Here’s how the story goes… a U.S. Air Force spy plane flying in international airspace had to maneuver into Swedish airspace to avoid being intercepted by a Russian fighter jet. Hmmmm…. Nothing about that seems right to me.
Why would a Russian fighter jet be “sent to intercept” a U.S. plane in international airspace, which is essentially neutral territory?
And for the “incident” to be severe enough for U.S. command personnel to order the pilot to veer into Swedish airspace without prior authorization? This is no joke people! This is a serious issue.
So, why does this appear to be a non-news event for our national news media? Did you hear about it on your nightly news?
This incident occurred the day after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, but the information about the incident was just released last week. A Pentagon spokesman said things like this Russian challenge happen periodically, seeming to indicate that it wasn’t that big of a deal.
You be the judge…
– we’re caught spying on Russia, intercepting their transmissions
– they send a plane (some reports say an unknown number of planes) to intercept us
And the Pentagon says it’s no big deal. What about coupling this incident with the 10+ incursions by Russian aircraft into U.S. airspace since the end of July?
Am I the only one bothered by this? This is troubling on 2 levels, first, that it’s happening at all, and second, that our news media is failing miserably at highlighting the significance of these incidents. Keep a watchful eye folks. The news media isn’t doing it for you anymore.
Yahoo did a good job covering this story, as did FOX and CNN.
Photo credit US Department of Defense