MH17
 

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 crashed in eastern Ukraine yesterday. It appears that a missile took the plane out.

One woman in Australia has lost relatives in both recent Malaysian Airlines tragedies.

From a political standpoint, if it was the Russian separatists, I think it will destroy their movement. If it was the Ukrainians, there will be more political chaos...a very destabilizing event.

From a humanity standpoint...all of this upheaval, war, death...all started with a decision not to sign a trade agreement. A hurricane triggered by butterfly wings...

Not butterfly wings. This was triggered by Putin. The whole enchilada (not just MH17) was Putin's plan. CCCP is his goal.

295 innocent people died as a result of this political struggle. Yes, but it's a drop in the bucket when you count ALL the innocents killed in these struggles for power and treasure. :mad:

More than 20 million died for Putin's goal, back in the day. He'd view 295 as small change. As you say. It's obscene. I've listened to some of the survivors of the mid-20th century, heard them talk about how hungry they were when Stalin starved them out, how they saw unspeakable things.

Putin is getting up in our faces right now, willing us to do things we'd normally refuse. I don't pretend to assume what should be the right response, but - from an intimate knowledge of history - I know what's happening. Why do we always do this to ourselves?

It takes people's minds off their relationships problems.

It makes the under-endowed feel powerful, sure.

Now that Putin isn't henpecked anymore, he wants to impress the ladies.

Megalomaniac tyrants are so predictable.

In Russia, these are the good old days.

Same old same old.
And I do not mean that to be dismissive.
I mean that normal people of any race, colour, creed, religion, political viewpoint are just pawns.

Want to get some attention? Kill, maim, blow up nameless, faceless non-entities at work, travelling, on holiday, heading for a conference to try to save lives, going shopping etc etc etc. Silly little labrats.

If I had to lose a family member or loved one I'd rather it was due to neglect, human error, sheer fuck-uppery. At least then I'd know it was on someone's conscience, horribly regretted and their name would never be forgotton. Not by someone to whom the death was just a statistic in ramping up an atrocity.

Bush had no linguistic or cultural claim to Iraq and he killed and maimed far more people than Putin. To be fair, we gave it back although it could use a new paint job. Putin is an old school maniac but so far he's just a piker compared to ours.

If it was the Ukraine government, then it was done on purpose. The plane came out of the west, so they knew it wasn't coming from Russia. The rebels don't have any war planes, so they knew it wasn't them. I don't believe the Ukrainian government would intentionally shoot down a civilian plane. The rebels, on the other hand, would see a potential Ukrainian war plane coming from Ukraine and mistakenly shoot down a civilian plane.

That's my take

Putin...

I was reading Pravda yesterday...if you want to see a Russian perspective on things, it is a treat!

I almost wish that news were presented droll and boring as hell. "A plane crashed. This is why it crashed. This many people died. The sports team won. Good night."

Then there is this guy, who was not only supposed to be on MH17, but was also supposed to be on MH370.

I'd say he's got someone looking out for him...and/or he's going to die of something like tetanus.

If my husband hadn't had his breakdown rant and cancelled a trip to the UK, he would have been on that flight.

What a close shave, Ali!


Sent by thought transference

Holy crap Ali, are you serious? That's terrifying.

So, your plan backfired. Instead of getting rid of your husband by driving him insane, him trying to adjust caused you inadvertently save his life when you could have been a merry widow right now.

Bwahhahahaha!

Shit, Ali.
Too close for comfort.

Whoa!

shit...

Extreme and so called news services are again blaming Obama for this. Meanwhile other new services keep quoting Obama as if the US is relevant to this event.

If providing news, then we should be hearing what Presidents/Premiers of Netherlands, Malaysia, and Australia say every day. Instead, we hear almost nothing from these relevant countries. A list of relevant countries should include every EU nation. Are those leaders being ignorant or afraid of confronation? Are they saying anything? A country that lost less (Australia) sent a Foreign Ministrer to appeal to the UN Security Council. Why are the leaders of Netherlands and Malaysia not angerly speaking out every day? Or are they and our mainstream press is not reporting it?

Well at least David Cameron finally said something. As usual, only Merkel of Germany bothered to speak for the EU and push Putin at the start. Where are all these other leaders? Why are they not publically pressuring other nations such as Brazil, El Salvador, India, and Japan to also speak out? One would conclude from the news that Obama is the only national leader willing to fight for basic international protections and laws.

I was reading an article this morning, and it brought up an incident I had completely forgotten.

Back in 1988, the US accidentally shot down a civilian airliner in the Persian Gulf, killing about the same number of people. We weren't even at war then. We just screwed up and misread the radar. I remember it now, but had completely forgotten.

We're so good at pointing fingers.

Of course it was probably the separatists, and the missile was probably supplied by Russia. Of course.

But we supplied Syrian rebels with arms, including anti-tank missiles. They are probably even less trustworthy than the Crimean rebels are. What will our narrative be when those weapons are used on civilians or US troops?

I'm sure the arms manufacturers are pretty happy though, getting to test out all this equipment in the big Middle East sandbox.

MH17 should not concern us. We don't have a dog in that hunt. I think a lot of the reporting on it is a smoke screen to divert our attention from the border.

Hell, Sarge, it's the same people blaming Obama for MH17, or his response to it, that are vilifying him for the immigrant issue.

In today's superconnected world, everything affects us. History also shows that we regularly stick our noses in places where we really shouldn't have.

Netherlands.

Sad business.

If GW Bush were president of Malaysia, they would have already attacked the rebels.

Sad is the Dutch want to be sad about these murders. But do not want to do anything about why it occurred. Netherlands is the largest EU trader with Russia. So its population and government does not even want to call for economic sanctions. A further emboldened Putin, learning that EU leaders have no backbone, has apparently started shelling Ukrainian military units with artillery based in Russia. All part of a strategy to slow inch up the escalation.

Does not matter if that one report is true or not. We know Russia has been and Putin's strategy is to inch up pressure on Ukraine to eventually take more land or force Ukraine into a Russia political/trading sphere. Pressure has successfully caused the current Ukrainian government to resign. Putin's strategy was so successful that nobody in Europe is talking about returning Crimea to Ukraine. That would require backbone. Same missing backbone occurred during the Balkans.

Stay in perspective. No European nation can deploy even 2000 troops to an emergency military action. Even Pakistan has more military aircraft than any European nation. Why were coffins returned to Netherlands in a smaller propeller drive military aircraft? Why was the Australian plane carrying many more coffins a much larger jet transport? Apparently European nation did not have available military aircraft that Australian had no problem deploying.

Sad is that the US is doing more to stand up for Europe than the EU is.

It would appear that the warring factions involved in the area where the Air Algerie flight crashed are working together to handle the crash site.

Just give Putin time to take control.

Oh. There is no fracking gas to steal. Never mind.