Posted on 11/16/2007 10:04:18 PM PST by Sioux-san
On the Sunday morning of July 3, 1988, at the tail end of the Iran-Iraq War, an Aegis cruiser, the USS Vincennes, fired two Standard Missiles at a commercial Iranian Airbus, IR655.
The first missile struck the tail and right wing and broke the aircraft in half. All 290 people aboard were killed. Misunderstanding America, the Iranians claimed that our Navy had intentionally destroyed the plane.
The Navy did no such thing.
(Excerpt) Read more at cashill.com ...
You've had ample time now to carefully review the documented report of the 2 witnesses who put the massive fireball explosion below 8500 feet thereby conclusively ruling out any possibility that TWA 800 was the victim of a missile(s) shootdown.
Honestly, I don’t know what you folks are smoking out there in the hinterland.
If you wished to take me to task for saying there were 600 witnesses to a missile, you had plenty of reason to do so. I mistakenly took the rough estimate of total witnesses and made an incorret attribution to them, that they had all seen what looked like a missile. That was faulty logic and you should have called me on it.
There were 755 FBI witnesses. Many of them did see what looked like a missile, but by no means did they all.
When it was first said that TWA 800 was flying at 12,500 feet (or close to it), I had a hard time believing it. The aircraft had taken off a few minutes earlier, and it seemed to me like 12,500 would have been a very rapid assent.
Seven thousand five hundred feet sounds a lot more realistic to me. I have no problem with that at all. As for conspiracy theorists seeming to want a 12,500 foot elevation, I’m not sure why you say that.
I did read the report of the two men you mentioned. It sounded very credible. I doubt these men had any reason to report anything other than what they had seem from their vantage point, and I take their report at face value.
Let’s say we had 500 witnesses to a car accident. 250 of them were looking at the front of the car. They saw a small dog run out in front of the car, and this explained why the car veered off the roadway to miss the dog. 250 people behind the car swear there was no reason at all for the driver to swerve off the road.
Who was right? Using your logic, the dog in front of the car couldn’t exist because so many people didn’t see the dog.
A portion of the witnesses to TWA 800, not seeing a missile type object, does not rule out the presence of a missile. We listen to all the witnesses, because some of the witnesses were in a postion to see it. Others were not.
I am not 100% certain a missile took down the plane. In light of the witnesses, I am about 99.99% sure a missile was involved.
You are not. That’s okay. It makes sense to you and I understand that. It doesn’t to me.
“Here are two witnesses who prepared their own report and clearly indicate the massive fireball explosion was below 8500 feet,”
So, is 8500 feet within range of a MANPADS launched missile , or Stinger, or shoulder launched Missile of say CHINESE/Soviet Manufacture?
(Go ahead, say no, please, please, please, please)
Well, here’s hoping that when LS gets back off Thanksgiving vacation, that he/she will address the questions asked.
I have been around FR long enough to see many posters just like LS, who CONSTANTLY ASK only certain QUESTIONS, but refuse to answer any questions posed to them, other than to ‘dodge’ them, or act like those questions are ‘beneath their dignity’.
I have seen LS do HIT AND RUNS on several threads, so I kinda see a ‘pattern’.
WE WILL SEE. WE WILL SEE. YOU ARE ON NOTICE, LS.
Well, most of what I said is provable fact.
The other parts are speculation based on the reactions of the actions and reactions of the White House and the Navy and other members of the exercise, once the event occurred.
And, while interesting, are not true.
TWA800 was blown up by a terrorist bomb, which was on board.
After it got blasted apart, and started it’s downward trajectory, it attracted the attention of a missile being fired at a TEST TARGET DRONE. It re-tracked and went after the BOEING AIRLINER because it suddenly became a better source of ‘heat’.
That is why the LARGE explosion occurred somewhere between 7000-8000 feet. The Jet had been ripped wide open, and the jet fuel was atomized into the air, brought down to a reasonable altitude by gravity, and WENT OFF LIKE A BIG BOMB when the missile hit the plummeting airliner.
SO, it wasn’t OUR missile that started the mess, it was a terrorist. But the Clinton Admin didn’t want that known.
And they couldn’t tell the public that the missile didn’t really kill the people, because then they would have to admit to the terrorist bomb.
SO, “stroke of the pen, law of the land” Clinton signed an EO that ordered everyone in government to keep their mouths shut under penalty of DEATH (I’m not kidding), and that’s the end of the story, boys and girls.
Excuse me. The only hit and run here began when people keep quoting “200/300/10,000” eyewitnesses, and will not address a shred of forensic evidence. Now, you have the questions above. Feel free to address ANY of them. Until you do, it is you who is the “hit and run,” “drive-by poster.”
Answer my questions on the missiles first please.
Logic tells us that when you have eliminated all other explanations, the only remaining explanation, no matter how improbable, must be correct.
Pretty simple: if it was NOT an explosion caused by a bomb (i.e., there was no bomb material, no fuse, no explosive residue); and if it was NOT an explosion caused by a missile (see my explanations above---simply COULDN'T happen); then we are left with an airplane malfunction. Mythbusters successfully recreated the explosion (I suppose they are part of the "conspiracy" too, along with HUNDREDS of FBI, aeronautical engineers, Navy NCIS, CIA, air safety officials, White House officials of two administrations, and HUNDREDS of ordinary sailors and air traffic control people). Starting to sound a little looney?
Didn’t see a cartoon. I was responding only to your earlier question about the 200 eyewitnesses. I’m not reading all posts on this thread, only those to me.
LS, if you will look at the surface of the aircraft that has been painstakenly put back together, you will note that not every scrap of the aircraft was able to be found and placed back together. I don’t find it unreasonable to conclude that some evidence was not recovered. Your use of that to come to a conclusion that it never existed simply doesn’t pass muster with me.
Thus your claim that all other explanations have been eliminated is flawed in my opinion.
As for mythbusters, I’m simply not going to dignify that explantion with an additional response.
As for what sounds looney to you, that’s okay with me. A solid explanation being absent, folks are going to come to their own conclusions. You think the government line on this makes sense. I’m sure they’re very appreicative of that. If a survey were conducted, I doubt very many citizens were buying off on that plausible/implausible explanation, but even one person believing what they will may happen to be right.
I don’t totally dismiss what they and you propose, but I do rank it down there in the single digits.
Thanks for the additional comments.
Ok, I certainly agree they will never find all sections of ANY downed aircraft. (Realize these are the same “explanations” that the looney left use to say that the WTC planes were really empty and there were bombs aboard, or some such). What is important is that in ALL the evidence that has been recovered, including most of the critical explosion area, there is no evidence whatsoever of a bomb; of a missile; or of any explosive devices. Now, that certainly sounds a little “skippy.”
Jack Cashill BUMP!
I think that was Stephanopolous.
Find the transcript of Bill Clinton on LKL when his first book (the door stop book) was released..... he named off terrorist attacks while he was president and in the list was TWA 800... he said it as cool as a cucumber and Larry King never blinked an eye at his comment.
I’ll grant you the 09/11 truthers do exercise some incredible leaps of logic to come to their conclusions. To some I’m sure I and the others who don’t buy into the TWA 800 line from the government, sound the same. I can live with that.
You take care.
Sorry for the delay in replying - had to rush out of town, family member had emergency surgery.
Yes, I like the old MK-26s too. They were good for close-in engagements. You could shoot the SM-2 right over the safety rail, right into the teeth of an incoming sea-skimming ASM. VLS, well, it’s gotta go up, come down, flare, run out...sigh
Are you serious with that question?
The FBI/CIA/NTSB animation to explain what the witnesses "saw" is not plausable. The entire 14 minute video can be seen here. You will note the title of the video is "What Did The Eyewitnesses See?"
It was the FBI that had 154 witnesses (not 800 or 1100) who saw a rising streak prior to the explosion. It was the FBI's contention that what these witnesses saw was TWA 800 with it's nose blown off, leaking fuel and leaving a trail of fire as the doomed aircraft continued to fly for 10 seconds and climb 3,200 feet, that was the source the upwards streak reported by these witnesses, not a missile.
If the video explaining what the eyewitnesses saw is blatently aerodynamically impossible, then you are back to having to explain what all of those witnesses did see.
If the FBI and the CIA could not produce a video that adhered to the laws of physics, then who is to say what other "evidence" in your list they supressed. You don't know, I don't know, and neither of us will ever know.
However, I do know that the FBI felt that it was important enough to discredit what 154 witnesses saw (please watch the official CIA 14 minute video) that the FBI had to create that fiction.
That is why they HAD to explain that.
“I remember it well.”
So do I.
I was doing training with an NG unit at Camp Edwards at the time.
Thanks for your comment. And thanks for your service.
“And the Iranian diesel sub that fired the missile got away.”
Wasn’t a sub.
There were sightings of a small boat in the area with a tarp draped over the back from what I remember.
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