UK and US Suspect That ISIS Bomb Took Down Flight 9268 (cnn.com) 289
An anonymous reader writes with a report from CNN that U.S. and UK intelligence agencies believe it is more likely than not that the destruction on October 31st of a Russian A321 jetliner in Sinai "was most likely caused by a bomb on the plane planted by ISIS or an affiliate of the group." Kogalymavia Flight 9268 fell apart in flight, killing all aboard. From CNN's article:
The British government announced Wednesday that it had "become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device." A formal conclusion has not been reached by the intelligence communities of either country. An UK aviation team is travelling to inspect the Sharm airport to look at whether there were proper security measures at the airport and the various scenarios by which an explosive device could have made it to the Russian airliner "including a person or in cargo," according to the British transport minister.
Both Russian and Egyptian officials discount the claim, but detecting bombs is hard.
How likely? (Score:3)
More likely than not most likely!
Remember China Airlines flight 611 (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't discount the possibility of an accident. Something very similar happened to China Airlines flight 611
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A tail section badly repaired after a minor accident came off in mid-air. The airplane spun out of control and disintegrated before crashing into the ground. That fits this accident very well.
Without conclusive evidence of a bomb, I would be very careful to scream terrorism. Terrorists claiming responsibility doesn't mean a thing without evidence.
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It's the fact that (according to what we've heard in the news) the plane broke up almost exactly when it reached a certain altitude. Why is this important? Because the single most effective way to trigger a bomb in an airliner is to tie it to an altimeter, so that the bomb
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Isn't this true of any break up that happens during the ascent period?
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In this case, that's actually evidence against an altitude-triggered bomb. The flight was last tracked on radar at 31,000 ft. Far, far above the internal pressurization, which is us
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The altitude profile reminded me of TWA 800 [wikipedia.org]. The sudden climb then fall looks like the plane might have overbalanced towards the tail, which might be indicative of losing a forward section of the fuselage, whether by bomb or technical fault.
But, I am not an aeronautical engineer etc...
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Airbus performed the repair apparently after its 2001 tail strike. Also, the aircraft underwent a major maintenance interval recently.
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Actually determining if a plane was downed because of a bomb or not is fairly easy. So easy, it's one of the first scenarios they test and eliminate in most crashe
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Don't discount the possibility of an accident. Something very similar happened to China Airlines flight 611 ...A tail section badly repaired after a minor accident came off in mid-air. The airplane spun out of control and disintegrated before crashing into the ground. That fits this accident very well.
Note the following about this particular plane [wikipedia.org]:
On 16 November 2001, while operating for Middle East Airlines as F-OHMP, the aircraft suffered a tailstrike landing in Cairo. It was repaired and went back into service with the airline in 2002.
Another incident that comes to mind is Aloha Airlines 243 [wikipedia.org], which was also a cruising altitude when a large part of the fuselage suddenly ripped off the plane for no apparent reason. "Metal fatigue" was cited. The only fatality was a flight attendant who happened to be standing in the aisle by the new hole in the plane. So it is certainly not unheard of for there to be fuselage failures at cruising altitude (where the air pressure differential would be greatest)
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I don't know about this particular plane, but AFAIK the flight recorders are usually located in the tail section so they might well be disconnected immediately in such a scenario,
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It's also extremely suspicious timing, right after the UK government demands more powers to snoop on people. While that doesn't disprove anything, the UK government has a history of thing kind of thing
The UK government has a history of placing bombs on airliners? Do you just make up everything now?
Convenient timing (Score:5, Insightful)
So although the experts don't know what caused the crash, it seems that the British PM David Cameron does know, and it's ISIS.
In other news, Cameron wants British airstrikes on ISIS but can't get the support of parliament. [theguardian.com]
No matter how much I tell myself that correlation is not causation, this just looks like too much of a coincidence.
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Agreed. At this point the bomb story sounds more like a politically convenient tale than an evidence based explanation.
Bombs are easy to detect (now) (Score:5, Informative)
Not after the fact. If there was an explosion inside the cabin or luggage compartment, there will be internal paneling, structural members, etc., blackened and bent and peppered with explosive ejecta littering the deserts of the Sinai. That debris will look radically different from a structural failure due to metal fatigue, composite fairlures, bad repairs, etc., and will be in the wrong place to be the result of a fuel tank explosion. (And, an internal bomb will bend things out, while a missile strike will bend things in.) Making this determination in a case like this (where all of the debris should be easy to find) should be a straightforward case of air crash forensics.
Re:Bombs are easy to detect (now) (Score:5, Interesting)
Not after the fact. If there was an explosion inside the cabin or luggage compartment, there will be internal paneling, structural members, etc., blackened and bent and peppered with explosive ejecta littering the deserts of the Sinai. That debris will look radically different from a structural failure due to metal fatigue, composite fairlures, bad repairs, etc., and will be in the wrong place to be the result of a fuel tank explosion. (And, an internal bomb will bend things out, while a missile strike will bend things in.) Making this determination in a case like this (where all of the debris should be easy to find) should be a straightforward case of air crash forensics.
How correct you are. One of the most interesting aviation photographs I've ever seen was a re-assembly of the Pan Am Lockerbie 747 that was brought down by a bomb over Scotland. The investigation showed that a bomb located on the left hand side of the plane probably brought down the aircraft. The investigators then took all the pieces of the left hand side of the plane that they could find and laboriously pieced them together like a jig saw puzzle on a huge scaffolding. The explosion effects (metal ripped and bent outwards) and hole made by the explosion were obvious from the re-construction.
Gordon
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Thanks for mentioning that. I was curious as to how they did that kind of thing; after your post I had a quick Google and found some of the images - all watermarked terribly by Getty; maybe there are better ones elsewhere but I was fascinated:
http://www.gettyimages.com.au/... [gettyimages.com.au]
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That's actually part of the difficulty. The parts which clearly indicate it was a bomb because of blackened and bent pieces are scattered around the crash site, impossible to tell where they originally came from. So there's usually no direct evidence of a bomb.
What you end up doing instead
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"while a missile strike will bend things in"
What kind of missle? Some explode on contact, some explode in close proximity and some (the really cool ones) explode shortly after penetration.
That might make the "bomb versus missile" decision path a little harder (although missile parts should survive the explosion) but it would still be easy to distinguish that from an airframe failure.
The media are complicit! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad! The western media, with no personnel on the ground but with their respective government agendas to advance, report news with innuendos being taken as the truth by the consuming public.
No wonder none of them took their governments to task when Iraq was being bombed years ago.
Question: Who provides reliable truthful media reports in today?
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"Question: Who provides reliable truthful media reports in today?"
I've had pretty good luck with trusting a reporter who goes by the moniker "Anonymous Coward".
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there's lots of personnel on the ground, what are you talking about ?
most debris were found, I'm sure they have a pretty good idea of what they looked like and if there's any trace of explosion or not already.
Should be easy enough to check (Score:2)
There will be copious evidence of a bomb in the wreckage - from chemical traces to the way the fragments look. Enough with the propaganda from the IC.
Take our Security (Score:2)
We haven't had a bomb go off in a plane here in the US. Perhaps they want to take our TSA force and use it abroad. I mean completely--the TSA can leave here and go work in Russia.
Do you believe them? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Who knows what the intelligence agencies actually found out; we are always getting the message the administration wants to get out, regardless of the actual facts, whether it's Obama or Bush.
Oh noes!! (Score:5, Funny)
Quick, everyone! Let's invade... *spins a globe* Zimbabwe!
Re:Oh noes!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Quick, everyone! Let's invade... *spins a globe* Zimbabwe!
Ah, kind of like when the embassy in Beirut got bombed and we invaded Panama.
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*spin* Invade Rand McNally!
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^^
Excellent :-D
Black boxes ? (Score:2)
They were found a couple of days after the crash and so far, it's only "suspected" what caused the crash. One would think that the data of those black boxes would reveal what was going on.
On other plane crashes - to find the black boxes solved the cause of the crash and the reasons were published.
Now this this, what is taking so long?
Sure gives reason to speculation.
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I wouldn't, but then I'm not labouring under the misapprehension that they record 360x180 degree HD video.
They capture basic flight parameters like speed, altitude, angle, control positions etc. If the tail was blown off by a bomb, bitten off by a dragon or fell off of its own accord because some vodka-sozzled dunderhead used chewing gum instead of rivets the trace would be pretty similar.
Voice? There might be the first syl
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Black boxes almost never give you the answer right away. In the case of an explosion you might see some of the sudden loss of a number of systems, smoke, fire, loss of air pressure, fuel lines cut, and a bunch of other things. But it won't tell you the cause of the explosion. It could be a bomb. Something in the cargo. Attack.
That plus it will take at least a day to even get the black boxes to a proper laboratory to do the examination. You don't just pop open the box and hook up the storage medium to a l
US News is at least full of shit on this (Score:2)
I watched a few minutes of CNN last night, they were bringing on any asshole to try to talk up the idea of a bomb on the plan. Plans can actually have internal explosions not related to a bomb. The speed at which the British trotted this bullshit out was suspect. Either they had intelligence and didn't do anything with it, or it's just a propaganda game being run by intelligence services. Either way, it's just spitting in the face of reality that people died and an investigation is required without a pre
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What the fuck kind of typo was repeating there. Plans. What.
*Planes.
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There is reasonable evidence floating around-- what looks like shrapnel in the rear exit door panels, and an "ejection" hole in the same vicinity of the airframe. Nothing conclusive-- the "shrapnel" could have been caused by the door falling on the rocks and being repositioned by search and rescue personnel.
I give it about 60-40 odds of being a bomb vs structural failure from repair.
UK and US inteligence agencies suspect.... (Score:2)
Cloak and dagger (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there are a couple things going on here. First off, Russia (as in Putin and the government) desperately wants this to be an accident or something they can at least claim to be an accident (and by accident I mean some massive mechanical failure of the plane where it spontaneously broke into pieces during the safest part of flight when cruising). A successful attack by ISIS is the last thing they want, because up to this point Russia appears strong and unassailable in their air campaign in Syria. If this was an attack by ISIS it shows that Russian people have been directly attacked and are vulnerable. So I would imagine Russia would drags its feet as much as possible in admitting it if this is indeed an attack by ISIS, although the direct involvement of so many other countries in the investigation may make that difficult.
The other thing going on is US intelligence. This crash happened in one of the most intensely watched areas of the world. Sinai is the buffer area that lies between Israel and Egypt. In addition to the US's spy satellites, drones, etc, Israel certainly has its own close surveillance of the region as well. It has already been leaked that US satellites detected a "heat flash" while the plane was at altitude. More than likely the US or Israel has direct evidence that a bomb went off in flight, but the information is too sensitive (for example, betraying just how good the US's surveillance technology is) that no one can officially and unequivocally state that it was a bomb.
That pretty much leaves one other semi-realistic scenario, which is that a repair made a long time ago has failed. Again, that is very unlikely, because a structural failure of that kind would happen when the plane is under maximum stress - during the take off and climb. Not when the plane is at altitude and cruising along with very, very little stress on the airframe. Further, pictures of the tail after the crash show the tail is still attached to the fuselage. The type of tail failures in the past with the Airbus (like flight 587) were the rudder, not the entire tail. With the Russian plane, the entire tail section was intact and attached to the rear fuselage, but separate from the plane. That is a gross failure of the entire fuselage itself, not the tail failing.
It's very likely that both the US and Russia already knows for certain what happened - if it was a bomb it would be extremely obvious from examining the wreckage.
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I'm trying to decide why Russia is so eager to say it wasn't a bomb.
Since caution and reason aren't part of the usual repertoire of Russian responses, I can only guess that the knee-jerk reaction is not to admit any vulnerability. A failure of the aircraft itself would be something they could blame on the west and sanctions.
On the other hand, a terror attack on Russian civilians like this has massive propaganda value for a country doubling down on a long-simmering Middle Eastern civil war. It would give t
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That pretty much leaves one other semi-realistic scenario, which is that a repair made a long time ago has failed.
Turns out there was a tail repair to this aircraft [wikipedia.org] years ago:
On 16 November 2001, while operating for Middle East Airlines as F-OHMP, the aircraft suffered a tailstrike landing in Cairo. It was repaired and went back into service with the airline in 2002.
Again, that is very unlikely, because a structural failure of that kind would happen when the plane is under maximum stress - during the take off and climb.
Aloha Airlines 243 [wikipedia.org] had a massive structural failure of the fuselage while at cruising altitude. The cause was put down to metal fatigue. So it has been known to happen.
And since the CIA created ISIS (Score:2)
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Complete nonsense.
Sick and tired of anonymous "sources" (Score:5, Interesting)
CNN unsurprisingly had been running hard with the bomb narrative even before they had any evidence of any kind to support it.
If people in the US government are making the claim a bomb took down flight 9268 then why the hell does this information have to be unofficially leaked to the media with no attribution? Is there no better way to communicate? The same person apparently hedges by saying "there has not been a formal conclusion" and uses weasel words like "definite feeling" ... WTF does that even mean?
The bomb narrative happens to be the most profitable one for both stated US interests against Russia's Syria adventures and CNN's ratings with all assertions carefully constructed such that they get to walk away when they are proven to be wrong.
I have no faith or reason to believe any of this conjecturbation. I'll wait for investigation by the grownups actually doing the work.
So, I'm supposed to believe... (Score:2)
So, I'm supposed to believe that ISIS did it but unlike the other 10,000,000,000 things they've done they just conveniently forgot to release a polished video where some English-speaking nutjob pontificates on how they just struck another major blow to "the enemies of Allah"? Not buying it.
Remember the first rule of terrorist attacks: the problem isn't trying to determine *if* it was a terrorist attack, the problem is determining *which* of the 50 psychos taking responsibility for it actually did it.
Equivalent of 15 Airbuses daily (Score:2)
And cars are just getting more powerful and fast.
Shrapnel from bomb? (Score:2)
This is a Daily Mail article [dailymail.co.uk] quoting Pravda, a Russian newspaper.
Disregard the sources above for a moment, not known for being the most objective. However, look at the photos. They do show what appears to be shrapnel piercing the body from the inside out. Gives credence to the bomb theory.
Other indicators:
- USA satellite is said to detect a heat flash, probably from an explosion (could be a bomb or could be fuel tanks exploding)
- Egypt replaces the airport manager (then say, not this was not replacing, it w
Why ISIS? (Score:2)
ISIS doesn't really have a reason to attack Russia. Russia is only performing a small amount of their attacks against ISIS as they are more concerned with helping Assad defeating the rebel groups. Essentially Assad is concentrating on the rebels and leaving ISIS to the US and it's allies. The token Russian attacks against ISIS are just to basically to say that they are there to fight ISIS.
Going into tin-foil hat territory I could see Russia bombing the airplane and letting ISIS take the blame in order to
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I know Putin's not the "good guy" but in light of what ISIS is all about?
The fact that you're making this reach with no other input into the situation speaks more of you than it does of Putin.
Re:I wouldn't put it past Putin (Score:4, Interesting)
Devil's advocate here (and I cannot believe that I'm mentioning Putin a positive light.)
Putin wouldn't have to do anything for this to happen. It was going to happen, sooner or later, and Daesh was quite prompt to take credit for it, which they likely wouldn't do in another case.
Daesh made a big mistake. Putin keeps Russia from being overrun by his image as a strongman. Unlike the US where Daesh can hold operations at will with no fear of reprisal, Russian pride is at stake here, and Russians will not let a jetliner full of citizens go un-avenged (unlike the US where it is blamed on "guns" or ethnic groups). Bringing in the Russians means that a true army, but one trained to fight wars (and not win no-bid contracts), will be entering this conflict theater.
But Putin doesn't want to bomb Daesh. At least, not yet. Most of the bombing sorties Russia has made so far have been in support of loyalist Syrian forces against the more moderate rebels. As long as Daesh remains active in Iraq and Syria and the US stays impotent to stop them(stop pussyfooting around and trying to protect the ineffective Iraqi government; arm,support, and train the Kurds because they're the only ones with the balls to stand up to Daesh) it drives them closer to Russia and, in the case of Syria, Iran. The whole point is to erode US influence in the region. Only until that happens will Russia truly go after Daesh (they also get the added bonus that radical Chechens are currently going to Syria to fight with Daesh instead of causing trouble in Russia which has been a big source of internal trouble for Russia). So Putin has no reason for any maskirovka-esque self bombing, and even if it was a bomb it is Russia's self-interest to deny it as much as possible otherwise they might be forced to have to engage Daesh.
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"You say "Unlike the US" but that sounds an awful lot like what happened after 9/11."
It WILL be just like what happened after 9/11, but with Russian rules of engagement. They won't hesitate to do something like drop three fuel/air bombs on Raqqa, decapitating ISIS instantly.
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but in light of what ISIS is all about?
Second, that group is in a lot more places than Syria, so you should be calling them either "IS" for "Islamic State" or "ISiL" like everyone else on the goddamn planet other than the fucking moronic US-based news outlets.
I prefer Daesh because it pisses them off :)
Re:I wouldn't put it past Putin (Score:5, Insightful)
I would. I hate Putin, I think he's at least as evil as some of the worst leaders through history, but he's also not stupid.
Putin can get away with what he's doing becaus the Russian people support it. The Russians are however weak when it comes to standing firm when reality hits them in the face. Putin got away with what he did in Ukraine because he was able to keep the deaths of hundreds of Russian soldiers largely out of the press, and dismiss those who did tell their stories as full of shit.
He's able to get away with what he's doing in Syria because there are no boots on the ground and so hardly any risk to Russian soldiers. The chance of a shoot down at the altitude Russian sorties are being flown at is pretty negligible.
But if reality comes to bite Russians by way of a terrorist attack against them due to Putin's actions in Syria then that will be a massive blow to Putin's ability to keep up the tempo.
Russians are still raw from Afghanistan in the 80s, because whilst they were defeated largely as the Americans were in Vietnam, the defeat was felt much more greatly for the Russians because it was really the turning point at which the Soviet Union begin to see it's collapse, and that was followed by a decade (the 90s) of severe economic problems. They didn't just lose a war with Afghanistan, they lost their empire including both what little wealth they did have, and what influence in the world they had also.
The Russians want another Afganistan even less than the Americans want another Afghanistan or Iraq right now. When Russians, civilian or military, start coming home in body bags and Putin can't hide it, then Putin will come under immense pressure to reconsider his support for Assad and the Syrian regime. That's precisely why Putin and his regime are so desperate to declare this not a bomb.
But all this said, I'm not convinced it's ISIS either. If it was ISIS why now, why against Russia when British and American tourists could presumably have been just as easily targeted at the exact same airport all this time and ISIS hates the British and Americans as much as the Russians? Why on a plane so perfectly full of Russians bar the 3 Ukrainians on board? Why weren't ISIS able to say how they destroyed the plane if it was them, only claiming they shot it down, which has been dismissed as a possibility and the likely method was a bomb? I don't think any conspiracy theory involving the Americans or British is likely, it'd just be way too risky for them to get involved blowing up Russian civilians. I don't even think it's a play they'd want to make. If I had to guess I'd wager it's more likely to be anyone from Israel, to Qatar, to the Saudis - none of these countries particularly give a shit about Russia's feelings because Russia has sided with their arch enemies - Iran and Syria, and both don't want to see Assad propped up.
But who knows, I'm just guessing as much as the next guy there's a lot that's a little weird about this case though. The other possibility being of course that it simply isn't a bomb and the tail half of the plane genuinely just ripped away somehow, that too would explain why ISIS claim of blame doesn't really make any kind of sense, but then why are the British and Americans so certain of evidence of a bomb declaring they detected a heat flash and cancelling flights and so forth?
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but then why are the British and Americans so certain of evidence of a bomb declaring they detected a heat flash and cancelling flights and so forth?
Opportunism. A chance to reassure their people that they were right all along and provide the pretext for even more invasive surveillance. So much the better if no-one can prove otherwise.
Re:I wouldn't put it past Putin (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe, but there's similarly a risk for the US and UK in this case. If they insist it's a bomb it harms Egyptian tourism which is a major source of income for them, and they're already facing a fairly strong degree of risk in isolating Egypt. As soon as the Americans distanced themselves from Sisi when he seized power by stalling the further AH-64 Apache sales, he went wandering straight over to Russia. The last thing they want is to push Egypt into the arms of Russia when Syria, Iraq, and Iran have already moved that way. It would give Putin an axis of control right from Africa to Asia, and would provider further access to everything from the Med to the Indian Ocean to the Caspian and give Putin influence over the Suez.
Couple this with the fact that Putin wants nothing more than to put egg in the face of America and Britain and if his (and even 3rd party such as the involved French) investigators come out and say there was no bomb, then the British and American governments are only going to end up hurting that particular cause and face even more complaints of crying wolf than they already do.
I know the British and Americans are keen on their fear mongering to push anti-terrorism legislation, but I'm not convinced it's a meme that holds every single time such a thing happens. There's way too much for them to risk losing in being wrong in this particular case, it's not something where it's a domestic incident and the results have no impact outside their borders. The result of being wrong in this particular case has geopolitical consequences and that makes it a much more awkward game to play.
Re:I wouldn't put it past CIA (Score:2)
In that case, can you put it past CIA?
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If the heat flash had been a bomb they should've seen another one when the plane crashed into the ground and the fuel ignited. So seeing one heat flash would actually suggest to me it wasn't a bomb.
Cancelling flights is exactly what you expect to happen in the aftermath of MH17. The authorities will be overly careful.
Same happened after the failed attack on the Thalys
Re: I wouldn't put it past Putin (Score:2, Informative)
If the plane broke up, you wouldn't have a tube full of fuel hitting the ground and burning up. Even if it was still full of fuel, the impact soul not necessarily ignite it.
Have you looked at the crash scene photos? There's a lot of luggage that appears intact, not burned to a crisp.
Re:I wouldn't put it past Putin (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the exact wording from the US was that they detected an air based heat flash. Presumably it wouldn't be too difficult (someone else here no doubt has the knowledge to clarify) to determine the difference between such an event at 30,000ft, and one at ground level. I'd have thought that's a reasonable enough altitude difference to fathom from the satellite data whether the event happened in the air, or on the ground.
It's also worth noting that the plane blew up some distance from where the bulk of it ended up on the ground too, and as such it's possible that the air based heat flash was detected a mile or so away from the location that the fuel ended up such that if the location data for the heat flash is reasonable that in itself would be enough to separate the two incidents.
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But all this said, I'm not convinced it's ISIS either. If it was ISIS why now, why against Russia when British and American tourists could presumably have been just as easily targeted at the exact same airport all this time and ISIS hates the British and Americans as much as the Russians?
Well, I don't know exactly how many American and British tourists there really are in Egypt. If you're American and you go, if you don't know the risks, which have been around for more than a decade now (cough cough - ask Mexico about that if you need to), I really don't know what to say. The Russian plane was something like a regularly scheduled charter flight. Egypt either has no visa requirement for citizens of the countries that used to be in the USSR or they are something like "get one on arrival".
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"Well, I don't know exactly how many American and British tourists there really are in Egypt. If you're American and you go, if you don't know the risks, which have been around for more than a decade now (cough cough - ask Mexico about that if you need to), I really don't know what to say."
Perhaps it's a less popular destination for Americans but Sharm El Sheikh is a massively popular tourist destination for British tourists. It's largely been free from the insecurities that have plagued the rest of Egypt.
Controls the media (Score:2)
Putin can get away with what he's doing becaus the Russian people support it... Putin got away with what he did in Ukraine because he was able to keep the deaths of hundreds of Russian soldiers largely out of the press, and dismiss those who did tell their stories as full of shit.
Yes, the Russian people support Putin, but I'm guessing that a lot of that is because he controls the media and can manufacture crises at will. In short, I think the second sentence in your quote explains the first rather than the other way around.
Look at this [forbes.com] plot of Putin's populairity rateing. His popularity had been slowly but steadily declining from 2008 to late 2013 -- dropping to a low of ~60% around the end of that period. What happens after that? A fortuitously timed olympics that stirred patriotis
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Yes I think you're right - I recall reading, I cannot remember where, but I believe Al Jazeera, a column written by one of Putin's former advisers who basically said that Putin's entire decision making process revolves around polls and approval ratings, but the problem is that he never stops to ask how accurate they were. For example, he annexed Crimea based on a supposed poll of citizens saying something like 90% supported it, and yet there was no evidence that poll was ever even carried out. It was appare
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People support Putin because all that oil revenue and the sovereign wealth fund it created (when oil was over $100/barrel) have people feeling well-off. However, the current low oil prices are not enough to support the levels of spending by the Russian government and the sovereign wealth fund will be gone in a couple or more years. Then, austerity will bite and the people are much less likely to support Putin.
IMHO, the West's
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He's able to get away with what he's doing in Syria because there are no boots on the ground and so hardly any risk to Russian soldiers. The chance of a shoot down at the altitude Russian sorties are being flown at is pretty negligible.
First of all, let me stress very strongly that I agree 100% wit everything you said, except the quote above. The thing is, Putin can get away with bombing Syrian rebels because he is very effective (compared to allied sorties) also against ISIS targets. The thing is that UK and EU public opinion is very much in favor of Russian airstrikes in Syria. I have seen BBC News stories where the comment section was flooded with messages in support of the Russian attacks (it was a story about Turkey warning Russia no
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I was talking about the end of the last century, before they started really exploiting their natural resources. As you're apparently unaware, this is what the Russian economy looked like in the 90s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Yes of course they've made lots of money on natural resources since, but it took 10 years before they started to see that recovery. That was an extended period of strife and growing poverty following the pullout of Afghanistan and the collapse of the USSR that isn't easily forgott
Occam's razor (Score:2)
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Justification for escalation. Full scale ground invasion, tactical nukes, who knows what he's planning?
If you'd think for a moment, that's exactly what they would do.
Re:It's either that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, those Russians are so shitty at technology. That's why they've had almost every space "first" and are the only nation on earth still consistently capable of sending men into space (and with an almost spotless cosmonaut safety record for the last 40 years, unlike some other nations).
'Merica!! USA! USA! USA!!
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It's true that the USSR/Russia have great mathematicians and engineers but its also true that many of their mass-produced items (including cars, tanks, planes, warships, and submarines) left a lot to be desired.
Your oversight of that point plus your gratuitous "'Merica!! USA! USA! USA!!" says a lot about you.
Namely - you think Americans are stupid and uneducated (probably also fat and lazy) and forget that each of these traits applies to other countr
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Of course my points of comparison are limited - NYC
Re:It's either that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your point misses the target. The US was not scared about facing a technologically superior opponent. Only one that threatened to attack and bury the west. (And nuclear war is a scary, pant-wetting, scenario.)
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Depends on where it is maintained and where they get their replacement parts from. Do they follow FAA standards (surprisingly many countries do)? And so on.
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Russia's first boomer nearly sank on it's maiden voyage because of a pervasive culture of corruption. It's not enough to have sufficiently talented geeks. Management also needs to not screw things up.
Re:It's either that... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually China is only top for cheaper goods (i.e. t-shirts, small electronics, plastic toys) whereas the US still reigns supreme when it comes to manufacturing capital goods (i.e. earth movers, jumbo jets, high density silicon devices.)
Re:It's either that... (Score:4, Funny)
high density silicon devices
I realize this is a nerd site, but you can still call them breast implants. No need for technical jargon in that category.
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Umm, you DO know, don't you, that the Russians lost two capsules full of men in ~120 flights, right?
And that the USA lost two shuttles full of men in 135 flights, right?
And that 2/135 is SMALLER than 2/120, right?
In other words, the failure rates of the Russian and American launches is just about the same (Sorry, the fact that American failures were on international TV (unlike the Russian), does NOT mak
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Now let's all get along and play nicely with one another.
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But....
http://www.pandaandpolarbear.c... [pandaandpolarbear.com]
Re:It's either that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Umm, you DO know, don't you, that the Russians lost two capsules full of men in ~120 flights, right?
Umm, you DO know what 40 years is, don't you?
Who cares how many years it spans - it's the number of flights that matters. If they sit there for six months NOT flying, then having zero flight deaths during those six months isn't exactly a point of pride. Deaths per astronaut flight is a lot more meaningful, statistically, and as a measure of competence. Regardless, we're splitting hairs. The point is that nothing about their survived hours in flight paints a picture of the Russians being wildly more successful in that regard. They do, though, have an administration that's actually keeping their people in the business of putting people in space - though they're doing a fair bit of that with other people's money.
Re:It's either that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares how many years it spans - it's the number of flights that matters.
Yeah, convenient way to ignore the fact that to find the last Russian space fatality you have to go back over 40 years, whereas NASA space shuttles were blowing up as recently as 2003.
Yes, the fact that Russia has had a spotless record for over 40 years is completely irrelevant. What matters is that they had two fatal accidents in the 1960's.That makes them somehow worse, or at least no better than, a space agency that fatal accidents in 1986 and 2003.
The point is that nothing about their survived hours in flight paints a picture of the Russians being wildly more successful in that regard.
No, but the fact that Russia had almost every space first in the 1960's and 70's DOES paints a picture of an agency that has well-earned and deserves respect. You would think that the fact that Americans have to beg Russia for a ride to ISS these days would at least make Americans inclined to treat the Russian space program with a little of that respect. But never underestimate the self-aggrandizing delusion of the average American, or the lingering effect of bullshit Cold War propaganda on that national psyche. In American movies, the U.S. is still the king of space. In real life, you can't even put a human in low earth orbit anymore.
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NASA space shuttles were blowing up as recently as 2003.
I believe the correct engineering and PC term is "catastrophic self-disassembly."
Re:It's either that... (Score:5, Informative)
6 Vostok (0 fatalities) [0%]
2 Voskhod (0 fatalities) [0%]
127 Soyuz (4 fatalities - 2 missions) [1.575%]
135 missions - 2 incidents [1.481%]
6 Mercury (0 fatalities) [0%]
10 Gemini (0 fatalities) [0%]
11 Apollo (0 fatalities) [0%]
135 Shuttle (14 fatalities - 2 missions) [1.481%]
162 missions - 2 incidents [1.235%]
Apollo 1 falls under the test/training mission and was never a flight.
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You can't really hide deaths in space. The radio chatter is easy to pick up from multiple points on the globe. In fact that conspiracy theory is based on an alleged transmission received in Italy but mysteriously not picked up anywhere else.
It is known that some cosmonauts were kicked out for bad behaviour and erased from records, and that some ground accidents were covered up for a time. But space accidents couldn't be hidden, only passed off as say a failed comms satellite instead of a failed military spy
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"Yeah, those Russians are so shitty at technology."
You're right, but they might have to learn that, if you bomb people in the Middle-East, your citizens have to remove their shoes, belts and sometimes drop your pants before boarding a flight, if you want these 'accidents' to stop.
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That's why they've had almost every space "first" and are the only nation on earth still consistently capable of sending men into space (and with an almost spotless cosmonaut safety record for the last 40 years, unlike some other nations).
You're right! They had the first space flight fatality. And the second through fourth. Go ask Vladimir Komarov about his thoughts regarding the Soviet's concern for cosmonaut safety. Oh wait, you can't; he's a charcoal briquette. You also forget that the Chinese are now sending their own astronauts into space. Russia no longer holds the monopoly on manned spaceflight.
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As it was leased to the russians, they would be responsible for its maintenance during the lease period. Even the most reliable of aircraft require regular maintenance to keep them airworthy, and the russians could have cut corners there.
Of course this is all speculation, we don't yet know what actually happened.
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Because not all Muslims are violent terrorists? And not all Muslims wear traditional dress believe it or not.
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Not all Harlem residents are violent either (isn't Harlem gentrified these days?). Obviously, almost all aren't. But it only takes a few to make a violent crime wave.
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Wow, way to paint with a broad brush.
You know that Egypt's largest industry as % of GDP over the past 20 years has been tourism, right? And that millions of people visit every year wearing Western garb with absolutely no problem. Jordan,Turkey, Albania, Morocco, Malaysia, and until recently Syria and Iraq (before the West destabilized them and allowed fundamentalists to take over) are all places where wearing Western garb would be just fine.
In fact, walking through any major city in the US in Western garb
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There you go again, proving to the world you don't know the difference between a group and some of its members. As not every westerner (dressed as such) gets hated, attacked or killed, I'd say your point is well and truly destroyed.
Hint: You won't make any logical sense when you start off on a very illogical footing.
Re:That's strange! (Score:5, Interesting)
There could be many explanations. They could have a agent at the airport who only has access to Russian flights - or some other explanation that fits in the "opportunist" category. They could be more worried about Russian involvement since the regime was about to fall until the Russians stepped in, or some other simple explanation that fits into the "motivation to attack the Russians" category. They might fear a physical on-the-ground American presence as the result of an act of terror, whereas with the Russians this has already happened. That could fall in the "strategy" category. Who knows? But it is at least plausible.
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There is also the simple fact that there are a lot more Russian than US flights to and from the Sinai.