http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/europe/11poland.html?ref=europe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8612825.stm

The President of Poland, the chiefs of the four military branches, the chief of the Polish central bank and a ton of other important Polish people have died in a plane crash en route to Putin's anniversary ceremony of the Katyn massacre in Smolensk, when Soviet troops killed a ton of Polish people. The plane was a Tupolev-154 Soviet plane, recently renovated by a Russian company. Internet sources quote Russian media in saying that ground control warned the pilots to land in Minsk, Belarus because of foggy conditions in Smolensk, but the pilots decided to land in Smolensk anyway.

I think this is an extremely ironic and sad occurrence. Ironic, because Putin was trying to mend relations with Poland with this gesture, and the media had been fawning over it for a while (the anniversary ceremony, that is). I'm sure having half of the important people in government die in one plane crash will make Poland all nasty and russophobic again. However, I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing the media quote dumbasses in saying that the KGB shot down the plane, or caused the fog, or faked the communication between ground control and the pilots, etc.

I find it ironic because they were about to take part in the ceremony dedicated to the killing of thousands of polish people.

Coincidence!? I dont think so.

When I heard about this my first thought was "heh, russians probably shot them down".

Irony - Seeing a memorial for the deaths of thousands of Poland people and they die, also I bet the russian military made them have a flight change kee kee

Isn't this something that would spark WWIII ?

Quote from MadZombie

Isn't this something that would spark WWIII ?

http://www.globalfirepower.com/:
Russia: 3^rd
Poland: 30^th

Poland wouldn't even come close to having a chance, so my guess is no.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 11 2010, 10:56 pm by poison_us.

.... lol wut?

It wouldnt be a world war if it was a 1v1. It's all about "NO IF YOU HIT POLAND WE GO TO WAR WITH YOU; USA IF YOU HELP POLAND WE GO TO WAR WITH YOU; GERMANY IF YOU COUNTER USA WE WILL GO TO WAR WITH YOU; GERMANY IF YOU KEEP SUCKING COCKS WE'll NUKE YOU; IRAQ IF YOU NUKE ANYONE WE WILL GO APE SHIT" etc etc. Thats more plausible. But russia wouldve actually had to been responsible

Global Firepower is an inaccurate measure when you get to any intricacies.

That's all I'm going to say on the "Who's going to fight" issue. There's not going to be a world war, because the chances of Russia actually shooting them down are... very low.

◕‿‿◕

EDIT: Also, apparently I was pessimistic over the issue. I thought that Polish politics would be like American politics and the media would start bandying theories about how the KGB shot everyone down and the politicians would play along for votes, but, apparently, Russia's awesomeness in dealing with this actually improved relations. Awesome.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 12 2010, 9:07 pm by Centreri.

+1 to Covert Operations.

I think there was no better way to prove Cent's point in the last paragraph.

Obama going to Kaczynski's funeral.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 14 2010, 3:52 am by Centreri.

If anything was ever meant to happen its gonna happen then. At least it should.

WWIII lets go son.

Yes, that should stimulate the economy.

History repeats itself, son.

funny... i was at a state competition and one of the questions asked this question.

You're very welcome.

Obama actually skipped the funeral.

Yeah - the cloud of volcanic ash got in the way of a few heads of government going to the funeral.

Our airspace was shut down for about a week.