Malaysian airlines plane shot down over Ukraine

[The Grand Nudger]

It is, but we live in a shitty world. If we didn't, there wouldn't be any "generals" to worry about their careers in the first place. Officers have to make snap judgements with limited information that sometimes leads to hellish consequences. Had he not acted, in the face of an actual threat (theorizing an incursion), there would still be people calling bullshit on his decision - possibly for the very same reasons. Rock and a hard place.

[LostLocke]

Would that be the same Malaysian plane which disappeared on route to Beijing about 4 month ago and hasn't been heard from since?



Sorry for the bad taste in attempted humor.

Don't be sorry.
I thought of that, and then started imagining different 'scenarios'.

Like maybe, instead of being shot down, the plane landed in Ukraine, but every one on is 10 years older because from their perspective they had been flying for that long....

Does anyone have JJ Abrams number and/or can channel Rod Serling?

[StealthySkeptic]

It is, but we live in a shitty world. If we didn't, there wouldn't be any "generals" to worry about their careers in the first place. Officers have to make snap judgements with limited information that sometimes leads to hellish consequences. Had he not acted, in the face of an actual threat (theorizing an incursion), there would still be people calling bullshit on his decision - possibly for the very same reasons. Rock and a hard place.

That makes a bizarre sort of sense from his point of view I suppose. Doesn't justify the stupidity or increase my faith in the human race though.

[The Grand Nudger]

Nope, sure doesn't. People can make "bad decisions" - more accurately, decisions with negative consequences, for all the right reasons. In the case of military personnel, the gap between our ideals of a perfect or better world and the reality of the world we live in are often very easy to spot. He did what he was trained to do, what he had an obligation to do, and ultimately, what he felt he must do. It aint the player, it's the game.

This is just my opinion, and it's only marginally related, but the mark of an officer is decisiveness in the face of uncertainty.

[ignoramus]

The connection between the 2 planes may not be as silly as it sounds.
Most of us by now would have heard of the Diego Garcia theory for the first plane.
This new one would now be be the second one to have been blown out of the sky.

Poor buggers.

[Autumnlicious]

They know who fired it. They have tapes of conversation between the separatist and russian military command where they told them they fucked it, it was a airline.

Who's they?

Ukrainian intelligence has released tapes and now the video of separatists driving around antiaircraft system which is already missing two of its missiles.

(They have a rather good track record at showing Russian interference. It was Ukrainian intelligence agency that showed the tapes of Russians giving orders from Moscow to the rebels and advising them – disproving Putin's claim that they were completely autonomous and self-motivated.)

Anyways, here is the purported evidence:

http://youtu.be/L4HJmev5xg0

http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/17...pted-calls

The separatist earlier on social networks had been bragging about shooting down an aircraft the same day the civilian airliner was shot down. Then quickly scrambled to delete the photos and posts:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2...plane.html

http://csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0...MH17-video

http://news.yahoo.com/rebel-suggests-ins...50060.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-18/wh...ov/5607872


Russia has only blamed Kiev for "inflaming tensions" of the area. They have not directly said that Ukrainians have specifically shot down the aircraft. They are choosing their words very carefully.



This is the same government that claimed it was not going to invade Crimea then subsequently did.

This is the same country that immediately had massively flawed election to solidify their power. Who in their right mind would actually trust the Russians on this?

I was wondering why Abbot called up Putin to scream at him immediately:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/crash-cla...z37mkAFtTn

Oh yeah, that would do it. Losing 100 aids researchers and authorities in the world would be a considerable blow.

[Napoléon]

Russia has only blamed Kiev for "inflaming tensions" of the area. They have not directly said that Ukrainians have specifically shot down the aircraft. They are choosing their words very carefully.

I dunno, seems pretty clear cut to me:

http://time.com/3003520/malaysia-airline...ash-putin/

"The government over whose territory it occurred is responsible for this terrible tragedy," he says

I know what you mean though, they haven't specifically said that they shot down the aircraft. They're blaming the crash on the fact that there is war going on.

[Autumnlicious]

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.

[LastPoet]

Shit, to paraphrase Carl Sagan:

Think of all those emperors and generals that in vain glory, claim possession, of a fraction of a dot...

[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.