Have to express my concerns about the mess over there. 1st of all if the plane was in international waters and was not in china’a airspace at any time during it’s flight, china should appoligize to us and pay for the dammaged plane. If the plane was in China airspace then it’s another issue but I will go under the assumption that it wasn’t. We all know that china intentionally brought down the plane and have taken the technology on board. We all know that china engaged an unarmed plane.
They must be held accountable for this, they should have already lost most favored nation status and all trade w/ them should cease. We should prepare for military action from them. I hope we are watching there every move via satalite. We should beef up patrols around the area and send armed escorts in international waters. They are a powerful force to try to remove our crew by force but we can’t accept this. if f#@%#n Clinton didn’t give them the technology to guide their nukes to the US, I’d say take it back by force. What a difrence a few nukes make.
There is a vast cultural diffrence between us and them and they use that to there advantage - we have to get the upper hand somehow.
I’m glad you know exactly what happened out there.
Me, I’ll just wait until the facts are known rather than rushing in heavy-handed, possibly making the situation worse.
Why are you determined to force China’s hand with a show of force? Do you really think the Chinese leadership would allow themselves to be seen to publically climb down over this?
if so please note the bold words if and assumption. I don’t know if the above is true but I’m sure that Bush knows what happened and if we did violate their airsapce I think they have the right to defend it. What I said following is under the assumption.
or are you waiting to confirm that our plane is unarmed - I don’t think this is your point.
what I think your not exactly sure about is my statement ‘We all know that china intentionally brought down the plane and have taken the technology on board’ you question it, so maybe we all don’t know what they did. As for waiting - there are our people being held there and they are stalling returning them and you want to WAIT.
And don’t underestimate the value of the technology they have stolen. It could cost lives down the road.
I think they are better at negociations then us and can drag this out as long as they need to reverse engineer the entire plane. I agree that Chinese leadership would resist publically backing down. They want to able to show a win. I think if we show force then give a little they will be more willing to release what belongs to us.
Whatever the results, I think we should not back down flying anything we want in international waters and should have armed escorts on our spy planes near their boarder.
Finally, something on the boards which I am an expert on. I am a qualified Mission Commander on the EP-3E and have done the same thing these guys were doing, in the same place they were doing it, many, many times in the past few years.
FACT: They were in international airspace.
FACT: They declared an Emergency (MAYDAY) on international frequency (121.5 MHz, otherwise known as VHF ‘guard’).
FACT: The PRC, as a member of ICAO (if you dunno what that is, look it up) is bound to render assistance to an aircraft in distress.
ASSUMPTION: The mighty P-3 airframe (read: 4 turboprop engines, 24-pax capacity, big, slow) did not “ram” the small, agile PRC F-8II fighter. This is like saying someone on a jetski got “rammed” by an oil tanker.
FACT: In the US (and I would ASSUME ICAO flight rules would match this), form flight (where other planes take close station to yours) is only legal if all pilots are notified and agree. This was not the case and never is when the US is intercepted by PRC (or any) fighters.
FACT: This was a rountine intercept (up until the collision) that had occurred many, many times previously and did not happen because we were too close to or inside PRC airspace.
It’s a pretty common communist tactic to throw out an outrageous claim and just keep repeating it, no matter how ludicrous it seems on the international stage (look at Russia in the Cold War for examples). This is what the PRC is doing now. They’re milking this for all it’s worth and that’s all they’re doing. Stern words from Bush aren’t having much effect on them… personally, I think a show of force is required at this point. THEY’RE ILLEGALLY DETAINING AMERICAN AIRCREW. You just want to sit around with your finger up your ass? Fuck that.
It’s a sad state of affairs in America when people would sooner believe the words of a foreign country, that has never really been friendly to the US, rather than their own government.
To everyone who’s buying into China’s sob story… shame on you.
Alternatively, it’s excellent to see people questioning things and trying to reach their own conclusions. To those who believe everything their government says without question…shame on you.
I actually agree with many of your assumptions (I can’t say whether they’re facts or not, since I personally haven’t seen the evidence you have seen).
What worries me is the attitude that a show of force is the best policy. I do believe that the Chinese are milking this for all they can, and I can’t imagine what the families of that crew are going through. But I’m concerned at the attitude that force is required right now. I do not believe that the PRC will back down, and will (in the short term, at least) match any fightin’ talk.
I don’t believe Bush will back down. I’m certain the Chinese won’t. I think a diplomatic solution, with some face-saving bluster, is the best solution. I don’t think sending carrier groups or MAUs into the area will do anything more than inflame tensions.
mattk, the government agrees with you. And, it’s obviously a sensible approach. I just hate seeing our guys held so blatantly illegally and nary a US boat or gun headed in their direction. As you can see from my last response, I’m not at all objective on the issue. But for me it’s also the principle of the thing. THEY brought our plane down (accident, sure, but it wasn’t our fault like they keep screaming it is, and fucking DEMANDING AN APOLOGY)… I mean this is totally irrational, and I don’t think dealing diplomatically with irrational people is a very good answer.
Yeah, I’m a bit biased.
pantom… is what true about the prop? From the pics I’ve seen on the news, it looks to me like the no. 1 and 2 props were… shaved… for lack of a better word. I’m guessing the fighter slid underneath the port wing and ran into the props, scraped the underside of the wing, then collided with the nose cone.
Gary kumquat, I’m here to tell you that for once, you’re hearing the truth. ADM Blair (CINCPACFLT) was very candid when interviewed a couple days ago. These intercepts have been occurring with more frequency and we have complained about it. I’m curious, what do you think we may be hiding here?
Actually, I don’t think anyone is hiding anything. As both sides are keen to appear in the right, neither of them are likely to actually come out and state as fact something that’s wrong (too easy for the other side to produce evidence that they’re wrong, and gain a moral upper hand).
But I don’t care much for claims that it’s shameful people should question the government line.
Like a lot of people are saying, yourself included, looks like there was an accident, one person zigged when they should have zagged, with all the likelihood pointing at the fighter as the one that was most to blame.
Now both sides are playing it for melodrama value on the international stage - China demanding an apology for something that Ameria’s not to blame for, America demanding China not inspect their tech with proverbial fine toothed combs, even though that’s exactly what they would do if roles were reversed.
Hopefully both sides will avoid making any overly macho statements, and things will sort themselves out in the near future.
I’m not big on “me too” posts. But those two things bore repeating.
I love my country. One of the things I love about it the most is that we are free to (and encouraged in some cases) to question our leaders and spokespersons. I really hope that cooler heads prevail. They will, if allowed, IMHO
jmullaney, it’s more like the guy who ran into you asking YOU for an apology. What is it we’re supposed to be apologizing for? Even our pilot? What did he do wrong? Whatever we were doing is irrelevant, because we were doing it in international airspace. We certainly didn’t run into their plane, their plane ran into ours (if you’re not sure about this, ask any pilot). So, what is it we should be apologizing for?
Your post implies there’s a link of guilt to us, tenuous though it may be. How are we at all guilty or responsible here?
BTW, what do you think they’re doing over there in Hainan?
The PRC would like nothing better than to have our pilots on national TV saying, “Yeah, we screwed up, we apologize…” I’ll be shocked if, when they get home, they say they were not pressured to make such a statement.
Actually, yes I do. And to add to that, I’d bet you the crew feels the same way. Did you see the two fathers on CNN last night? Mr. Cecka and I forget the other one. Both said, No way should we apologize just to get them back, and our sons would say the same.
As for war, I really doubt this’ll ever come to blows, but when you’re dealing with thugs…