I see a scenario which provides a reason why the US took a pot-shot at a dead pilot. I believe it stands a fair chance of being true.
The scenario. China attempted to hijack the US surveillance plane by hemming it so tightly that it had to go where the fighters directed it - toward Chinese airspace, to create an incident to test Bush, and to get a look at the plane. The US plane turned, as I presume it was directed to in a script prepared for such an eventuality, for two purposes: 1) to break free; 2) to damage their own plane to buy time to destroy secret materials, if they didn't break free. That scenario is born out, tenuously I grant, by China insisting at first that the US plane had violated their airspace, and gave as proof that it landed in China; that sounds to me like a previously prepared response that wasn't updated in a timely fashion to reflect reality.
What China did, according to this scenario, was air piracy. China reacted to the hijacking going wrong in classic fashion by attacking in rhetoric: We are blameless! We are the victim! Apologize! A form of the big lie used effectively by Hitler. And the world tries to figure out how to appease China, rather than censuring them for their action
Back to the dead pilot. The US knows what China did, but wants to keep the lid on the incident. So instead of accusing China, it agrees with China to lambaste the dead pilot, saying in effect that it wasn't China's fault, it was a rogue pilot's fault. China will, of course, defend the pilot's reputation, but with moderation. Maybe the pilot was know to be reckless, but he wouldn't need to be for this to have played out according to this scenario.
China wins, except for the loss of the life ot one of its pilots. They get a really close look at the plane. They test Bush, although not quite as intended. And they avoid international censure. |
