompetent president, Jimmie Carter. I remember even before my Christian conversion in 1978 feeling a sense of impending doom and a fear we could lose to the USSR.
I remember a song from the mid 70′s by Steely Dan called “Don’t Take Me Live” about a madman besieged by police SWAT teams and it fit the times.
The cup half full aspect of the comparison in 1980 brought Ronald Reagan and “morning in America” it might have been a short respite , but there is hope as long as we remain a people who love and cherish freedom.
Armageddon Rex
Unless the plane was retrofitted with a newer Thales or EADS ILS / GPS /
In the contrary, the Tupolev has not such an equipment, it was a military pilot that absolutly wanted to land on a military airport, and not to derive to the civil airport of Minks, this was more a question of national proundness for him, to not loose the face in front of the Russians and of his president (according to the comments of this french site that where experts of aerian security and catastrophes comment)
http://www.securiteaerienne.com/node/194#comment
Charles #40
“Chance” is French for “luck.”
Sobieski, I too offer my condolences.
This is Katyn Massacre II. Answer the classical question: “Who benefits?”
The Pole’s need to unify and get their guns.
The Russian’s did it. Whether or not that’s true, the Russian’s are coming, as they did in Georgia, as they are in the Ukraine, as they will through the entire Eastern Europe unless they are stopped.
However, there is no one left to stop Putin.
Freedom is not free. The blood-price must be paid. The wolf is at the door of Eastern Europe. The wolf is already in the White House.
OldSalt
50. gitane
Thank you.
Sobieski, I too offer my condolences.
Do I have permission to quote the hysterical conspiracy theorizing commenters here in a year, or three, when their predictions fail to come true?
I can quote many of the same folks cerca August 2008 when they were hyperventilating about how Russia was going to conquer all of Georgia and then send the tanks into Ukraine and then Poland, none of which happened or will happen (why would Moscow want to refight World War II?). Russia didn’t want all of Georgia even though the road to Tblisi was wide open and the Georgian army had fled. The BTC pipeline was only shut down for a few days, it was never actually hit unlike all the false reports. The oft-repeated quote that the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy was not about the Soviet Union – when Yeltsin died Putin said, “I doubt I would have had the guts to do what he did…he gave us our freedom.” but all the premature deaths, disastrous collapse in public health, overnight refugees, and broken dreams that accompanied the end of the Soviet Empire. There was a human toll just like there was from WWII.
Sobieski, my condolences to the Polish people. This is a tragedy.
I dunno OldSalt, Marie Claude doesn’t agree, and she has an internet connection, and newspapers. In fact, she was right there watching the whole thing, whilst picking mushrooms. Not only: she was in the control tower, the very cockpit of the plane. But you have to watch her though – she pretends she can’t write or speak proper English. She’s pretty tricky.
48. trangbang68
Thinking while walking my dogs: What period of recent history is like this.
imho the 21st century will resemble the 20th century about like the 16th century resembled the 15th century…which is to say…this century and the last won’t resemble each other.Come to think of it– did the 20th century much resemble the 19th century?
Putin celebrating the Katyn Massacre II is an obvious ploy to bring the keys of Polish government to him.
Moreover, the contravening argument in defense of Putin’s Russia would be: “If the Russian’s wanted to decapitate Polish government, the FSB is smart enough to do this without doing it on Russian soil.” There’s a two-fold reason this happened on Russian soil. One, was to provide that contravening argument. Second, was that Putin wanted the Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, the Czech Rupublic, and the rest of Eastern Europe to KNOW he did it. Western Europe and the U.S. “intelligentsia” will buy Putin’s lie, but those with direct, personal experience with the Russian Bear will not be deceived.
It’s a bold political power play. The Russian’s did it. Putin ordered it. Whether Russian agents messed with the avionics, whether a Russian missile brought the plane down, or if Putin build 2 million fog machines and produced the fog, in some way or another, Putin’s agents decapitated the leadership of his most serious moral critics in the former Eastern Europe Soviet block.
Believing anything else is willful self-delusion. This is not a period that can afford childish fantasies.
OldSalt
Marie @49:
I’m sorry Marie, I’m semi-trilingual in English, Spanish, und ein venig Deutsch. My French lessons were back in elementary school and aside from counting to nerf, I don’t speak or read French.
What did military pilot have to say in comment #194?
In English if you please, since most folks here at Belmont Club speak and read English as their primary language.
#18. Habu asked: But then the horizon is a clouded conflict waiting to burst forth. Anyone see a silver lining in the next ten years in any aspect on this increasingly tragic, farcical, and deadly globe?
I think I do. I believe that the left and its whole sweep through academia and entertainment and and the unions and the parties and the general zeitgist is over. With the ascension of Obama they have obtained everything they wanted, paid off all the cronies, etc = all their cards have been laid down. There’s nowhere else to go. I see a generation of young Americans rising up and throwing off all the boomer leftist crap, the encrusted leftoidal thought unchanging for over 30 years; I see them rising up and throwing it off; perhaps not embracing republican politics but at least learning to see and casting off the old junk. Then I see nuclear power coming on line; I see a new kind of power cable coming on line, one that will deliver twice the energy of the old lines. I see electric cars coming on line and helping us finally get out from under middle east oil. That alone will enfuse the west with new vitality and optimism. I see no reason for any modern state to go to war. There are too many businessmen invested in too many cities all over the world. This is not the world of WWII or of the cold war. There is no reason for any country to try to take over any other country. Yes the jihad threat is real but it has a foundation of nothing, it in itself is an absolute zero; there is nothing there, emptiness and lies and death…
Cheers…
I just hope that there was enough time for the Magna Carta to develop deep roots in Poland. For, it has been noted that whoever controls Poland controls Central Europe, which controls Europe. Anyone on the outside can only be reactionary to it, which points to how stupendous the victory wrought by Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul, et al., truly was.
Making sure the Magna Carta develops deeper roots, in Poland is the highest priority of Poland.
re: Mr. X.
FSB shill. They will be active on BLOGs. I know the enemy I have fought.
The problem here is that the conspiracy is far too easy to spot: the Russians under Putin have motive, opportunity, and several possible methods.
The problem with that is that there is such a thing as an accidental accident.
If Putin is sufficiently bloody-minded, he could even do the investigation in such a way as to make a real accident look suspicious, and thereby make anyone else dealing with him more cautious.
Sobieski,
My condolences, to you and the families who have lost loved ones.
One does not have to presume the Russians are guilty. It is enough for now to recognize that they will take whatever advantage they can from the situation.
54 dan
woarf ! I just don’t buy conspiracy theories but I don’t mind if you believe into t’em, they will not change the face of the planet !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXXdIrT6C90
Here’s President Medvedev’s remarks addressing the people of Poland with English translation.
Armageddon Rex
considering how you hold the EADS technology in high regards, I doubt that you would care me to translate you the comment #194
A. Rex
To offer some help, the first part is a discussion of the merits of civil vs. military airports. In the last part, the military pilot says that it is possible that the plane was perfectly lined up for landing, but that he might have reduced altitude to get a better view through the fog and was surprised by the trees.
I don’t know why anyone would do that , but that is his theory.
but why not believe in conspiracy theories? russia has always been governed by a conspiracy. it’s a great way to get things done – plus you can always say, “oh that’s just a conspiracy theory!”
well, maybe it was an accident. in that case, it would probably be the worst accident ever to happen.
The intense back and forth between the two nation’s top people, the growing of that intensity of emotion over the last year or two, in re the Katyn Massacre (as the term is settling to be), does not match up with the hazard accepted in this flight –the plane just out of rehab, the total manifest, the seasonal weather hazard, the four warn-offs (NO alternate field?), the totality of the thing. The Russians should’ve been extremely careful with hosting a Katyn Massacre anniversary memorial delegation of what amounts to almost the entire leadership of the Polish “remembering” right.
Litvenenko died slowly on camera poisoned by a substance that the poisoner knew would point the assassination directly at Putin. This could mean that someone is character-assassinating Putin, of course.
MC, just read your thought that Minsk was out because of the pilot’s pride. I don’t know why you can’t see that in these sorts of things, there always comes a line of inquiry that hits a wall –and has to say, “well, the guy was just stupid, obviously.”
Often, the follow up is not asked. the follow up of course is, “given the stakes. why was the stupid guy’s boss not in touch, to order him to quit being stupid?”
With THIS flight, the Russian high command would have been in constant touch with the security of the flight, and would not have brooked the repeated passes at a weathered in airport, with Minsk excellent facilities so nearby.
It just doesn’t add up. Though, in accidents, this is usually the case –it doesn’t add up. I’m just saying, accepting that this was an ordinary accident in itself, still it’s beyond arguing that the import around it should’ve procedurally extracted at least one of the ‘ordinary’ factors.
But maybe there’s something we don’t know –fuel? Minsk weather? What?
Stalin: “They will swallow it whole.”
*begins with an eye roll*
Hope everyone has had fun running up the conspiracy theory engines. As a few more tidbits come out (after only a couple of hours) the case for a fatal case of get-there-itis satisfies Occam’s Razor much, much better. A few of those details.
The weather sucked – heavy fog, crap for visibility, all the way to the surface.
A Russian military transport was contemporaneously waved off and diverted by the controllers.
The Polish aircraft was also advised to divert by the same controllers.
The Polish aircraft was on its fourth attempted approach when the mishap occurred.
The biggest ding the Russians are likely on the hook here for is not COMPLETELY closing the field, instead of leaving it to the discretion of a pilot likely feeling the pressure from a lot of politicos late for an important appointment (including his likely big direct boss, the Chief of the Air Forces).
The aircraft was likely in sound condition, and the onboard navigational equipment likely included Soviet style equipment likely in use at the field. These are not zero-zero rated or GPS aided systems, and the investigation should include a review of the airfield systems for alignment and calibration, a possible second ding on the Russians.
Reviewing the crash record of TU-154s, and there have been several, the vast majority appear to be either pilot error or external factors, only a couple appear to be possibly design/mechanical related, both of those on take-off. With 138 hours since last major overhaul, in conjunction with the other factors, mechanical failure, while possible, seems unlikely.
Now, from a political aspect – the only things the Russians have available to the to head off the vehement Mrs. Ivanova’s Charm School double and triple layer conspiracy theorizing that’s inevitably going to erupt is to have Putin back off from involvement – both literally and figuratively – in the investigation, making it squeaky clean from a transparency aspect, accepting any ‘dings’ they get for potential equipment or controller procedural quibbles, and not only accept, but insist upon third party EU investigator participation and assistance.
And even then we’re likely to hear about how the butcher Putin symbolically decapitated the Polish leadership, again, at the Katyn forest.
Trangbang68@48
If its any consolation…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR-A4QFHZBA
I suppose there’s a small chance it was purely accidental – but there’s no doubt it’s an eye-popping coincidence. And I just have a deep, deep suspicion of coincidences like this. Especially when the Russian regime is more of a vast criminal enterprise than anything else Americans would understand as a government.
Listen: Putin is a career KGB man. His special areas of excellence are cunning, brutality, subversion, misinformation, and treachery. You have to understand all that signifies in the context of Russian and Soviet history. This human devil controls the entire Soviet bureaucracy and has solidified and extended it much further than before.
The ever-paranoid Russian regime is bent on empire – and we should be very afraid. They still intend to absolutely destroy us – by any and all means possible – never doubt it.
You want to understand the character of their culture and society? Go pick up The Tenth Circle, and The Gulag Archipelago, both by Solzhenitsyn – the horrible truth of the Russian existence screams overwhelmingly out from the thousand-plus pages. You can’t make that stuff up. The scales will fall from your eyes.
As I’ve said for decades, you think Hitler was a bad guy? Pfft. He was just Stalin’s baby brother. His sadistic evil was almost amateur compared to old Uncle Joe’s. And Putin is every bit as devious and iron-fisted as Stalin ever was.
Well, maybe it was all just an accident, and how sweetly convenient that would be for Mr. Putin and his gang. Eh? You’d have to convince me, though.
Considering the man went ahead and poisoned with Polonium 210 a leading critic in London, yes this is Putin’s style.
A man who has most of his critics, and fairly toothless ones at that, shot dead in elevators, would certainly do this.
What would happen to him? Obama sigh with disappointment? Really?
I fully expect Russia to move into Poland soon. Demanding territorial concessions. Which was the whole point of decapitation. This is who Putin is, this is Russia.
Marie @ 65:
I really prefer Honeywell Aerospace avionics; EADS is a noteworthy competitor, but has, in my opinion overpriced alternatives. The real price point leaders for avionics are the Israelis. They offer better avionics systems for less than anyone else at the moment.
Wind Rider, there wouldn’t be anyone talking about Katyn if there hadn’t been a Katyn. You object to emotionalizing, but that’s what your comment is doing –pre-guilting the victim sympathizers. Edit out the sneer and it’s a fine useful comment.
***
Whiskey/74, what got him killed, what was it Litvenenko was saying, was threatening to provide incontrovertible proof of, that got him murdered? THAT is the question no one asks, due to the sensationalism of the on-camera slow death.
Maybe the Nazis did it.
The hubris of the “modern man” lays in his faith that he is somehow more intelligent and morally advanced than those who have come before him.
The only thing that separates the politics of a man who would direct other men today from the power brokers of 50 or 500 years ago is technology and the refining of the ancient science of propaganda.
The chance that this is a mere accident are vanishingly small.
buddy
this wasn’t MY thought but the “Securité Aerienne”‘s commenters. Besides, this pilot had some “precedent” if you’d read Sobieski’s link.
What I read from a Georgian commenter on the tragedy:
whos idea was to fly the nations top civilian and military leadership in one plane? especially when poland several years ago had lost most of its air-force command when their CASA military transport plane crashed. why nobody said anything, im sure they could have flown in on several different planes
Now, let’s expect that the black boxes will be public, and we’ll really know what the pilot and the air control tower said
When you are seen as a ruthless murderer with brass balls you may be credited with murders you didn’t even commit. Fatal accidents may look very suspicious in your immediate neighborhood.
Is this the downside of being a murdering thug or the upside? I think it may be more of a feature than a bug.
Anybody else in Europe want to piss off Putin?
So all you sophisticated disbelievers in the possibility of conspiracy would be surprised that the Russians assisted in the bloody coup that overthrew the government in Kyrgyzstan last week?
Half of you are either naive or don’t realize the effects of 60 years of Stalinist propaganda on your thinking. My suggestion? Don’t be taking any free drink offers from any strange Russians. Me, I believe Vladimir is feeling his oats.
buddy
this wasn’t MY thought but the “Securité Aerienne”‘s commenters. Besides, this pilot had some “precedent” if you’d read Sobieski’s link.
What I read from a Georgian commenter on the tragedy:
whos idea was to fly the nations top civilian and military leadership in one plane? especially when poland several years ago had lost most of its air-force command when their CASA military transport plane crashed. why nobody said anything, im sure they could have flown in on several different planes
Now, let’s expect that the black boxes will be public, and we’ll really know what the pilot and the air control tower said
monkeyfan/78; re the ancients vs the moderns; not only so, but actually the reverse. Drop a modern man and a Cro-Magnon into the wilderness for a month and see which survives. Build the Parthenon or the Roman aquaducts today. No, we’ve been on the skids as a species for awhile –no Darwinian weeding out per mother nature. Even our great grandpappys would have to see us as slightly er, ‘challenged’.
Right now I would rate the probability of this being an accident at at least 75% if not 85%.
HOWEVER: The critical point is that what we think is not what is going to drive the course of human events. It is what the people who are “over there” think that will be the prime determinant.
Up until recently, the American military presence in Europe meant that anything like this would have very limited consequences. Obama and Hilary have removed
the firewall, if not completely then to dysfunctional levels. Things can now spread like they could not spread before.
And THAT should be the object of our concern.
75. Armageddon Rex
but Eads prices have no extra costs surprises, Israeli avionic systems already collaborate with Eads and… Boeing
This is only the latest and most shocking action of Putin to re-create something like the old Soviet Union, the demise of which he had described as a “catastrophe.” He does not want to re-create the old Soviet Union per se, but only surround Russia with vassal states. Look at what has heppened. Georgia has been dismembered by an
actual invasion. Krygstan has been subjected to a pro-Russian coup.
Ukraine, after the near assination of its president, has “elected”
a pro-Russian regime. And now the president of Poland, who was
foolish enough to request an American anti-ballistic missile sheild, has perished in a convenient plane crash. Even Hitler never attempted this. The clue was the was the announcement that Putin would “personally” direcd the crash investigation. After
shedding enough crocodile tears, he will be in a position to make
sure that the truth is never known. I fully expect the air traffic
control tapes to be “inadvertantly” lost or erased or perhaps the
FSB, successor to Putin’s old employer, the KGB, will fake them. The
crash will be blamed on pilot error, or Polish dissidents. or Western
intelligence services (on the basis that the Polish president was
about to take a pro-Moscow line, impressed by Putin’s sincerity
about Katyn Forst). Russia is a gangster state. Don’t we know what
gangsters do witb business rivals? This was a decapitation different
from Katyn Forst only in time and scal. Who better than ex-Soviets to
sabotage a creaking old Russian airliner? All it would take is a
radio message that the airport was clear, with patchy ground fog, and
them sabotage to the hydraulic system at a crucial point in the
approach (just as it hit the fog). But don’t worry, Vladamir Putin
is conducting the “investigation.” Is Obama studpid enough to
buy into this? Just think how lucky to have an arms treaty with
people brazen enough to do this.
ahem
and what about the revolt of the beggars
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/2912/full
Fat Man:
Is Putin the only man with the motivation, means, and audacity?
Is there anyone else who could have arranged it?
Armageddon Rex:
The reason everyone is so skeptical of the accidental nature of this tragedy is exactly because Putin is one of the only people with the audacity, means and motivation to carry such an attack off.
Precisely. One of. Not the only one.
Can I imagine anyone else with the requisite audacity, means, and motivation? Yes I can.
OldSalt:
It’s a bold political power play.
Yes it is. Who, other than Russia, could have done it? Who, other than Putin, could have ordered it? Indeed, who could have a greater vested interest than Putin in ordering this?
If you get past the Katyn connection, some in the EU and some other Poles had at least as much reason to do this as Putin. Putin was obviously trying to play the nice guy so he could work towards better relations down the road and isn’t dumb enough to pull this sort of stunt when everyone is already focused on the crimes of the Soviet regime. Now, whether this is an accident or not, half of the people in Poland will be blaming Putin. If the Russians were to uncover some sort of conspiracy, who would believe them? There’s no way they come out ahead in this situation, and I seriously doubt Putin does anything without being pretty sure in advance that it’ll work to his advantage.
Conspiracy theories are often a fine and dandy way muddy the waters around an event or to divert attention away from facts that might point somewhere unexpected. Assuming that this might be a state sponsored decapitation of sorts is an example of how far behind reality most conspiracy theories are. Non-state actors who don’t come forward and claim credit have a huge advantage over states because most people start looking at the traditional suspects first and usually build up a resistance to changing their direction. There’s no reason why several different non-state sponsored actors couldn’t have done this and unlike Putin such groups would want to highlight Katyn the same way the 9/11 folks highlighted a date they felt was historically important.
Just a few random thoughts.
Regards
Think about a situation where a Grand piano has has just crashed down on the sidewalk beside you. It was probably an accident. And it doesn’t make any sense, absent some kind of compelling reason, to go around accusing people of trying to squash you.
But common sense also dictates that you should subsequently take care when walking under high windows and looking both ways — twice — when crossing a street. It also makes a little sense to quietly speak to the piano movers. Tensions or at least emotions are bound to rise at least for a while. The best way to calm them down is perform the diplomatic equivalent of being more watchful and making appropriate inquiries.
Buddy @ 68 -
Every historical account I’ve come across seemed to indicate that Joseph Stalin wanted the people in the Soviet Union to be aware of the brutal methods he was using to crush Ukrainian opposition to forced agricultural collectivization. It was mainly the US public (Thank you, Duranty and the New York Times) that was getting the exact wrong information.
The point is that it helps the tyrant for other potential resisters to be fully aware of the brutal fate that awaits them if they don’t submit.
Consider how Toyota has been raked over the coals recently, over the issue of faulty accelerator controls.
How many readers here ever heard a peep in the US press about faulty Toyota accelerator controls before the flurry of stories earlier this year?
Isn’t it just a little odd that in the space of a week or so after the issue was raised, the usually stuporous press miraculously managed to locate and bring to the foreground a whole fistful of stories allegedly showing how reckless and irresponsible Toyota has been for a decade?
If Toyota cars have been killing and maiming people for years because of this problem, where has the U.S. press been?
Then, take a look at the group that’s been leveling the charges and demanding the President of Toyota to come crawling and groveling – the U.S. Legislature that just a year earlier nationalized Toyota’s principal competitors in the U.S. auto industry.
What a staggering coincidence.
Well, at least one instance of an alleged out-of-control Toyota has been shown to have been a complete fraud. I don’t know who revealed that the driver was another publicity hound like the father of “balloon boy” a few months back, but the press ought to be looking deeper to make sure the guy wasn’t persuaded to stage the thing by someone with an interest in hurting Toyota.
If my fears are without merit, Ford Motor Company will not have a similar sudden flurry of claims against it from outta the blue…
Watch closely.
Just in case the link doesn’t seem so obvious… It just isn’t surprising that various interested parties would collude to try to eliminate or neutralize troublesome folks.
Obi has a penchant for anniversaries too.
Do they have a giggle when the other is anticking?
Britsh PM Harold McMillan’s line about what will drive the future: “Events, Dear Boy. Events!”
Obama faces the (much ignored) challenge of getting his “Peace in Our Times” Treaty with Putin’s lads approved by the US Senate. Needs 67 votes. Doesn’t have 67 Democrats. And several of the Democrat Senators he does have are from States that will suffer quite sharply from the jobs destroyed by the “No New Nukes” pledge, such as New Mexico & California.
If Putin & Medvedev emerge from the current Polish “event” having demonstrated their trustworthiness and reliability, it might make Obama’s uphill climb to get his Treaty approved that much easier. Equally, the reverse could be true. If a number of Senators hold up Obama’s Treaty until the Russians open everything to a demonstrably honest & thorough international investigation of the deaths of the leaders of US ally Poland, Obama’s Treaty will sink back into the swamp.
Interesting times! And the “events” will just keep on coming.
O’Hellenback! Where are you, Helen?
AssPress needs you.
O deserts the MSM.
…-
“Obama leaves WH without press, breaking protocol
President Barack Obama quietly breached years of protocol on Saturday morning by leaving the White House without the press with him.
About two hours before reporters were supposed to be in position to leave with the president, Obama left the grounds of the White House. Members of the press were told he was attending one of his daughter’s soccer games in northwest Washington, D.C.
The White House press corps traditionally travels with the president anywhere he goes, inside and outside the country, to report on the president’s activities for the benefit of informing the public and for historical record.
After Obama left, a press aide hastily gathered members of the media who happened to be at the White House early or working on other matters. They rushed to a van and left the White House to catch up with the president.
Too late. By the time, the press van appeared to arrive at the president’s location, the press was told he was already departing. Time to go back to the White House.
Reporters and photographers didn’t have a chance to see him or his vehicle to verify his presence at any location.
Although nobody outside the White House or the press may have noticed, Obama broke years of tradition.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/washington/6953093.html
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/013749.html#comments
Let’s suppose that this is a genuine accident.
However, Pooty heading the investigation… c’mon!
The message is clear. It has all the aspects of plausible deniability with an inherent threat. Pooty will milk it to the last drop.
Perhaps Russia itself is just a conspiracy theory.
19. programmer
My apologies if someone has already mentioned this, I don’t want to pile on but I put this to you….
How do you trust anything the Soviets say?
For all we know they shot the plane down on approach. You think they’ll allow any nation to examine the wreckage?
Hillary pushes Bo’s reset button, and the Ruskies are off to the races. They want to create facts on the ground before BO gets his walking papers.
35. exhelodrvr
Not for a minute do I buy it was just an accident.
A few well placed 50 caliber shots, or srumming the avionics on approach…..
Nope anything but an accident. It was a planned hit.
Do I KNOW this? Hell no but it’s a damn better bet than checking it off to “an accident” These are the Soviets we’re talking about and a former KGB head dude and his stooges.
Yeah and KAL 007 was just an accident…until we let the world in on the radio transmissions……
Maybe I’ve missed it, but who made the arrangements for this flight? The Tupolev-154 is a flawed aircraft. How many of them are still in operation and where?
And there are many ways to skin a cat. If you pretend not to notice the unwanted stepchild pawing through the poison cabinet in the garage its not really your fault when it dies from ingesting rat poison, is it?
I have no idea (insufficient information) as to whether this accident was arranged or not, but it certainly was convenient for the Russians. Yes, luck is luck and sh*t does happen, but when the guy you’re playing poker with gets five royal flushes in a row you have to wonder.
And lets not forget the current of the times we live in where one is expected to believe anything if the right people say it. After all, the Wahhabi sect of Islam is a religion of peace, the Rosenbergs were not spies for the Russians, and Iran is enriching uranium for purely peaceful purposes. You can’t call stupidity out for what it is–you might hurt someone’s feelings and undermine their self-esteem.
Looking down the comments I am astonished ,absolutely astonished at the number of contributors who are more than willing to believe that this was simply an accident.
Don’t any of you remember the Cold War? Are any of you familiar in the least with the atrocities the Soviets have perpetrated against their adversaries?
The naivety expressed is truly sorrowful.
Like,”Lets give Putin and the Soviets the benefit of the doubt” I guarantee if that thinking gains purchase then we’re bigger suckers than we already appear to be.
wanted to mention that the timeline on the Polish/Russian history revisionism-or-not psychological battle over the Katyn Massacre narrative, as it stood before the crash, was not, as some here believe, at that rapprochmont based on Putin’s accepting Russian blame, but at a different place, Poles hurt again, and feeling tricked, via a suceeding nasty crack by Putin, made back home in Moscow to a friendly local press, the day or soon after his formal Russia Culpa, that by the massacre Stalin may have been getting revenge for Russian POWs having died in Polish care in (was it?) WWI.
Think of a formal apology where the two parties shake hands and leave the room, and as the party of the apology goes out the door, under his breath but loud enough, mutters “I didn’t really mean that, y’know.”
(At least that’s how a person such as I might read the press reports)
If anyone is going to have a good sense of this situation, it is going to be the Poles themselves. They will know the personalities and who made the flight arrangements.
If…if…if they smell a rat, I doubt they are not going to publicize their suspicions.
Remember it was the Poles who wrested Enigma from the Nazis. We don’t really know what they wrested from the Soviets.
They too are capable of retribution. Democratic governments are more resilient and capable of replacing strongmen than autocratic governments.
Enough said.
More and More it looks like pilot error to me. But regardless I don’t think the idea that it was a hit will ever go away.
While Poland has no friends in the Marxist Obama administration, they still have some in Congress and other institutions in the US. It could also be that number of Western European nations are not too happy with the idea of Poland becoming a de facto Warsaw Pact member again?
Considering the state of Russia’s economy, population, and military, can they afford to get into a direct conflict with Poland?
“The naivety expressed is truly sorrowful.”
I think you misread the general sentiment because of your usual hotheadedness. The alternative to the accidental crash explanation is something that might result in a shooting war. Such an adventure would cost the lives of many of our Polish friends while leaving American armchair pundits in relative safety. If anybody is going to draw dire conclusions from this event, let it be the Poles. They’re the ones with everything to lose.
M2/94; why in the world would he take the heat, accept the damage, of alienating the WH press corp, just to set a precedent where he can be out of sight for a few hours?
No really, why?
What is worth the cost?
A trip to McDonalds?
A trip to Yamantau Mountain, ahead of a blast wave?
Ah, it never ends, these wonderments of my diseased mind –
***
A/92; exactly. if that date thing was a message, who was it to, and what was the message?
Did you note he killed the Constellation program on the anniversary of the Challenger disaster? Who was this message for, and what was that message?
***
If odds of the entire Polish leadership being in a solo flight are X, and the odds of any plane crash are Y, then the odds here are X + Y, or X x Y ?
habu:
I doubt it was an accident. But was it Putin’s “accident”?
Don’t you think there might have been somebody else with a vested interest to arrange such an “accident”? Is there anybody else who might come to mind?
Use the word “traitor” carefully. If you mean what you say when you use the word “traitor”, Putin is not and must not be the only suspect in this crime.
#106 buddy larsen
If its any consolation to you, you’re not the only one here who has a diseased mind.
As for me, I don’t suffer from mental illness, I enjoy every minute of it.
First, I find it very difficult to believe this was an accident though the possibility that it was certainly exists, especially at this stage of events.
But to automatically trust the Russians? Never. Why would any American, westerner or freedom loving individual trust the Russians if you have even a cursory knowledge of the countries history and the background of the present leadership? They consider us their primary enemy and the biggest cause of instability in the world.
I hope this is an accident.
Spit it out, Alex. Who are you suggesting might have caused the crash? The CIA under orders from Obama?
It could be an accident – there have been some awfully astounding coincidences throughout time. Remember the crossword puzzlemaker in London that used about half the code words for the Normany landings as answers just prior to June 6, 1944? However, we would be very foolish indeed to take it at face value as an accident, given who is involved.
Three or four missed approaches? Sounds to me like possible someone was overriding the pilot’s decisions. Any compentent pilot, and I have to assume he was competent to be flying all that brass, would have opt for an alternate after two missed approaches. I’m sorry, I’m not a big fan of conspiracies here, even given the history.
Sorry to rain on this parade of conspiracy theorists, but the airplane was owned and operated by the Polish military, not Russian Aeroflot. As for politics, Russia and Poland have been very busy repairing their relationship in the past year. Thanks to Obama’s dismal treatment, Poland began to hedge its bets by thawing out the decades-old freeze in its relations with Russia. It is hard to imagine what Russia stands to gain in having this government eliminated, numerous accusations of evil doing and revenge theories expressed here notwithstanding.
Finally, after 5 attempts Putin got rid of the Polish elite, uh unless Donald Tusk wanted to become Vizir instead of the Vizir !
Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski had five airplane accidents before Saturday’s plane crash near Smolensk in which he and many senior Polish officials perished.
The Russian agency RIA Novosti recounts about Kaczynski’s airplane misfortunes in the last couple of years.
It emphasizes the incident on December 2, 2008, when Kaczynski’s plane Tu-154 broke in Mongolia, and he had to fly to Tokyo, Japan, with a charter flight.
On December 3, 2008, the Polish cabinet decided to purchase new government plane but PM Tusk remarked that he would not pay for a luxury aircraft for Kaczynski but for a safe one.
On December 5, 2008, the plane in which Kaczynski was flying over South Korea encountered powerful turbulence. It is after this accident that Kaczynski remarked, „Every airplane flight is connected with a certain risk but the duties of the President are connected with a very serious risk in general and this is why the President has to travel all the time.”
On January 14, 2009, because of a thick ice cover, Kaczynski’s plane left late for his meeting with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
In September 2009, both Polish government planes were out of order, so President Kaczynski had to travel to New York City with a commercial flight.
Bulgaria paper http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=115093
Maz2, if I were President I would do it all the time. I’d announce my schedule/designation, board AF1, take-off, and then once in the air walk up to the cockpit, pull out a piece of paper with information known only to me and handed it to the crew: AF1′s new designation. The chain of command would be on a need to know basis. The press would get left behind everytime. The Secret Service would have a heart-attack but the answer would be “I’m the President and I make the rules. Plus, I don’t think anyone is going to attempt an assassination attempt spur of the moment. If they don’t know where I am, when I’ll get there or what I’ll be doing there once I get there. how can they plan an attack? And if they did it spur of the moment that’s why I have you guys around.” Of course, if I did this frequently the press would start covering their bases and fan out the reporters to cover the bases. It would become a game: Elude the Press. And what fun I’d have watching them get their panties in a wad about it.
Putin is probably happy to be thought of as the perpetrator of this incident. He has executed a great number of journalists and businessmen who have inconvenienced him. Whether he sabotaged the plane or not it will make it less likely he will be defied in the future and that is all that matters to him.
I would expect to see more incidents in the near abroad given the complete US abdication of its traditional role as the defender of liberty.
No help will be coming from the US for anyone because we are busy fighting the enemies on our own soil. Even the outcome of that fight is very much in doubt.
SR/112; a very plausible attitude –and made so only within a general airing-out of the antithesis –as otherwise it would just sound pollyanna-ish.
so, there is art and design in launching the ‘what-if’ worst cases –can’t shoot at ‘em if they’re invisible, and just being invisible in no ways makes them not exist to fester in silence in people’s minds.
***(PA Cat –forward/backward edit –
Did you know that in unabomber’s hut, the book found with every page yellow highlighted, paperclipped, bookmarked, smudge bent and folded with study, was Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance” ?
#106 buddy larsen
Ah, it never ends, these wonderments of my diseased mind –
Here’s something for your diseased mind to ponder: the late President of Poland has the same last name as the Unabomber. Conspiracy theorists, have at it.
(Ron Brown–another victim of an April plane crash in eastern Europe– could not be reached for comment)
#116 buddy larsen
Serves Gore right for inventing the Innertubes, the ideal growth medium for global warming and brain fungi of all descriptions.
PA Cat, let’s just eat the whole carton of ice cream, shall we –please search [ bullet hole ron brown ]
Interesting…
Papa Ray
112. Shaul R
In the final analysis, all that counts is the evidence. He who comes to a conclusion regarding the existence of foul play before the evidence is in has no more moral or intellectual standing that someone who takes the opposite stance. None, whatsoever.
As of now, we don’t have all the facts. Perhaps we never will. My position is that there is, at this time, insufficient data on hand to come up with any conclusion that has a reasonable probability of being true as to what caused the crash.
But as the evidence comes in (if it does) that may change.
In 25 years, if there are any schools to go to, this event will be seen as an Important Event, revealing America’s weakness, an indicator of its slide from hegemony into 3 rate country.
Look, the American voter has left the scene of the Political Class to a decadent, badly educated, foolish crowd of thieves, and in 2008, it elected a good looking man with no experience in any real world, because they were ‘tired of being at war’ (whine whine), and voting for a ‘black guy’ made them ‘feel good about their essential goodness’. Putin is not weak. He knows what is inhabiting the White House and the Congress, and he knows that he can get away with attacking any of America’s ‘allies.’
America is showing a weak face to the world. There are consequences in the real world, even if Obama prefers to go to his daughter’s soccer game.
#119 buddy larsen
Vince Foster could not be reached for comment (from his permanent resting place behind the grassy knoll).
And speaking of mysterious aviation disasters, we all know it was a Navy target drone that brought down TWA 800:
http://www.rense.com/political/drone.htm
More ice cream?
“(Ron Brown–another victim of an April plane crash in eastern Europe– could not be reached for comment)”
You can only contact Ron through his press agent. Vince something or other.
Regards
Now I’m no expert but , I was just in a meeting with a South African who said in the early 80′s, the South African’s , in a similar instrument landing situation of a Soviet plane, were able to change the ground signals in order to make it appear the ground was further away than it actually was, and just like that they took down a Soviet plane with important military personnel aboard.
A friend of mine was a Polish Army POW captured by the Germans in WWII. He said that when the Germans overran the area of the massacure they brought Polish POW doctors there and had them examine the remains and confirm that the killing occurred before the Germans occupied the area.
Strange how people think. The Germans even showed the Polish POWs a film that explained what would be their position in the Reich – which differed little from what the Soviets did in that forest. But they did not wish to be blamed for the massacure.
buddy larsen @83.
Ain’t that the truth. Metro erectus would quickly find the contents of his superior mind redistributed upon the savannas and forest floors of the world; embedded within little steaming piles of scat from which exuded the true extent of their refined intellects…This having long forgotten that lions, tigers, wolves, and bears that have not been cowed by man’s hand are quite unafraid of his brain.
Our predecessors -those predisposed to survive and contribute to the technological advancement of mankind- did not generally have the luxury of inventing clever self-deceptions that didn’t reside safely in the heavens amongst the Gods. We owe those earth movers who came before us a great debt of gratitude for respecting the continuum of accomplishments and abilities left to them, and we owe them doubly for choosing to build solid homes upon proven foundations rather than building houses with looking glass walls upon loose sands that would have afforded them little more than a heavenly new view of things that aren’t there…As is the custom now.
Alas we live in an age where clever ‘new’ variations of the same old self-deceptions may have once again overrun even the memory of our individual responsibilities. Unfortunately our infernal machines have given terrible new abilities unto the hands and the minds of the lycanthropes we’ve allowed to lead us down the primrose path. They in return offer up their ‘new’ new age wherein fashionable revolt against the architecture of the real is again ushered into the warm embrace of another chimerical “Peace in our time”. Another tired and bedraggled new age where the last greatest war ever to be fought has yet again been banished from the realm of future possibility. And here we collectively sit bickering and staring at the same navels in the same smokey mirrors whilst reflecting upon the unique greatness of the post-modern mind where mere license is deemed (once again) to be the equal of liberty.
The dim afterglow of unearned glories is pretty whilst it lasts, but every dawn of a new age eventually ends in the pitched black of night where only the wolves may roam free.
Sobieski:
I mourn with you and the Great Nation of Poland. I’m writing this post fighting back tears. All of us owe Poland a huge moral debt for her unflinching battle against the abomination of communism. I have no words to express my sorrow. The tragic, symbolic coincidence with the Katyn massacre commemoration adds another layer of grief.
Mr Fernandez:
Superbly done, sir.
The one thing that makes me think this could have been an accident is this: If you do something on this scale, it is to send a message or to achieve a concrete purpose. If the concrete purpose was to truly decapitate the Polish government, this was the wrong plane. The Prime Minister and others who exercise real power are still with us, as is a lot of Poland’s institutional memory, even if some of this has been lost. That is, this is not the equivalent of blowing up the Capitol during the State of the Union and leaving the United States to be run by the Secretary of Agriculture and a collection of assistant deputies of this and that. If the purpose was to send a message, what’s that message: When Russia seems to open up about the past and offer some symbolic rapprochement, send your regrets.
If this was deliberately done by Putin, the logical course for the Poles, the Czechs, the Georgians, the Ukrainians, etc is clear: Keep your weapons ready, your guard up and your suspicions of the Russian Bear high. Is that really what Putin would be trying to achieve?
There is one and only one scenario that makes me fear this wasn’t an accident. Unfortunately, it’s the one that scares me the most: What if this had nothing to do with the Poles per se, and the real test was to see whether Obama is so desperate for a historic slip of paper that he would gloss over the blatant murder of American friends to get it? We already knew that everyone in Russia’s “near-abroad” was in danger. Only an idiot couldn’t see it and no message needed to be sent after last year’s events in Georgia. Which leaves only one bit of message sending that might serve Putin: Getting Obama to send the message that the era of America as liberty’s strongest friend and staunchest ally is well and truly over.
Hey Dave, been appreciating your posts, last couple of threads.
Me, … what exactly is the purported benefit to Russia of these deaths, that it leaves a vacuum which they can then fill, which is so beneficial they would work to cause this and we acknowledge such steely resolve and logical consequences? It doesn’t jump out at me that way, but I suppose it could be true.
The world today is mostly bereft of even merely competent leadership, and although I know little enough about the Polish government, I regret their loss in general terms and the shock it must be to the Polish people.
Sounds to me like the old Russian stereotype, “fog, autopilots, bah, I land this plane!” Only it was Polish, not Russian. So I just dunno.
Habu,
How do you trust anything the Soviets say?
Ronald Reagan supposedly said, “Trust, but verify.”
Works for me.
Re #7 — I don’t know whether a, or what species of, precision approach was available for that airport. I doubt that even if a CAT III ILS approach was available the aircraft had the requisite equipment: a radar altimeter, in particular. A CAT III approach can bring an aircraft down to 0-0 ceiling and visibility. With a non-CAT III approach, about the best available is an ordinary ILS approach, down to about 200 feet AGI. If at that altitude AGL, the pilot lacks appropriate visibility he has to try again or proceed to an alternative airport. It seems unlikely that there were trees approaching 200 feet in height proximate to the approach ends of the runway.
It is possible to attempt a CAT III approach without the requisite radar altimeter, but foolish if there is any other viable choice. Years ago, when I was working on my instrument rating, my instructor showed me how to do one without a radar altimeter. I questioned whether it was legal, and his response was “No, but beats dying.”
It seems possible that the aircraft had insufficient fuel to proceed to an alternative airport (pilot error), or that there was pressure to land regardless. It is the pilot’s responsibility to do what he should do, regardless of such pressure and failure to use his own judgment is also egregious pilot error.
It is best to await the technical details before jumping on some conspiracy theory.
In the movie Sum of All Fears, the fictional Russian president says, “These days it’s better to be seen as guilty than impotent.” That said, Joseph McNulty #86 gives what to me is the most plausible explanation. There is indeed a trend of Putin-led Russia dealing violently with political enemies at home and abroad, including heads of neighboring states. It’s not a wild-eyed conspiracy theory when it’s actually happening.
I don’t know about Poland and Russia but here and elsewhere in the west the airport would have been closed in case of dense fog. Each airport has landing minimums. I thought this was pretty universal. There are inflight weather advisory resources available to pilots to check weather conditions prior to landing. This is pretty basic stuff. The pilots should have been notified accordingly and diverted to another airport. FOUR attempted approaches? I would have called it a day much, much sooner and gone somewhere else. Something doesn’t make sense.
Re #7 — I don’t know whether a, or what species of, precision approach was available for that airport. I doubt that even if a CAT III ILS approach was available the aircraft had the requisite equipment: a radar altimeter, in particular; ILS equipment is ubiquitous. A CAT III approach can bring an aircraft down in 0-0 ceiling and visibility. With a non-CAT III approach, about the best available is an ordinary ILS approach, down to about 200 feet AGL. If at that altitude AGL, the pilot lacks appropriate visibility he has to try again or proceed to an alternative airport. It seems unlikely that there were trees approaching 200 feet in height proximate to the approach ends of the runway.
I have no idea whether a military airport was close enough to serve as an alternative. In the U.S., at least, Ground Control Approaches are often available, relying on radar images both horizontal and vertical and a human on the ground to help the pilot land. That may not be true elsewhere.
It is possible to attempt a CAT III approach without the requisite radar altimeter, but foolish if there is any other viable choice. Years ago, when I was working on my instrument rating, my instructor showed me how to do one without a radar altimeter. I questioned whether it was legal, and his response was “No, but beats dying.”
It seems possible that the aircraft had insufficient fuel to proceed to an alternative airport (pilot error), or that there was pressure to land regardless. It is the pilot’s responsibility to do what he should do, regardless of such pressure and failure to use his own judgment is also egregious pilot error.
It is best to await the technical details before jumping on some conspiracy theory.
Most of you sound like 911 “truthers”
Benefit: assuages Putin-Russo old guard pride and intimidates reluctants to an extent. Could be something/ someone of “interest” on the flight manifest. At any rate, it’s highly unlikely any evidence of wrong-doing will be found, though, because what hasn’t been cleaned up or handled by Russian operatives and authorities will be whitewashed by outside investigators… else Poland and allies would have to respond to a de facto act of war.
We can imagine the scramble behind the scenes just now to help give Putin cover and to see if there’s any effective covert pushback or unified opposition on some policy front that current governments could stomach. Doubt there’s much we’re willing to do, the Cold War is history and not as much fun as reconfiguring a transnational future.
No excusing the sexual transgressions of European Catholic clergy, may they endure the hell of realizing what they have done before- if ever- receiving forgiveness according to their faith, but the timing of the Papacy suddenly under siege from a firestorm of published accusations is also coincidentally corrosive to Polish and German morale…
Connecting dots is easy, but distinguishing dot from spot isn’t. Do geo-political ink blots give us any insight?
“Trust but verify” never actually worked out for Ronnie, but it’s a nice phrase.
Out of curiosity, I wonder whether folks here would have a different reflex if, say, 90% of the Israeli executive branch went down in an “accident” on the way to, say, a Baghdad run by Uday Hussein to commemorate the expulsion of the Jews there…
Snap out of it, you fools. The man who killed Litvinenko is now a member of the Duma.
Charles as to ages resembling one another, didn’t wise King Solomon say “there is no new thing under the sun”. Different days, same greed, avarice, brutality, duplicity and endless possibilities of tragedy that mankind has always been prone two; amazing scientific discoveries not withstanding.
didn’t wise King Solomon say “there is no new thing under the sun”.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1&version=NIV
Never realized that was meant to be Solomon.
Doesn’t sound very Solomonic to me. Surely this is a later accretion attributed for authority? After all, it never made it into the Torah.
clarification re 137
Cold War is history in the same way the Islamist terror threat is officially no longer.
w@90: But common sense also dictates that you should subsequently take care when walking under high windows and looking both ways — twice — when crossing a street.
I agree with the poster upthread who said this is for the Polish people to decide. The only thing that sustains my skepticism is what all of those Polish dignitaries were doing on one plane.
I thought that common security procedures discouraged, if not prohibited (as in USA), any activity that forms such a large and tantalizing object. It will be interesting to evaluate the details of the travel arrangements.
And I was not aware that a bullet hole was found in Ron Brown’s corpse.
Grey Fox:
It could be an accident – there have been some awfully astounding coincidences throughout time.
Yes. Accidents do happen. That is why this crash needs to be properly investigated. Whether it will be properly investigated is anyone’s guess.
As a rule, it is best to let the theory fit the facts rather than the other way around. That said, we should consider those who would have a vested interest in causing such a plane crash to happen.
It is fashionable to blame Putin. For all I know, he could be responsible. But is he?
If Russia wanted hegemony over Poland, it would be difficult to imagine why it should want to repeat the Katyn Massacre in miniature. Russia has an interest in reducing the Polish nationalism and the anti-Russian feeling that goes with it, not emboldening it. So, if Putin were responsible for such an atrocity, he wouldn’t be acting in Russia’s national interest.
There are other motives. Al-Qaeda always likes to stir the pot. A western European country at odds with both Russia and Poland may have an interest in blocking reconciliation between the two. Leftists in the United States may have an interest in flamboyantly betraying allies to court favor with enemies. The Iranian government may intend to punish both Poland and Russia for interfering with its nuclear ambitions. Turkey may have an interest in inflaming Russo-Polish tensions. The list goes on and on.
To say that Russia is capable of staging a contrived accident is different from saying that it actually did anything wrong.
Earlier today I heard an announcement that the flight data recorder had been recovered. Maybe that will clarify all the speculation somewhat.
140. Josh
didn’t wise King Solomon say “there is no new thing under the sun”.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1&version=NIV
Never realized that was meant to be Solomon.
Doesn’t sound very Solomonic to me. Surely this is a later accretion attributed for authority? After all, it never made it into the Torah.
…….
Chabad.org – Torah, Judaism and Jewish Info Library
The Complete Jewish Bible
Kohelet – Ecclesiastes – Chapter 1
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/16462
It now appears that the tower warned the aircraft not to land due to adverse conditions, principally fog causing greatly diminished visibility, and that the pilot chose to disregard the warnings.
The “black boxes” and recordings of conversations between the tower and the aircraft should shed some light on what actually happend.
Tcobb @100:
Leave off on the TU-154. It’s a good design, and has a good flight safety record considering the crew training levels and maintenance levels common for that type of aircraft throughout its history.
Yes, the TU-154 has had a number of nasty accidents, it’s also flown more hours and miles than most other Russian designed aircraft. It’s had lots more opportunity to rack up that crash record than it’s other Soviet designed competition.
A lot of folks poo-poo Russian engineering based on problems with high tech weapons and other high tech projects. They’ve come up with some very effective, economical, ruggedly durable and clever designs in the past when they don’t try to push the bleeding edge of technology, and the TU-154 was one of them.
It was a typical good design of the Soviet era, not as good as the American equivalent, but light years ahead of what the Soviets had been using up until then, much more rugged and capable of continued operation with substandard maintenance than a U.S. or western design, and at a quarter to a third of the price of the U.S. equivalent Boeing 707-727 aircraft.
Altogether I rate the TU-154 in the same league as legendarily rugged designs that may be more familiar to everyone at BC such as: IL-2 Sturmovik, AK-47, T-55, SU-25, and AN-124.
Please don’t denigrate the design. Pilot error I’ll believe. Twiddling ILS and VOR transmissions I’ll believe.
just for the heck of it (and since i’d recommended it –sight unseen except for i knew stuff was out there –to PA Cat), i entered [ bullet hole ron brown ] in my Bing and just read the first part of the top result. Bosnia crash, 1996, and tho i knew there were ‘crazy truthers’ out there still talking about it, i was totally unprepared for what i just read minutes ago. This is the top result on Bing, and i switched same terms to google and it’s on top there too:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/BROWN/brown.html
(PA Cat, mmm, LOTS of ice cream –i shall grow monstrous, like Jabba the Hut)
Charles @ 145: It’s the Old Testament, but not the traditional five books.
Wikipedia relates the reasons that “Son of David” could mean any later descendant, and that there are plenty of reasons for finding it of later or alternate authorship.
I’m very fond of the line and large parts of the book, which makes it odd that I’d completely missed the idea that there was even any claim to it being Solomon. Not that I claim much knowledge of the Bible at all, really. Just in philosophical ideas, and political ones too I guess, it seems that all possible combinations were already mapped out thousands of years ago. Still, they say that about music, too, that all possible measures have already been written, yet we still fiddle around with new versions. And why not – there are no new letters to the alphabet, but we still write.
Three Questions;
1. Is it Standard Operating Procedure to use two aircraft in that situation?
1.b. Does Poland have a track record regarding the size of the party and transport?
2. Is there any evidence of a communication from the Russians requesting that the Poles use one aircraft for security or logistical reasons?
3. What happens if Poland declares the event an attack under the terms of the Nato Treaty?
If the Russians do not want this to be seen as a FSB coup de main then they must place the investigation in the hands of an international Warren Commission staffed by all their potential critics, the Poles, the Japanese, the Israelis, the United States FAA and other equivalents. They would have to give the investigators access that no Russian can conceive of. Put George Mitchell in charge of it, he has made a career out of jobs like this.
Old Salt 56: “Putin wanted the Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, the Czech Rupublic, and the rest of Eastern Europe to KNOW he did it… The Russian’s did it. Putin ordered it… Putin’s agents decapitated the leadership of his most serious moral critics in the former Eastern Europe Soviet block. Believing anything else is willful self-delusion.”
Agreed. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for the advancement of International Communism; and it simply could not be missed.
“You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.” Joseph Stalin
“Death is the solution to all problems. No man – no problem.” Joseph Stalin
Three separate pajamatorials! And 151 peanut-gallery peanuts on this one alone!!
Well, well, Dr. Bones, here is one scrap of history that the Wombschool Normal University alumnuses seem to exempt from Their Ford’s pronouncement about ‘bunk’!
Who’d ’a’ thunk it?
_Sto lat_ and healthy days to all.
Just a quick review of the comments but where are the usual Russian apologists? MC?
149. Josh
Charles @ 145: It’s the Old Testament, but not the traditional five books.
…..
At the time of Jesus, there were two temple political/religious parties: the Sadducees and the Pharisees. the Sadducees allowed for only the Pentateuch–the first five books of the bible. The Pharisees included all the rest. A specific bone of contention for them was as to whether there was any such thing as the resurrection of the dead–because that’s what happened to Elijah. (see 2 Kings 2)Pharisees said yes. Saducees said no.(because the only believed in the Pentatuch) Elijah’s resurrection is what allowed St. Paul–a Pharisee– to turn to Jesus.
What we don’t hear today is that the first five books of the bible included another book–called the Book of Enoch that was banned in the 2-3rd centuries by the rabbis–concerned by Oneness of God. There was another book called the book of Jubilees. Fragments of the book of Enoch were found among the dead sea scrolls. The book of Enoch remains in the Ethiopian Jewish bible. I haven’t read the book of Enoch but my understanding is that its a repeat of Genesis only with lots of angels and demons in it.
imho Ecclesiastes perfectly fits the MO of Solomon. The guy had everything. Wealth. Power. Women. See 1 Kings 11The last were his undoing and the undoing of his kingdom. for within a generation of Solomon’s death–Israel was split in two kingdoms:Israel and Judah and Jerusalem and the temple were sacked by the Egyptians (in 950 BC)
Things can happen that fast.
That’s what’s giving the hebegebes to the God fearing part of America. (They know their bible.)
“3. What happens if Poland declares the event an attack under the terms of the Nato Treaty?”
do you think that if your allegations were certain, that the rest of the Polish government would remain in the mourning attitude ? there would be some security meetings and calls for the Alliee troops, and We would all yet be calling our reservists back ! but it ain’t so ! accident is the most likely option
The fact is that some persons would like it ! bouffer du Putin, it’s all makes you chilling
147) Armageddon -
Good post. I would be very surprised if it were something other than pilot error/navigational equipment error. A couple additions to your list: the T-34 (best tank of WWII), MiG-15, Hind helicopeter, Alfa and Akula submarines. The Soviets had a history of very capable equipment, certainly on a par with ours, and in some cases better. Where they were lacking was in the maintenance and training areas.
105. Stephen
Perhaps because I’m probably the only one on this blog who went head to head against the Soviets during the Cold War and have a lifetime of education regarding how they operate do I say it was no accident.
From the Czarist Okhrana who taught Lenins intelligence agencies their tradecraft, through Stalin, Andropov, and Putin the Soviets have been as former US United Nations Ambassador Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (height of Cold War) said of the Soviets, They are like hotel buglars who walk down the hallway turning all the doorknobs until they find an open room Or when he more famously told Soviet Ambassador he would wait until Hell freezes over when he confronted Valerian Zorin, if his country was installing missiles in Cuba, punctuated with the famous demand “Don’t wait for the translation, answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’!” Following Zorin’s refusal to answer the abrupt question, Stevenson retorted, “I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over.” In one of the most memorable moments in U.N. history, Stevenson then showed photographs that proved the existence of missiles in Cuba, just after the Soviet ambassador had implied they did not exist.
You may choose to prefer an anticeptic, “The Soviets wouldn’t do that” attitude , but then how much experience do you have dealing with the Soviets, or knowing the KGB and GRU? I do, been there ,done that.
And don’t confuse passion for hotheadedness. Someone has to protect the meek.
Annoy Mouse, I’m one of the few that don’t need to attend psychiatry cares, how but not sure you don’t
Charles @ 154: Sure but that’s clear only fifty years later. And now.
As a king, Solomon wouldn’t say stuff like that even if he thought it.
My “Jewish friend” (newly super-orthodox) quotes all sorts of Talmudic and later stuff as if it were gospel. For that matter, most of the kosher laws are of much later origin. But there’s nothing about the long coats and funny hats anywhere in the Bible that I know of!
Anyone who has flown instrument approaches in this type of weather knows that there is very little margin for error, either on the part of the pilot or the part of the equipment. You can find numerous similar accidents over the past 20 years, including some in the United States.
No doubt NSA/ECHELON has the data on the flight including all radio traffic …. but then what need would ther be for that, the Soviets would never lie or run a wet operation.
If the Russians did this, NATO members and I’m sure even Poland will choose to treat this as a fait accompli and lick their wounds rather than starting a World War.
I realize that the usual suspects will be defending the Russians, and blaming everybody else in the world for it; but I found this comment on another blog that summarizes things wonderfully. From ACE OF SPADES’ thread on the crash:
The Poles just had an entire political faction wiped out while flying a Russian plane in Russia. The crash will be investigated by Russians, headed by Putin. The same Putin whose political adversaries keep coming down with unlucky fatal accidents involving freak circumstances and exotic radioactive isotope poisonings. It happened just after the U.S. sold out Poland and the Czech Republic, and signaled that even attacking the U.S. directly with biological and chemical attacks wouldn’t trigger a WMD response (and if that’s our stance on our own country, imagine what you can do to our allies). Nothing at all suspicious about the incident whatsoever. Just bad luck.
The Czech Republic leadership might want to start carrying lucky rabbits’ feet that aren’t unluckily laced with Polonium-210 or have passive transceivers planted on them. Just sayin’.
If you look at the crash as a unique event, unparalleled in human history; one might make the automatic assumption that any suspicion is mere paranoia by the evil Americans. However, if you look at the documented history of recent actions by the Russians which includes more than a bit of doing things that are “unthinkable”, plus the longer term history between the nations in the area and Russia, plus the personal history of the real ruler of Russia; any automatic assumption of innocence on the part of the Russians becomes irrational. In this case, even if we evil Americans are being paranoid; it is a fact that paranoids have enemies.
Subotai Bahadur
“The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record…The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends.” – Dimitri Manuilski, Prof. at the Lenin School of Political Warfare in Moscow, 1930
“The Cold War is over and Communism is a non-issue for most Americans. Communism is such a non-issue that Communist plans to undermine American society have proceeded for years virtually undetected and unhindered. Recent events have aided this process, with President Obama’s aggressive drive toward Socialism fitting neatly into decades of Communist strategy.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/the_perestroika_deception.html
“Behind the finely crafted finale of communism, the KGB kept watch. Its agents in the criminal underworld, the drug trade and in legitimate business, formed a strong combination for penetrating Western economies and, also, Western governments. An astute appreciation of reality is here denigrated as a relic of the Cold War. Everyone knows the Cold War is over because our enemy said it was over… We all know that Russian agents unleashed radioactive poison on the streets of London. British officials believe that Andrei Lugovoy was Putin’s henchman in the matter. And now, with hardly a squeak from so many political pips, Lugovoy is a member of the Russian parliament with full legal immunity. In a recent interview with Megan Stack, published in the 27 January Los Angeles Times, Lugovoy said: I don’t believe the Cold War is back. It has never ended… After two decades the West has been thoroughly duped; its leaders manipulated, blackmailed, swindled to a point that overt hostile moves by the Russian military, or scathing threats from the Russian president, produces no meaningful reaction… The Cold War cannot end in a whimper. It must end in a bang. Here is the terra firma of Putin’s policy. Does anyone imagine the assassin thinks any differently than his boss? Lugovoy’s words and their meaning are as straightforward, as simple and easy-to-grasp as anything that has ever gained utterance. Russia under Putin is the enemy of the West… Long ago Russian strategists predicted the West would suffer a severe economic crisis. As far back as the 1950s Russian strategists talked of a forty-year strategy and more, with strategic preparations in the clandestine, criminal, economic and political spheres. Though Communist ideology is supposed to be dead, Western analysts shouldn’t underestimate the ongoing influence of Marxist ideas.”
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2008/0201.html
“The Communist ideology is to destroy your society. This has been their aim for 125 years and has never changed; only the methods have changed a little. When there is detente, peaceful co-existence, and trade, they will still insist: the ideological war must continue! And what is ideological war? It is a focus of hatred; this is continued repetition of the oath to destroy the western world. Just as, once upon a time in the Roman Senate, a famous speaker ended every speech with the statement: “‘Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed,” so today, with every act – detente, trade, or whatever – the Communist press, acting on secret instructions, sends out thousands of speakers who repeat: “‘Furthermore, capitalism must be destroyed.”” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
http://www.alor.org/Library/LegacyofTerror.htm
Posted by a proud member of the non-ad-hominem, pro-American, anti-Marxist peanut gallery.
147. Armageddon Rex
As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. If you want to talk about the ratio of (people dead from crashes)/ (miles flown by a particular aircraft) that model is up near the top.
The issue isn’t psychiatric care; the issue is statistics. The odds of the blossom of Polish patriotism is on the same plane, which crashes w/ all aboard dead, on the way to an unprecedented reconciliation of ’41 Katyn massacre, within 2 or 3 days of the anniversary, on Russian territory, in a country which has for 100+ years been run on this principle of deniability and infiltration, is ZERO. The audacity is a core feature – almost the essence – of deniability. “No – he can’t be a false defector, he gave up ten of his best men!”
Not completely off-topic: I went to college with the sons of the then-head of the Airforce Academy. The General came around one day and gave a talk about the history of airpower to those of us who were interested enough to attend, and in the course of it gave his opinion that contemporary Russian fighter aircraft were better than ours. This was a couple years before the F-22 came out, but it a reminder not to underestimate Russian engineering by someone who ought to know what he was talking about.
Honestly, this is exactly the kind of thinking that is associated with how almost all of you refer to Muslims and Islam, and yet in the case of Russia you deny it. Why? Since you formed your opinions of the Dal al Islam based largely on books, what’s obvious is that you haven’t studied Russia or the Soviet Union except by authors who are as Karen Armstrong is to Islam. This is what the KGB does. They construct an artful Potemkin village, you don’t know any better, and then they accomplish something under your noses that you don’t notice. The further they get towards their goal the deeper and more abject the flattery. The trick is to seduce you with your own hopes. The trick is manipulate your concepts: semantic manipulation. If US dignitaries of this stature went down on the way from Riyahd to Baghdad for some major ceremonial event, you would never believe this is an accident. But in the case of Russia/Poland – a relationship which none of us can imagine based on our personal experience – you just jump to a marciful, rational conclusion. If you’re satisfied by that you really do not understand Russia or the KGB at all.
What F-22? You mean the handful of demo models built before Obama shut down the line, unjobbing 60,000 engineers and machinists whose ‘capitalized’ product added to GDP dollar for dollar, in order to save a couple billion and be ‘responsible with the budget’, while pumping the 800 billion dollar ‘expensed’ stimulus into his union campaign supporters, so they could consume it on GE, Pepsi, Nike, General Mills, and community organizing?
159. Josh
Charles @ 154: Sure but that’s clear only fifty years later. And now.
As a king, Solomon wouldn’t say stuff like that even if he thought it.
……..
Why not? I mean we have a zillion psalms by Solomon’s dad. David wrote beautiful moving stuff. He was a great king and he made a total hash of his family. His son solomon’s hard boiled words make perfect sense also as those of a survivor of the totally dysfunctional family he came from. And then in old age he gave up.
Yeah, I don’t know about the black hats and long coats. The Amish do the same thing. My guess is that its a rebuke of modernity. Are they right? Buddy is saying in another thread around here that everyone’s grandpa would think we were ah challenged. Not too sure I’d disagree with him.
That said. I can confidently say ain’t nutin in the bible sez a man’s gotta wear a black hat & long coat.
charles, josh, were you guys talking about the “Apocryphia” ?
http://www.bing.com/search?q=apocrypha&form=IE8SRC&src=IE-SearchBox
Habu #157,
They are like hotel burglars who walk down the hallway turning all the doorknobs
The really depressing thing is that Adlai Stevenson was the darling of the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party and their standard bearer twice against Eisenhower. He was the original intellectual Liberal politician that Obama pretends to emulate. The Democratic Party today would have no room for an honest patriotic and principled liberal like Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. In fact all that Obama does is an affected imitation, a pastiche by a second rate parodist with no comprehension of the quality of the original. Stevenson was sincere in his beliefs and, like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, would support many programs that most in this Club oppose. He was also a patriot who would fight with every fiber in his being to defend this country and what it stands for. We need a loyal and sane Democratic Party. We need two functioning parties that keep each other honest. We need more men like Adlai E. Stevenson.
To be blogged under the title “The Man From Libertyville.”
er hmm test
171. buddy larsen
from – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh
Torah
Torah (תּוֹרָה, literally “teaching”) consists of five books, commonly referred to as the “Five Books of Moses.” Printed versions of the Torah are often called Chamisha Chumshei Torah (חמישה חומשי תורה, literally the “five fifths of the Torah”), and informally “a Chumash.”
In Hebrew, the books of the Torah are identified by the first prominent word in each book. The English names are derived from the Greek names given to the books in the Septuagint, which are based on the thematic content of each of the books, as follows:
1. Genesis – Bereshith
2. Exodus – Shemot
3. Leviticus – Vayikra
4. Numbers – Bamidbar
5. Deuteronomy – Devarim
[edit] Nevi’im
Nevi’im (נְבִיאִים, “Prophets”) consists of eight books. This division includes the books which, as a whole, cover the chronological era from the entrance of the Israelites into the Land until the Babylonian captivity of Judah (the “period of prophecy”). However, they exclude Chronicles, which covers the same period. The Nevi’im are often divided into the Earlier Prophets (נביאים ראשונים), which are generally historical in nature, and the Later Prophets (נביאים אחרונים), which contain more exhortational prophecies.
Although most versions of the Old Testament count the number of books as totalling 21, counting the books of Samuel and Kings as two books each, and the “Twelve Prophets” (or the minor prophets) as 12 books, Jewish tradition does not:
6. Joshua (יהושע / Y’hoshua)
7. Judges (שופטים / Shophtim)
8. Samuel (I & II) (שמואל / Sh’muel)
9. Kings (I & II) (מלכים / M’lakhim)
10. Isaiah (ישעיה / Y’shayahu)
11. Jeremiah (ירמיה / Yir’mi’yahu)
12. Ezekiel (יחזקאל / Y’khezqel)
13. The Twelve Prophets (תרי עשר)
a. Hosea (הושע / Hoshea)
b. Joel (יואל / Yo’el)
c. Amos (עמוס / Amos)
d. Obadiah (עובדיה / Ovadyah)
e. Jonah (יונה / Yonah)
f. Micah (מיכה / Mikhah)
g. Nahum (נחום / Nakhum)
h. Habakkuk (חבקוק /Havakuk)
i. Zephaniah (צפניה / Ts’phanyah)
j. Haggai (חגי / Khagai)
k. Zechariah (זכריה / Z’kharyah)
l. Malachi (מלאכי / Mal’akhi)
[edit] Ketuvim
Ketuvim (כְּתוּבִים, “Writings”) or “scriptures”, are sometimes also known by the Greek title “Hagiographa” and consists of 11 books. These encompass all the remaining books, and include the Five Scrolls. They are sometimes also divided into such categories as Sifrei Emet (ספרי אמת, literally “Books of Truth”) of Psalms, Proverbs and Job (the Hebrew names of these three books form the Hebrew word for “truth” as an acrostic, and all three books have unique cantillation marks), the “wisdom books” of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs, the “poetry books” of Psalms, Lamentations and Song of Solomon, and the “historical books” of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles. In the Jewish version, Ketuvim consists of 11 books, counting Ezra and Nehemiah as one book and I and II Chronicles as a single book.
The “Sifrei Emet,” “Books of Truth”:
14. Psalms [תהלים / Tehillim]
15. Proverbs [משלי / Mishlei]
16. Job [איוב / Iyov]
The “Five Megilot” or “Five Scrolls”:
17. Song of Songs [שיר השירים / Shir Hashirim]
18. Ruth [רות / Rut]
19. Lamentations [איכה / Eikhah]
20. Ecclesiastes [קהלת / Kohelet]
21. Esther [אסתר / Esther]
The rest of the “Writings”:
22. Daniel [דניאל / Dani'el]
23. Ezra-Nehemiah [עזרא ונחמיה / Ezra v'Nechemia]
24. Chronicles (I & II) [דברי הימים / Divrei Hayamim]
The Polish CASA C-295M transport aircraft departed Warsaw (WAW) at 16:51 on a flight to Kraków (KRK), through Powidz AB, Poznán-Krzesiny AB, Miroslawiec AB, and Swidwin AB. The plane was carrying 36 attendees, returning from the 50th Annual Aviation Safety Conference held in Warsaw.
Nine attendees deplaned at Powidz and eleven at Poznán-Krzesiny AB. It took off from Krzesiny at 18:24. Weather at Miroslawiec was poor with a ceiling at 300 feet and a visibility 2 sm in mist. The crew were cleared for a PAR approach to runway 12/30. The approach was unstabilized.
On finals, the left bank reached 76 deg and pitch reached -21 degrees. The aircraft hit the ground 1300 m from Rwy 30 threshold and 320 meters left of extended runway centerline. The aircraft impacted terrain in left sideslip, on heading 220 deg (Rwy heading was 304 deg), disintegrated and partially burnt. Rate of descent at the moment of ground impact reached approx 6000 feet/min and the ground speed was 148 knots. The aircraft’s landing gear was extended and flaps were at 15 degrees setting, at impact.
PRIMARY CAUSE: Inadvertent loss of spatial and situational awareness by the aircraft crew during final stages of PAR approach, which, within 12 seconds period before crash, resulted in the aircraft’s bank increasing unmonitored and accompanying altitude loss, while the flight crew apparently was trying to establish visual contact with runway and approach lights.
Among the secondary causes the Board listed:
* Improper flight crew selection for the flight:
- The PIC did not have any previous experience on this version of CASA C-295 aircraft, which was additionally equipped with 2 IRS/GPS LN-100G units instead of 2 TOPSTAR 100-2 GPS receivers, and, ironically, with EGPWS Mk. V – unfortunately lack of cryptographic modules in GPS receivers, which made IRS/GPS LN-100G system almost useless (IRS alone with no GPS enhancement) caused flight crew to use handheld GPS receivers (Garmin GPSMAP 196),
- The SIC was not rated in CASA C-295 aircraft for night/IMC operations,
* Poor flight crew coordination and cooperation (poor MCC & CRM):
- improper altimeter setting procedures,
- probably both pilots were looking for visual cues and nobody was observing flight instruments in the very last seconds before they crash),
* Poor weather conditions in vicinity of Miroslawiec AB; ceiling 300 feet, visibility 2 sm, in mist. Icing was excluded as a factor.
* Spatial disorientation of the flight crew,
* EGPWS Audio warning was inhibited (the flight crew missed EGPWS test before departure from Warsaw, even though it was a checklist item, and never corrected the problem – the PIC was not familiar with the system – he has never flown before CASA C-295M equipped with EGPWS) – in result no audio warning of excessive bank angle, high terrain closure rate and high sink rate was available to the flight crew, as well as no automatic height above ground callouts were given,
* The flight crew failed to monitor radio-altimeter indication during both approaches,
* Both pilots concentrated their attention outside of the cockpit during final seconds before crash and did not scan flight instruments.
* The military PAR controller did a poor job during the approach, he let for the non-stabilized approach, he was not compensating properly for left crosswind of 20 kts and allowed the aircraft to stay high above glide slope during both PAR approaches, he also was not fully aware of altimeter setting (QNH or QFE) and altitude reports by flight crew– improper values QNH/QFE were used by the flight crew during first approach, additionally PIC has set his altimeter to QFE, while SIC to QNH. During the approach the controller’s instructions were hesitant and inconsistent, probably making the flight crew to believe their approach was going well.
* The military PAR controller was giving improper suggestions to the flight crew – he was questioning them during final stage of approach whether they see approach or runway lights or not, instead of continuous talking them down to the runway threshold,
* Altimeter indications were improperly interpreted by the flight crew,
* Improperly performed search for visual contact by the flight crew during final stage of approach,
* Improper, lacking weather situation analysis performed by the PIC before the flight,
* The flight crew did not properly set DH/MDA (they did the same error on previous two legs before crash).
Contributing factors were:
* The SIC was not rated in CASA C-295 aircraft for night/IMC operations (the SIC total flight time was 800 hours including 100 hours in CASA C-295M),
* The PIC has no previous experience on the accident version of CASA C-295 aircraft, (although he logged 800+ hours in another version of CASA C-295M aircraft used by Polish AF and his total flight time was 2500 hours),
* Because of lack of GPS enhancement to IRS, the flight crew used Garmin GPSMAP 196 handheld GPS receiver,
* The PIC had no previous experience in PAR approaches in IMC, close to minimums, which in Miroslawiec AB were reported to be aprox. ceiling 270 feet and visibility of 3300 feet,
* The military PAR controller had no previous experience in conducting PAR approaches of aircraft other than Sukhoi Su-22,
* The aircraft was improperly vectored to final approach by military APP controller (the same person performing PAR controller duties) which resulted in rushed, non-stabilized first approach, because the aircraft started descent on final approach segment being twice as high as glide slope,
* Lack of instrument approach procedures meeting ICAO standards at Polish military airports, including Miroslawiec AB, published in Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP),
* Use of different units by pilots and controller (the aircraft’s altimeters were scaled in feet and hPa, while the controller was using meters and millimeters of Hg, there was also misunderstanding regarding use of QNH and QFE),
* Even though the aircraft was equipped with ILS receiver, the ILS equipment at Miroslawiec AB was inoperative (it was installed in 2001, but since then has never worked properly, and therefore was not used, despite several repair attempts – now, 2 months after the crash, it is reported to work properly – the crew had available only military PAR (unable to meet ICAO standards), assisted with 2 military NDBs located 4 km and 1 km from the threshold of runway 30),
* The information on minimum weather conditions and available navaids in Miroslawiec AB were improperly disseminated (dispatch personnel had no information the ILS in Miroslawiec AB was inoperative).
from “Aviation Safety”
deleting, out of synch
Somebody wanted a KGB frontman? (Yeah, FSB, whoever signs the checks these days.) Did you miss Patrick Armstrong up there? Not sure if it’s an alias or if he’s an Irish renegade or something, but there’s your quisling type.
It is possible this was an accident. However unless this is very convincingly determined to be so, beyond a reasonable doubt, Russian hijinks are the way to bet.
Too bad nothing ever seems to happen to the Russians with or without help – certainly not often enough to be useful.
What does Poland do next? (How will this differ based on the verdict?)
No need for any special malfescence on the part of the Russians, just a slight negligence for some aspects. Instead of making 6 checks, you make only 5 (or 4). If an accident DID happen to the Poles, great. If not, no problem, life goes on.
It would be especially ironic if it was indeed an accident, but Putin decided to give the impression that he was behind it by taking charge of the investigation, to appear strong in front of others. After all, doing so further strengthens his influence (his opposition would be cowed somewhat), whilst letting another party take charge and find out it really was an accident would not have benefitted him in any way.
171. buddy larsen
were you guys talking about the “Apocryphia” ?
No. The Aporyphia were the Christian texts that didn’t make the cut in 3rd-4th centuries. A bunch of them were dug up among the dag hamadi scrolls in Egypt about 1946 — or a couple years before the dead sea scrolls were found in 1953. While Constantine’s bishops ruled against Arius in 325 AD at the council of Nicea–the books that formed the Apocraphia and the heresies lived on.You can still see some of the ideas of the gnostic gospels–as they’re also called–promoted in the Koran. Its said that the type of Christianity that Mohammed encountered in Jerusalem was the Arian christianity of the gnostic gospels. Typically, during the first centuries of the expansion of islam– arian christian communities put up little resistance to the Moslems. They had the same low view of Jesus as the Moselems. (And by low view here I mean that arians/moslems/liberals believe that Jesus is fully Man but Not God. To be a Christian you have to believe that Jesus is fully man and fully God.)In the modern era liberal churches as well often have the same low view of Jesus. That’s why the liberal churches don’t have much trouble with Islam. When Herman Melville started Moby Dick in the 19th century — He began it with –Call me Ishmael. After he finished the book went to a unitarian church for the first time. (the unitarians are the modern age’s first arians.)
A century or two after the destruction of the 2nd Jewish Temple in +70 AD–the Jewish rabbis did something similar to what happened among Christian bishops. They kicked out a couple books from the Old Testament. Two that I know of were the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilee. Both books are found today in the Ethiopian Jewish Torah. Fragments of the Book of Enoch were found among the dead sea scrolls. I don’t know for sure as to whether the Book of Jubilee was found among the dead sea scrolls. As I mentioned before the rabbis wanted to emphasize the oneness of God. As in “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” found in Deuteronomy 6:4. The book of Enoch had too many angels and demons buzzing around in it. I don’t know what the problem was with the book of Jubilee.
159. Josh
But there’s nothing about the long coats and funny hats anywhere in the Bible that I know of!
see- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtreimel
One traditional story says an anti-semitic political figure made a decree that male Jews must be identified on Sabbath by “Wearing a Tail” on their heads. Although the decree was an attempt to mock the Jews, the Hasidic Rabbis considered the matter seriously, in keeping with the universally accepted Jewish Law stating “the Law of the Land in which Jews live is to be upheld so long as it does not obstruct normative Jewish observance.” They arrived at a plan which complied with and even exceeded the decree by arranging to make hats such as worn by Royalty, encircled by a ring of tails. This transformed an object of intended ridicule to a Crown. Further, they instituted that the number of tails should follow Jewish Numerology Gematria and be representative of the wearer’s sacred intentions
Wow, wow, wow! Now, with the benefit of the post 10 pm (PST) news, we know that:
1) the plane was (indeed) advised by the Smolensk tower to fy to Minsk or Moscow because of very difficult weather -
2) then, after an aborted attempt at landing (was this before or after the adivice?) the Polish plane DUMPED FUEL, which means that they were anyway in a NO OTHER CHOICE situation – that is, the crew was aware that only a quick and brutal landing might have saved them –
Awful, but this is the objective truth -
Subjective and counterproductive complements of this situation:
1) the Russian’s inflammatory choice of Putin to run the investigation, choice which will be used by creeps left & right to capitalize on this tragedy -
2) the Polish president who has a history of provocative acts in resembiling situations, like when trying to force his pilots in Tbilisi when they considered the act dangerous, attitude which will be used by other creeps to point at the Poles’ irresponsibility -
Truth is seldom simple and never pure – yet there are cases when situations are clear, like in this case -
F47/174; thanks –it’s pretty confusing –your breakdown is a saver for reference –middle daughter is studying the subject and occasionally tries to engage me in discussion –during which i keep feeling like Spongebob Squarepants.
N/177; What does Poland do next? Poland keeps on, as for the past hundred years trapped between ruthless expansionist giant industrial/military Missionary Xenophobic cultures: wondering ‘what does Poland do next?’ –
TWG/178; re Putin’s taking over the investigation: it’s just possible –and almost worth a smile, that now that Putin has earned his rep and made his enemies, he can’t take a chance that enemies would sabotage the investigation, make a proof or damn him with faint praise, creating “he did it” when actually he didn’t do it.
but, you might say, his taking over the ivestigation does that anyway, making him look guilty. yes true, but this way he controls the crappy image; the other way there’s a chance he can’t take, that the crappy image turns out to have been the least of his problems.
i think that’s what papa ray was getting at with the James Arness thing nearby –reputation as a value has somehow taken a holiday on the fat of the land (i blame Clinton), and mother nature is ending that holiday now.
Two interesting tweets to consider together (edited);
1. Matthew Wilson 1913Intel
Poland gas find threatens Russia’s hold over EU http://cli.gs/TB8QP
2. Matthew Wilson 1913Intel
China Turns Up the Heat http://cli.gs/3jPHb
Conoco is negotiating to exploit shale reserves near Gdansk that increase the EU’s potential gas reserves by 47% and China is systematically working to neutralize the US Navy’s advantages that give America the ability to constrain China. Put these together and remember how eager our FSB shill is to promote distractions and uncertainty as to whether every provocation in Kyrgyzstan or Poland or elsewhere is due to Russia or China or some other agent. It is the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO) and at this point advice to ignore evidence of a common threat from them is as disingenuous as assurances that the Shia of Iran would never cooperate with the Sunni of al Qeada. The SCO countries are working together to gather key resources under their control and to use that power to dominate all potential rivals. Those rivals are the Democracies of India, East Asia, Israel, Australia, the EU and the USA.
A disinformation ploy tends to follow a recognizable pattern. At first after the provocation the minder lays low, giving his targets a chance to vent and expend energy. During the initial response any appearance from him would only provoke a clearer response and he knows it. Then he appears speaking off topic and offering what seem like reasoned information on side topics, interspersed with caustic sounding observations about some targets that it might be assumed he would defend. This is done to establish credibility and regain a place in the conversation. Later he will propose alternative explanations and suggest that more information will come later, while denigrating any who have questioned his good faith. If challenged at this point the disinformation specialist will withdraw, protesting that he was not stating a fact but only offering more sources. This allows him to put down markers that can be returned to in the final stage where he can alternate, depending on the audience, between asserting that “as everyone knows” the Kremlin line is correct, and was even reported earlier, or that the truth is unknowable and therefor no response is possible.
To be blogged under the title “Getting Shanghaied.”
Two interesting tweets to consider together (edited);
1. Matthew Wilson 1913Intel
Poland gas find threatens Russia’s hold over EU http://cli.gs/TB8QP
2. Matthew Wilson 1913Intel
China Turns Up the Heat http://cli.gs/3jPHb
Conoco is negotiating to exploit shale reserves near Gdansk that increase the EU’s potential gas reserves by 47% and China is systematically working to neutralize the US Navy’s advantages that give America the ability to constrain China. Put these together and remember how eager our FSB shill is to promote distractions and uncertainty as to whether every provocation in Kyrgyzstan or Poland or elsewhere is due to Russia or China or some other agent. It is the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO) and at this point advice to ignore evidence of a common threat from them is as disingenuous as assurances that the Shia of Iran would never cooperate with the Sunni of al Qeada. The SCO countries are working together to gather key resources under their control and to use that power to dominate all potential rivals. Those rivals are the Democracies of India, East Asia, Israel, Australia, the EU and the USA.
A disinformation ploy tends to follow a recognizable pattern. At first after the provocation the minder lays low, giving his targets a chance to vent and expend energy. During the initial response any appearance from him would only provoke a clearer response and he knows it. Then he appears speaking off topic and offering what seem like reasoned information on side topics, interspersed with caustic sounding observations about some targets that it might be assumed he would defend. This is done to establish credibility and regain a place in the conversation. Later he will propose alternative explanations and suggest that more information will come later, while denigrating any who have questioned his good faith. If challenged at this point the disinformation specialist will withdraw, protesting that he was not stating a fact but only offering more sources. This allows him to put down markers that can be returned to in the final stage where he can alternate, depending on the audience, between asserting that “as everyone knows” the Kremlin line is correct, and was even reported earlier, or that the truth is unknowable and therefor no response is possible.
Can’t put my finger on this but it definitely feels suspicious. Especially in light of the events in Kyrgyzstan a few days prior. Enemies sense Obama’s weakness on foreign policy and dialed back military stance and are bound to pounce. It was just a question of when and where and how hard they would hit. And unfortunately I believe this is only the beginning.
Some thoughts…
1) Apparently the plane has been recently serviced in Russia in December ’09. Russians could have easily tampered with instruments or other components knowing this plane would be used by the delegation for this event.
The Tu-154 that crashed was 26 years old. Polish officials have long discussed replacing the planes that carry the country’s leaders but said they lacked the funds. The presidential plane was fully overhauled in December in Russia, with Russian experts insisting it was airworthy. Pilot error and bad weather were to blame, they said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/10/polish-president-kaczynski-killed-crash
2) Why would experienced and qualified pilots defy orders and try to land four times at a closed airport?
3) How does a plane with 200 journalists manage to land with no problems just prior to the plane that supposedly crashed in dense fog.
Two interesting tweets to consider together (edited);
1. Matthew Wilson 1913Intel
Poland gas find threatens Russia’s hold over EU http://cli.gs/TB8QP
2. Matthew Wilson 1913Intel
China Turns Up the Heat http://cli.gs/3jPHb
Conoco is negotiating to exploit shale reserves near Gdansk that increase the EU’s potential gas reserves by 47% and China is systematically working to neutralize the US Navy’s advantages that give America the ability to constrain China. Put these together and remember how eager our FSB shill is to promote distractions and uncertainty as to whether every provocation in Kyrgyzstan or Poland or elsewhere is due to Russia or China or some other agent. It is the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO) and at this point advice to ignore evidence of a common threat from them is as disingenuous as assurances that the Shia of Iran would never cooperate with the Sunni of al Qeada. The SCO countries are working together to gather key resources under their control and to use that power to dominate all potential rivals. Those rivals are the Democracies of India, East Asia, Israel, Australia, the EU and the USA.
A disinformation ploy tends to follow a recognizable pattern. At first after the provocation the minder lays low, giving his targets a chance to vent and expend energy. During the initial response any appearance from him would only provoke a clearer response and he knows it. Then he appears speaking off topic and offering what seem like reasoned information on side topics, interspersed with caustic sounding observations about some targets that it might be assumed he would defend. This is done to establish credibility and regain a place in the conversation. Later he will propose alternative explanations and suggest that more information will come later, while denigrating any who have questioned his good faith. If challenged at this point the disinformation specialist will withdraw, protesting that he was not stating a fact but only offering more sources. This allows him to put down markers that can be returned to in the final stage where he can alternate, depending on the audience, between asserting that “as everyone knows” the Kremlin line is correct, and was even reported earlier, or that the truth is unknowable and therefor no response is possible.
#78, 81, 82. All may be as you say. The plane may have just crashed. It does happen. MC you are just yelling by posting that long irrelevant passage. Many of us have read accident reports. I can imagine what Grandpa Pettibone of NavAir would say about everyone involved. Putin and his allies have so poisoned the well that unless he really does go to extraordinary lengths to atone he is now guilty because he profits from the act.
C/179; thanks for that –good quick thumbnail, what i needed –
#78, 81, 82. All may be as you say. The plane may have just crashed. It does happen. MC you are just yelling by posting that long irrelevant passage. Many of us have read accident reports. I can imagine what Grandpa Pettibone of NavAir would say about everyone involved. Putin and his allies have so poisoned the well that unless he really does go to extraordinary lengths to atone he is now guilty because he profits from the act.
My very long piece on the FSB shill and the culpability of the SCO failed to post, with no moderation warning this time and with no embedded videos, only two small links from twitter. Please read on my blog and comment in here if you wish.
Nato as a collective should formally insist on conducting the investigation, and demand full access to everything up to and including Putin’s bathroom. For those who scream about McCain as a Rino remeber he had Putin pegged.
Marie Claude
Reading you I am sure soon you will blame the dead Poles for the accident, and for Katyn, and you will quote ruskies who recently wrote in the Russian media that the WWII was a Polish fault. Right, MC?
And you know what happened because people who commented at Sécurité Aérienne et Accidentologie wrote that “Un amie polonaise me disait tout a l’heure que le president etait tres autoritaire.” and
“Le pilote voulait probablement atterrir pour que les officiels polonais ne perdent pas la face devant les Russes. ”
They (and you) of course know best.
GeoffB
Firstly – If that was no accident and if that was the work of FSB then the message is probably not to USA but to EU. And it is to Poles because Kaczynski was conservative and he was less pro EU and less conciliatory towards Russia than other Polish politicians.
Secondly – it may have been done by some of the EU people – Kaczynski was not a pro-EU guy and he was really against German-Russian close co-operation leaving Poles in dark and against EU butting into internal Polish matters.
Thirdly – myself, I think it was an accident but I am not sure. Unfortunately I will probably never know the truth because Putin is heading the inquiry into the plane – crash. And Putin/Russian inquiries tend to show what Russians want them to show.
Dan Miller
It is best to await the technical details before jumping on some conspiracy theory.
Yes, it would have been better but you are forgetting that it is the Russians who are giving the details of the crash. Russians, got it?
And the truth is, that majority of Poles would go with the results saying that it was the pilot fault (even if it wasn’t) simply because …………… we have border with Russia and the Russian army stationing near our border and the Obama is president in the States and the countries of EU are hungry for the gas from Russia.
Regardless of the cause of the loss of the Polish Tu-154, Putin comes out ahead. Personally, I am inclined to believe that the loss of the aircraft was due to pilot error or an instrumentation malfunction. But with that said, Habu has it exactly right: The Russians absolutely have the audacity to commit such an act of cold-blooded murder to advance their interests and to send a message to their adversaries, particularly if said adversaries have shown weakness. Remember that tough old Aleksandr Lebed was “conviently” knocked off the same way in 1997…. In the current international climate, Putin could do this this and get away with it, and he knows it. On the other hand, sometimes providence just drops a lucky card into your lap. I can imagine Putin lighting a votive candle to old Rasputin, considering how he would play this card.
A while back GeoffB made a keen observation that passed without subsequent comment: (@ 129) “There is one and only one scenario that makes me fear this wasn’t an accident. Unfortunately, it’s the one that scares me the most: What if this had nothing to do with the Poles per se, and the real test was to see whether Obama is so desperate for a historic slip of paper that he would gloss over the blatant murder of American friends to get it? We already knew that everyone in Russia’s “near-abroad” was in danger. Only an idiot couldn’t see it and no message needed to be sent after last year’s events in Georgia. Which leaves only one bit of message sending that might serve Putin: Getting Obama to send the message that the era of America as liberty’s strongest friend and staunchest ally is well and truly over.”
Regardless of whether or not it was an accident, the concern still stands, and the Russians have yet another strong card to play. There is little doubt as to how they might play this card, to our detriment. Given the current situation, what should our response be to Putin’s Gambit? How do we make sure that this proper response is implemented, not just in America but throughout our respective countries?
Not much dispute at least in the Christian church that Solomon, the Koholeth(the preacher) wrote Ecclesiastes. Solomon examines the futility of much of life and concludes “that it’s the whole duty of man to fear God and keep his commandments.
Solomon in a way is similar to modern politicians like Clinton and Obama in that he was handed a powerful nation purchased by the blood and toil of others and squandered the” peace dividend”.
Israel in pre-diaspora days was never as powerful again as they were when David handed the throne to Solomon.
LOTM, no, I posted the whole text (as my attempt to post the link failed) that illustrated the same sort of accident with the same weather conditions that occured in january 2008, and I don’t remember that then some put it on Putin’s eagerness to harm the Poles.
That’s funny only persons that have no knowledge in aviation are saying that that was a Putin trick ! Can’t see such a analyse on experts’ sites !
I’m not a Putin worshipper, and I rely more on common sense for decipherating the kind of event
MC
Why do you give us data from 23 January 2008? Do you think that one plane crash is equal the other, or that behaviour of one organization at some time in the past is equal the behaviour of the same organization at present? If so behaviour of KGB and FSB regarding Poles in the past should be the clue to their behaviour at present, n’est-ce pas?
Tiens Ella manifeste son amour, how are you my dear school misstress ? it’s a long time you didn’t try to lecture me, I missed you, really, but for this occurence I leave you with your insane supposition
Tcobb @165:
That’s why I specified:
“…has a good flight safety record considering the crew training levels and maintenance levels common for that type of aircraft throughout its history…”
All part of the lies, damned lies, and statistics you mentioned. What those statistics leave out and fail to consider is often as important as what they highlight.
I agree with exhelodrvr:
“…they were lacking was in the maintenance and training areas…”
Having said that, and keeping in mind that pilot error was likely, it’s so simple to twiddle with the ALS / TACAN / VOR/DME ground approach equipment, and then set it back so that any investigators will find all the airfield equipment is in perfect working order.
Hell, if I was the maintenance officer in charge of airfield landing aids, I’d have had my crackerjack team of technicians out tuning the equipment while the firefighters were still looking for survivors to be absolutely sure the finger wasn’t pointed at me on the ill fated chance that my equipment was slightly out of tune and the investigation picked me for a convenient scapegoat.
Come to think of it, if this was intentional, Vlad sure could tie it all up neatly by pinning it on crappy airfield equipment maintenance. It’s not like it’d be unbelievable that shoddy maintenance had caused a huge Russian / Soviet disaster. What was that glowing place in Ukraine….Cher something or other?
ella, ask the moderator he’s got the link somwhere !
there are similitude of the weather conditions ! but if you don’t want to see them… take it on your character !
Marie Claude
School mistress, LOL.
MC, you really should rein your over-active imagination. On the other hand…no, don’t do it. I have quite a laugh reading your posts when you do not know what to say. Like……….. now.
One possible precipitate cause has yet to be mentioned.
It is called “wind shear”. From what MC and others have posted, it could well be that the aircraft was on short
final with proper glide path to the runway and then
had a sudden loss of altitude and/or was slammed to the ground.
Unless that airfield has wind shear detectors (most unlikely!) I don’t suppose we will ever know for sure about this factor.
However, if the impact was as stated 130 meters short of runway, clipping a tree or three would not cause such a sudden impact.
Looks like it was either (a) pointed at the impact site rather than at the runway or (b) slammed into the ground.
Once again: Odds heavily favor an accident. BUT Dien Bien Putin is hell-bent to run investigation his way which guarantees the appearance of a coverup, fans the flames of conspiracy theory, makes Poland and others
nervous etc. And I got a feeling that somewhere along the line, Barack Obama will shoot off his less-than-astute mouth and help escalate things.
Events, Dear Boy, Events.
uh, Ella I know you since such quite a while , but I’m glad that I made you smile
The post that did not post in here has two links. One is about China building the capacity to neutralize the US Navy. The other is a link to a report that oil shale reserves discovered near Gdansk and contracted for by Conoco potentially increase EU reserves by 47%. Given that the Russians invaded Georgia to prevent a pipeline that would have circumvented their control over energy supplies to the EU it is no stretch to see them viewing the news of a Polish based natural gas & shale energy supply as an existential threat to Putin’s plans.
If the Americans Europeans and the other Democracies became independent of both the Arab and the Russian energy yoke then they could revitalize their economies and societies. This would not only free them from the threat of authoritarian Russian or Islamic domination but also who make them a long term rival to China. Declining economies elsewhere mean that more resources are available for China.
That is why the SCO is a win win for both China and Russia, they both get something. Russia gets to dominate and exploit its near abroad plus the remnants of the EU while China gets to exploit resources in Africa and even Latin America, without competition. While China relied on an American economy healthy enough to finance China’s growth through export industrialization that does not mean that China wants the Americans to stay prosperous.
The Chinese approach is mercantilism, not capitalism, mixed with Great Han nationalism to produce a new form of financial colonial fascism. They want to control resources and ship them to China. To achieve their goals the Chinese and the Russians have cooperated in encouraging the West to disarm and deindustrialize. There is very little ideological Bolshevism behind this and less Marxist utopianism but rather a willingness to use the tools inherited from the Communist movement to advance their interests. Legitimate scientific, moral and environmental interests in the West have been exploited, and regrettably compromised, to advance cynical, in the modern sense, interests.
To be added to the blog post “Getting Shanghaied.”
Poland, Kyrgystan – precision political war to parallel precision contemporary warfighting. Decapitate a government to send a loud message to EU – i.e. “maybe you should think harder about that ‘Common European Defense’ we’ve proposed?”, target the exact little zone of Central Asia – also known as, bowdlerize your own strategic military intelligence asset, to be replaced with another. Sign a piece of paper about maintaining America’s belief that you are just a poor, wounded, moping little country who’s constantly being taken advantage of, even through the donation of billions of dollars… then ship some more semi’s full of advanced centrfuges.
@106 Buddy Larsen: If odds of the entire Polish leadership being in a solo flight are X, and the odds of any plane crash are Y, then the odds here are X + Y, or X x Y ?
The far-from-learned yours truly can only answer trivial questions, so, just for the satisfaction of participating, I’ll answer that one.
The “odds of the entire Polish leadership being in a solo flight” are useless, since we know they were in a “solo flight.” The “odds of any plane crash” are useless, since we know (or at least seem to know) conditions far more specific than “plane crash,” such as heavy fog and type of plane. In other words, the odds that you’re trying to calculate are the odds that we’d calculate if we didn’t know things which actually we do know.
“Odds” may or may not be an informal way of saying “probability,” but properly speaking, odds and probability are quite different. If the probability of an event is P, the odds in favor of it are P/(1-P). For example, probability=0.8 is odds 0.8/0.2, or 4-to-1.
I’ll assume that your X and Y are probabilities. The answer is X times Y. This assumes that the two events are what probability theorists call “independent” (of each other), which means that Y does not even partially depend on X, or vice-versa. (I don’t mean that X plus Y would be correct if they were not independent.)
AR/192, not Cher, sonny, but Chernobyl. Another maintenance failure. The safety protocols were being tested, by running some parameters close to danger point. “We don’t like this,” phoned the on-site techs to the remote bosses who ordered the test. “Do it anyway,” they said, “…we have to know.” ka-bOOm. Oops! And the prevailing winds of the season dropped radiation over Germany, and lo and behold, up sprang a German Green Party, and down went western energy supplies as the Green spread into religious fervor, and Preacher Gore and Moe Strong’s IPCC swooped to the rescue. And the people played and frolic’d on, until one day they woke up shivering and out of gas and they looked around for help and all they saw was the big bear over there smiling, holding the keys to the energy supplies they didn’t have any more of, and didn’t have any more military diplomatic moral power to command any more of. Oops! Oops! Oops!
***
Thanks, smoking frog –good explanation –even i could follow it and the exogenous factors must indeed, you are right, be factored. One might ask, if there are say three air crashes per day in the world, what is the probability that one of them will contain the leadership of a great nation. The answer to that is, given infinite time, 100%. So, as many have said, jeeeez, what rotten luck, what a revoltin’ development.
Should I be flattered? One of the 4920 Twitter feeds followed by Amb. Dmitry Rogozin, Head of the Permanent Mission of Russia to NATO, is mine.
info & clips from film “Katyn”
how it was done, the method (this is the ending of the film, so maybe don’t watch it if you intend to see the film –maybe don’t watch it anyway, it’s extreme)
God help us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_1oGfsHVYU&feature=related
Local tv report of 2008 premier of film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6lTucymQfY&feature=related
Local memorial film
Ella, please do continue to lecture the hell out of MC!
“3. What happens if Poland declares the event an attack under the terms of the Nato Treaty?”
Then the rest of NATO with France and the US in the lead says “We don’t agree. It is obvious it was an accident. That you don’t agree means that you are either insane or plan to attack Russia. To preserve the Peace in Europe we must warn you that if you manage to get into a war with Russia we will not help you!”
Why did they travel in one plane? I would like to know if maybe the Russians said that the airport schedule was so busy that they would only get one landing slot?
Did they wave off four times? Do we have independent confirmation of that? Were the wave-offs initiated by the pilot or the tower? If it was the pilot, why did he abort the landing? Did the glideslope and his instruments disagree? Were there obstructions on the runway?
Do we have independent confirmation of the supposed fog? Any witnesses that were inside the fog? It didn’t happen to smell of diesel by any chance?
181. misanthropicus
The “news” you cite. Who put it out , who verified it?
As far as i have heard the Soviets are in charge of the investigation so it must have come from them.
obama will never authorized the NSA to relealse what they have re: radio transmissions.
Just Where TF did this info come from?
re #160
A Foxnews article stated there was no ILS at this airport, so we assume that some sort of non-precision approach was in play. These type of approaches entail establishment on the inbound course, descent to, and maintenance of, the Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA) and proceeding until you reach the Missed Approach Point (MAP) which is usually determined by elapased time or reaching a fix. You must not descend lower than the MDA unless you visually acquire the runway environment and can safely reach the aim point at a 3 degree slope. There are all sorts of lights at the end of a runway, along the runway, down the center of the runway, and even a “rabbit” before the runway – the approach plate for THIS runway will list the lights; current NOTAMS will list their status. The approach designers and the folks who perform recurring checks determine the MDA — as stated, the MDA will be 400-600 AGL and has a margin designed-in regarding obstructions. The pilots have to follow the rules and execute properly.
“Lech Kaczynski has been such a prickle in the paw of the Soviet Union that it is hard to believe that he was a welcome visitor this week or anytime… A foe of communism, a friend of freedom, a friend to Israel, and intending to defend his country with military might, Polish President Lech Kaczynski was no friend to Russia, and now he is gone. Prime Minister Tusk, who was cozying up to his Russian counterpart Putin of late, survives… The “official” Russian investigation is going to be handled by Russian Prime Minister Putin, who is also the former head of the Soviet KGB. The plane crash which has removed the plucky Polish president and his top leadership may be found to be an unfortunate accident. If so, it is certainly a very convenient coincidence for Vladimir Putin.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/a_plane_crash_changes_poland.html
Another blow at Poland! What a tragic yet brave history they have endured. My thoughts are with the victims families and friends. Are the Russkies involved? I dont know, but if they were, it wouldn’t surprise me.It will be enlightening to watch the events coming in the next 6 months between Poland, Russia, and the US. Oblammo will sell them down the river too. He and putin are cut from the same cloth. Look for Russia to try drawing her wayward chicks back under her wings, with the help of possum obama, perhaps. . .
Buddy@182,
Yeah, that was what I thought. What good would it be to Putin if it was an accident and was demonstrated to be so? His and Russia’s lily-white innocence? Oh yeah, they can’t allow international goodwill towards Russia to be threatened…
*laughs*
Nah, tis better to be feared than loved. And placing his nefarious powers in the limelight, creating the perception of being behind this tragedy, definitely sends a strong signal to the others: you don’t mess with the Russian bear.
Been away from the net for a few days.
When wife told me about the “accident”
I thought:
Putin!
…but the brave President has taken command of previous flights to get his way.
And, the Sovs have abandoned this particular model of deathtrap aircraft.
(this one was 20 years old)
It was foggy…
I’m going with unsafe forced landing at present.
The BBC is reporting that a witness claims that before the crash he saw the left wing of the plane pointing toward the ground:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8612825.stm
Perhaps what caused that also caused the flight crew to be unresponsive to air traffic control directions, i.e. mechanical failure and/or unconsciousness.
Accidents happen. Air accidents, especially so.
There’s a comment that the “scene was scrubbed.” Does that mean body parts should have been left hanging in the trees?
Frank Sinatra’s mom died in a plane crash. (It, too, was an accident.) And, Kitty Kelley described the scene with “body parts hanging in nearby trees.”
So, yes. Scrubbed makes more sense than not.
The russians are guilty? What a concept. Except that we should have been trained to retort, “innocent until proven guilty.” Even though we’re not lawyers. There’s a lot of work that goes into making accusations.
Plus, Putin’s not dumb. He doesn’t even take a crap on the stage to gain attention. There’s a whole thing about HIS appearances in public, that negates anything more than a drunken pilot. Which is, alas, very common for those who fly “Topolov.”
Kevin/212
An interesting detail. The plane that landed before (journos) them had no problems landing with the same conditions present. It looks like some sort of a mechanical failure. The pilot dumped the fuel on third approach because he knew they would crash.
Can you hide something in the fog which would jam the electrical systems of a plane? Or rig the controls during the servicing in such a way that they would respond (or rather not respond) on simply sending a signal?
Theoretically, of course.
213
That would be Tupolev. An elite AF pilot. You can stuff your drunken pilot you know where.
Twoby,
I read that other flights were redirected because of the fog.
They complied.
Unlike the President’s aircraft.
197. Lifeofthemind
The post that did not post in here has two links. One is about China building the capacity to neutralize the US Navy. The other is a link to a report that oil shale reserves discovered near Gdansk and contracted for by Conoco potentially increase EU reserves by 47%
…..
Yeah this is of a piece with the news that the USA’s natural gas reserves have shot up from a 10 year supply to a 100 year supply–in just the last 24 months. New technologies and procedures have opened up vast new reserves of natural gas supplies all over.
Putin’s natural gas play was neutralized in the last two years by advances in US natural gas technological capabilities.
The answer to the capital drain and recapitalization of America–and maybe Europe — is to get with the program that T Boone Pickens advocates. Switch over all trucks and busses to natural gas. That will zero out US oil imports.
(pickens has since backed off his windmill idea.)
A couple more big natural gas finds for the Europeans like the one in Gdansk and they’ll be able to switch to natural gas and chop down much of their foreign oil import bill.
197. Lifeofthemind
“oil shale reserves” are not natural gas reserves so my post
at 217. is off the mark.
Doug,
There was one plane that landed earlier (an hour something?). Then they started redirecting planes (so I read too).
Maybe the pilot couldn’t comply. The fuel dump on the third approach indicates that the pilot did not have much choice than to attempt to land. The wing tilt indicates there may have been a serious problem with controlling the craft.
twobyfour/214: Not sure. Theoretically, of course, radar-based altimeters can be interfered with electronically to give the pilot a false altitude reading. But I don’t think that accounts for the wing pointing down or the dumping of fuel. It sounds like the plane suffered physical damage while airborne and approaching the air field.
Habu (161)
Really? Including the VHF AM traffic between the plane and the tower at Smolensk? Are you somehow revealing that we have monitoring stations in Belarus?
Kevin/220
Of course, we are speculating. However, considering the details, the whole thing does not add up.
From Kevin’s link, bold mine:
Lech Kaczynski, who had fewer powers than the prime minister but had a significant say in foreign policy, was a controversial figure in Polish politics. He had advocated a right-wing Catholic agenda, opposed rapid free-market reforms and favoured retaining social welfare programmes.
So many decapitating coincidences of late in Putin’s neighborhood- a spiritual head here, a –stan there, a Catholic pro-Western anti-Russian Polish party everywhere… in parts.
And we thought Europe was going to be dhimmified. Silly us.
Charles,
“oil shale reserves” are not natural gas reserves
The linked article in my original post talks of “shale gas” as a source for natural gas extractable with new cracking technologies. We are more used to talking of “oil shale” followed by liquification so your #217 is actually good. If the ability to extract gas economically from these formations has been reached then vast new energy sources will come online. These will sustain Western economies while even newer sources are developed. The important thing is that this repudiates the 40 year Socialist promoted “Limits to Growth” model that has been used to weaken the West. A rebirth of freedom from energy that is controlled by the Islamists or the SCO may be imminent. The Left wants to strangle that infant of opportunity in its cradle. Putin is attempting to cartelize natural gas production to restrict its availability and prolong reliance on declining petroleum reserves controlled by Russia and OPEC. We can expect a press by the SCO supported environmentalists – Greens against the new oil gas extraction efforts.
To be blogged under the title “Get Cracking.”
buddy @ 169: yes, that F-22.
buddy @ 171: not really apocrypha, not even in the general sense, just that different writings have different priorities, histories, authority and traditions.
mc @ 175: if they were really trying to eyeball down a loaded jetliner in the fog … well, I’m not a pilot, but from what I know about it, I cannot imagine why competent pilots would do that. so, is the report a fake? I still lean to the side of pilot error – and apparently controller error as well – but if that report is accurate, it’s epic on both sides. this was an important flight, didn’t they have a flight plan with at least a few contingencies? still, I look at today as a New Age of Incompetence, so I can’t dismiss it.
athorn @ 207: no ILS?! so how far were they from an alternate landing site?
good grief.
LOTM@224: The Left wants to strangle that infant of opportunity in its cradle.
Or perhaps to only open it up when the US political stars are aligned such that the resources in those Federal lands can be nationalized. Since leftists think that nationalized energy companies are always so much less greedy and so much more environmentally aware, you know…
Kirk Parker @221:
Electromagnetic emissions continue on in a straight line forever unless they are bent or dissipated contacting something.
AM single side band transmissions can bounce around the global troposphere & ionosphere if the conditions are correct. They also radiate out into space.
How many big-eared satellites do you think NSA has sitting in geosychronous orbit with enormous parabolic antennas pointed at the earth?
How many low polar orbit satellites do you think NRO has up with more than just electro-optical and radar capability? With the cost of designing, building, launching, and maintaining a reconnaissance satellite why wouldn’t NRO put some SIGINT sensors on every bird?
Anytime you communicate electronically, someone (probably a computer that doesn’t care what you’re communicating unless you’re on a watch list or use a trigger phrase or word) records the electronic transmission at least temporarily. If you’re using electronic communications to receive or send anything you don’t wish intelligent analysts to know about, stop using electronic communications, or invest in some high tech encryption using one-time cipher pads and encrypt all your communications.
Is this news to you?
A correction on some Old Testament history: the first temple was destroyed in 587 BC by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, not in 950 BC by the Egyptians.
229. solovyov
A correction on some Old Testament history: the first temple was destroyed in 587 BC by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, not in 950 BC by the Egyptians.
……
True. The first temple, was destroyed in 589 BC by the Babylonians.
However, in[3010 A.M. : 957 B.C.] in his 5th year, Shishank, king of Egypt, attacked Jerusalem and looted the temple and the palace [1 Ki 14:25];
The Biblical Shishak king of Egypt is the Sheshonk I of Egyptian history, founder of the twenty-second dynasty, and in the Scripture narrative he was contemporary with the last part of Solomon’s reign (I Kings 11:40) and also invaded Palestine in the fifth year of Rehoboam king of Judah, 957 – 940 BC (I Kings 14:25-26; II Chronicles 12:2-9_. In the Karnak temple at Thebes a record has been read confirming Sheshonk’s invasion of Palestine, a number of the cities of both Judah and Israel, being named as taken by him. (Barton, Archeology and the Bible, page 417 – 418).
#204 -> 2=4
uh is there a correlative axiom with Ella for your infinite calculs ?
Habu
in case you don’t know there are journalists from all over the planet that cover the event in the very place of the tragedy, though not sure that Americans are allowed
uh about “shale gas”, not only Poland has such sources, also Germany, France… the problem is still the production costs, until the OPEC prices aren’t getting high, it isn’t a benefit operation for the Companies
Josh, I’m not pronouncing about it anymore, cuz I don’t want to get anathemised by the old capitalist conservative guard, that sees a evil communist behind each accidents, revolts… I remember in the seventies, the old right party, that was supporting De Gaulle governement, made some conventions in the hotels of the suburb belt of Paris, and the inflated hair-brushed ladies were worried if we had closed the doors and windows: “one never know we could be attacked by the communists” !
Two bits of information which may bear on answering the question “Why didn’t the President’s plane divert?” are: (1) the ceremony was only an hour away from the scheduled landing time, and (2) Kaczynski was known to take risks. In 2008, during the war in Georgia, he reprimanded the pilot who diverted to Azerbaijan rather than land in at Tbilisi – a warzone at the time – as ordered. That pilot never flew with Kaczynski again.
Putin would be smart to take advantage of this accident, because he knows that there are so many who are ready to jump at the “The Russians did it!!” answer, even though it is HIGHLY unlikely that they did. The conspiracy theories that will be bouncing around for the next month will leave enough doubt in peoples’ minds to be unsettling. In light of actions the Obama administration has taken vis-a-vis allies, it could be enough to move some nations a little farther towards the Russian camp.
I would like to know what the black box says.
233. Marie Claude
uh about “shale gas”, not only Poland has such sources, also Germany, France… the problem is still the production costs, until the OPEC prices aren’t getting high, it isn’t a benefit operation for the Companies
……
the USA has always had & known about the shale gas as well–however, the costs of production made it unusable. The big thing in the last couple years has been that the costs of extraction have come down in the USA. Likely similiar things will happen in France and Germany in the next couple of years.
TWG/210; That’s definitely a solid theory, but not exactly what i was trying to say –i was trying to posit a totally-innocent Putin who would (1) fully understand the cost to him –the suspicion resulting from –of his taking command of the investigation, but would (2) fear more than that that any alternate method could conceivably cost him even more, perhaps much more.
So, he may have seen himself facing a choice of either a certain but controllable small loss of credibility, or an uncertain, even unlikely, but possible, uncontrollable large loss, through a possible frame-up, or even just an atmospheric frame-up, in a ‘loose-cannon’ final report scenario.
So, within an unavoidable lose/lose situation, he had a choice between certain small lose vs possible big lose, and considering the stakes (possibly “all-in”) he had to call the bet and play the weak hand. A terrible position, but no accident, as he’s been putting himself in that position ever since that watershed speech in Munich in iirc 2002, where he sort of atmospherically declared war on the west, followed by the litany of lethality befalling enemies all over the eurasian land mass.
Alexis/236
I would like to know what the black box says.
Definitely. But it may be that it will say what Pooty says. Or what Pooty says it will say. Any way you flip it, da result’s the same.
Alexis #236,
I would like to know what the black box says
It is being prepared even as we speak.
Nods to 2×4, Great Minds & all, and blogs.
Arm. R. (228)
You might want to study up on a few details before making this kind of pronouncement.
1. Voice traffic on the VHF airband is at 118MHz and above, where tropospheric and ionospheric propogation is fairly negligible at all times.
2. Voice traffic on the VHF airband is exclusively AM, not SSB. (Not that type of modulation has any significant effect on propogation, but still…)
3. “Enormous parabolic antennas” are also profoundly directional. No, I don’t know our exact inventory of listening satellites, but I’d be quite amazed to learn we had enough to keep one pointed at every control tower in the FUSSR and its former allies, 24×7, just in case someone says something interesting. Hence my question about ground stations.
Etc…
http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/bad-luck-and-lots-of-it/2/
Well, I’ve never been Russia, but I do use Google Earth a lot for mapping purposes. I just saved the image of the Smolensk Airfield as a jpeg, but I don’t know how to attach it my “reply”. Can someone please help me on this?
Anyway, the image shows that while there are woods to the North of the field, the East – West approaches parallel to the runways are pretty open for a long distance. I am now skeptical about the claim that the plane crashed “among trees 130 meters from the end of the runway”. There is a ruler feature on Google Earth, under tools,so those of you who have it can check me on this. I’m also skeptical that the aircraft clipped trees on approach causing the crash. Maybe it hit some trees during the crash, but if so, they were already aimed at the dirt.
Take a look if you have Google Earth (or maybe even Google Maps: they aren’t as good resolution, but may be adequate for this). Also,if you have Google Earth you can view the historical view from 2005, which shows the vegetation better because it was taken in the Spring. Current image is from Fall of 2007. Note the aircraft in the images.
Also, probably want to look at weather.com for weather conditions in Smolensk at the time of the crash. satellite data can be spoofed, but not easily once it’s on line.
buddy larsen@242: from your link: “… there’s an extraordinary rash of bad luck out there at the moment, on many fronts — at least for friends of the United States.”
We might add Georgia to our list of friends suffering “bad luck” this week. Unnoticed by the media and unchallenged by the US or NATO, on April 7 Russia signed an agreement with South Ossetia establishing a permanent Russian military base. RIA Novosti reported that with the signing of this agreement, Russia assumes full responsibility for the protection of South Ossetia.
Well, Google Maps is actually pretty good and if you click on the “more photos”link, you can get photos of an aircraft coming in for a landing at the field, an aircraft sitting on the field and a view looking down the runway. Also pictures of trees in the surrounding countryside. Not heavily wooded and not very big trees, so unless someone can correct me, I’m thinking that the trees,if any, were incidental to the crash not causative and that either the plane didn’t come down where they said it did (unlikely?) or that it didn’t come down in a wooded area (and why would they care if it did?).
Here’s the link to the Aviation Safety Network accident report:
http://aviation-safety.netdatabaserecord.php?id=20100410-0
Report says the temperature was 1 degree Celsius at 1050 local, the time of the crash. Accuweather says it was warmer, probably 6 degrees Celsius and mostly cloudy. Doesn’t say anything about fog. LInik:
http://www.weather.com/weather/pastweather/hourly/RSXX0165?stn=0&when=041110
Who is right? Sometime having more data makes things less clear than having less data.
Buddy; scenario A; others: So Big Bear Russia has
declared poor little South Ossetia a protectorate.
Now some Ossetian will get into a traffic accident in close proximity to a friend of Georgia. His Masonic Lodge
will lobby his government to make sure nobody complies with demands for extradition. The FSB will try to do its thing and bumpt up against the French DGSE while its Director is on the phone to MI6. Some message gets diverted to the Rocket Troops and we shall be off to the races.
Unless of course the 800-lb gorilla says “COOL IT!”
Barack Obama though will have starved the gorilla into
an Organ Grinders monkey. Its chatter just escalates everybody else. Europe goes up in flames.
Multilateral entanglements, anyone?
Not to mention the Bad Luck of the gov’t of Afghanistan doing maybe something or other SO naughty that right in the dead center of the tinderbox the American gov’t and MSM has to light a match and have a very, very, well-publicized look-see. An endless, unresolved, dangling, look-see, one might observe.
***
dave/246; can i change, to keep kind-in-kind, your His Masonic Lodge will lobby his government to make sure nobody complies with demands for extradition to “His Masonic Lodge
will lobby his government to make sure nobody complies with the Opus Dei lobby’s demands for extradition”.
Crazily, against all logic, i have to agree, that Friday 13th, 1307, thing was never settled and is still driving events whenever a vacuum begins developing in forward-looking rational politics –best depicted and last seen in the visage of Ronald Reagan.
hate to wrap the tinfoil too tight, but…Google Maps shows an 8,000 foot runway with 1,000 feet of mowed grass on the east and 1,300 feet of mowed grass on the west. The west elevation falls away and the east rises a tad — so hitting trees coupla hundred yards away does not wash if you assume the pilots had the AC on the extended centerline — (dunno the direction of flight) — if the pilot was making a stabilized homeGrown zero/zero approach and contacted the earth short, seems to me the AC would have pancaked in — runway surface looks devoid of markings and you don’t see the stuff associated with an ILS (eyeball Lexington KY Bluegrass for a well equipped ILS runway) – btw, at LEX the big square marks on the runway about a third of the way from either end are the aim point markers for a proper 3 degree stabilized descent
http://fr.novopress.info/55713/l%E2%80%99avion-de-lech-kaczynski-etait-la-risee-des-polonais/
a polish carricature of the presidential plane
Add to the Bad Luck, the Pope’s, oddly surfacing all over the world press, now after a 20 year submersion of event knowledge.
No one mentions that Catholicism is as vulnerable to human nature as anything else under the sun. That a handful of molested children are a horror to be sure, but not in the same league as horrible as five million children starved to death deliberately, a few miles to the east of the Vatican in Ukraine just yesterday, in the 1930s.
In the same manner that what “Europeans” did to Africans and Amerindians in America in the 19th century is current and on the hot front burner forever, while what the Communists did in Russia in the 20th century is “ancient history” and a mere episode, and thus beneath discussion.
Investigators in Russia, who have been joined by Polish teams, have said that Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk, 36, the flight’s first officer, had made three abortive attempts to land, and had been advised to fly to another airport, before deciding to make one last attempt. Both Captain Protasiuk and his second officer, Major Robert Grzywna, were experienced pilots with more than 5,000 hours of flying experience between them.
Lech Walesa, the Solidary founder and former president, said: “Someone must have been taking decisions on that plane. I don’t believe that the pilot took decisions single-handedly,” he told reporters. “That’s not possible. I have flown a lot and whenever there were doubts, they always came to the leaders and asked for a decision, and based on that, pilots took decisions. Sometimes the decision was against the leader’s instructions
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/7579076/Polish-plane-crash-investigators-rule-out-technical-fault.html
I am trying to figure out what Putin might gain from this. I see very little.
I am trying to figure the odds that Russian penetrates Polish security in such a total manner. I doubt it.
I look at the evidence of the political situation in Poland, the President’s emphasis on attending the memorial and in doing so shoring up his support, and the emotional ‘push’ of being on time to honor one’s countrymen. And overconfidence, and maybe a flawed airplane.
I don’t see what Putin gains by doing this. Gangster or not, and he is, this is not a stupid man. He does not want to make permanent enemies of all Poland.
There are a number of contrbutors who are attempting to “brain” what advantage accrues to Putin by doing a horrificly bad deed. This shows a misunderstanding of the paranoia that has always driven Russia and the Soviets.
They LOVE payback. They love intimidation. They know the value of having a reputationn of “Don’t even think of f*ucking with us”
Yes it’s that simple. They have never had the slightest remorse in killing millions of their own people much less people they THINK they may try to intimitate in the future.
Once you understand this simple concept the Soviets are easily understood. If you fail to understand it they win.
Bottom line; they have always been mean and nasty, merciless and subversive, and intimidation and murder they LOVE.
Oops! It seems the “had to be an accident crowd” thanks to Eric Rodson and Athorn, already have considerabe egg on their collective faces. Gee the official story turns out to be not quite the whole truth. Who would have guessed that? You know Vlad is probably used to a very pliable and fawning press, just like Dan Rather was. These damn bloggers come up with the darn’st things!
Oh, but we have to wait for what the “Black Box’ reveals! Ya Right. Good pickup Eric and Athorn!
240. Lifeofthemind
The black box….do you really think we are going to get the true unalloyed truth from the Soviets on the contents?….ROTFLMAO
habu, i wish you’d quit beating around the bush –i have a hard time deciphering what it is you’re trying to say –
232. Marie Claude
Journalist covering story. They were waiting for the plane. It crashed.
Now what are they covering? They are simply repeating to the world what the Soviets want out there. NO journalist is climbing over the crash site. Few if any of the journalists are qualified to make any assessment of the flight….so what’s your point, that journalists are there…well thats a given ..spoonfed journalists and propangandists for the Sovs….come on.
Journalists *covering* a story.
That’s a pun right?
256. buddy larsen
Yeah.
I mean where do they get the idea that the Soviets are going to tell the truth about anything? Apparently quite a number missed the history of Russia from inception to the present day.
Habu, I take your point. I have few delusions, illusions, etc., about Russian history and political culture. At the same time I fail to understand why Putin would see this as some one-stroke coup for decapitating Polish nationalism, etc. Of course if he is ‘talking to’ Ukraine, Georgian, the EU, Obama, and so on it makes more sense.
I see Putin as a mobster. I am not at all convinced that he is a Marxist on the order of Joe Stalin; perhaps not much nicer than Joe but just not as committed to world domination on the same scale.
This continues to baffle –and blow –my mind. i can’t figure it out –except to say the possibility of an accident is in my mind zero.
***
The Obama Administration canceled the Eastern European missile defense system on a peculiar anniversary. A portent of other betrayals yet to come?
by J. Christoph Amberger
Baltimore, MD — TFN: When Hillary Clinton handed her Russian colleagues a “reset” button earlier this year, the thought popping into my mind was just how far the Obama Administration wanted to reset Russian-American relationships.
Because in my memory, those hadn’t been all that great over the past half-century.
Today we got the answer. Apparently, the target time is either 1939… or 1944.
On the 70th anniversary of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland — which occurred sixteen days after the beginning of Hitler’s attack on Poland — the Obama Administration announced it planned to scrap the missile defense system that was to be set up in the Czech Republic and in Poland.
# 252 Larry in the Silicon & # 253 Habu
If I may add to Habu’s answer to Larry; just look at the map of eastern Europe and note what strides that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has made in the last two years in restoring Russian control of what the Soviets referred to as the “near abroad”. Belarus has been a vassal state for a while, the Ukraine just installed a subservient pro-Russian government, the Russians invaded Georgia and just a day or so ago declared a protectorate over and control of the former Georgian region of South Ossetia with full military basing rights. The only European parts of the former Soviet Union which are not under Russian control again are the Baltic Republics. Russia is pressing at their borders, and Poland’s. The next step would be to create political control, if not outright ownership, of Former Warsaw Pact countries, Poland first.
There are two interesting points to this.
The Baltics and Poland are members of both the EU and NATO. France and Germany will certainly not fight for any of them, and any country that depends on the US as an ally right now is dead meat. If any of the Baltics or Poland succumb, this will functionally kill any concept of military or political cooperation in either the EU or NATO.
The second point is economic and is inter-related to the first. Leaving the PIIGS countries fiscal problems within the Eurozone out of the equation, the 900 lb [OK, it is Europe, the 409.09 Kg] gorilla in the bank lobby is the huge overhang of bad loans to eastern Europe held by French, Austrian, and Belgian banks. We are talking amounts that are very significant fractions of each’s GDP’s. [zerohedge.com has a detailed series breaking down those loans] If anything happens, if the Bear starts growling, those loans are toast; and with or without government bailouts the European banking systems will be envying Iceland and Ireland.
Any weakening of Europe creates options for Russian foreign policy that are not to Europe’s benefit.
With NATO dead, and the current regime in power in DC; Europe best not be depending on help from across the Atlantic. They wanted to get rid of “The Cowboy” and lusted after the softer, gentler diplomacy of Buraq Hussein. They are going to get what they wanted. Hard, fast, and repeatedly. Sans lubrifiant.
Habu, I solicit any additions or comments you might have.
Subotai Bahadur
what “Europeans” did to Africans and Amerindians in America in the 19th century is current and on the hot front burner forever, while what the Communists did in Russia in the 20th century is “ancient history” and a mere episode, and thus beneath discussion.
Its just an example of the disease that infects our society today. Its much like a dysfunctional family that includes a violent abusive drunk. The drunk’s behavior is tolerated and no one is allowed to even allude to the reality of the situation. And things just keep getting worse.
“Progressives” can refer to G.W. Bush
as “Chimpy-Bush-Hitler” and people are supposed to laugh. If they don’t they are humorless people who can’t take a joke. If you criticize Obama in any form or fashion you are a reactionary scumbag who should be pilloried for daring to say such a thing.
Unfortunately many of the non-Progressives have soaked up the doublethink type behavior. They won’t call out hypocrisy because (I fear) at some level it has been ingrained in them that it is impolite and socially unacceptable to do so. Its time for it to stop.
Mon cher Habu, it is possible that Russia, and particularly Putin keeps in mind “la haine” against America, that he has a cold blood, that everything he does is calculated, though as a good russian patriot he is reverred by his population. I wish we had such a strong leader for our country too, and I have read that many Americans of your “acabit” would dream of such a personality at the head of your country too. We can’t repproach him to favor Russia first. Now, it’s our fault if we can’t counter his will for expending his influence, we keep electing media manufactured candidates !
As far as Poland, probably that this tragedy will help him to forge new ties there. Though Polish aren’t stupid, they know until where they can let him go.
Also, alredy, in a few papers I have read that Poland had sent a delegation to Russia to investigate the causes of the crash, and so far I know, Russia has accepted that the both countries collaborate. Though in the international aviation laws code, it is stipulated that such investigations are made by the country where the plane crash occured. But, as you, and many doubful fellows about the russian ability to tell the truth, and that Russians can read internet too, Putin and his responsible agreed to make it transparent. Now I don’t know how far he’ll go, for as it was a military flight, there must be some given facts that will remain “classified”.
I’m not a Putin supporter, and I certainly don’t want to let him do what he wants in EU, we must keep in mind the “borders” that he isn’t allowed to cross as a foreign politician leader, but because he was a former KGB apparatchik, to only suppose that he always has evil intentions in mind, is not sustainable in our concurrential societies anymore, he defends his society, we have to look after ours.
Besides Bush father was also a former head of CIA, in that regard, he also worked for America’s interests, and I would like to read some classified documents of his era, not sure that the US vs Russia “war” is light too.
British Hansard debates in 1996:
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow) states:
‘Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will say whether he entirely rejects the words of Mikhail Gorbachev, as reported by Sir William Stephenson, who was formerly Sir Winston Churchill’s personal representative and director of British security co-ordination in the western hemisphere. Addressing the Politburo in November 1987, Gorbachev said:
“Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about glasnost and perestroika and democracy in the coming years. These are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal change within the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep.”‘
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199697/cmhansrd/vo970226/debtext/70226-04.htm
An excerpt of a review written in 1984, several years before the “collapse” of the Soviet Union:
“New Lies for Old”, by Anatoliy Golitsyn
National Review, Sept 7, 1984 by Arnold Beichman
“Most startling is Golitsyn’s prediction that is part of the Communist bloc’s strategy for victory the following events will soon occur: a public Soviet-Chinese reconciliation; a “spectacular and impressive” liberalization in the Communist bloc with amnesty for dissidents, who would be invited to return; the freeing of Sakharov, more trade-union independence, adoption of constitutional amendments guaranteeing fulfillment of the Helsinki agreements, reduction in the role of Communist parties; a revival of controlled “democratization” on the Czech pattern for Eastern Europe, and even the return of Dubcek to power; demolition of the Berlin Wall–all of them in reality “cosmetic steps,” says Golitsyn, because they have been handed down from on high.”
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_v36/ai_3423788
“In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB chairman Yury Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States. No one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe.
According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep. The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch.”
Russina footprints by Ion Mihai Pacepa:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjUzMGU4NTMyOTdkOTdmNTA1MWJlYjYyZDliODZkOGM=
Subotai, I see the points and that you have studied the geopolitics and the realpolitik of the matter. I have not been following Ukrainian politics due to immersion in other matters; if as you say a subservient-to-Moscow regime rules there fully and stably this is bad news. I agree too that the Germans and French are not about to resist Putin.
As an Israeli citizen, I noted Lieberman and Bibi’s response to Kaczynksi’s death; if the Russians indeed killed all those people in this way (and I still doubt this), then I assume Israel can be considered one of the message recipients. I also recall what the former Czech President wrote about Russian behavior in Chechniyah in an article in the Jerusalem Post a few years ago. I read that with great interest.
Certainly I see the Russians playing a double game with Islam, as the Chinese do – slaughtering Muslims wholesale ‘at home’ while pumping them up to threaten the US, Israel, EU, etc. I also recall a Russian expat writing at FPM warning about FSB, etc., penetration of the US; and I wonder about the same thing in regard to Israel..
In any case, the world is a dangerous place, human nature doesn’t change and I appreciate your comments.
At the same time, it was the ‘great’ Brzezinski who boasted openly of stirring the Islamists against Moscow, so the US has been far from immune from playing the Islamic Card as well.
Ecoutes Subotai, you talk of us like a paternalist that blackmails his teens to not make some midnight sorties
Buddy #247: Opus Dei it is. Can’t have too much Papal Idolatry in all this. Just ask Jacques Strop and His Three Supporters.
subotai/262; without roasting my keyboard with cites, let me keep it simple and say that the Swiss banks that injected the poisonous USA subprime paper into those basically busted east European banks had some very curious interlocking directorates with the USA financial houses that led the Obama-enabling September Panic of 2008.
Not only are the numbers hold-your-breath awful, but they are now –in much of the world’s eyes –the emblems of America, of capitalism, of reliance and trust in the western system.
The scheme that began in America under Clinton and Treasury Sec & erstwhile Citigroup chief Robert Rubin (and others of course), arcing thru all the enabling legislation of the late 90s – 2000, led by many of the Clinton officials now Obama officials, not to mention Fan & Fred’s political protections, have made come true, i think deliberately, the thrust of a century of Communist propaganda re the inevitable collapse of capitalism –all redounding now to the great advantage of the Putin regime.
Many folks assume the crash was all bad luck because so many of the culpables lost thrie jobs. Well, this would have had to be –deniability demands –but this bunch hauled enormous personal treasure out the long-con blow-off, here’s just last month, even the left-wing zombie of the New York Times, Frank Rich, forced into saying something about the curious nature of the cast of characters who ought to’ve been sneaking off to Tahiti with cardboard suitcases instead evacuating their self-wrecked enterprises on suddenly lately grown enormous golden parachutes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21rich.html
And now those financial bombs sit ticking, waiting for an event to set them off, in every single one of the new aquisitions that as a result of the collapse of USSR, came into NATO ans EU.
Mike_W/264; re your quote of Golitsyn, ““In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S….
Here, written while he yet was alive tho poisoned, is how Alexander Litvinenko bears on the topic.
Remember Ron Brown? He was Clinton’s Commerce Secretary and go to guy on “inside baseball” politics. He was Obama “lite”. He died in similar circumstances on a plane crash in Dubrovnik. All on board dead…in a fog if I remember correctly. One of those suspicious air crashes that no one ever talks about or remembers. Easy to fix things that aren’t grounded.
sigint, on nearby thread ”ends and means” starting around 175 there’s a series of back n forths about the ron brown case.
if you search [ ron brown crash ] in either Bing or Google, the same article appears on top. Here it is:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/BROWN/brown.html
Hey it’s the US who turned the Afghan Taliban and mujihadeen against the Soviets.
And they still have more trouble with the Chechens and all even without our assistance … I presume.
–in the link in #271, a little ways down there’s a link named [ Shelley Kelly ] –now this is really spooky. Read the detailia on how Air Force 2 (more or less) hit the hillside. Discounted of course for lack of offical verification. So, read it as Kafka, or Cormac McCarthy. Or Lewis Carroll. Anything but –horrors –what really happened.
March 2010 Poland on Tuesday agreed to a new version of a deal on stationing an American missile shield, a government statement said, adding it would be aimed essentially at potential threats from Iran.
– If al-Qaida acquired nuclear weapons it “would have no compunction at using them,” President Barack Obama said Sunday on the eve of a summit aimed at finding ways to secure the world’s nuclear stockpile.
when we were told that Obama was standing besides his shoes ! me thinks he’s got the same discourses writer like Bush !
Can’t find that the US derailed from its former policy !
Now Subotai, we do not need to defend your “protégés” of the eastern Europe since you will still be there, even though you will go into Romania and Bulgaria too
(can’t post my links, this board doesn’t accept them)
as far as the EU banks that lended money to these eastern country, France isn’t the biggest, Germany, Austria and Sweden got almost the lot (and UK), but I reassure you, all the previsions say that they will not repay back their loans, cuz of collapsing, like the Eurozone too ! so you’ll have the best part to slam us, unless you’re collapsing too !
Is MC a cut-out for an FSB false-flag dis-information operation?
Blert,
Are you the one that shared the elevator with BHO and his grandmother in Honolulu?
If so, I think a recounting is in order so that we can copy said observations
for further use.
Medved argues he likes Whitey because he was raised by his white grandparents, and he adored them.
…I have my doubts.
blert/275
No, she’s just… ahm… French.
263. Marie Claude
You are the quintessential “useful idiot”, willing to carry water for the Soviets, to paint over their threats and promote their “good intentions”
You are a typical French fool.
275. blert
BINGO!
261. Subotai Bahadur
I can’t improve on your evaluation/observations of what Mother Russia is doing.
It is typical of powerful countries and those with aspirations of power to take advantage of weak United States Presidents. Well the time is right to that and it will not abate until someone with strength and conviction about mankinds freedoms reacquires the WH. obama, the Marxists will simply accelerate in all hemispheres the rise of dictators and the loss of individual freedoms.He’s a very dangerous man.
269. buddy larsen
I read “New Lies for Old” when Golitsyn first had it published. It is credible and as the years go its veracity becomes more apparent.
This suppliments my comments about the nature of Soviet intimidation and operational envelope. They do not forgive or forget and they are constantly applying pressure whereever any weak points show up. Our latest weak point resides in the WH.
I haven’t yet seen a link to the decision of the Polish National Bank to devalue the zloty just two days before the crash. (WSJ reported on April 9th — a link to info via politics.ie) http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-8222-0-5-5–.html
There are grumblings in Ireland about the UK considering sterling and how it will negatively affect the Republic by driving folks to Northern Ireland to shop as they were doing around Christmas.
Why are there no fingers pointing to Brussels?
Habu, Blert, &Cie
LMAO, glad you have no opportunity to become presidents of the US, the subtility of your deductional reasonment is always astonishing, good that the usual practices of the international relations are a bit more accomodating ; a guess, with you the planet would be vitrified since a long time ago, and you wouldn’t even have the opportunity to even find a mushroom in your hunting parties
Is Europe vulnerable to blackmail? Russia and natural gas
http://globalpolitician.com/26355-russia
the author says it’s a win-win partie, like US vs China !
but our former postman of the CIA has another explanation… er hmmm
In reasonable English please. If you can.
BTW. the French solution to international relations is to simply surrender and pray for the tender mercies of your new masters.
We’re not so inclinded here in the United State of America.
Marie C
Let’s not bother trading insults since you’re an already well establish dork wad. But I will say you do provide a unique miasma to the blog. Lets just agree that you’re weird, trying desperately to fit in but failing miserably…isn’t there a good socialist or weirdo blog that would better fit your “style”? I mean it’s not like you’d be missed.
the CIA postman said it, then it must be true
woarf, Habu, don’t stop into the bars when you’re on your tour !
286
uh, so the US is a coutry of freedoms ? doesn’t look like so, glad our host lives in Australia !
The Russians had motive, they had opportunity and an ‘accident’ like landing a little short of the runway is easy to arrange. Most older commercial ALS (Automated Landing Syatems) use 2 beams, one for direction, one for altitude. Modern systems are entirely in the aircraft.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/289377/instrument-landing-system
Both are offset to prevent the aircraft from landing on the control tower. When they are set up, they have to be configured for that airport. It would not be a problem to reconfigure the beams to show + 100 meters. So when the pilot thought he was 339 feet in the air, he was actually plowing up runway.
Not sure if the black box shows input from the guide beams. I think it just shows cockpit data, but I’m not current on any of that stuff. Maybe some one that is can chip in.
Not sure how one would “prove” that the landing system was rigged. Since the GRU or Directorate 7 would have been tasked with making the “adjustment” there is no chance of them leaving evidence laying around. So if there is ‘evidence’ it would have to be someplace where they couldn’t get at it.
That opens up another can of worms. If there is evidence, a radar Satt just happened to be looking that way or an Elint Satt picked up the directional beams from the landing system, then does anyone really want to say anything? The dead are already dead, starting a war won’t bring them back to life and will make a lot more people dead.
No, Poland needs to close it’s embassy in Moscow, and throw out the Russians. Then withdraw from the NPT. Poland IS NOT Iran or N. Korea. Poland could build their own nukes in a week if they had the fissile material. Once out of the NPT, somebody will sell them some. Maybe the Saudis, for a few bombs.
What is important is that Russia has to know they are paying a price. Otherwise they will keep messing around. That is why Bush failed when he allowed Russia to invade Georgia with paying a price.
If I lived in the Ukraine, I would be brushing up on my Russian.
Some guys want it all, other call them pikers and think all isn’t enough. Putin is in that last category.
Reading the BBC coverage, something striking might be happening. At first, the user comments suggested that many Poles suspected Russian foul play. Now though, all the talk is about how appreciative the Polish people are at the Russians’ support and empathy in the wake of this accident. Maybe this is just reflects which comments the Beeb decided to post later on. Or maybe it’s sheer genius displayed in the Polish people. If the Poles think it’s Russian foul play but act as though they accept Russian “concern” at face value, then they are simultaneously de-escalating the situation while denying the Russians their putative objective: the intimidation of Poland. And the new Polish leadership would have to account for that and not count on public acquiescence to a cozing up to Russia. Simple, elegant and brilliant.
R/289; –for a similar set of conditions, read about the “Cillipi beacon” and Niko Jerkuic, commencing a little ways down from the top.
Whether Russia stepped over the line, or not, expect Poland and the other Middle European to draw lessons from all this:
1. No one can rise to a position of indispensibility. Everyone must have an understudy. And don’t put all your key men on the same plane, train, or boat.
2. A larger portion of the budget needs to go into counter-intelligence and espionage.
3. Any anti-Russian dissident or destabilizing group gets heaps of money.
Sure NATO isn’t going to go to war with Russia on suspicions, but if the trend is Russia is playing espionage hardball, others can play espionage hardball, too.
Kevin/290; I’ve been seeing that too –i think it’s real –the Russian people are pouring out real sympathy –showing the film “Katyn” not once but twice on broadcast channels in Russia. That film is just crushing on the soviets, but Russians are seeing it anyway. The two peoples are reaching out, regardless of the proven old and possible new.
Hillary is already trying to walk the Administration back from their treasonous policies, http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/11/hillary-on-obamas-new-nuke-policy-if-were-hit-with-a-bio-attack-all-bets-are-off/.
It won’t work. Too Late.
If there is any small consolation from recent events seemingly manipulated by Putin, it’s that Vlad is rubbing Buraq’s nose in the crap he’s dumped on us. While there still may be some grand bargain between the two, Vlad is embarrassing Buraq right now, and we know how Traitor Boy Buraq hates to be dissed.
buddy/293: Yes, I’m hopeful that the rapprochement between the peoples is real, whether elements in the Russian government were involved or not. Peoples outlast their governments.
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Lies-History-Control-Warfare/dp/1568526849
uh Frank Olson not assassinated like Livichenko ? aber nein, he was thrown out of a hotel window in a New York building !!
uh, Habu,CIA has nothing to envy to KGB, it’s a saint organisation
#289 Rosinante
No, Poland needs to close it’s embassy in Moscow, and throw out the Russians. Then withdraw from the NPT. Poland IS NOT Iran or N. Korea. Poland could build their own nukes in a week if they had the fissile material. Once out of the NPT, somebody will sell them some. Maybe the Saudis, for a few bombs.
Purely theoretical, just to watch heads explode, a couple of thoughts. Poland, sadly, I believe has decommissioned all its power reactors; but has a research reactor [Świerk-Otwock, near Warsaw]that also produces medical radioisotopes. The Czech Republic has, I believe, 6 power reactors and 3 research reactors. Unless I am mistaken, they are all of Soviet design which means they are far more amenable to diversion of enriched byproducts. According to SIPRI, the notational amount of weapons grade enriched [>70%] U-235 to make a nuclear device is 35 kg. Similarly, the notational amount of 5 kg. of Plutonium [a reactor byproduct] is needed to make a nuclear device.
One does not need the research component of the Manhattan Project to make nuclear devices anymore. We know fission works. The problem is the acquisition of sufficient fissile material, and its proper fabrication. The “gun type” device was used at Hiroshima, and was so sure to work that the device was not tested before operational use [the Trinity test was of an implosion Plutonium device]. The design was simple and the technical information to duplicate it is now and has been open source for decades. Pretty much any first year college physics student could sketch out a crude design that absolutely would work. It may not be as efficient as it could be, but when your mission is countervalue deterrence the relative size of the glass lined crater in the middle of the city is less important than the fact that the radius of damage from all modes is in fact inside the city. And aircraft carried bombs have no need for heat shields, or precision fusing like missile warheads; especially when the target is both soft and city sized. I suspect positive control will be primitive at best at first.
With the help of a nation-state and say a few reactors; I’m pretty sure that a simple working device could go into series production if it was deemed a priority. The original “Little Boy” weighed about 9,000 lbs and was 10′long. With modern technology and trained physicists, I would not be surprised to see it reduced by half in size and to around 1000 lbs. The smallest operational nuclear warheads that I know of were 50′s-60′s era and were about the size of a grapefruit [albeit they were implosion devices and were very sophisticated]. Poland and the Czech Republic know they are under threat, and know that they are without allies. They also have the means noted above.
The Polish Air Force flies MiG-29′s and F-16C Block 52′s. The Czech Air Force flies Swedish JAS 39C Gripen and interestingly enough the L-159A/L-159T1 ALCA trainer converted to a tactical strike aircraft. They all appear to have the hard points and several times the capacity for carrying the notational device above, and ranges from 400-500 miles purely on internal fuel with some reserve, to 1800-2000 miles ferry range with drop tanks. It would not be hard to find a workable configuration of the device above and just sufficient drop tanks to give a one way range for any of the above aircraft of 1000 miles. Start drawing range circles from Polish and Czech air bases, and possible dispersion fields.
Note that I did say one-way range. Yes, it would be a suicide mission. But having endured Soviet occupation before, and historically Russian occupation for the Poles; somehow I cannot but believe that there would be volunteers. Further, even our own SAC crews knew that if they got the go code, that if they survived [not likely] there would be nothing to come back to. Once you accept that your own life is all that stands between death and your home and family; well that is what a Warrior does. No one has ever accused Poles or Czechs of not being Warriors if the necessity is there.
Vladimir Vladimirovich knows he has absolutely nothing to fear from the EU or the United States. He also knows that Poles threw the Red Army back from the gates of Warsaw in the 1920′s, open cockpit Polish Air Force fighters threw themselves against modern Me-109′s and He-111′s in 1939 knowing that they were totally outclassed. And the Free Czechs and Free Poles were the most aggressive opponents to the Germans during the Battle of Britain.
He will make a calculation about them if they have a deterrent, that he would not have to make with the US or EU. Will obtaining the submission of Poland and/or the Czech Republic be worth the substantial risk of losing some key cities, including perhaps Moscow?
The primary obstacles for the Poles and Czechs would be:
a) production rates- how long before the first one or two are operational?
b) A Russian reaction when they find out, either before or after the IOD.
c) The reaction of the US and EU when they find out, either before or after the IOD. One can assume that there will be instantaneous and if possible crippling sanctions slapped on, that they would not dream of putting on Iran. Both the US and EU are willing and eager to abandon any of the former Warsaw Pact states to Russian control in order to appease Vladimir. They do not look upon self defense as being in their plans.
There is the additional precursor obstacle. Prime Minister Tusk is far more accomodationist than the late President. Is he willing to fold? Similarly, after being abandoned by the West [for the second time in less than a century], is the Czech government willing to submit eventually?
And, of course, if Poland and/or the Czech Republic start on that road, the deterrent force will have to be maintained, expanded, and upgraded. And further, they will be an example to all the other countries who once depended on the US and [laughably] the EU defense umbrella.
Wretchard, if I may, can I offer the concept of a new project for you? Your brilliant “Three Conjectures” laid out the course of the Long War against Militant Islam. Perhaps you would care to turn your attention to another set of Conjectures concerning the deliberate collapse of bi-polar nuclear deterrence in the West and the rise of multi-polar nuclear deterrence as a survival requirement for states formerly protected by one or another of the great powers?
—–
There will be a short pause while the remains of exploding heads are cleaned from monitor screens in DC, Paris, Brussels, Moscow, and wherever our FSB [actually I believe it is more likely SVR, because I think that they run internet Dezhinformatsiya as one of their functions] minders and trolls are based.
——-
We now return you to your normally scheduled commentary.
****evil grin****
Subotai Bahadur
Kevin #290; Buddy #293: Like I said folks, events “over there” are driving this one. It is their opinions that
count, not ours.
No doubt those displays of good will have elements of
official sponsorship to them. But little if any doubt
that the respective populaces are sincere in their desire to defuse a potential chain reaction before it gets started. This of course is an impossible task. Think the Old Girl came through again?
Marie Claude: Please don’t go away. You are our very favorite FSB shill. And did I ever tell you how the French Secret Service hid Catherine Caradja in the hole of a Danube River Tanker for eight weeks? And then how J. Edgar Habu tried to prevent her from ever getting a US Visa? And then how she aided and influenced Henry Kissinger, not to mention Charlie Wilson and his friends from Langley? And IMHO, the winning strategy should have been named the Caradja-Reagan Doctrine. She more or less formulated it and sold it to the kind of Americans that put Ronaldus Magnus in office. Mitterrand was surprisingly helpful in doing away with the Evil Empire. Wonder if that had anything to do with Princess Caradja’s family, friends and contacts in France? Not too many people know of this remarkable woman and her even more remarkable life story.
Dave you’re I’m an infiltrated agent
NO I came here first to counter your falsh rumors about us, and surprinsingly, found out that some weren’t entierely brainwashed, depends on the subjects. Though it’s still difficult to open some ears, when neurones have ceased to reproduct once they have stopped on a steady position some decades ago, it’s like some ol persons stopped on the seventies hits and still buy old vinyls. Now, I am really learning sumthin with such a Mohicans tribe, cuz I have to formulate my counter argumentation not on impressions but on objective sources from my perspective !
Thanks for the tip of princess Caradja, got to learn about her, uh from another perspective of course !
Kirk Parker @241
“You might want to study up on a few details before making this kind of pronouncement.
1. Voice traffic on the VHF airband is at 118MHz and above, where tropospheric and ionospheric propogation is fairly negligible at all times.”
Kirk, I believe you have mistaken lack of usable troposphere reflection in the VHF band for reliable communication purposes for a total lack of atmospheric reflection of VHF transmissions.
Over the past two decades, at taxpayer expense, I’ve observed, recorded and analyzed some incredible electromagnetic reflections due to terrain, weather, atmospheric effects, exo-atmospheric effects, combinations of the previous conditions, and just plain weird unexplained effects. I’ve recorded and analyzed signals we shouldn’t have been able to pick up using accepted models for propagation and reflection. In some cases those signals were also analyzed using different collectors that verified the source.
“3. “Enormous parabolic antennas” are also profoundly directional…”
Purpose built Cassegrain parabolic antennas allow focusing on different regions and frequencies. I agree that the approximately 40 degree angle of arc the earths disk presents to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit will require collection efforts to be focused on continent sized regions. Heck, if I were to design a family of SIGINT satellites I might include multiple parabolic dish antennas on each bird to allow simultaneous monitoring of nearly everything in the satellites field of view.
That’s just a supposition on my part, I’m sure payload capacity limits the size and number of antennas on our SIGINT birds to just one, and our government would never spend tens of billions of dollars for dozens and dozens of SIGINT spy satellites, would they?
effectively, difficult to find much infos about her, apparently she was a courageous woman,and she died at 100 in her own patry, Romania.
“Her daughter, who had left for Paris in 1948, helped the princess escape in early 1952, with assistance from the French secret services; she left the country on a Danube tanker, arriving after 8 weeks in Vienna.”
on the other side, I found some interesting stories about her CIA boy friend, Frank Wisner:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=11404
but uyour scenario is still funny, Edgar Habu -> Edgar Hoover, you’re giving him a too important role, he was just the postman that was collecting messages and bought them to daddy !
brought t’em to daddy ! my keyboard is infidel
As a former pilot and controller (under both FAA & ICAO) I’ll say that if the ILS had been played with then the jet would have plowed-in on the first pass. The controllers don’t really control a plane; they can only give a ‘clearance’ to the plane to land. That means that the controller has removed all known physical obstacles to the inbound planes path (airport vehicles, animals, other planes, etc). The pilots alone decide to attempt a landing or not.
.
These approaches are not as unusual as one might think. In England I watched the planes wrestle with fog that some people wouldn’t drive a car through.
L/303; yep, the incentive is, you know you’re gonna come down anyway.
MC & Dave; your topic reminds of Dorothy Parker quip:
Life is a season of unending joy / A medley of extemporanea / Love is a song that can never go wrong / And I am the queen of Romania.
(i copied that due to Al Zeimer having borryed my memory, and i think my googler source had it wrong, i think DP said “And I am Marie of Romania”)
A.R.,
No doubt you have, and a fun gig it sounds like. My point, though, is that when radio propogation is involved, although “reliable communication purposes” and “can hear enough to prove something is there” may be orders of magnitude apart, “guaranteed 24×7 monitoring” is not necessarily so. In other words I do not mean to dispute the claim that we might have heard something from the plane or Smolensk ATC from far away, but only the assurance that of course we would have.
Not long ago, accidents like this were the norm in the west. But the advent of New Generation aircraft like the NG Boeings & Airbus has caused the accident rate in the west to drop dramatically. When was the last time anything like this happened in the west on a NG airplane?
But in the “rest of the world”, these old beaters are still flying and accidents like this still happen regularly. In almost all cases, it’s pilot error as the planes slam into the ground, with the pilots totally disoriented and confused. In some cases, the pilots are still suffering from hangovers or bad attitudes. Old airplanes like B-727s or Tu-154s are just not capable of staying ahead of really bad weather. They have terribly inadequate position awareness, which makes flying into terrain (CFIT) much more likely. Quality training will help the pilots to understand their limits, but the planes are still stuck with limited technology. It’s easy to think that all airplanes are now like NG western airliners, but this accident reminds us that old airplanes with inadequate aircrews are still flying in poor countries.
Lots of nutty comments about Russia somehow engineering this disaster, although there is plenty of credible reporting that the pilot had already attempted to land at least three times (not clear if the crash happened on the fourth or fifth attempt)and that he had been warned off by the Russian ATC’s. Reports also suggest at least one other pilot of the presidential plane had been ordered by the Polish President, on a previous occasion, to land after he had been warned off due to unsafe conditions.
Sad, in view of the fact that Vladimir Putin has gone further than any other Russian leader to acknowledge the true nature of the Katyn massacre, and to express national regret for it. Of course, there are those whose agendas are served by Russia and Poland returning to enmity.
http://plej.gazeta.pl/plej/0,0.html#film=105748_7760794
a polish video of the crash scenario
(Edgar Habu, take that to daddy)
Larson (306),
Really? Got somewhere with stats on that? I have no doubt that NG stuff has reduced the already-low frequency of fatal crashes, but “the norm”?
K/309; That’s not me, Kirk –someone is spoofing –or just a coin key dinky on the name.
M/307; how else to arrive at any conclusion, but to examine the others?
***(fwd edit –
exhelo –i didn’t see it –what was the plot twist you have in mind?
Didn’t any of you see “Diehard 2″?
Buddy Larsen,
A group of renegade Special Forces troops reset the glide slope on the approach so that the aircraft thought they were two hundred feet higher than they really were. And nobody beleived Bruce Willis!!
… “Not long ago, accidents like this were the norm in the west”.
That was more around the 50′s, and 60′s (recent, for some of us geezers).. Half of those events involved small aircraft meeting air carriers. That was way too common. . I remember one that happened just south of Indianapolis and crowds were out walking the corn fields looking for body parts for souvenirs… Congress forced the FAA to overhaul the aviation rules.. Aviation authorities don’t like restricting their brothers, unless they’re forced to (the FAA and ICAO are made up of pilots, not of controllers, police, or rescue workers)..
…”A group of renegade Special Forces troops reset the glide slope on the approach so that the aircraft thought they were two hundred feet higher than they really were.”
.
Most folks don’t know this, but the outer marker indictors on any ILS approach are not to tell the pilot how far from the airport he is, but to give the pilot an altimeter check. When the plane is on glideslope and over the outer marker, the pilot knows how high he is supposed to be. Any discrepancy between the glideslope, altimeter, and radar altimetry, tells the pilot to do a “missed approach” and fly somewhere safer.. 200′ errors are huge discrepancies. An altimeter isn’t going to change that much from region to region, and a pilot will be getting updates throughout his flight..
some may remember the TUPOLEV 144 crash at Le Bourget show in 1973
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1eytd_tupolev-144-crash-le-bourget_tech
the pilot also had the VIP pression, and probaly overpassed the plane possibilities
The video clip mentioned earlier is really quite interesting: It doesn’t show an air carrier trying to make ANY style of instrument landing. It looks like a pilot circling low trying to get a visual on good old planet Earth. Instruments are great, but nothing beats seeing and following the land… Been there, done that…
.
As a controller, I once allowed a Boeing 737 to buzz an airport in an attempt to blow a gap in the clouds and fog, using his jet engines and hoping to get a visual for landing (a landing wasn’t possible on instruments). The plan didn’t work that time and the pilot had to fly to his alternate, but they do try it once in awhile…
Horrible really, the whole thing.
By chance the functional Polish pro-western government crashed in the Katyn forest on the way to a sensitive meeting.
A new era of understanding and heartfealt greiveing leads to a new dawn. No more bloodshed. This is the chance to make a new peace free of the threat of genocide and annihilation by other means, is it not? No more nukes, no predator-machette-hurricaines in the night. No disappearing life savings.
No fear.
Ammo, black boxes, carbon credits, Apple shares, and gold. Whatever you value. What keeps you feeling secure and protective of those in your care? Best to keep the eye on the ball and make your best shot.
False promises have a way of catching up with those who make them. I think the Obamans did indeed achieve ‘change’ based on ‘hope’. There is nothing else backing any US government but our own backs tomorrow. Have a good work day my friends.
Spindok
S/317; i hear you –and right there is much work to do.
EHD/312; that’s exactly the center claim of the Ron brown murder-theorists –it’s in great detail in the whatreallyhappened article. Oddly the ground controller who would’ve known committed suicide, rifle shot to the chest, just before his interview with the formal query.
MC, (h/t instapundit) this may interest you:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/04/12/did-the-imf-deliberately-exaggerate-the-2008-financial-crisis/
Related, the eastern european countries –including Russia –adopted the flat tax after the USSR collapse, and are developing wonderous results witrh it, apart from the damage the western crash did to the banks. Russia, for example, which most folks mistakenly judge according to metrics unsuitable to the flat tax, resourch rich (future-confidence), has the rthird highest foreign currency reserves in the world, and a brand new growing middle class with no debt. Thus part of the magnetic pull from the east, which now that the old Warsaw Pact is now in NATO and EU, is resulting in if not a russianization of the european psychology, at least a declining americanization.
USA could reverse that in a trice, with a flat tax, or a fair tax, either one –alongside a real, long term, deep gov’t spending cut. If a nation wishes to be influential, it must have its house in order.
As is, look a Slovakia. Russia doing big deals there, and, because Slovakia has a low flat tax, German companies are setting up there too, as fast as they can. Russia, and germany, together, in a land of a low flat tax. Ironic, ain’t it?
buddy, problem is that these eastern european countries that aren’t in the eurozone, borrowed Euros to get their infrastructures modernised, and they still will have to repay back their loans with euros, with their devaluated currencies (lately Poland decided to devaluate its money again)So far Czechs and Slovaks didn’t fare too bad, but their industry rely on EU and Russians investments, lately Renault closed a manufacture in Czechie, as the cars didn’t find new owners in these aeras, and that was a double employ with a french one. May-be Strauss-Kahn pushed his agendas, I wouldn’t be surprised, he is such a clever and pervert political animal, dunno yet what to say, got to investigate.
Anyway, the eastern Europe, as the CEI aren’t in a good health too, see there :
http://michael-hudson.com/2010/04/the-coming-european-debt-wars/
I posted a response, dunno if the post will appear, cuz of the link
buddy, problem is that these eastern european countries that aren’t in the eurozone, borrowed Euros to get their infrastructures modernised, and they still will have to repay back their loans with euros, with their devaluated currencies (lately Poland decided to devaluate its money again)So far Czechs and Slovaks didn’t fare too bad, but their industry rely on EU and Russians investments, lately Renault closed a manufacture in Czechie, as the cars didn’t find new owners in these aeras, and that was a double employ with a french one. May-be Strauss-Kahn pushed his agendas, I wouldn’t be surprised, he is such a clever and pervert political animal, dunno yet what to say, got to investigate.
Anyway, the eastern Europe, as the CEI aren’t in a good health too, see there :
look for michael hudson 7/04/2010 “the coming european debt wars”
if you read the Cato article, it is clear the IMF was trying to run down the Czech Repub’s banks –i wonder why –does IMF want a default on the EUro-denominated loans? Is it trying to worm into the gov’t, a la Yeltsin’s gov’t?
hors sujet
- Sarkozy: I will keep nuclear weapons http://bit.ly/9tqvPd
French Leader Sarkozy Slams Obama, Warns He Might Be Insane http://tinyurl.com/y4efu6h nowadays he slams ivribodi
in sujet
Why The IMF’s Involvement In Greece Is A Real Disaster For Europe And Its Leadership http://bit.ly/bMewMZ
one more conspiracy, the global elite of Banksters killed Kaczynski
http://www.prisonplanet.com/did-global-elite-kill-polish-president-kaczynski.html
MC, thank you for all the links you present. You’re a valuable source, even if you do irritate the hell out of us zangs!
see why the eastern countries get delocalisations from EU, and Russia, it’s not only because of the flat taxes, but also because of low labour costs
Salaires mensuels brut d’un ouvrier dans le monde :
France: 1520 euros
Italie, Espagne: 1370 euros
Portugal, Slovénie, Malaisie: 760 euros
Pologne, Hongrie, Republique Tchèque, Mexique: 380 euros
Roumanie, Maroc, Tunisie: 230 euros
Chine, Inde: 100 euros
http://souspression.canalblog.com/archives/2008/06/06/8899204.html
Also the Czech president (as well the former Poles’) are not known for being pro EU, pro interferrences into their own countries by external monetary systems
plus Czechie, Slovakie are very small countries, like fiscal paradizes ie Luxemburg, Lichtenstein… me thinks that’s where these countries want to ride for !
The irony is that IFM just borrowed € 1,3 million to the Czechs to fuel the other eastern EU countries !
I don’t think that IFM wanted to particurlarly default these 10 eastern countries, just that when they wanted to access to theEU, they were in such a bad condition, that without it, they would have never reached the basic levels of acceptance.
I remember having visited Praha in 1996 we could offer us the palace life for a hand ful of francs coins, the most expensive Shivas whiskies costed a coca, the 5* star restaurant for 10 persons costed the price of a Mac Donald. Things have changed since then, but life is still less costful than by us, except the palaces hotels which are about the same prices in every world capitals
“even if you do irritate the hell out of us zangs!” it a pleasure to be a “poil à gratter” (Rose hip or Cynorrhodon) when I know that I’m right in my boots
MC/329; you and Davy Crockett: “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead” (of course, i always wanted to ask Mr. Crockett how anyone could ever be sure of being right, but he had the ‘frontier need’ –to act quickly).
***
(below, from Prison Planet link in MC’s #326)
Did Global Elite Kill Polish President Kaczynski?
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
April 12, 2010
Damian Thompson, writing for the Daily Telegraph, says there will be plenty of conspiracy theories floating around cyberspace in response to the death of Polish president Lech Kaczynski and a large number of Polish VIPs in a plane crash last week.
“One of the nastier consequences of international disasters is that conspiracy theorists rush to judgment – and I do mean rush,” writes Thompson. “The fact that the president and so many of the Polish elite were on a visit to Russia will feature prominently in the fantastic stories being cooked up in cyberspace right now. And I can say with confidence that they are being cooked up, because Poland, like most East European countries, is obsessed with conspiracies. Russians, Jews, Americans, Freemasons – they will all be blamed. Some stories will be more credible than others.’
He missed one: the international bankster cartel.
Not only did Poland decline to be a victim of the bankster loan sharking operation, Poland’s central bank had the audacity to offer the IMF a loan to “help other countries overcome the effects of the global crisis,” the AFP reported on March 29, 2010.
Poland was the only member of the 27-nation European Union to have experienced growth in 2009 and the IMF forecast that its economy would expand by 2.75 percent this year and by 3.25 percent in 2011.
Poland’s zloty grew by 1.7 percent in 2009, a remarkable feat given that European Union countries contracted by an average of 4.1 percent and no other EU economy grew at all. “Poland avoided eastern Europe’s worst lending binges. Kaczynski frustrated some of his opponents by being in no rush to head towards the euro party,” the Daily Telegraph reports today.
Earlier this month, Czech Central Bank Vice Deputy Mojmir Hampl said the IMF fueled Eastern Europe’s crisis to create a situation that would compel regional states to request the help from the globalist loan sharking operation.
“He said that the institution, which offered emergency funds for Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine and Romania, misinterpreted some data because they are looking for new clients as the leadership changed,” HotNews reported.
Indeed, the leadership has now changed in Poland and it looks like a pro-euro political leader may replace Kaczynski. “Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s pro-euro Civic Platform party is likely to cement its grip on power in a presidential election that must now be held by June after President Lech Kaczynski died in a plane crash,” reports Bloomberg today.
Kaczynski resisted Tusk’s effort to resist adopting the euro. “Kaczynski, who over the past three years had tried to block government efforts to overhaul Poland’s debt-ridden healthcare and pension systems, was also the last EU leader besides Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic to sign the Lisbon Treaty, and opposed Tusk’s euro adoption goal.”
In addition, Kaczynski placed a euro-skeptic ally in charge of the central bank, Slawomir Skrzypek, who was also killed in the crash.
It looks like Poland may soon join the EU Borg hive with open arms.
(end quote)
Well, i’m a pot-stir to mention this, but the same cartel is what gets blamed in the brighter parts of the shadow world for the almost mirror-image ‘scud-busting’ of the Ron Brown crash. But naaah…couldn’t be, wouldn’t be prudent. nah. but, just for cultural, ok low-cultural interest, the “Masonic Conspiracy vs the Vatican” dating from 1307 has a bunch –see the search –of adherents around the Kennedy assassination.
***
yes, it’s all nUtTy –however, well, Adam Smith did note
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
the difference with JFK and Kaczynski is that we are sure that JFK was assassinated !
and at 99 % sure that Kaczynski had a plane accident
MC/331; i’m with Dave @ 75%-85%. i’ve got to hold 15%-25% open –i’ve been shocked by too much too often over the past year and a half.
Just a question or comment to those of you who talk of preparing for total collapse of economy and society. I’m not saying it won’t happen, and I am disturbed by Obama, but does anyone have actual numbers showing that it’s likely? I myself may have seen one article like that, a month or two ago, but I’m not sure it was compelling. You know, there are a lot of arguments that can go either way, depending on numbers, but people take sides based on ideology, having nothing to do with the numbers. Just asking.
Well Buddy, I see you have learned not to go overboard. You are now a certified middle-of-the-road paranoiac.
This is right and proper. Since you and I are not from Brooklyn and/or Joisey, we cannot be a pair of noids.
About that International Bankers Conspiracy. The Knights Templar really did invent it you know. They came up with the first traveler’s checks. In due order this convinced the King of France that they had enough gold and silver hidden away to pay off his National Debt. The last of the Knights went to the stake and never told anybody where they had hidden what they did not have. Obviously they had made a pact with the Devil and this was proven because the Pope had revoked their diplomatic Immunity and he would not have done that unless they were secret Masons which everybody knew they were because King Philip had tortured them into confessing same and their repudiation of said confessions in court just meant they were on Lucifer’s own mission to take over the Vatican and thereby had to be burned in France to protect all of Christendom and get
the duly protected to pay off that blankety-blank debt.
At any rate, you will ALWAYS find some form of international lending and fractional reserves connected to every incident you can name. Desirable incidents are ignored. Undesirable incidents are magnified.
So far, I have not found anything to shows cause and effect. Just being part and parcel of whatever goes down is all.
HOWEVER: I was once involved in trying to put an end
to some financial matters that were going to cause beaucoup trouble if not corrected. Just for the heck of it, see if you can find any references to United States Treasury Circular 1081. I do believe that my efforts—-joined by those whom read my classified ad in Soldier of Fortune——did rattle some cages, ignite a few powder trains and help the Good Guys along. During all this, USTC 1081 was defanged and eventually rendered moot in 1992. A former Arizona Congressman, Sam Steiger, rendered some timely assistance and that got the attention of Cardinal Sin. (Also took five dead that I know of during all this.)
However, nobody has ever bought the farm because I gave them the wrong scoop and I hope nobody ever does. So retain that 15% to 25% short would you? Helps keep me honest.
Marie Claude: In you link to EU Times, I also saw that Sarkozy has a friend who is a professed 9-11 “Truther”.
When did tht virus go international?
that’s pretty deep in, Dave –i haven’t talked to a Soldier of Fortune guy since one of their reporters kept interviewing me about them cuban medicos i always played Foosball with in my oilpatch days “waiting on orders” waterhole in Caracas. he didn’t act like a reporter and the Cubans didn’t look like medicos. No seriously, that’s a Treasury reg, right? About what’s a bona fide bad debt, for either loss-expensing or capitalization? Anyhoo, how does that open short help keep you honest –if i closed it would you then have to tell a fib? if so, then jeeez, you’re one of those guys –in which case, no i never heard of Dubrovnik –and nuthin else neither –hold on i think i hear somethi…
yuk yuk –but the treasure if any –went up into the high Alps, where few could see far and defend against many. Mountain people are still impossible to dislodge –unless the bad guys dump Yellow Rain and the good guys offer a home in the USA at the same time. And there it stayed, under the Templar flag later known as the Swiss flag, where it banked secretly all these years until just lately, until just before the Swiss banned the minaret.
SF/333; –i wish i could say something helpful. everything depends on events, as dave says, and events depend on hazard and will of others. The only control i feel these days is over my own will, and i hope we are on the cusp of a rebirth of that America of recent yesterday. however, that doesn’t keep me from having no confidence in any virtue in our current pols, by and large. So i guess i’d say we are all in a race with time, trying to stay ahead of the decay while enough of us wake up and act somehow. try to open an eye a day, y’know.
Foosball? FOOSBALL!!!!! Hey, I got skunked 9 games in a row by the undisputed Eye Corps Champeen. She was a cutie that passed out Stars and Stripes and who was about 8 months pregnant at the time. She cleaned EVERYBODY’S clock at that game. I was just about the only guy who would play her before she finally took off to have the baby. Everybody else was too embarrassed.
USTC 1081 required that all Treasury Checks sent to/printed
in the Philippines had to be overprinted (lipsticked) with a red legend that meant that recipients could only get Pesos. The US Dollars went to the Central Bank/Philippine Government. F Marcos maintained his reign of greed by rampant inflation BUT propped up the Peso-Dollar exchange rate with borrowed money. USTC 1081
was the debt service for all this.
Having deduced that (a) the scheme was hurting those on our side by robbing those who had fought for us and (b) that Marcos was a reform politician who would sell us as soon as he felt the need, I got the proverbial wild hair, bought the classified space and launched my very own PSYOP mission. Once it had been duly noticed and bankers changed from greed to fear, Sam and His Eminence
teamed up to point out far and wide that the ripoff could be avoided by contacting the following in the USA and having checks deposited here rather than there.
And the rest is history. Little by little, restrictions were eased, primarily by allowing dollar accounts there and then in the fall of 1992 (10 years after the ad) Fidel Ramos made it official by telling the US not to bother any more, all those currency resrtictions were now lifted.
Sometimes you actually manage to win one. Dunno what it does for others, but it left me with a strong sense of grateful humility. And an occasional desire to brag, I guess or I wouldn’t be relating all this to you. Left out OPLAN CLETUS and a couple of other details. Not all that important I don’t imagine. I do like to think that maybe I helped render a little timely assistance to guys like Wretch, who had to do the heavy lifting.
“Nuff and g’nite. Will check in manana.
that’s a helluva deal, dave –no you should tell it, it ain’t a brag –how else do people build the foundation to stand on except by knowing things that have been done –stories told by the campfires –kept many going for many thousands years –