Iran shoots down US drone

[Skgoa]

e drone went down in Iran, and the fact that the Iranians published imagery, and the fact that the US has asked for the return of whatever the Iranians are holding, do not add up to "the images of an intact aircraft are necessarily legit." It's a complete disconnect.

No it's not. Occam's fucking razor: they say they have a mostly intact drone, they show a mostly intact drone and the US is saying "give us back our drone"... how on Earth can it be logical to assume - starting only from the known facts - that Iran does not actually have a drone but only a wreck? As far as we know there is absolutely zero evidence, other than internet armchair generals spouting their unfounded opinions, that the situation is in any way, shape or form different from what everyone who should know seems to belive it to be.

[Kanastrous]

I'm less-inclined to accept Iranian claims at face-value, than you are. That's fine.

I don't know why you think it beyond the ability of the Iranians to craft a good mockup, about which they may make any claims they like. Seeing as they build real, functional aircraft I see no reason to rule out the possibility that they would build a mockup, for press purposes.

[Simon_Jester]

Iran might have a pile of wreckage instead of a drone, or they might have a more or less intact drone.

The reason for skepticism comes, I think, from the fact that it's hard to imagine the drone crashing in a more or less intact state.

But then, I remember reading similar skepticism by Robert A. Heinlein about the 1960 U-2 incident where Francis Gary Powers was shot down and captured. His argument was that there wouldn't be as much wreckage and recognizable equipment from the shootdown as the Soviets had produced... and yet we now know damn well the U-2 was in fact shot down.

So I see no reason to assume I know anything, except that it's pretty unambiguous that the US did lose a drone over Iran, and that the Iranians recovered something.

[Kanastrous]

So I see no reason to assume I know anything, except that it's pretty unambiguous that the US did lose a drone over Iran, and that the Iranians recovered something.

Yep. Neither they really scooped it up intact or it cratered and they made a mockup are more than possibilities.

FWIW I think Occam's Razor is an untrustworthy instrument, when we're talking about two enemy nations' counter-claims about black-ops-type shenanigans where both parties have ample reason to lie.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes. Trying to construct the 'simplest explanation that fits the evidence' is hard when much of the evidence itself is uncertain.

[Skgoa]

Unfortunately for the two of you we do have a boatload evidence towards one option and NO evidence toward the other. Your argument is "I feel like all that evidence could be fake, so I claim there is no evidence."
The situation is NOT "two nation's claims and counter-claims", it is "everyone but you is saying this and there is not one reason to say they all lie."

e/ BTW did you know the moon landings were fake? I can't proof it but you can't proof me wrong! There are two options, so I guess it omes down to a 50-50 chance...

[IRG CommandoJoe]

If we take everything Iran and the US have said at face value, why didn't we destroy it when we had the chance? To me there has to be more to this than there seems. I refuse to believe that Obama really thought that by asking for the drone back Iran would comply. It seems too simple and stupid to be true.

[Kryten]

If we take everything Iran and the US have said at face value, why didn't we destroy it when we had the chance?

What?
Why didn't the U.S., after an incident guaranteed to increase tensions, bomb Iran?

[Simon_Jester]

The argument, Skgoa, is that we have relatively limited evidence that the Iranians have a physically intact drone, as opposed to a pile of wreckage.

If someone thinks it likely that the drone would be reduced to wreckage by a crash, then "they built a mockup for that photo op" becomes the "simplest explanation." If someone sees no reason why the drone couldn't have come down more or less intact, then "that's the real drone" becomes the "simplest explanation."

Occam's Razor just isn't very helpful here, because we're in a rotten position to assess the odds of the drone being in as good a state of repair after a crash as the Iranian photo makes it out to be.

[Shroom Man 777]

3) Buying AL-31Fs is an easy way to score brownie points with the Russians.

Didn't the Chinese have a deal with the Russkies to license some Su-27s, but then the Chinese broke some agreement or something and started copying the hell out of the Russki tech, and now the Russkies hate them forever?

[IRG CommandoJoe]

If we take everything Iran and the US have said at face value, why didn't we destroy it when we had the chance?

What?
Why didn't the U.S., after an incident guaranteed to increase tensions, bomb Iran?

To keep our military secrets...secret.

But you seem concerned that this would do more harm than good. Explain why. AFAIK there's not much Iran could do about it but bitch and moan. Am I wrong?

[Straha]

If we take everything Iran and the US have said at face value, why didn't we destroy it when we had the chance?

What?
Why didn't the U.S., after an incident guaranteed to increase tensions, bomb Iran?

To keep our military secrets...secret.

But you seem concerned that this would do more harm than good. Explain why. AFAIK there's not much Iran could do about it but bitch and moan. Am I wrong?

A. It would certainly piss off a lot of our allies, and really set back negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
B. Iran has enough assets to trouble the U.S. and the trouble from giving Iran a cassus belli (or even just supporting the anti-US domestic parties inside Iran) is not worth the price of a drone.
C. The damage to America's international prestige, and the re-entrenchment of the fear of a rogue state USA, would far far far outweigh the benefits of destroying the drone.
D. Your logic is why the world hates the US governmet and everything it does overseas. Please, for the sake of those of us in this land who have a modicum of sanity, think about what you're saying before you post.

[Simon_Jester]

If Iran can't do anything but bitch and moan when we physically drop high explosives on their land, then they're not dangerous enough to us for us to go to these extreme lengths to call them a loose cannon and constantly monitor them.

What kind of loose cannon doesn't have the power to do anything but whine in an annoying way about the bombs you're dropping on them? That's not a loose cannon, that's a wet firecracker.

[Sea Skimmer]

Didn't the Chinese have a deal with the Russkies to license some Su-27s, but then the Chinese broke some agreement or something and started copying the hell out of the Russki tech, and now the Russkies hate them forever?

They began making unlicensed copies as J-11B after signing a contract to produce the Su-27 locally as J-11A; some people say Russia got angry enough about this to end J-11 licensed production when it was only half over. Its not totally clear if that's true, or the Chinese just stopped wanting to pay for J-11 production. Aside from the fact that they could make them on the unlicensed line, the Su-27SK model the J-11 was based on simply was not all that advanced by 2000s era Su-27 standards. The Russians won't supply newer models of course because they didn't want to give up the technology even if China did not duplicate it, while much more advanced Su-30s were sold to India. This cannot have made China very happy.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

A. It would certainly piss off a lot of our allies, and really set back negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

Call me misinformed, but I haven't really heard of any meaningful negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. Has there been any recently?

B. Iran has enough assets to trouble the U.S. and the trouble from giving Iran a cassus belli (or even just supporting the anti-US domestic parties inside Iran) is not worth the price of a drone.

What sort of assets?

C. The damage to America's international prestige, and the re-entrenchment of the fear of a rogue state USA, would far far far outweigh the benefits of destroying the drone.

I hope that's true.

D. Your logic is why the world hates the US governmet and everything it does overseas. Please, for the sake of those of us in this land who have a modicum of sanity, think about what you're saying before you post.

I fully expected to get bitchslapped for that line of thought, but I haven't really heard much in-depth discussion on why it would be a bad idea to destroy the drone in the news nor here.

If Iran can't do anything but bitch and moan when we physically drop high explosives on their land, then they're not dangerous enough to us for us to go to these extreme lengths to call them a loose cannon and constantly monitor them.

What kind of loose cannon doesn't have the power to do anything but whine in an annoying way about the bombs you're dropping on them? That's not a loose cannon, that's a wet firecracker.

From what I understand Iran is a loose cannon for trying to develop a nuke. Since they don't have a nuke yet, what other power they yield I don't know. Oil prices? State-sponsored terrorism? (shrugs) Anyone more informed is more than welcome to educate me.

[Flagg]

We basically littered in their country with a robot and now you want to bomb them for it?

[IRG CommandoJoe]

We basically littered in their country with a robot and now you want to bomb them for it?

Not them. The drone you silly.

[Simon_Jester]

The drone is on their land. Bombing the drone without bombing their land* would be a neat trick.

Seriously, dropping a bomb in this scenario escalates our behavior from "act of provocation" (like when one of our U-2 spy planes got shot down over Russia in 1960, and you can look that up) to "act of war" (like if Eisenhower had been dumb enough to order a squadron of B-52s to nuke the crash site). In this case, it would be blatantly obvious that we were committing an act of war against a foreign country, and depending solely on our own armed force to deter them from doing anything about it.

This would make us look worse in the eyes of all other countries. It would also risk Iran doing things that would inconvenience us, like throwing another pile of money at Iraqi or Afghan insurgents, or taking shit out on Israel. If the Iranian leadership is indeed a "loose cannon"** it might even provoke them to do something rash, like try to close the Strait of Hormuz and fuck up the global oil economy. And we would not be ready to deal with that, and would have a sudden major shitstorm on our hands that would cost billions of dollars and probably a fair number of American lives plus God knows how many foreign lives before it was over.

All because we're just terrified of someone getting their hands on a drone that we won't be able to duplicate.


*(and possibly killing any Iranians who make it to the crash site before we can figure out where it landed and get an airstrike ready, which takes time)

**Remember, if they're a "loose cannon" and it's vital to stop them from having nukes, that must be because we're not sure of being able to deter them. But if deterrence doesn't work on them, then what if they decide to fight a war with us over some random matter of principle such as "you bombed our land?" Why can we rule that out, if we're not confident enough in the Iranians' sanity to respect their national sovereignty in the first place.

[Sea Skimmer]

If we take everything Iran and the US have said at face value, why didn't we destroy it when we had the chance? To me there has to be more to this than there seems. I refuse to believe that Obama really thought that by asking for the drone back Iran would comply. It seems too simple and stupid to be true.

I’m sure he never expected we’d get it back, but no reason not to ask, since its always possible Iran might offer it back for a price we could afford to pay politically or economically or both.

But you assume we had the chance, which is not a given. One report is Obama thought bombing the wreck would be an act of war, which it certainly would be a very blatant one but hardly one likely to turn into an actual war. However the US doesn't have an instant ability to bomb any site on earth; even though Gates claimed we have prompt global strike now of an unspecified nature (I'm dubious on that but forget it for now) its entirely possible that Iranians arrived at the crash site in under an hour. The only real option to destroy the wreck would be firing a cruise missile at it, because non of our known armed drones are going to be acceptable to fly into Iranian air space nor a manned plane, and planning and executing such a mission would take hours. The risk of killing Iranians with a strike would be considerable, and while it would reduce the intelligence value, the fact is people are still going to learn a damn lot from even blown up debris. That’s not a good risk to take over 140 miles inside a foreign country.

Meanwhile such a blatant act of war, and possible defacto declaration of war if we did kill Iranian troops, would encourage Iran to make life considerably more difficult for us in Afghanistan. Iran does supply the Taliban to some degree, but it’s not overwhelming and whatever aid they do get it’s not like they are shipping in hundreds of shoulder fired missiles or heavy anti tank weapons… something the US did in the 1980s. Iran also has a genuine desire for some kind of resolution in the country so it’s not even clear that the arms supplies are government policy or just reflect the fact that the Iranian revolutionary guard is a state within a state that can’t control itself very well. We also have the pesky topic of direct Iranian involvement. We kill some Iranians with an air strike, who says Iran doesn't send commandos to wipe out one of our outposts a few months later? We are pretty damn certain Iran did send people to kill some of our guys in Iraq on several different occasions with the support of Iraqi traitors so this is hardly out of reason at all.

So yeah, the situation is complicated and may have a lot of backroom information behind it. For all we know Obama was told the drone crashed and ten minutes later told we have satellite photos of Iranian troops dancing on it. It may also be that the technology is nothing that wasn't on the F-117 the Serbs knocked down and thus not a very overwhelming loss in the first place. Or not, who knows but the speculation can go in many directions reasonably.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Thank you Simon_Jester and Sea Skimmer for providing a complete and satisfying response.

[Skgoa]

The argument, Skgoa, is that we have relatively limited evidence that the Iranians have a physically intact drone, as opposed to a pile of wreckage.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. Goddamit, we have resounding visual evidence.

If someone thinks it likely that the drone would be reduced to wreckage by a crash, then "they built a mockup for that photo op" becomes the "simplest explanation."

Which is why I brought up Occam's Razor: you are adding an additional, totally unfounded and unecessary, axiom. Or to phrase it in in a more german frank way: You are making a bullshit assumption so that you can arrive at a bullshit conclusion.

If someone sees no reason why the drone couldn't have come down more or less intact, then "that's the real drone" becomes the "simplest explanation."

Stop muddying the waters by framing the "two option" as even remotely equal. The drone has come down relatively intact. There is NOTHING that suggests otherwise.

Occam's Razor just isn't very helpful here, because we're in a rotten position to assess the odds of the drone being in as good a state of repair after a crash as the Iranian photo makes it out to be.

We have visual evidence. Saying we don't have is a bold-faced lie.

[TimothyC]

The argument, Skgoa, is that we have relatively limited evidence that the Iranians have a physically intact drone, as opposed to a pile of wreckage.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. Goddamit, we have resounding visual evidence.

What we have are pictures of something that kind of looks like the pictures we've seen, but there are inconsistencies. We have no hard evidence that "Yes, what the Iranians have shown on TV is an RQ-170 drone."

[Skgoa]

With that argument you can discount any evidence, anywhere, ever. "It just looks exactly how we would expect it to look. That's no proof, because it could be fake. Now show me proof!"

[Kanastrous]

Man, Dresden apparently -is- the Valley of the Clueless.

If the US or Iran had a track record of reliable truthfulness where their claims and counter-claims concerning much of -anything- were concerned, then I doubt there would be as much ruminating as to whether or not the object on display is or isn't the one that hit the ground to begin with. Notice that no one here has stated THAT -IS- FOR CERTAIN THE REAL THING or THAT -IS- FOR CERTAIN A MOCKUP. Yes, it looks to be about the right size and shape. On the other hand, crashed aircraft rarely come out looking quite -that- pristine (particularly if they have been shot down, and please remember that the Iranians' initial claim was that they tracked it and shot it down - NOT that they brought it down under control; changing claims is not usually a useful sign for confirming the claims' veracity). Some specialists viewing the footage have said they're convinced it's real, some have pointed to details that they interpret as uncertain. Putting a mostly-intact-looking object on a podium with creatively-reinterpreted US flags for a propaganda display sure looks more compelling than piling up a few thousand pounds of fragments, too.

All of this creates space to question the accuracy of the claims we're hearing. Not discard it, not discount it, but room to wonder a little bit. I don't know why you are so heavily invested in the displayed object ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY FOR DAMN CERTAIN HAVING TO BE THE THING ITSELF, or why you are so resistant to the concept that in an argument between liars, it's possible that maybe, just maybe someone is lying.

BTW I'm presently directing a crew of sculptors who, given some available images, a couple thousand dollars' worth of high-density foam and a short span of time could craft you an object indistinguishable from the one displayed in the Iranian footage. I don't know what leads you to be so dismissive of the Iranians' basic competence as to believe that doing just that is the least bit beyond their abilities. Or to be so trusting of their word as to rule out the possibility of shenanigans, while there are reasonable questions to ask.

[Simon_Jester]

The argument, Skgoa, is that we have relatively limited evidence that the Iranians have a physically intact drone, as opposed to a pile of wreckage.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. Goddamit, we have resounding visual evidence.

That assumes the photo is indeed a photo of the real drone. I do not know if this is true. Literally do not know- nor am I qualified to guess the amount of damage the drone took hitting the ground, so I can't say the photo is reasonable or not.

If someone thinks it likely that the drone would be reduced to wreckage by a crash, then "they built a mockup for that photo op" becomes the "simplest explanation."

Which is why I brought up Occam's Razor: you are adding an additional, totally unfounded and unecessary, axiom. Or to phrase it in in a more german frank way: You are making a bullshit assumption so that you can arrive at a bullshit conclusion.

What unnecessary axiom? That planes usually get trashed when they crash into the ground? How is that not relevant?

I myself really do not know, but it's not like I'd be shocked to find out that the drone got smashed up when it hit the ground.

If someone sees no reason why the drone couldn't have come down more or less intact, then "that's the real drone" becomes the "simplest explanation."

Stop muddying the waters by framing the "two option" as even remotely equal. The drone has come down relatively intact. There is NOTHING that suggests otherwise.

...Not even the physics of high-speed collisions?

Put it this way, Skgoa. Suppose I told you that a man had jumped out of an airplane at ten thousand meters without a parachute, hit ground in my territory, and I said "here he is." Then I show you a photograph of a happy, healthy man.

Will you assume that because there is VISUAL EVIDENCE that the man who jumped out of an airplane is happy and healthy, then he must be so? Or will you consider the possibility that I may be faking, for reasons of my own, on the grounds that no one who jumped out of an airplane at that altitude without a parachute would be in such good condition?