Iran says replica US aircraft carrier is really a movie prop

[bananas]

Source: Reuters

• US intelligence suspected ship was for propaganda use
• Film is about US shooting-down of Iranian airliner in 1988

A replica of a US aircraft carrier spotted near the coast of Iran is nothing more sinister than a movie set, Iranian media said on Sunday.

The New York Times, quoting US intelligence, said last week that the Iranians were building a mock-up of a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, possibly so they could then blow it up for propaganda purposes.

Satellite photos showed what looked like one of the US Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, complete with planes, rising from Iran's Gachin shipyard, near the port of Bandar Abbas.

Iranian newspapers said it was "part of the decor" of a movie being made by the Iranian director Nader Talebzadeh on the 1988 shooting down of an Iran Air civilian plane by the USS Vincennes. The United States says the downing of the plane, which killed all 290 passengers and crew, was an accident.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/23/iran-replica-us-aircraft-carrier-movie-prop

[groundloop]

1. One man's movie is another man's propaganda

[valerief]

2. What's Ben Affleck up to? nt

[JRLeft]

3. He's the new Batman

[JackInGreen]

21. and I can't wait

the Bruce Wayne design in the new Arkham Knight actually looks quite like him, imo.

[awoke_in_2003]

25. A return to shitty Batman movies. nt

[Enrique]

4. they make a point which is hard to argue against

"The issue has turned into a good excuse for another wave of hype against Iran," said the Alef news website which carries views close to the official line in Iran. "Without any proof or real basis, western media have jumped again to paint a more negative picture of Iran."

[cstanleytech]

5. True enough but then again the Iranian government also brings some

but not all of it of course but some of it on themselves.

[Blue_Tires]

12. I'd said at the time it was a complete non-story...

[Adrahil]

23. Really? The only thing I've seen is amusement, really. It's like the "stealth fighter" they built

a couple years ago.

[mbperrin]

6. I sure wish the US would use some intelligence to improve

education, healthcare, job security, mental health, and food security.

Did I just say that they're too focused on imaginary shit to care about real problems? Yep.

[tofuandbeer]

7. +1 — mbperrin for President!

[mbperrin]

8. A kind thought. Thanks.

I'd be alive about five minutes only after saying this in office.

[tofuandbeer]

9. That's probably true. We are a nation of dollars and no sense.

[MADem]

10. Who told them the Vincennes was a carrier?

Silliness from their wingnuts who don't want peace.

[Blue_Tires]

14. I think the "carrier" is supposed to be background scenery

at a distance no one will know how 'small' it is....

[Ash_F]

11. A word from the director

He is known for his film about Jesus, from an Islamic viewpoint. I haven't watched it, but here:

[Blue_Tires]

13. called it...

http://election.democraticunderground.com/10024702356#post4

[freshwest]

15. +1. They should have made one like they did for The Philadelphia Experiment. Just go all out.

It would add an interdimensional event to the current plotliine:

[dipsydoodle]

20. Yes - sound thinking.

.

[Victor_c3]

16. I had no idea that we shot down an Iranian civilian plane and killed 290

I was 8 years old at the time.

Then, after 8 years of haggling with the Iranians, we agreed to pay them $61.8 million (roughly $213,000 per victim) in 1996 and never admitted any responsibility or gave an actual apology.

That is absolutely deplorable on our behalf. This would have been a perfect time for us to "man up" and offer a sincere apology and take responsibility for this event. Regardless of how much of an "enemy" they were at the time we were obviously in the wrong.

[Ash_F]

17. Admitting ones errors is a sign of weakness.

Next thing you know, we'll be living under sharia.

[Victor_c3]

18. I know there is some sarcasm there in your response

but one of the major things I learned as an officer and as a leader when I was in the Army is you are quick to take responsibility for your errors and mistakes. You gain a lot of respect and credibility from your subordinates and your peers as a result. Being high and mighty makes you unapproachable and only serves to add abrasion to any professional relationship.

If we as a country had a history of exhibiting compassion, understanding, and real leadership I doubt we'd be in this protracted mess we're in with Iran right now, but I suspect I don't have to convince you or most people on this forum of that.

[Ash_F]

19. Sounds like you know something about real leadership

...Bush I was president at the time.

[bananas]

22. And then his minivan was bombed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Rogers_III#Bombing_of_Rogers.27_family_minivan

<snip>

Bombing of Rogers' family minivan

The Rogers family 1984 Toyota minivan in flames following the explosion of a pipe bomb while Sharon Rogers was driving to her job as an elementary school teacher.

Nine months after the downing of Iran Air Flight 655, on March 10, 1989, Rogers' wife Sharon escaped with her life when a pipe bomb attached to her minivan exploded, while she was driving.[5] The van was recorded in the name of Will Rogers III, and many people jumped to a conclusion and suspected that terrorism was involved. Five months later, the Associated Press reported that the most likely suspect had a personal vendetta against Capt. Rogers and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had ruled out terrorist activity.[15] At that time pipe bombs were a common occurrence (over 200 each year) in San Diego County and a largely homegrown threat according to the local sheriff's department.[16] As of 2007, the bombing of Rogers' van remains an unsolved case, despite a major investigation involving at some time up to 300 police and FBI agents.[17] On February 17, 1993, the case was featured on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, but no additional information was uncovered.

<snip>

This was a weird story, it had a lot of local coverage in San Diego.

[bananas]

24. Similar incidents almost caused nuclear war - several times.

The Vincennes fired on the airplane because radar returns made it look like an incoming missile.

There have been a number of times when nuclear retaliatory strikes were almost launched in response to misinterpreted radar returns, for example:

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/searle20140323

Waiting for World War III
Rick Searle
Ethical Technology
Posted: Mar 23, 2014

Everyone alive today owes their life to a man most of us have never heard of, and that I didn’t even know existed until last week. On September, 26 1983, just past mid-night, Soviet lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov was alerted by his satellite early warning system that an attack from an American ICBM was underway. Normal protocol should have resulted in Petrov giving the order to fire Russian missiles at the US in response.

Petrov instead did nothing, unable to explain to himself why the US would launch only one missile rather than a massive first strike in the hope of knocking out Russia’s capacity to retaliate. Then, something that made greater sense- more missiles appeared on Petrov’s radar screen, yet he continued to do nothing. And then more. He refused to give the order to fire, and he waited, and waited.

No news ever came in that night of the devastation of Soviet cities and military installations due to the detonation of American nuclear warheads, because, as we know, there never was such an attack. What Petrov had seen was a computer error, an electronic mirage, and we are here, thank God, because he believed in the feelings in his gut over the data illusion on his screen.

<snip>

Pinker’s theory of the decline of violence in general relies on Gaussian bell curves, averages over long stretches of time, but if we should have learned anything from Nassim Taleb and his black swans and the financial crisis, its the fat tails that should worry us most. The occurrence of a highly improbable event that flips our model of the world and the world itself on its head and collapses the Gaussian curve. Had Stanislav Petrov decided to fire his ICBMS rather than sit on his hands, Pinker’s decline of violence, up to that point, would have looked like statistical noise masking the movement towards the real event- an unprecedented expression of human violence that would have killed the majority of the human race.

Like major financial crises that happen once in a century, or natural disasters that appear over longer stretches of time, anything we’ve once experienced can happen again with the probability of recurrence often growing over time. If human decision making is the primary factor involved, as it is in economic crises and war, the probability of such occurrences may increase as the generation whose errors in judgement brought on the economic crisis or war recedes from the scene taking their acquired wisdom and caution with them.

<snip>

[frylock]

26. quoting US intelligence

[dipsydoodle]

27. Indeed