#solemaini

Today I woke up to western governments revealing that they now believe that the Ukrainian airliner shot down over Tehran was, either deliberately or accidentally, destroyed by Iran’s own defense systems. My initial thoughts were: that’s bullshit. No flight information has yet been released, and a Ukrainian investigation, which is open to several potential causes, hasn’t even had a chance to begin.

However having seen the footage released by the NYT, showing a missile clearly intercepting the airliner, I began worrying about something else: if this was indeed a case of missile interception, then western media is going to take advantage of the technical illiteracy of the public when it comes to weapons systems to push several unfounded narratives.

Confusion

Logging in to Twitter I saw several prominent members of the international communist movement expressing deep, and understandable, confusion over the narratives surrounding the shoot-down. I don’t mean to speak down to anyone, and my only expertise in this area is having programmed missile flight behaviors for some video games based on some technical specs, hardly an engineering degree. Still I want to help clear up some confusion.

Several people were confused about whether the narrative that was developing had anything to do with the missile salvos that were launched against US bases in Iraq. Some questioned how a missile from the launch sites could have intercepted an airliner hundreds of miles away in Tehran, a long way away from Iraq. Others questioned how an Iranian military, which showed such incredible precision in targeting uninhabited areas in Iraq, could make a move so imprecise as downing a friendly aircraft.

This is because the missiles involved in these two separate incidents are completely different. The Surface-to-Surface missiles fired at the Iraqi bases were likely Fajr-3 ballistic missiles, which have an inertial navigational system. Such a system is usually calibrated at the launching site, and is able to detect changes in the missile’s own speed and trajectory, often using an altimeter to detect the distance from the ground, and thereby change its direction once it has entered the upper atmosphere and strike a target. Such a system cannot hit moving targets or detect what is ahead of it. Some modern systems issue course corrections via GPS, giving greater accuracy, but they still cannot truly change behaviour once they have been fired.

No one is claiming that such a missile hit flight PS-752, as even if it was travelling along the missile’s ballistic trajectory, which it wasn’t,  the chances of the two objects hitting each other at high speed is a million-to-one.

On the other hand, the missile that hit Flight PS-752 would have had a totally different guidance system. It would either have used a passive infrared system, a semi-active radar system, or an active radar system. All modern AA missiles use one or another of these systems. Passive infrared picks up on the “heat signature” of an aircraft and follows that. Semi-active radar means the missile is sent data from a radar set on the ground and intercepts the target based on that. Active radar missiles have their own miniaturised radar system that can send and receive signals and detect aircraft itself.

All of these systems are fired at very high speeds to attack planes at high altitude and speeds. Passive infrared and active radar missiles are also considered “fire and forget” missiles, as they continue to pursue their target even after the operator of the system has directed their attention elsewhere. Combined, this means that it’s perfectly reasonable that the Iranian military could conduct both a very careful surface-to-surface attack without any civilian casualties, but also mistakenly conduct a surface-to-air attack that tragically killed hundreds. Once an AA missile is fired, it can’t typically be called off.

Deliberate Misinformation

None of this is to suggest that the US and Canadian narratives should be believed as they are also full of conjecture, half-truths and outright lies. Several sources claimed that the US had direct intelligence from the airliner, or that US intelligence knew for certain the type of missile involved and the circumstances that lead to the downing.

Without making use of a psychic, the US could not possibly know what kind of radar signature “locked on” to the Ukrainian flight. They didn’t have some sort of direct data uplink to the cockpit, nor do civilian flights have passive radar arrays which can detect missile launches, as the reports seem to suggest. The overall impression I get is that the sources are trying to mislead the public using a hollywood understanding of how missiles work.

The US and Canadian sources say with a great degree of certainty that the missiles fired were two Russian-made Tor-M1 missiles (SA-15 “Gauntlet” missiles in NATOspeak). These are semi-active radar missiles, which are relatively small and fast. They hit the airliner in an engine, causing a fire, after which point the plane turned around and attempted to land.

However this is based entirely on two blurry cellphone videos. One purports to show a small piece of a Tor missile amidst the wreckage, the other shows a missile being fired at an airliner, hitting it.

The thing is, it’s entirely believable that this is the case. A Tor missile would strike a plane in a similar manner. It would be unlikely to cause catastrophic damage due to its small size. It would likely have a similar linear flight path compared to the “snaking” flight path of an Infrared missile. The discrepancies in the narrative are about the number of missiles (US sources say 2, the video seems to show 1 unless they are close together), and the location of the hit (a radar guided missile is more likely to hit the centre of mass - ie. the fuselage, rather than an engine, which is more commonly targeted by Infrared).

This distinction is somewhat important as depending on the guidance system it rules out the potential for other actors in the region, say foreign agents, downing the plane. A Tor would be too large to covertly operate, whereas small infrared missiles, such as the infamous FIM-92 “Stinger,” can and have been used in CIA operations in the region before. I don’t personally believe this story (if the US wanted a false-flag event there would have been many better options), but it’s an example of a narrative that can’t be ruled out.

What is more unbelievable is that western sources can report on such things with any degree of certainty. Iran has allowed a civilian investigation by Ukraine to continue, and so surely any conclusions must be left up to them. Iran has declined to hand the black box from the aircraft, a key piece of evidence, over to the US, but seeing how the US has seized upon the opportunity to push a warmongering narrative, that seems completely reasonable.

POTUS steps into the Twitter sewer … once again!

You know, as weird as Donald Trump’s retweet of an image involving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer was, it seems to almost pale in comparison to the White House press flack’s lame defense of what Trump actually did.

Trump retweeted a doctored picture of Pelosi wearing a Muslim hijab and Schumer wearing a turban. They’re standing in front of an image…

POTUS steps into the Twitter sewer … once again!

You know, as weird as Donald Trump’s retweet of an image involving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer was, it seems to almost pale in comparison to the White House press flack’s lame defense of what Trump actually did.

Trump retweeted a doctored picture of Pelosi wearing a Muslim hijab and Schumer wearing a turban. They’re standing in front of an image…

La strana “guerra” di Mr Trump. Possiamo tornare ad occuparci della Casa reale inglese

Per il momento non ci sarà la guerra con l’Iran. Alternando minacce e accenti apparentemente concilianti, Donald Trump ha evitato di infognare gli Stati Uniti ancora una volta in una Guerra del Golfo. Tanto, se rieletto, potrà sempre riaprire il fascicolo.

E a lui interessa soprattutto questo: vincere nuovamente il prossimo novembre. Per farlo è assolutamente necessario evitare un conflitto…

La risposta missilistica iraniana e la “confusione” Usa sulla presenza delle truppe in Iraq. Gli italiani “ridislocati”

La confusione sembrava regnare ieri a Washington sul futuro delle truppe americane in Iraq.  Prima i comandi militari presenti a Baghdad presentano una lettera al ministero della Difesa iracheno con l’annuncio che i preparativi sarebbero iniziati immediatamente “per garantire che il trasferimento fuori dall’Iraq sia condotto in modo sicuro ed efficiente”. Poi, arriva la smentita da parte del…

Trump scores direct hit on a military target, then bungles the aftermath

It is worthwhile to compartmentalize Donald Trump’s two-pronged approach to dealing with Iran.

On the one hand, the president’s decision to kill Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanding general Qassem Solemaini took courage. I applaud the death of this killer, the man responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of U.S. service personnel.

On the other hand, Iran has responded with…

Trump scores direct hit on a military target, then bungles the aftermath

It is worthwhile to compartmentalize Donald Trump’s two-pronged approach to dealing with Iran.

On the one hand, the president’s decision to kill Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanding general Qassem Solemaini took courage. I applaud the death of this killer, the man responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of U.S. service personnel.

On the other hand, Iran has responded with…