Malaysian airlines plane shot down over Ukraine

[Anomalocaris]

The quote you have above emphasizes my point. Russia has recognized the rebel republics. Therefore, if you follow the Russian statement to the letter, the rebel republics are at fault.

However, it is implied that the Ukrainians must be at fault. This is because the rest of the world does not recognize the rebel republics.

It is a very shrewd statement.

That being said, if Ukraine or the rebel republics are responsible for the shootdown, why is the aircraft black box being shipped to Moscow?

If Putin's statement is completely correct, then Russia has no stake and no business with the black box.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/end-...d=24607538

Not that the blackbox would tell you much about a missile hitting the aircraft, but the politicking is rather bizarre.

Had Russia backed away from obtaining the black box, it would strengthen their position as being hands off with the rebels.

It appears to me that they are very much hands-on with the rebels.

It is perfectly understandable for the Pro-Russian separatists to want the black box examined by their sympathetic Russian overlords.

There is no point to denying it. In most ways Western protrayal of the Ukrainian crisis has largely been driven by the geopolitical objective of limiting and diminish Russian influence behind a facade of fictional ideological crusade for democracy, rather than any real accounting of historic and ethnic sensitivities, sympathies, alignments and concerns on the ground in different parts of Ukraine. Pro-Russian separatists are one-sidedly protrayed as illigitimate in much of the western world. If separatists did shot down the airliner, they have absolutely no reason to believe giving outside full access to information would not result in the outside world leveraging these information to build a more damning picture of then might neutrally be considered fair, in the same effort to further diminish the influence of Russia in Ukraine.

If Russia chooses to receive the blackboxes, they would have several options to shade accounts after reading the data:

1. If Russian missiles shot the plane down, they could doctor the data to remove evidence in support of this that might be on the box. But it seems unlikely the Russians actually did shoot the plane down.

2. If Ukrainian missiles shot the plane down, the Russians could use their command of the data to attempt to put out the most damning account first, thus gain an initial advantage in the diplomatic war of words.

3. If separatist missiles shot the plane down, the Russians could use their command of the data to attempt to preempt any western media firestorm of trumped up indignation by putting out a more sympathetic account first.