Nearly twenty years ago on July 3, 1988 errant U.S. fireworks brought down an Iranian Airbus jet, killing 290 people. President George H. W. Bush later awarded the ship's captain the "Legion of Merit" for his term of duty which included the "error".
The "accidental" shooting down of the passenger plane has been classified as radar error. Eleven years later the United States paid $130 million to settle its liability for killing innocent Iranians.
How many foreign navies are close enough to our shores to mistake a passenger plane en route as an attacking military jet, accurate radar or not? Would the free U.S. allow such a thing? No, we would go to war over it. Yet, Iran didn't in 1988. And given the talk of a few elected officials today, it appears America wants another crack at it.
The "accidental" shooting down of the passenger plane has been classified as radar error. Eleven years later the United States paid $130 million to settle its liability for killing innocent Iranians.
How many foreign navies are close enough to our shores to mistake a passenger plane en route as an attacking military jet, accurate radar or not? Would the free U.S. allow such a thing? No, we would go to war over it. Yet, Iran didn't in 1988. And given the talk of a few elected officials today, it appears America wants another crack at it.
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