Kammenos' final act, from Imia

Always one for the grand gesture, outgoing Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, decided to use the ministerial Huey helicopter _ which he mistakenly calls HU1 instead of UH-1 in his Tweet _ to fly over the Imia islets, site of a 1996 incident between Greece and Turkey that brought the to countries to the brink of war.

Turkey, which disputed the sovereignty of the uninhabited islets, managed to land, undetected, a contingent of special forces on one of them on the night of 27/28 January 1996. A Greek helicopter sent to investigate crashed _ the reason remains unknown or not divulged _ and the three naval aviators in it, Christodoulos Karathanasis, Panagiotis Vlahakos, and Ektoras Gialopsos, were killed. Further escalation was averted through US intervention.

Overflying the islets, Kammenos threw a wreath into the sea in memory of the three aviators. His passage at the...