Joel Skousen stated on the Jeff Rense Show, 6/26/19, transcribed by me:

2:28 “This was a P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine warfare and general all-around surveillance aircraft. It has dozens of computer stations where people monitor various different sensors on the aircraft. What some people in-the-know really think is that the Poseidon was actually leading the charge, not following. The Global Hawk was there to record the destruction of American servicemen. They were going to use the American servicemen as bait to get into a war with Iran. And Iran turned the tables on them by taking out the Global Hawk and leaving the Poseidon alone.”

“The reason that Iran was able to identify that [the Poseidon] is because of the electronic countermeasures that they turn on in that aircraft, whereas the Global Hawk doesn’t have any. The Global Hawk was there, as I said, according to very good sources there, to record the destruction of the Poseidon, so that it could lead to war, and Iran turned the tables on them.

And Trump was actually very appreciative when he found out that the Iranians had spared the P-8, and that was one of the reasons why he was so concerned about casualties in Iran.”

28:35 “…Netanyahu is completely controlled by the Deep State. He’s a Kissinger protégé from way back. He’s basically coordinating: ‘this is what we’re going to do with Trump to try to turn him around….’ Israel is probably doing most of these false flag operations. The Mossad is the expert at… [Jeff Rense interrupts]. Israel trains most of the terrorist leaders that the US uses, from ISIS to al Qaeda… [Rense interrupts]. … They are best in the world at it.”

From: World Affairs Brief, June 28, 2019 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).

…the more we know about what happened during the drone shoot-down, the more it appears Iran was using considerable restraint in the face of significant US provocations. That had impressed Trump and was one of the reasons Trump’s advisors had to poison Trump’s mind anew against Iran. But the actual provocation by aircraft on Iran was even worse than reported.

Here are crucial aspects of the events that have not been reported in the mainstream news:

1. The Iranians gave multiple radio and telephone warnings directly to US military forces in the area that there were two US aircraft that were violating their airspace and to remove them. The US refused. Iran chose wisely, to only shoot down the unarmed drone.

2. The other aircraft was a P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft with a crew of 35, and it was between the Iranian missile batteries and the Global Hawk—in other words, closer to Iran and inside Iranian airspace [as was the Global Hawk – ed.].

3. The Iranians suspected that the P-8 aircraft, being manned, was there as bait to trigger a war and the drone merely to document the communications interchange and the shoot-down they were trying to provoke.

This is powerful evidence of US deceptive behavior that US Central Command never admitted to. Especially that they were warned from entering Iranian airspace before the shoot-down. Neither did the US admit earlier that there was a P-8 Poseidon close to the drone (but at different altitudes), and the US lied about both aircraft not violating Iranian airspace. The Iranians have proven that by recovering the drone wreckage in shallow parts of Iranian waters, a full 4 miles inside Iranian airspace.

I think the US wanted the Iranians to kill Americans in the P-8 in order to feel provoked into an armed conflict. Had the Iranians taken the bait and done so, Trump would have felt no compunction against ordering military counter-strikes.