21 years on: Iran Air Flight 655

This day (July 3rd 2009) twenty one years ago the American missile destroyer the USS Vincennes fired a missile murdering all 290 passengers on the Airbus A300, the captain later testified stating he had thought it was an Iranian F-14A going in to attack him.

Unless the F-14 was going to perform a kamikaze reminiscent to the war in the Pacific against Japan there was no way it could have caused any harm to the Vincennes, the model of F-14's given to Iran (under the Shah) were the A models not capable of engaging ground targets, it wouldn't have been able to carry say an Exocet ship missile like the one fired from an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1 (Iraq at the time working with the United States) which crippled the USS Stark the year before.



So what is really was was a horrible act of terror, an act of piracy, as a flotilla of Iranian boats went into the Gulf in the following days to retrieve the bodies the crew of the Vincennes were given medals for extraordinary achievements!

George HW. Bush then Vice President said this and I quote:

"I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever, I don't care what the facts are."

We know you don't George:

And what compensation did the families of the victims who ended up in a watery grave in the Persian Gulf get, well $61.8 million nearly ten years after the actual event, and to this day 21 years later the US still hasn't taken responsibility nor apologized for the tragedy they caused.

I'm sure if President Obama's diplomacy approach to Iran was worth a damn he would at least apologize and admit that they were in the wrong!