Patterico's Pontifications

11/4/2015

Russian Jet Possibly Downed By ISIS Bomb

Filed under: General — Dana @ 5:57 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Surprising:

There’s significant evidence that a bomb brought down Russia’s Metrojet Flight 9268 over the Sinai Peninsula last weekend, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday, saying U.S. investigators are focusing on ISIS operatives or sympathizers as the likely bombers.

Questions have swirled over whether foul play or terrorism may have downed the Metrojet-operated Airbus A321 since it crashed in Egypt on Saturday, killing all 224 people aboard. ISIS’s media office in Sinai released an audio message Wednesday reiterating its claim of responsibility. Neither Wednesday’s claim nor an earlier one immediately after the crash said how ISIS is supposed to have brought down the plane.

A U.S. official told NBC News he expects Russia to retaliate “heavily and militarily” if the theory is borne out.

U.S. officials haven’t entirely ruled out mechanical failure, but say that it is “likely” it was a bomb that brought down the jet.

10 Downing Street is also being reserved, “we cannot say categorically why the Russian jet crashed”.

Allahpundit offers this as evidence for a possible terrorist act:

What’s the evidence? For starters, satellites picked up a large flash of light around the plane right before it went down. It wasn’t a missile that caused that, as the launch would have been detected. It might be an exploding fuel tank, possibly caused by some sort of accidental technical malfunction, but a Russian news agency reported that everything sounded normal in the cockpit as recently as four minutes before the plane crashed. Either a fuel tank exploded with no warning to the crew that it was in distress or something else exploded.

Also, Jake Tapper reported tonight that after the jet went down, U.S. Intelligence picked up increaseed “chatter” from ISIS, leading them to believe ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula may have put a bomb on the plane or had a suicide bomber on board.

According to a national security expert, If ISIS was able to plant a bomb on the plane, it’s a real game-changer for the region.

–Dana

71 Responses to “Russian Jet Possibly Downed By ISIS Bomb”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (86e864)

  2. Russians, Israelis, and Republicans don’t take kindly to being targeted by terrorists. Democrats apologize to the terrorists and jail uninvolved scapegoats.

    John Hitchcock (a6ef4e)

  3. I found the flight operator’s insistence that it is completely impossible that this was the result of mechanical failure or operator error to be *highly* suspicious – there simply hasn’t been enough time to gather the data one would need to *definitively* rule such a thing out, so it came off like it was defensive pleading aimed at deflecting criticism of the company.

    That said, a terrorist bomb seems plausible enough, although why they would target Russia is unclear to me.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  4. Two possible reasons why they would target the Russian plane:

    1) Russia is doing a number on them in Syria.
    2) Demolition Man movie, pre-chill, gives the other possible reason.

    John Hitchcock (a6ef4e)

  5. Egypt is the proxy for Russia, the group involved was the one that went to Syria for training,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  6. When I first heard of this crash seemed given that it was Russian, the location and the timing–to have a lot of coincidences.

    Then add to that the video by ISIS. Was it the plane? What are the odds?

    So–I keep waiting to hear someone say–the ISIS video is not the Russian plane that crashed. So far–haven’t heard that.

    Danube River Guide (76b104)

  7. It’s just conceivable, perhaps, that Russian airline security might sometimes be less than perfect. Shocking, I know, but we must consider the possibility. And if terrorists have managed to exploit some imperfection? Well, that’s just world-shaking.
    As for the suggestion of a fuel tank exploding without warning, well, that’s just impossible. Everyone knows that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by a terrorist bomb. Or a U. S. Navy missile. Or space aliens. Definitely not a spark in a nearly-empty fuel tank.

    Eric Wilner (3936fd)

  8. yes, that’s possible, but considering the location, the chatter, all other things being equal,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  9. #4: John’s #1. Russia is fighting ISIS with no JAGsters to protect them. Experiencing war as we did in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, the jihadists are discovering that they want no part of it. If you wonder why Obola went soft on ISIS, I’m sure there are some emails from Yemen that would explain the deal. Would that Congress had the courage to seek such evidence.

    But ISIS is making a huge miscalculation. Russia is not the JAG-ridden U. S. Russia has been fighting these animals for a millennia, and nothing has changed except that Russia has a sense of pride that was lacking under the Czars. The sort of thing that would cause Obola to curl up into a fetal position and whimper is likely to encourage Putin to provide even more modern weaponry to Syria. Don’t look for Russian run POW camps, there won’t be any POWs. Both side will be flying the black flag.

    BobStewartatHome (f66298)

  10. NPR on the car radio this morning had an interesting feature on this.
    Most interesting was the parallels and contrast with the Malaysian jet shot down over the Ukraine. There Russia tried to complain the rest of the world was wrong to blame a missile shoot down. Now Russia is facing the possibility of the reverse scenario: that the world will say no bomb or missile was responsible, but Russia will insist one was.
    NPR did not invoke karma…
    The truly dark side of me suggested that Vlad arranged this as a way of justifying increased Russian intervention in the region. He did come out of the Soviet security organs, after all.

    kishnevi (28fa9f)

  11. no that doesn’t seem right, incidents like this have happened in Russia proper, the black widows,
    which were of note, before the Olympics in Sochi, the above mentioned group, have struck certain high profile targets, including the Interior Minister, but he’s a remote figure, as compared to commercial aviation,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  12. I did say it was my dark side….

    kishnevi (28fa9f)

  13. syria’s a pretty big deal, on top of ukraine, I don’t think he wanted another front at this time,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  14. I was thinking more in terms of revving up against ISIS in Syria than actual involvement in Sinai.

    kishnevi (28fa9f)

  15. he doesn’t need an excuse like in 1999,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  16. I’ve noticed ISIS has been very careful in claiming various terror incidents. I am unaware of any which have been debunked.

    Poor Airbus. They are about to be on the wrong end of cronyism. BHO needs this to be TWA 800 – nothing to see here. Move along. Defective design and equipment.

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  17. I figure the US reaction will be to make air travel less pleasant. Again.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  18. Let’s get this shyte straight. It’s ISIL, not ISIS. Saying ISIL makes you OBAMA smart. As smart as a fugging house fly.
    Obama the dimwitted pretend President, told us all 5 years ago, that our U.S. LEAD COALITION and NATO’S allies, specifically FRANCE, would take care of the LIBYA GHADAFFI situation. WHAT A FUKKKING FOOL. Obama isn’t smart enough to be a kindergarten teacher with the ALYNSKI curriculum.
    OBAMA is dumber than CARTER, and OBAMA is a NARCISSISTIC WONDERFOCK of epic

    GUS (7cc192)

  19. proportions. What we are truly left with in this country, is/are, abject LIBTARD AZZHATS and morons. We are in deep trouble. Anyone who believes Obama is anything other than a FOKWIT CLOWN, is not mentally sound.

    GUS (7cc192)

  20. Have not been in a commercial plane in ten years and never will again. I no take my shoes off for anyone. No muzzie prick is going to bring me down in a fricking plane. I want these zero sum dolts to look me in the eye before their sheite hits the fan. Condolences to the innocent Russians that died.

    mg (31009b)

  21. If this was an ISIS bomb, Putin may want to show what a strong horse does.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  22. 1) Russia is doing a number on them in Syria.
    2) Demolition Man movie, pre-chill, gives the other possible reason.

    John Hitchcock (a6ef4e) — 11/4/2015 @ 6:10 pm

    Reason 3) Chechnya. Muslim majority in that region, and the Russians have already been rather brutal there once. It’s not beyond the pale that a deal with Satan was inked, and this is the first installment.

    However it all shakes out, the Russians are not going to be nice about this.

    Bill H (2a858c)

  23. what does Putin do when ~10% of Russia’s population declares jihad?

    redc1c4 (eda244)

  24. If Stalin could murder 20 million Ukrainians 70 years ago, it’s a sure thing Putin can dispose of a few million moslems with todays technology.

    To be sure, Putin and Russia historically have been eagerly willing to summarily butcher their native Muslim population when things get out of hand, to varying degrees of success. Putin is, quite simply, less squeamish about brutality directed against his own people than most Westerners can even credit. Still, the sheer size of the Russian Muslim population (estimated at 17 million of Russia’s total 140 million people) means that Putin knows he cannot solve any sort of mass uprising with violence alone (although he might well try).

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  25. FAUX NEWS:

    It is now certain that ISIS sabotaged the Russian airplane in retaliation for a disturbing video showing the Koran floating in a Moscow toilet. No one has yet seen the offensive video, but Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Barack Obama have denied any US involvement, tearfully apologized to all Muslims living and dead, and have each pledged to surviving family members they will not take another taxpayer paid vacation or even so much as touch another cut of Starbucks coffee until the filthy infidels responsible for the senseless outrage to the Religion of Peace are caught and beheaded on live TV.

    Rumors have reached highly placed and currently unnamed NBC executives, known to have family members incestuously employed in the White House PR office, the hateful video was secretly produced by grassroots TEA Party activists, funded by money diverted from donations for the protection of snail darters and spotted owls, and distributed in hidden compartments in Ann Coulter’s books in cahoots with the RNC and the GOP front-runner, who ever it happens to be (except Jeb, of course, if he should be so lucky, and that nice looking little Cuban boy too).

    The State Department and IRS investigations are moving slowly because officials at all levels fear email records, if found and revealed to Congress and the FBI, might incriminate them. In an unprecedented demonstration of restraint, government bureaucrats have voluntarily cut back on the use of office credit cards for booze, street drugs (except pot) and hookers till this overseas contingency brouhaha blows over.

    ropelight (507436)

  26. It was likely a Tea partier that did it.

    JD (34f761)

  27. The mujahadeen, whom we call jihadis, were first created to fight Russia in Afghanistan in 1979. Before that, the Middle East terrorists, such as the PLO, were sponsored and trained by the USSR.

    nk (9faaca)

  28. Bringing down the Soviet Union was a bad idea. It destabilized the terrorist networks.

    nodald krump (9faaca)

  29. Bringing down the Soviet Union was a bad idea. It destabilized the terrorist networks.

    nodald krump (9faaca) — 11/5/2015 @ 4:40 am

    I would thing we’d want the terrorist networks destabilized – though I don’t see what the Soviet Union disappearing has to do with it.

    Gerald A (5dca03)

  30. We can no longer predict how they will organize and operate by stealing the course syllabi of Patrice Lumumba University. 😉

    nk (9faaca)

  31. “Bringing down the Soviet Union was a bad idea. It destabilized the terrorist networks.”

    I took this as sarc but in general…Leftists whine about such simplistic terms as “evil” but I don’t have the time for 15 paragraphs to say the same thing. That said, destroying evil of the big-threatening kind out of fear that a greater evil lurks underneath is a viable concern. However the proper attitude is to oppose all threats of evil, to be aware that there may be a greater evil underneath, and yet to remain vigilant because evil will always exist. Either you must have the fortitude to persist in fighting each viable, threatening second and third stage evil that rises up or save everyone’s time and aggravation and leave it alone until some future generation is forced to submit to it. Granted, some forms of evil are not a serious threat and some can even be used against a greater form of evil. Figuring out where the lines between such used to be what international diplomacy, strategy, and politics were all about. Now the West has sunk so far that we can’t even recognize evil for what it is. We go looking for the speck in our own eyes while ignoring the board in our enemies’.

    WTP (5ea774)

  32. Back in the olden days, Arabic terrorists knew better than to attack the Russians. The Russians would hunt down their families and cut them up piece by piece.

    I expect we’ll hear about that again soon.

    luagha (00a775)

  33. Sorry but with how bad the current administration has politicized intelligence. I am going to say this they had better show all the cards and how it was developed as well as some unbiased agency like the Indians or the Canadians. Otherwise, it’s all lies and mudding of waters by the current administration to cover up thier own mistakes.

    Charles (3b54e4)

  34. 29.Bringing down the Soviet Union was a bad idea. It destabilized the terrorist networks.

    Whatever you’re smoking is it for recreational or medicinal purposes?

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  35. I don’t see how one concludes that the Soviet Union dissolving unleashed terrorism in any way. Is it because of Chechnya’s Muslims? Since that’s within Russia what does the Ukraine or Georgia etc. gaining their independence have to do with that?

    The theory that the Soviets’ problems in Afghanistan led to it becoming a terrorist den ignores the historical fact that it was a stable place with no terrorist presence before the Soviets overthrew the moderate Muslim regime and replaced it with a Communist regime back in the 70’s. Muslim groups organized a guerrilla war against the Soviet backed regime and the rest is history.

    The other big event in advancing terrorism was the fall of the pro-Western Shah of Iran, also in the 70’s. That event also had nothing to do with the demise of the Soviet Union obviously.

    Gerald A (5dca03)

  36. ISIS is making a huge miscalculation. Russia is not the JAG-ridden U. S.

    We will get a hint when hundreds of ISIS bodies begin to appear lacking basic male genitalia.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  37. Regime change will be late by a good 6 mos.:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-05/cia-saudis-give-select-syrian-militants-weapons-capable-downing-commercial-airliners

    The CIA created ISIS and now intends to fuse the IED in the middle of a seven lane freeway. Your government has chosen to reduce the pieces on the board and hope for their best fluke outcome.

    Are you not entertained?

    DNF (1645ed)

  38. #4: John’s #1. Russia is fighting ISIS with no JAGsters to protect them.

    *****

    Shit–love this line. Not sure I can agree with the rest of the hypothesis–Russia isn’t really bombing ISIS all that much,–yet.

    Danube River Guide (76b104)

  39. I don’t think it was a bomb. I think the plane was probably brought down by induced mechanical failure – something, but not a bomb. Maybe somebody creating tiny cracks in the right places, or something else designed to get the plane to come apart at high altitude or after 20 or so minutes of flight.

    The investigators are being taunted that they won’t be able to figure out how the plane went down. (specifically, 1) that they won’t be able to prove that ISIS didn’t do it – which, translated, means that they won’t be able to determine a cause – and 2) that how it was done is being kept secret – which I don’t think means how they smuggled a bomb on to the plane, but means the technical means.)

    And it probably wasn’t exactly ISIS.

    Sammy Finkelman (3a0a59)

  40. @DNF The CIA didn’t create ISIS. That is Iranian propaganda. ISIS is a splitoff from al Qaeda. al Qaeda in Iraq was helped along by the Syrian government, especially before 2011.

    I think at some point, perhaps, people who later affiliated with ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh/whatchamacallit were given arms or trained by Qatar or Saudi Arabia or Turkey.

    Sammy Finkelman (3a0a59)

  41. 29.Bringing down the Soviet Union was a bad idea. It destabilized the terrorist networks.

    Whatever you’re smoking is it for recreational or medicinal purposes?

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 11/5/2015 @ 7:25 am

    Maybe he’s mocking Trump.

    Gerald A (5dca03)

  42. 33. luagha (00a775) — 11/5/2015 @ 7:07 am

    Back in the olden days, Arabic terrorists knew better than to attack the Russians.

    Maybe still now. It could have been arranged for by Vladimir Putin, like the Moscow subway bombings, and (probably) the Charlie Hebdo, Danish and Paris train attacks, but we’ll see.

    Russia is actually not really fighting ISIS and to say that this is retaliation for that pretends that it is.

    Russian forces are mainly targeting other Syrian rebels. This is either because of teh general startegy of Assad and Iran to leave ISIS as the only enemy left, or because ISIS was not threatening the Russian military assets in Syria, but the Saudi-U.S. backed rebel coalition – which actually included Original al Qaeda ® ™ – was.

    It is not just the Russian spy agency that should be on the list of suspects. Qatar could be playing a triple game, too.

    Sammy Finkelman (3a0a59)

  43. 36.I don’t see how one concludes that the Soviet Union dissolving unleashed terrorism in any way.
    In Soviet days, the PLO and other organizations could usually count on Soviet assistance in their struggles against the running dogs of American colonialist imperialist regimes. Several were openly Communist, such as the Red Brigade and Baeder Meinhof gangs (I may not be remembering the names accurately). The IRA and the Basque/Catalan groups may have been exceptions–I am not familiar with their histories, so I can’t say for sure they were involved with Moscow. (I would not be surprised if they were, especially the ones in Spain.) Some of them were created out of whole cloth in Moscow, and most had KGB fingerprints all over them, and money too. C. 1975, all terror roads led to Moscow in one way or another.

    kishnevi (d764f4)

  44. The IRA was pretty red and the worst of them were the most red. Libya spent a lot of Soviet money training them.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  45. The only positive thing I can see about all this is that we are engaged in educating the president and the SoS on the realities of the modern world. Having rejected all historical knowledge on the basis of their academic stooges’ deconstruction of written history, and their own inflated egos, these two chumps are now engaged in the same process that Thomas Edison used to find the correct filament for a light bulb. That is, try and fail, and keep trying until successful. Consider: apology tour thru ME renouncing all past American initiatives with idea that the arab street will love the new regime, fail; leading from behind, fail; regime change in Libya, fail; $500 million to train (5) friendly troops, fail; draw line in sand, fail; draw second line in sand, fail; engage allies on the basis that we’ll be right behind them, fail; deploy troops with ROEs suitable for a policeman walking a beat in a Sausalito, fail; bestow Geneva Rights on pirates and murderers, fail; provide said murderers, now considered POWs, with summer camp amenities, even to the extent that they can pick and choose their guards, fail; pretend that an assault by an al-qaeda commando is a peaceful protest of a video game gone sideways, fail; pretend that jihadist attacks in U. S. are nothing more than workplace violence, fail; blame guns for all violence, neglecting pressure cookers, knives, swords, poison, box cutters, exploding tennis shoes, fail; make friends with Iran, fail; the Arab [silent] Spring, fail; ….

    The problem is that Edison methodically tested thousands of possible filaments, without presupposing anything. Up to this point, our clowns have tested only those things that satisfied their political base and the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Which is to say, only those things that were never used before, and moreover, none of those things that have actually worked in our now discredited past. If the zerohedge article DNF linked above is accurate, things must be getting pretty bad because the administration is deviating from their experimental protocol. They may be repeating a tactic used in Afghanistan 30 years ago, supplying Manpads to “select” rebels. The goal is even the same, shooting down Russian (Soviet) aircraft.

    Having rejected all of known history, these two fools may be unaware of the possible retaliatory steps the Russians might decide to employ to discourage the use of such Manpads. Massive artillery barrages were a staple of Soviet military doctrine, and Egypt almost succeeded with this approach against Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Cluster bombs and thermobaric munitions delivered by guided devices would also be on the table. Our rebel “allies” would find such tactics and weapons hard to reply to given their lack of armor and long range munitions. The Russian area munitions would also play havoc with our special forces if their position was known or even suspected. And collateral damage?? The Russians rightly believe that is for the victor to assess. And those who might like to “deconstruct” Russia’s efforts while employed within Russia … lets just call it an early retirement.

    BobStewartatHome (f66298)

  46. If it was a bomb, there would be chemical residue from it. No reports of chemical residue found that I am aware of.

    DKN (efe899)

  47. The zero hedge article is ludicrous. Someone upthread has a good comment and then they marry themselves to that.

    Glenn Beck conjecture did not help the Benghazi investigation. I know it’s boring but sticking with the provable–like General Ham’s offers for security–to Ambassador Cretz, the interim ambassador Joan Polashek(something like that) and later–Ambassador Stevens–being turned down, is more effective.

    Danube River Guide (76b104)

  48. Also–why in the name of all that is holy would you want to risk tarnishing good men risking their lives in the current area with this kind of–ill sourced dirt?

    Yes–let’s supply Russia with the motive and rational to take our special forces–out. Evil, and vile. We have enough enemies and incompetence–no one needs zero hedge’s machinations.

    Danube River Guide (76b104)

  49. I hope you’re right Mr. Guide. But considering who is making the call, and his feckless actions for the last seven years, I would have to assign at least a small probability to the possible deployment of Madcaps to our “allies”. Hopefully expressing these concerns will make that probability even smaller.

    BobStewartatHome (f66298)

  50. make that Manpads … nothing madcap about them.

    BobStewartatHome (f66298)

  51. WTP (5ea774) — 11/5/2015 @ 6:26 am

    That said, destroying evil of the big-threatening kind out of fear that a greater evil lurks underneath is a viable concern. However the proper attitude is to oppose all threats of evil, to be aware that there may be a greater evil underneath, and yet to remain vigilant because evil will always exist.

    Sometimes they don’t recognize the greater evil as evil. The Truman Administration in 1946, did not, in China, after getting rid of the Japanese.

    I was reading the chapter on Cjina in “What If” edited by Robert Cowley (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999) – the last chapter by Arthur Waldron who says Chiang Kai-Shek halted his attack on the Communists in Manchuria in June 1946 under American pressure, particularly that of General George C. Marshall.

    And a similar thing is reported today in the New York Times: (although this concerns 1945)

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/world/asia/the-last-time-mao-and-chiang-met.html?_r=0

    In August 1945, Mao Zedong flew from his mountain redoubt in Yan’an to Chongqing, the headquarters of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and China’s sweltering wartime capital…..For Mao, though, the visit to Chongqing was worth the time. He had mollified the Americans, whom he wanted to keep on the sideline of the coming struggle with the Kuomintang. His strategy had been to “fight fight, talk talk.”

    Zhou Enlai, Mao’s partner in negotiations, had coined the expression, Mr. Bernstein said, to describe the Communists’ goal of buying time, deterring aggressive action by the enemy and then, when the time was ripe, going for all-out military action.

    Note: Chongqing used to be spelled Chungking and Zhou Enlai, Chou En-lai. The article is based on a recent book, “China 1945, by Richard Bernstein, former New York Times bureau chief in Beijing (Peiping then and then Peking, after the Communist takeover till 1976)

    There were accusations made about having lost China, and the defense was that China wasn’t ours to lose, but it was. You do not have to go so far as to accuse General George C. Marshall as being an agent of the Communist conspiracy, like senator Joseph McCarthy and others tried to do. It’s enough that, indeed, the United States was relying on bad information by China experts, maybe not the same experts that McCarthy pointed to, and maybe not the same exact bad information they pointed to – (maybe nobody high up in the State Department ever thought the Communists were merely “agraian reformers”) – and that, at some crucial points that bad information mattered.

    But the same principle applies. You knock down each evil as it comes along, and you don’t say, or it would be very pessimistic to say, don’t defeat Germany in 1918, because there could be a more evil and more successful Hitler later, and keep the Czar in power because the Bolsheviks might come along, and don’t force the Japanese Empire out of China. Edmund Burke (about France) and Thomas Jefferson (in the Declaration of Independence *) said to be careful.

    * Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.

    – Declaration of Independence.

    The interesting thing is that it was actually a light and transient cause – at least at first. But there was a danger of things getting worse in the future and there was less of a danger of a tyranny establishing itself in British North America than it would in many other places.

    Another interesting thing to note is that Jefferson wrote this thing BEFORE the French Revolution, which led to Reign of Terror (even though it ended soon) and 20 plus years of war and Napoleon, so I wonder what history he was relying on.

    Sammy Finkelman (3a0a59)

  52. The journal piece, shows the sauds have learned nothing from the last 30 years, and the water is have followed suit.

    narciso (ee1f88)

  53. If it was a bomb, there would be chemical residue from it. No reports of chemical residue found that I am aware of.

    DKN (efe899) — 11/5/2015 @ 10:24 am

    Let’s wait for the forensic analysis to say yea or neigh. Most of the pieces of that plane are, as far as I know either still in the desert or in transit.

    Bill H (2a858c)

  54. sauds, they supported hekmatyar, raisul sayyaf and younis, the sources from which aq, and the taliban arose,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  55. This topic has enough unanswered questions that it should produce multiple Finkelbomb conspiracy theories.

    JD (74ff80)

  56. If anyone really believes that a MANPADS or Man Portable air defense systems downed this jet. Well then there is a 6 lane highway from OKC to Guam that I have to sell you . The plane broke up at 30k feet above ground level. Most MANPADS can’t get much higher than 5-9k feet above ground level. The only way an air defense weapon blew up that jet was either a large heavy ground based SAM like the HAWK or PATRIOT missiles that the Egyptians have. However, to make that work you have to assume a whole battery or unit went to AQ in the Sinai or ISIS bend. That idea or you have to assume that the AQ in the Sinai or ISIS has folks that are trained well enough to operate complex weapon systems like this or the Saudis/CIA (to take apart the earlier comment from ZeroHedge) picked up a bunch of terrorists and gave them training to operate a complex and frontline and expensive weapons system. That would be akin to the US taking the Muj’s back to Arizona to learn how to fly the F-15s during the Afghan-Soviet war or that we took Vietnamese villagers to some base in the US and taught them to fly Phantom’s or F-111’s and then sent them back to be villagers. That just isn’t just not logically, it isn’t even in the realm of reality.

    Charles (3cf0f0)

  57. If it were a big SAM, you’d think military radar would have something on it.
    If it’s a bomb, proven beyond doubt, then Russia would not have to admit their maintenance sucks. Pick one, Vlad.
    However, should it be a bomb, Putin’s actions after the Beslan massacre didn’t amount to much. Or did I miss something?

    Richard Aubrey (472a6f)

  58. well that was original conjecture, but it could just as well be a ground crew placed device, or a ‘black widow’ type martyr, as we saw in Chechnya,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  59. If it were a big SAM, you’d think military radar would have something on it.
    If it’s a bomb, proven beyond doubt, then Russia would not have to admit their maintenance sucks. Pick one, Vlad.

    I’m doubting it was a SAM, Richard. As Cdr Salamander points out:

    Bill H (2a858c)

  60. Richard,

    The actions of Putin after the Beslan massacre didn’t change the terrorist attacks; by most observers it seems to have give martyr reasons for most of the separatists in the area. The Chechan’s went with terror bombings of the Moscow subway system in 2010, Moscow’s main airport in a few years right after Beslan, A few other bombings of aircraft out of the occupied territories of Georgia, Bus bombings in Moscow, and other bombings in other locations closer to the region of Chechnya. The deaths were smaller than Beslan, but there were still terror attacks. It just doesn’t sound scary to the western media to talk about how weak Putin really was to his own terror issues.

    Charles (3cf0f0)

  61. one of my dearest and nearest obamawhore friends messaged and said this means we have to fight them cause of how they’re a threat to western culture

    i said hey have you ever tried a caesar it’s a canadian take on a bloody mary and I love them more than beans and fishsticks especially this one I had where they served it with an oyster on the halfshell on top

    and he was like why no I never heard of that

    I said well next time we get together I’m a make some and he was like ok cool

    this will not be soon cause of he lives in LA whereas I do not

    happyfeet (831175)

  62. What we know so far:

    The plane broke apart in mid-air. There was no fire in the tail section, but there was a fire in the other part of the plane. If explosives were used, it should be possible to detect chemical residue even after a fire, says CBS.

    The cockpit voice recorder should be able to tell you whether it was an explosion or a decompression, because they make a different sound. This would probably be the last thing on it.

    However, the CVR is said to be damaged but much work can help extract data. I don’t know who has custody of it, (Egypt?) or who would be the experts who would work on it.

    The U.K. says that it was more probable than not that it was a bomb. President Obama won’t go so far, but says it was possible it could have been a bomb.

    For what it’s worth, Russia says there’s no reason to voice just one theory, and the Russian company says it wasn’t pilot error or a technical fault, but suspended all flights of Airbus A321 jets.

    Egypt (at least the Antiquities Minister) says flat out it was an accident. Egypt’s minister of civil aviation says there’s no data or evidence yet supporting the bomb theory.

    Sammy Finkelman (3a0a59)

  63. It just doesn’t sound scary to the western media to talk about how weak Putin really was to his own terror issues.

    Charles (3cf0f0) — 11/5/2015 @ 4:17 pm

    Which makes, as others have mentioned, this current attack look suspiciously like a false-flag operation. I’m personally skeptical, but the point has been made and it isn’t out of possibility.

    Bill H (2a858c)

  64. well it happened outside the presence of significant russian forces, in Syria or the Caucasus, one had to rely on Egyptian security measures,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  65. Charles, the only reference to Manpads in this thread dealt with a zerohedge article speculating that the Saudis were urging the administration to give them to selected Syrian rebels for use against Russian ground attack planes. Which is probably not a good idea for a variety of reasons.

    BobStewartatHome (f66298)

  66. 46,47. Objections following from preciosity do not a rebuttal make.

    DNF (644afc)

  67. Tyler’s conjecture is overbroad, but the fundamental point that insanity seems to be our default policy from Afghanistan to the Balkans to North Africa, seems sound,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  68. 68. Reminding the hoi polloi ZeroHedge is a news aggregator or filter:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-06/washington-preparing-world-war-iii

    As narciso allows “If’n it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it just might be!”

    DNF (755a85)


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