I personally think that lawrence’s theory about people rushing to the crash site to get pictures and use them for propaganda is not based on any reasonable facts.
This happened in Yugoslavia (the F-117A), and happens quite often in Iraq in the present. The difference is that it is the insurgents/terrorists doing it in Iraq for an obvious political gain, Saddam didn’t do it in DESERT STORM for example because it was a full-on combat zone (much more dangerous) and there really wouldn’t have been much of a point. So he paraded downed aviators instead and got pretty much the same result.
Still want to educate me on selected views?
There is, of course, the fact that Western militaries are typically far more forthcoming with such things as after-action press releases and more tangible things such as gun camera footage and whatnot.
And you still have to consider the fact that the Western press isn’t reporting that the entire air arm of the FRY or Iraq, for example, was casually obliterated, but Eastern sources like to claim such things like B-2A shootdowns and obviously exaggerated claims of entire squadrons worth of aircraft shot down.
Should one blindly believe everything put out by the Western military public affairs units or the Western press? Of course not. But history has shown that the Western sources tend to be far more credible than those coming from the East when it pertains to active combat operations.
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