I suspect there’s more to this whole thing than meets the eye. I really don’t believe this whole thing is just about the plane. Yes, it’s an issue, but not the primary one.
Check out this article (from before the downing of the EP-3) at the Chicago Tribune. It seems China is riled up about some military sales to Taiwan (including patriot missiles and Aegis-equipped destroyers), and so they’re making business difficult for us on every front.
Allies spy on allies. That’s precident enough (I’m intoxicated, please exusew the spelling and what not.) The open skies policy with the Soviet Union essentially sets a precident for the right of any nation to “spy” on any other nation provided soveriegnty (recognised, assumed) is not breached.
a discussion od “rights” is meaningless anywho. The best argument for continued mutual spying is security. When trust (real trust) is virtually out of the question, being nosey is the only wayt to keep the peace. No surprises, no crises.
Then again, some may say this in itself constitues a crisis.
Oh well, Asian containment of China is a seperate issue, but one that would make for interesting conversation.
It is gratifing to know that our P-3’s can take out an armed Chinese fighter. What I find perplexing is that the Chinese would want this to be common knowledge.
Bunnyhurt, your position gets weaker with every post you make.
“French Mirage “attack” of the imitation Concorde is SOOO irrelevent and against all military and aviation instinct” You keep bringing this up, like it’s a lynchpin in your argument. “No one knew until much later.” Cite please? Everything I’ve read about this mentions that this was a rumor. The Mirage was sent up to take photos, and from what I understand, followed the Russians back to the airfield where they entered the pattern, executed a missed approach, and came close to running into each other. So lemme get this straight:
The French want to take out this plane.
Do they:
… surreptitiously leave some fod in an intake (almost impossible to pin that on the French)? No. That’d take the plane out upon or shortly after takeoff and be extremely difficult to prove it was anything but poor maintenance.
… take the plane out while it’s out of sight of the airfield, so everyone at the airshow can’t see what exactly happened? No.
… wait until after the airshow, as the Russkies are leaving, to do something, so it’s not in front of thousands of witnesses? No.
Of course!! Here’s what they do. They send up one of their own fighters to run into the guy (if he misses because the Russians take evasive action, stall the plane out, and disintegrate it trying to recover, well that’s also good enough, right?)… and hold on… WAIT UNTIL YOU’RE IN THE PATTERN AT THE AIRFIELD SO EVERYONE SEES!!!
Do you have anything NOT based upon decade-old rumor? Anything with even a shred of fact? Anything? I’ll glady eat some crow on this point if I’ve missed something. If the French have owned up to this, I’d like to know, so please provide cite.
Hey, there’s a thread Fenris started in the Pit about crazies who believe in crazy theories. You may want to cash in on that baby.
“If I was president, and the CIA director blindly assumed this was all an accident and their pilot died as reported, without proof, I’d fire him on the spot as an incompetent idiot or liar, wouldn’t you?” You’re assuming here that we have no reason to disregard your brilliant theory. I’m assuming we have reason to believe it was an accident. You think they “blindly” assumed? That’s your prerogative, but all I can say is the people in the NSA and CIA don’t have those jobs because they go around blindly assuming things. If you’re so good at this, why don’t you get a job there?
“Tell us again how Chinese counter-intelligence is so regional and disconnected from the top. If your analysis is the same as the CIA’s, America is in deep shit.” Ummmm… when did I mention counter-intel? If you’re gonna make a coherent rebuttal, buddy, you can’t do it without reading my post. This would explain why you don’t sound coherent, I guess.
“Also, if someone in the Chinese government wanted to make an incident (for whatever reason they forgot to broadcast or email you about), they would consider these spy planes to be a natural starting point (Refer to the film, “Thirteen Days” for a historical footnote).” This from one of your own posts: “You don’t impress me for some reason, maybe it’s your insistence to know the Chinese mind…” Now who’s claiming to know so much about Chinese mind? And your assumption that Chinese and Russian tactics are the same is keen and insightful. Yes, why didn’t I see it sooner? The countries are so similar.
I’m trying to wrap my brain around that one. The loss of the nose radome (or whatever)
implies that there was contact, not only on the port outboard engine,
but directly on the front of the plane as well. That speaks a lot
towards the strength of the old Electra airframe, the shoddyness of the Chinese jet,
or perhaps both. I’m trying to picture a scenario where all the damage shown
occurs, but without catastrophic failure of the EP-3’s airframe. Perhaps
you are right about the Chinese prying the thing off.
I wouldn’t worry too much about Mr. Bunnyhurt. With him throwing around speculation about
“flares” and the Russian Concorde theory, he’s the last person we should
worry about, as he says, impressing.
Hopefully, your fellow servicemen were able to destroy all sensitive equipment and data.
More importantly, I hope they make it home quickly and safely. Hats off to
our service men and women, everywhere.
Best,
Dev Null
I wrote:
“If I was president, and the CIA director blindly assumed this was all an accident and their pilot died as reported, without proof, I’d fire him on the spot as an incompetent idiot or liar, wouldn’t you?”
You wrote:
You’re assuming here that we have no reason to disregard your brilliant theory. I’m assuming we have reason to believe it was an accident. You think they “blindly” assumed? That’s your prerogative, but all I can say is the people in the NSA and CIA don’t have those jobs because they go around blindly assuming things. If you’re so good at this, why don’t you get a job there?
I reply:
Dodge, dodge, dodge. This was my entire argument, BTW. My brilliant theory of a deliberate non-accident? I would assume that the CIA assumed this the minute it was reported, obviously. (They should never assume otherwise by the outcome of the incident–the point is moot to them). For you to assume anything less because you happen to fly these planes, and didn’t see it discussed on TV(!), well, that would mean many things, all bad of course. First of all, you simply have no basis to assert it was not a non-accident, but we can figure out why you would insist on “knowing” either way (ego, of couse). Please note that I did not insist to know, I insisted to NOT know. This debate is approaching parody.
Also, your tactics are noted: You insist that I am defensive, perhaps leading a lurking third-grader to believe that you are right (cheap as air). You also insist that the Mirage incident is integral or central to my “theory” of a deliberate collision (again, not my theory, just a hypothetical rebuttal to those who insist is wasn’t). Wrong as well, it is minor evidence to my case that you or anyone else can’t pretend to know the details about secret politics in relation to air disasters. You also claim to brazenly await the next coherent argument to “shred it to pieces” and this alone speaks volumes of your true abilities, all bad of course.
Bluff, bluff, bluff. Where do you think you are anyway, in the GQ forum? Also, I still don’t pretend to know the Chinese mind because I am not asserting, I am counter-asserting. Notice I did not assume anything as to motive, except its possibility, which would be consistent with the same historical politics that have been played for decades.
Why didn’t I get a job at the CIA? I’m not interested in drug-trafficking or toppling popular governments in the interests of corporate America. If I knew you better, I would share my brief involvement with CIA recruitment, but suffice to say I went on to grad school instead.
Dev,
Flares are installed in alot of cypher devices in the field, including cameras and recorders, to disintigrate them, I made the assumption they might exist on these planes, but by your advice, this is mundane information gathering, not top secret stuff (I hope they gave the guy destroying audio tape a pair of scissors). Also, chopping up a hard drive is worrisome, though. There is a company here in the US that can take a hard-drive that has been completely destroyed and retrieve the data, even after it has been erased. I assume they know what they are doing and don’t leave it up to the crews to figure out the priority of destruction (as Flyboy claims).
Bunnyhurt, in response to your last post: whatever. I’m done debating with you; you’re irrational.
You do seem to doubt the veracity of my experience in this issue. Do you require proof of my qualification? Would you like to see my qual letters, or my flight logbook? Orders from my command? Name it, and if it ain’t classified, I’ll provide it. Otherwise, don’t allege, with your “flyboy claims” bullshit, that I don’t know what I’m talking about regarding operations of this aircraft. I spent 3.5 years of my life becoming intimately familiar with it and SRO system (Special Recon. Operations), and I know what I’m talking about.
Excellent point, and one I never denied or challenged.
Excuse me if this has been brought up. This is just too long to read all of it. Fact is, China is wrong. We wernt spying on them. It was a reconcacence (Ack. I cant spell) plane over international waters (brought up I know) and they were buzzing the plane. They have a habit of doing that. If china wants to try to intemadate the US, dont do it in suicide missions cause thats what it looks like to me.
Caesar, you’re both right and (IMO) wrong. Yes, it was a reconnaissance mission, but lots of people are equating that with “spying” and thus painting it in a bad light, like we’re “guilty” of something.
You’ll find lots of support from Mr. Bunnyhurt with your suicide theory, but not from me. I’m not sure why it looks that way to you. If I was gonna take out a big plane with a small plane, I’d take the thing out, not bump his wing and prop. But even before that, I’d do the sensible thing: get right up behind the guy, select guns, and take him out that way. No radar warning involved. Then, either land and claim the fighter was lost, or eject safely near Hainan and photo the wreckage (“Hey, lookit what your big plane did to our fighter!”)
Tactically speaking, a suicide mission makes no sense.
I don’t think we should even apologize for what has happened. I mean after all the spy plane was 24 miles off the coast in international waters. Whose to say that we were spying on them anyways. What it came down to was a game of chicken and the spay plane is just not as manueverable as a fighter and hit the other plane. Not to mention that they have some of our people even though they deny it.
To be fair, I don’t think it’s likely that any “professional” coiuld have concluded tha tther ewas an official attempt to damage an American plane through shodowing. It makes little sense, given that the probability of doing enough damage to ensure an emergency landing while not doing so much damage as to destroy it is nill.
Further more, everything presented about the pilot suggests a “maverich” pilot. A pilot, who while carrying out orders, would take them too far and unprofessionally risk, not onlyu his life, but the lives of the American crew and, given the “crisis” it culd create, countless other lives.
About the flare thing; I’m assuming you mean something analogous to the incendiary devices used to destroy things with moving parts by melting them. While it’s possible, I couldn’t comment “professionally”, I’d say it’s unlikely from an engineering standpoint. It’s would seem far easier to simply throw the thing over board.
Have you any citable reference to the use of “flares” in the destruction of sensitive equipment?
It seems to me (a westerner, albeit an Australian one) that the Chinese remarks on the incident are patently absurd.
I am reminded of a scene in a television show in which an elderly man is berating his wife for crashing their car…
Her response: “It darted out in front of me!”
His reply: “I have never once, in all my life, seen a cow dart anywhere”
It would be hilarious if those nutballs didn’t have weapons of mass destruction at their disposal.
Their protestations that the American aircraft violated their airspace after declaring a mayday leave me livid when I think of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the Australian taxpayer spends bailing millionaire yachting enthusiasts out of danger when their round the world yacht race comes unstuck. China, as does any other nation, has a responsibility to air and sea craft in difficulties. Suggesting that the aircraft should have ditched at sea rather than enter Chinese airspace is to utterly abrogate their resonsibilities to the international community.
The aircraft itself, however, is another matter. The Chinese could have interrogated the airmen, detained the pilot for a longer period to perform their own inquest into the incident all the while ripping the aircraft apart for whatever secrets remained for the taking under the guise of, well, why bother disguising it? as everyone would know what they were up to. They could have come across as a responsible international citizen even while they milked the incident for whatever data on the plane that their technicians could extract.
Instead, they decided to play disingenuous and dishonest games. I heard a chinese diplomat on the news castigating the Americans for their “lack of concern for the life of the Chinese pilot”… As I recall, the US immediately offered to assist in the search for the lost pilot. What more do they want?
My bad. I was aiming for overexaturation. I believe I suceeded. Yea, I think the exact same thing, I dont honestly think that China meant to do it as sucicide, but just for dominance. just an extremely dumb think that a high school bully would do. Anyone read Ender’s Game? Remeber what happened to Ender’s class bully? My point exactly.