Polish leader, 96 others dead in Russian jet crash

[ivor]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_russia_plane_crash

OMG!  I bet Poland is in utter turmoil right now. So, terrible...

[Swatopluk]

And I bet the conspiracy theorists are already hard at work claiming that either the Russians or the Germans (or both) sabotaged that plane.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

How long 'till Faux starts saying that this is Obama's fault and/or that he isn't doing enough about it?

3...2...1.... 

[Swatopluk]

I think the US RW conspracists could have some cognitive dissonance there and will have to sort out the ideological mess before knowing whom to blame.

[ivor]

If cognitive dissonance bit them on the ass they wouldn't know it for three days.  Here let me make something up:

Obama kills Polish leaders so Russia can take over and we can all be one big happy socialist family.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

You heard it here first!

[ivor]

Watch it be true and we'll all get rounded up, placed in black bags and end up in Guantanamo!   You won't be ROFLMAO then will you!  You'll just be ROF!

[Sibling DavidH]

And I bet the conspiracy theorists are already hard at work claiming that either the Russians or the Germans (or both) sabotaged that plane.

It'll be the Russians that get blamed.  Specifically, hard-line, old-guard elements in the army and/or security services.  Remember, Russia wouldn't admit guilt for Katyn until 1989-90 and this was to be the first apology.  Many old-timers would regard this as intolerable, like the Turks and the Armenian business.

I'm not saying I firmly believe it, but IMO the conspiracy theorists have got a fairly reasonable basis here, for once.

[Lindorm]

To be a brutal cynic, dying in an accident was probably about the only way that mr Lech Kaczynski could salvage some sort of positive legacy after the upcoming elections.

He, and his brother Jaroslaw, actually started out in the Polish trade union movement and were important activists in the Solidarity union once upon a time. Post-cold war Poland and repeated sessions in positions of power saw their agenda change significantly. Both brothers were founding members of the rightwing, conservative and ultracatholic party PiS ("Law and Order").

Among the accomplishments of Lech Kaczynski's tenure in various positions of power was, for example, a limitation in abortion rights for women (he personally wanted to equate abortions with premediated murder), repeated assaults on the rights of LGBT persons, including banning the Pride festival in Warsaw and having the police attack Pride-festivalgoers when he was the Mayor of that town. He also campaigned for the re-introduction of the death penalty in Poland, as well as expanding the number of crimes where death penalty would be legal punishment. He also had a very nationalist agenda, blaming a number of problems in Poland on interference, either in history or in the present day, by Germany and/or the Communist Menace of Russia. Reportedly, his nationalism got more and more paranoid overtones the closer the election got, and the more dismal his opinion figures turned out to be.

Fortunately, while some of the Polish people apparently found something to their liking in his bigotted conservatism, more and more Poles firmly rejected it and grew more and more vocal about their rejection, both in media and the political arena. The PiS party was predicted to do a catastrophically dismal election result, looking more and more out of step with life in modern Poland.  Quite a few commentators have also speculated that the PiS party might start to disintegrate now that their main figurehead is gone, giving free reign to various competeting factions within the party.

We'll see what happens. Actually, nevermind if Official Poland whitewashes the legacy of Kaczynski, as long as they decisively move away from his policies -at least that's my opinion!

[Swatopluk]

There is a distinct possibility that the death was self-inflicted in a way.
In todays papers it is reported that some time ago the pilot (military officer) of a state plane he flew in refused for saftey reasons to land on the planned airport but diverted to another. Kaczynski lost it and had the pilot fired. There is speculation that the pilot on the final flight feared the same fate and thus tried again and again until the disaster happened at the fourth attempt. The same newspaper report also tells that pilots normally stationed at the airport (and therefore accustomed with it) had not dared to land there that day because of the the fog.

[Opsa]

I heard that, too. Very sad, nonetheless.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

There is a distinct possibility that the death was self-inflicted in a way.
In todays papers it is reported that some time ago the pilot (military officer) of a state plane he flew in refused for saftey reasons to land on the planned airport but diverted to another. Kaczynski lost it and had the pilot fired. There is speculation that the pilot on the final flight feared the same fate and thus tried again and again until the disaster happened at the fourth attempt. The same newspaper report also tells that pilots normally stationed at the airport (and therefore accustomed with it) had not dared to land there that day because of the the fog.

Goes to show:  if you hire an expert in the field (in this case, a pilot) but refuse to take the advice you paid for (by hiring him) you are/were wasting your money in the first place-- may as well have hired a trained monkey... or ask your brother-in-law's opinion...

...in this case, sadly, the person in power, who obviously ignored the advice of his own experts, paid the ultimate price for his arrogance.

Sad, really.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

  Ouch.