So, whose idea was it that virtually every single person with any power in Poland get on the same

[BrklynLiberal]

plane to fly to Russia???

I wonder if the BFEE involved in this?
It sure has a lot of the earmarks of their jobs.

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Um, yeah. Sorry bout that. (scratches travel agent off list of careers).

[virgogal]

2. Boggles the mind,doesn't it?

[CoffeeCat]

3. Wasn't this how WWI started?

Leader of a country dies, then Russia decided that there is trouble and that it's time to invade...

:scared:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. No, World War I started when a Serbian militant assassinated

Archduke Francis Ferdinand (the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary) at Sarajevo in 1914. Austria declared war on Serbia, and Russia declared war on Austria, since it was bound to Serbia in a treaty. After that, all the major countries in Europe were bound to either Russia or Austria by treaty, so the war was on.

My grandmother, who lived through the era, said that it was actually more complicated than that (I don't remember the details of what she said), but the assassination was the trigger for one of the stupidest and most wasteful wars in all of modern history.

[demosincebirth]

7. Wasn't the assassination the second attempt that day?

[Lord Magus]

10. Not exactly.

The Archduke's car had gotten past the ambush. But then his driver blundered back into the location of one of the assassins.

[BrklynLiberal]

19. If I remember my history corretly, Archduke Ferdinand was pretty enlightened, and

the Serbian militants were afraid their purpose would be undermined if there was a humane ruler, so the decision was made to get rid of him, and the rest, as they say, is history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria
Political views

Politically, Franz Ferdinand was a proponent of granting greater autonomy to all ethnic groups in the Empire and of addressing their grievances, especially the Czechs in Bohemia and the Yugoslavic peoples in Croatia and Bosnia, who had been left out of the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867.<12> He also advocated a careful approach towards Serbia - repeatedly locking horns with Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Vienna's hard-line Chief of the General Staff, warning that harsh treatment of Serbia would bring Austria-Hungary into open conflict with Russia, to the ruin of both Empires.

Franz Ferdinand was a prominent and influential supporter of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in a time when sea power was not a priority in Austrian foreign policy and the Navy was relatively little known and supported by the public. After his assassination in 1914, the Navy honoured Franz Ferdinand and his wife with a lying in state aboard the SMS Viribus Unitis.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

5. It was a VIP flight to a memorial ceremony.

And the pilot disobeyed air control orders not to land in the thick fog.

[Bluebear]

6. Yes, but the question was, who thought it a good idea to put all of one country's VIP's on one plane

[ZeitgeistObserver]

8. They weren't all on one plane.

Poland is functioning normally.

[BrklynLiberal]

13. How many planes crashed?

http://www.breakingglobalnews.com/polish-plane-crash-passenger-list/1226861

The passenger list reads like a who’s who of Polish politics

Lech Kaczynski, President of the Republic of Poland
Maria Kaczynska, the president’s wife
Ryszard Kaczorowski, head of Poland’s London-based government-in-exile during the communist period
General Tadeusz Buk, Head of Polish Land Forces
Leszek Deptula, MP
Grzegorz Dolniak, MP
Katarzyna Doraczynska, President’s Chancellery
Janina Fetlinska, Senator
General Franciszek Gagor, Chief of Staff
Grazyna Gesicka, MP
Przemyslaw Gosiewski, MP
Mariusz Handzlik, Minister at the President’s Chancellery
Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, MP
Sebastian Karpiniuk, MP
Admiral Andrzej Karweta, Head of Polish Navy
Mariusz Kazana, Foreign Ministry
Janusz Kochanowski, Poland’s Ombudsman
Stanislaw Jerzy Komorowski, Deputy Defence Minister
Andrzej Kremer, Deputy Foreign Minister
Janusz Kurtyka, National Remembrance Institute head
Tomasz Merta, Deputy Culture Minister
Aleksandra Natalli-Swiat, MP
Piotr Nurowski, head of Polish Olympics Committee
Krzysztof Putra, Deputy Speaker of parliament
Arkadiusz Rybicki, MP
Slawomir Skrzypek, head of Poland’s central bank
Wladyslaw Stasiak, head of Kaczynski’s Chancellery
Aleksander Szczyglo, head of the National Security Bureau
Jerzy Szmajdzinski, Deputy Speaker of parliament
Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz, MP
Izabela Tomaszewska, President’s Chancellery
Anna Walentynowicz, former Solidarity activist
Zbigniew Wassermann, MP
Wieslaw Woda, MP
Edward Wojtas, MP
Pawel Wypych, Minister and Kaczynski’s Chancellery
Stanislaw Zajac, Senator

There will be more updates as more of the 96 names are discovered

[BrklynLiberal]

11. I love my tinfoil hat: Maybe he had a gun pointed at his head.

Why gamble with a planeload of VIPs when told specifically NOT to land in the dense fog?

[ZeitgeistObserver]

16. There's a story going around that the president

overruled the pilot, and ordered the landing.

Given this president, that's entirely possible.

[Hardrada]

9. I don't know but it seems Poland is one country that never has much luck.

And it is a pity.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Doesn't help a bit with the joke stereotype either.

:hide:

[Lord Magus]

14. They weren't all on the plane.

The Prime Minister was still in Poland, and the Marshal of the Sejm immediately became Acting President when the President died. Poland still has a fully intact government, though the military lost all of its top commanders.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

15. Promotion opportunities abound.

[RB TexLa]

17. Who's idea was it to have every single person with political power in the US work in the same city

They all wanted to go to the event, plane crashes happen.

:crazy:

[Sannum]

18. this tragic event could actually turn out to be a Polish joke...

:hide: