Posted on 04/15/2016 6:47:39 AM PDT by rktman
The US military would have been within its rights to shoot down Russian aircraft that flew close to one of its warships in the Baltic Sea, Secretary of State John Kerry says.
Two Russian jets flew within metres of the ship on Monday, US officials said.
Russia's defence ministry said the Su-24 fighter jets "turned away in observance of all safety measures" after observing the USS Donald Cook.
Mr Kerry criticised the gesture and said contact had been made with Moscow.
"We condemn this kind of behaviour," he told the Miami Herald and CNN Espanol in a joint interview.
"It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement, that could have been a shoot-down."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Thus sayeth the jag-off who did his own private negotiations with the North Vietnamese to end run official channels . . .
We could have shot down those Russian jets but considering where our ship was in the Baltic Sea, it could have been sunk soon afterwards.
I remember this stuff happened all the time. Ivan would fly all sorts of planes including Bear and Backfire bombers right through a carrier task force.
Shoot ‘em down and let Putin know we’re at DEFCON 1.
Yeah, shoot down an aircraft in international airspace. We used to do that to aircraft from smaller nations like Libya, but not the Soviet Union.
The sad part about this is that we had no assets in the area that could have scrambled from Germany to ‘escort’ the Russians out of the frigate’s operational area.
Tough talk from a coward..Putin must laugh himself to sleep every night.
30 feet off the deck is NOT “this stuff happened all the time”!
Yeah...its justified...because he has a bunker to run off to. The rest of us schmucks—SOL.
Not true. Maverick shot down 3 Russians over international waters in the 80’s.
DANGER ZONE!!!!!
This is not Vietnam or Cambodia or wherever he got lost.
If you think 30 feet off the deck of a US warship is “international airspace”, we don’t need your “insight”.
That was an act of war.
We should have shot them down and alerted to DEFCON 1.
LOL! Yup. Saw it a LOT back in late ‘60’s. Got into a discussion yesterday with a fellow freeper and it turns out we served on different ships during the same deployment/task force in ‘68 out of Newport RI. What are the odds? Same ports of call except for 2.
I think it was the Christmas gift delivery to Cambodia.
“””If you think 30 feet off the deck of a US warship is “international airspace”, we don’t need your “insight”.
That was an act of war.””””
I’d say it’s more like Putin laughing in obummers face and daring him to do something about it.
“We used to do that to aircraft from smaller nations like Libya, but not the Soviet Union.”
Also, we didn’t just bounce Libyan planes in international airspace for something like this. Libya claimed 200 miles out as its territory. They clearly sent out fighters to enforce an illegal territorial claim. That is why they were shot down.
As for escorting them out of the area of a frigate, they do nothing to make them leave, they simply follow them till they depart. A US Navy ship or fleet doesn’t come with its very own flight restricted zone. They do however have a right to send fighters to be ready and follow them, paint them with radars if the captain is stupid enough to give out the intel trove.
But this is a lot of normal behavior at sea.
“30 feet off the deck is NOT “this stuff happened all the time”!”
Yeah, it actually is. Ships also rubbed paint on occasion.
[...can’t get any dumber...]
When I was in Navy, I worked in Combat Information Center aboard ship and every aircraft nearing the ship would be sent a IFF (Identify Friend or Foe), in this case, the aircraft before it was actually seen would have signaled friend or be shot down.
are you guys children? Some pilot act recklessly and hurt no-oone and you want to start a war that kill millions of people over it?
Fortunate it wasn’t a real attack otherwise the ship and crew would have been under the Baltic Sea. Sort of the ‘thugs lives matter’ syndrome on an international scale; thug pulls gun on cop and cop waits to see if thug is really going to shoot him or not...yeah right. I guess it was a frightening micro aggression. Ship shoul have chalked ‘Trump 2016’ on deck-take that Putin! Kerry is the perfect stooge for this administration. The Iranians poke us in the eye continually in the Persian Gulf. Threatening actions around warships in international waters should have serious consequences. Oh well off to the links...
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