Posted on 05/28/2013 5:17:23 PM PDT by raptor22
[So naturally you just decided to start making up theories and conspiracies and posting them in mid 2013.]
I didn’t make up anything. The speculation began right after the crash then blossomed into conspiracy theories. The body of this thread—an IBD editorial—states a conspiracy theory.
As for my “pretty goofy” Post 30, it was an Afghan military official, not me, who first theorized that insurgents plotted the Chinook’s likely route then stationed people with RPGs in the pass at an elevation that would match the Chinook’s altitude. I gave you the quote and the link in Post 38.
And this is an Aug. 6, 2011 blog post, not mine, on Patterico’s Pontifications:
“Have not had time to read all of the comments but to the person asking about how possible it would be to hit a helicopter with an RPG – Depending on the flight profile and the terrain, very possible. In fact volley firing (large number of gunners firing at once or in rapid sequence)RPGs at helicopters was a tactic successfully used by the muhjadin against the Soviet Hip and Hind helicopters in the 80?s. A Chinook is a large target, especially if it is operating in low of nap of earth flight.”
Comment by Have Blue (dbbcd4) — 8/6/2011 @ 3:07 pm
http://patterico.com/2011/08/06/did-bidens-loose-lips-sink-a-team-6-airship/
From TheAtlanticWire.com, August 8, 2011:
“. . .On Sunday, Politico’s Mike Allen posted an email from an unidentified sender raising the possibility that Iranian intelligence had a hand in “training and equipping” the Taliban to carry out the operation. Today, another unidentified source tells Allen that he suspects Pakistan, not Iran. “Ninety-nine percent of fighters and weapons [in Wardak province] likely all came from Pakistan,” the source notes. In an interview with Bloomberg over the weekend, British MP Mark Pritchard claimed Iran has been training Taliban fighters in the use of surface-to-air missiles and may now be supplying the militant group with advanced weapons as well. . .This isn’t the first time that Pakistan or Iran has been accused of assisting the Taliban. Last year, The Guardian, citing WikiLeaks cables, noted that intelligence reports warned of Iranian or Pakistani support around the time that the Taliban shot down another Chinook helicopter over Helmand province in 2007 with a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile, or Manpad.”
I read your original post and I agree with your frustration that press sensationalism eclipsed the loss of a similar number of Army special operators whose training and dedication was on par with the SEALs. They all go to a lot the same schools.
And the mission shouldn’t have been described as a “rescue” because the intent was to envelope the Taliban to block high-value targets fleeing the Rangers.
That's nice, good luck with your thinking.
It's a normal human tendency for people to ridicule things they don't understand.
"If this trap was planned over a period of days it might give Al Qaeda time to acquire a man-portable SAM to attack the Chinook. Instead of a “lucky shot” with an RPG the chopper might have been hit by something like a Russian 9K34 Strela-3 or even a Stinger from friends in Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
But the insurgents wouldn't necessarily need a “lucky shot” with an RPG if the path between the LZ and the Rangers took the Chinook through a pass. A group of insurgents, up in the pass with RPGs, could fire a volley of rockets horizontally as opposed to trying to fire a much more difficult shot, at a high angle, from a valley floor." "I'm not saying any of this happened but it could have.
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