Soon after Ukrainian International Airline Flight 752 crashed while taking off from the Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran in the early morning hours of Wednesday January 8, 2020, speculation began regarding the cause of the crash of that Boeing 737-800 jet killing all 176 people on board.
Those were the same early morning hours Iran launched a missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq. The reason for the Iranian missile attack was a direct, and arguably justified, response to President Trump’s order to assassinate Iranian General Quasem Soleimani. Both Soleimani and Abu Muhandis, the deputy chief of an Iraqui pro-Iran paramilitary force, were killed early the previous Friday morning, January 3rd, by U.S. drone missiles fired at their convoy as they were leaving Baghdad.
This assassination was executed on Trump’s order, based on unclear and unspecified information that Soleimani was plotting an “imminent attack” on U.S. interests in the region, and possibly on the U.S. mainland.
Okay, all that makes some kind of tactical-political sense, if you’re into politics, but who is responsible for the deaths of the 176 people on UIA flight 752? The Iranians? Trump?
Are these 176 men, women and children just collateral damage lost in the fog of war? Are we, the media, and Trump-Pompeo all just going to push this aside and chalk-up these 176 innocent soles to the unfortunate casualties of politics? Outrageous! Where is the outrage? ...the entertainment-sedated, over-consumerized America’s outrage? ...in the media, on the streets, in congress ...in your own conscience?!
Canada’s outrage?! Ukraine President Zelensky’s outrage?! The world’s outrage?!
Outrageous! ...considering the fact that if you think about it, take a step back and look at the players in this obscene, dark political melodrama, everything points to Donald. J. Trump aka President Goldfinger.
Sure, the Iranians have their own darkness, they’re own side of the story. But aren’t we Americans, especially, our American president, supposed to be above all that, above the darkness ...truth, justice, etc. Yeah, right.
We all can fight dirty when we need to, but some of us fight dirty all the time and are branded by many as heros who “love to win” ...“Nice guys finish last.”
There have been several tragic passenger airliners shot down over the years, accidental or by design ...we’ll never know for sure what exactly happened. Infamously, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17 was shot down by Russian missiles over Ukraine in 2014 killing 298 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48691488 and in 1988 the U.S. shot down an Iranian Airbus killing 290 https://worldhistoryproject.org/1988/7/3/iran-air-flight-655-shot-down-by-us-missiles
It is more than reasonable to think that UIA Flight 752 was shot down by an Iranian missile. The Iranians are denying it, but it will probably evolve into an unfortunate and tragic accident scenario, fog of war, for which I am sure they are sorry, unless there is some new information, “facts” or spin on the issue, which there will inevitably be. The Iranians will continue to deny until it becomes obvious what happened. They will be sorry, they are already sorry for the tragic loss. We are all sorry.
There were 63 Canadians on board UIA Flight 752. 82 Iranians, many of whom were Iranian-Canadian students returning to school after the holiday break. There were 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, 4 Afghans, 3 Germans, and 3 British nationals. Men, women and children ...fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters ...
If you are into numbers, politics and body count, and speculation, Soleimani’s ‘speculated’ attack on U.S. interests in Baghdad would have probably killed fewer people than who died on UIA Flight 752. Just for perspective.
Thanks for looking out for our and America’s interests, President Trump, you say, but you have proven time and again that the only interests you are concerned with are your own.
U.S. foreign policy and its meddling in the Middle East goes back a long time. Even before the CIA’s pro-Arab operations in the 1940’s and 50’s with colorful U.S. characters like Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, and his cousin, Archie Roosevelt, joined by Miles Copeland, a maverick covert operations specialist. These guys rigged elections, assassinations, and played a game of politics, oil, and international espionage. You an read all about it in Hugh Wilford’s ‘America’s Great Game‘ ... https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Great-Game-Arabists-Shaping/dp/046509628X
Forgetting what the New York Times, Washington Post or USA Today think, speculate or say, or whatever CNN, MSNBC or FOX say ...and, of course, ignoring what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says regarding ‘the U.S. and the world will respond’ (yeah, thanks, Mike, let’s team up, we’re all in this together ...) the fact remains ....
No matter and how hard everyone tries to avoid responsibility for the tragic, catastrophic, deaths of these 176 innocent men, women and children, and no matter what the White House spin, the fact remains that if Trump did not order the killing of Solimani at this particular time based on “facts” that are as yet unclear (as unclear and possibly as unwarranted as Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’), Trump’s desperate, ego-driven run-up to the 2020 election and being in the midst of his impeachment hearings, these 176 people would have reached their destinations and all be alive today with family and friends. Period.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-george-kushma-379a5762
Some past articles and op-eds
https://muckrack.com/john-kushma/articles
