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Do you remember that time when, without provocation a US Warship shot down an Iranian civilian passenger jet, completely destroying the airliner and killing all 290 people on board including 66 children; while every single claim put forth at that time by the government and media to justify this terrible act of aggression turned out to be a lie?
No, you probably don't if you're like most people brought up in this country, because the establishment has done everything in its power to make sure you never hear this story; and that if you do, you only hear the whitewashed US version of events: The government won't talk about it, the history books don't teach us about it, and the mainstream media doesn't dare mention it because they could never risk painting the US as the true aggressor and bad guy on the world stage when they are instead far too focused on helping the US war machine paint Iran as the decades-old 'threat' and 'bully' in the region in order to help the imperial warmongers drum up a war against Iran.
And on the very rare occasions when mainstream media outlets have covered this story - even if and when they admit that the US justifications for targeting the airliner were complete falsehoods - they still manage to paint the incident as a 'mistake'.
This deadly tragedy occurred when the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air flight 655 in the Straight of Hormuz with two surface-to-air missiles - claiming they had mistaken the large civilian airliner for an F-14 Tomcat - exactly 31 years ago this coming Wednesday, on July 3, 1988, towards the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war which the US had coincidentally instigated via its then-puppet-regime of Iraq led by Saddam Hussein (who at the time was a US ally and asset, fully beholden to the US empire; and it was only later when we intervened to push back Iraq's invasion of Kuwait did they become our 'enemy' and target of the empire).
How the US navy could possibly mistake such a large passenger jet for the much smaller and faster fighter jet really is hard to imagine, but Max Fisher in the Washington Post explained it away by suggesting it was "perhaps" due to "the heat of battle or perhaps because the flight allegedly did not identify itself." The obliterated Iranian airliner was an Airbus A300 en-route from Bandar-e ʿAbbās, Iran to Dubai, UAE, which had not deviated from its standard commercial course - which would later be confirmed by the official Pentagon report in August 1988, and then once again confirmed by the New York Times in 1992.
"This [attack on the Iranian passenger jet by the United States Navy cruiser Vincennes] occurred," the Times reported, "even though the aircraft was on a regularly scheduled flight, was flying within the commercial air corridor en route to Dubai and was ascending, not descending as if to attack, as Vincennes officers said they thought.
As the telling 2014 Slate piece written by Fred Caplan (who had investigated the incident when it first occurred) pointed out: Despite that the official Pentagon report issued nearly seven weeks after the incident on August 19, 1988, "found that nearly all the initial details about the shoot-down—the “facts” that senior officials cited to put all the blame on Iran Air’s pilot—were wrong," shockingly "the August report still concluded that the captain and all the other Vincennes officers acted properly."
"For example, on July 3, at the first Pentagon press conference on the incident, Adm. William Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Iranian plane had been flying at 9,000 feet and descending at a “high speed” of 450 knots, “headed directly” for the Vincennes"; "Crowe had said the plane was flying “outside the prescribed commercial air route”"; "Crowe had said the plane’s transponder was “squawking” a code over the “Mode 2” military channel"; and "Crowe had said the Vincennes issued several warnings".
In reality, and as the 53-page Pentagon report written by Rear Admiral William Fogarty of U.S. Central Command later concluded (from computer tapes found inside the ship’s combat information center), "that the plane was “ascending through 12,000 feet” at the much slower speed of 380 knots," and “at no time” did the Airbus “actually descend in altitude”; it was flying “within the established air route”; and it was squawking over the “Mode 3” civilian channel rather than the military channel as previously claimed. As to the US claims it has repeatedly warned the Airbus to divert its course, the report did confirm this, but then noted that: "“Due to heavy pilot workload during take-off and climb-out, and the requirement to communicate with” two air traffic control centers, the pilot “probably was not monitoring” the international air-distress channel."
The New York Times reported in a November 1988 piece that, contrary to the official government narrative, “Flight 655 was behaving normally for a commercial jet”; however they still concluded that “Iranian [air traffic] tower officials clearly are guilty of not listening to the dozens of radio warnings broadcast by the Navy and ordering the airliner to change course”. Interestingly, as the Times would ironically soon be the ones to reveal themselves, this was despite only one of these eleven 'warnings' both reaching the pilot and possibly being 'instantly recognizable' as being directed at flight 655, and even then only 39 seconds before the US navy shot it down!
"As the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) determined in an investigation of the incident, seven of the eleven warnings issued by the Americans “were transmitted on a military channel that was inaccessible to the airliner crew.”," Jeremy Hammond writing for The Duran explains. "The other four were transmitted on the international civil aviation distress frequency. Of these, only one, transmitted by the USS Sides “39 seconds before the Vincennes fired, was of sufficient clarity that it might have been ‘instantly recognizable’ to the airliner as being directed at it.”"
The Times nevertheless sustained the US government’s narrative that Iran was at least partly to blame by “allowing an airliner to fly into the area at the time when warships were involved in an intense battle with Iranian gunboats.” - The Duran
Further, the US government claimed at the time that the Vincennes was in international waters when it shot down the Iranian airliner, and also that it was the Iranian navy who had instigated the "intense battle with Iranian gunboats" it was then in, with Vice President George H.W. Bush telling the UN that the shootdown took place “in the midst of a naval attack initiated by Iranian vessels against a neutral vessel and subsequently against the Vincennes.” However it turns out that not only was the Vincennes actually in Iranian territorial waters at the time, but it was in fact the US navy which had instigated the sea battle with Iranian gunboats it was in the midst of when this whole event went down, as US officials have now admitted to!
In 1992, four years after the event, Admiral Crowe himself admitted on ABC’s Nightline that the Vincennes was in Iranian waters at the time it shot down the plane. Yes, this is the same Crowe who had four years earlier defended the US act of aggression with the claim that the US warship had actually been in international waters at the time it launched those two missiles which murdered 290 innocent people who had nothing to do with the conflict at hand.
Such are the games played by US officials and puppets of the western war machine, and such is the pattern of every single US act of aggression throughout history: First lying through their teeth to justify the aggression and play it off as some sort of 'self defense' or in the name of democracy and 'protecting freedom', but then later candidly admitting to the lies spewed forth as justification for the unprovoked aggression - once the masses have forgotten all about the tragedy of course, and long after the eyes of the world are no longer looking intently at the US involvement in said act of war. In this way the people forget, then the truth comes out but is ignored and suppressed, and so more lies can be spewed forth and believed by the masses who never realize the pattern of repeat deception leading us into needless war after war of aggression for corporate profit and geopolitical control by the international bankers and global elite.
And don't forget the part where, once all these facts have surfaced, those responsible for making in the best case scenario such a deadly 'error' and in the worst case scenario intentionally committing a horrendous war crime are honored with special awards as valiant heroes, when they are in fact quite the opposite. Accordingly, two years later Captain Rogers was issued the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service" as the Vincennes' commander "from April 1987 to May 1989." What a shocker.
''The president of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Legion of Merit to Capt. Will C. Rogers III, U.S. Navy, for service as set forth in the following citation:
''For exceptionally . . . outstanding service as commanding officer, USS Vincennes from April 1987 to May 1989 . . . .
''During the course of Persian Gulf operations, Capt. Rogers' tactical skills and calm direction enabled his crew to successfully engage seven heavily armed, high-speed Iranian surface craft attacking Vincennes . . . As a result, five craft were destroyed and two retreated . . . Capt. Rogers' dynamic leadership, logical judgment, and unexcelled devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.'' - Chicago Tribune
"Nary a word about the downed Airbus or that the supporting documentation that Rogers` guns blasted five hostile patrol boats out of the water remains, at best, inconclusive," the Tribune aptly notes. But if you think this is bad, it gets even worse.
"The anti-air warfare officer on the Vincennes, who thought the approaching aircraft was descending when the Aegis radar correctly showed the hapless airliner was climbing to cruise altitude, got a medal too:"
''The secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Commendation Medal to (the name of the officer is witheld at the Navy`s request).''
''For heroic achievement as air warfare coordinator in USS Vincennes on 3 July 1988 . . . . Throughout, he maintained an exceptionally smooth flow of information . . . and rapidly assimilated threat data to provide clear, concise flow of information to commanding officer and higher authority. As a result . . . (he) was able to precisely complete the firing procedure . . . ."
You read that right, this unnamed officer was awarded a medal specifically for his "heroic achievement" on July 3, the very day which by apparently maintaining an "exceptionally smooth flow of information...to commanding officer" meant blindly accepting reports of descending altitude at face value without further evaluation on his part and without confirming the reports on his own via the Aegis radar which had, contrary to the accepted reports, correctly showed the airliner climbing in altitude; a mistake that cost 290 innocent people their lives on top of escalating tensions in the region.
To top it off, this officer was promoted to the position of executive officer, or second-in-command of these Aegis cruisers; while "Rogers is the commanding officer of Tactical Training Group Pacific at Point Loma, Calif., where every new commanding officer goes through a three-week course before deploying his ship. As such, Rogers is in a key position to influence the tactical thought aboard practically every warship in the Pacific Fleet."
Just dandy, isn't it? It's no wonder there is a growing culture of war crimes as the norm in the US Navy, because apparently such acts will often earn those who 'shoot first and ask questions later' both awards of honor as well as promotions.
In May 1989, Iran sued the US in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the shoot-down, but the case was finally dropped seven years later in 1996 when a settlement was reached. "The United States which “expressed deep regret” for shooting down Iran Air flight 655", the Encyclopedia Britannica reports, "agreed to pay $61.8 million to the victims’ families, and Iran dropped its suit." In essence, this is an admission of guilt on the US side, but because this was not widely reported on and is not common knowledge to the average westerner, the masses are bound to continue to believe the lies being told about the US and Iran on an almost daily basis these days.
And so it is that despite all of this, the government and media still expects you to believe that the downing of Iranian Air flight 655 and murder of 290 innocent civilians was a complete 'accident', and that Iran and only Iran is the real bully and aggressor in the region - from then all the way to the present. And the reason being for this, they conclude, is because Tehran mistook our "mistake" 31 years ago as a flagrant act of aggression. Max Fisher explained this ridiculous nonsense reasoning in his 2014 Washington Post piece referenced above, and this insane line of 'reasoning' if it can even be called that, as it is more accurately simply war propaganda, is just as if not more relevant today as the US continues to incessantly push for a war with Iran:
"The shoot-down of Iran Air flight 655 was an accident, but that is not how it was seen in Tehran," former CIA analyst and current Brookings scholar Kenneth Pollack wrote in his 2004 history of U.S.-Iran enmity, "The Persian Puzzle." "The Iranian government assumed that the attack had been purposeful. ... Tehran convinced itself that Washington was trying to signal that the United States had decided to openly enter the war on Iraq's side."
...
But [that belief] also helped cement a view in Iran, still common among hard-liners in the government, that the United States is absolutely committed to the destruction of the Islamic Republic and will stop at almost nothing to accomplish this. It is, as Time's Michael Crowley points out in an important piece, one of several reasons that Iran has a hard time believing it can trust the United States to ever stop short of its complete destruction.
With the knowledge of the facts put forth above, it sure isn't hard to see why Tehran has a hard time buying the lie (or so it sure seems) that the downing of flight 655 was an 'accident'; and combined with the knowledge of the decades-old US plan to "take out Iran" found in a Pentagon memo written in 2001 shortly after 9/11 and leaked by General Wesley Clark in 2007, it's no wonder the common view in Iran is "that the United States is absolutely committed to the destruction of the Islamic Republic and will stop at almost nothing to accomplish this" - because it is true! It is equally easy to see why, and coming from a neutral standpoint not at all difficult to understand "that Iran has a hard time believing it can trust the United States to ever stop short of its complete destruction" - because if history and current events are any indication, it is a given that they simply won't!
So as the US continues to beat the drums of war - pushing the rhetoric that Iran is the big bad bully in the Middle East, the repeat offender of unprovoked aggression in the region for the past 40 years, and the biggest threat to freedom and security in the world; remember this forgotten page of history, this story of when the US without any provocation whatsoever shot down a civilian airliner, murdering 290 innocent passengers, and then repeatedly lied to cover up the blatant act of aggression and horrendous war crime. Because the truth of the matter is that this tired old narrative the US keeps repeating about Iran being the biggest aggressor and threat to peace in the region, it actually applies to Zionist Israel and the US imperial war machine which is most often acting on their behalf.