Malaysian airline MH-17 discussion thread

mickmackey1

gandalf wrote: »

I would be very surprised if that whole area was not under 24x7 surveillance.

No more so than Washington, thank goodness.

comongethappy

mickmackey1 wrote: »

No more so than Washington, thank goodness.

Most of their effort seems to go on spying on its citizens & allies..... I wouldnt be shocked if Intel from east Ukraine was sketchy.

Hopefully they will have something tangible.

Bob24

comongethappy wrote: »

While direct retalliation would be futile as well as an overstep, what we do know is that these "rebels" include many units of Spetsnaz & Russian secret service personnel either spirited over the border or brought up from Crimea.

There wouldn't be a rebellion where it not puppet master Putin calling the shots.

That's where sanctions should be strengthened.

Yeah absolutely direct retaliation is not really an option (against whom anyway).

But I a wondering whereas the current type of sanctions have done anything in terms of preventing weapons from ending up in the wrong hands.

mickmackey1

comongethappy wrote: »

Most of their effort seems to go on spying on its citizens & allies

Thought you meant Russia there for a second... :pac:

Son Of A Vidic

comongethappy wrote: »

Maybe she just did?

Nah, I reckon that will happen if she ends up working for Murdoch and his all encompassing media monolith.

miju

Rhys Essien wrote: »

Any old eejit cannot operate one of these launchers.They were trained up or there was specialist people working with them.
.

Being honest doesnt like a whole lot of buttons and they all look labelled also, I reckon I could have a pretty decent stab at it with no training.

Bob24

Rhys Essien wrote: »

Any old eejit cannot operate one of these launchers.They were trained up or there was specialist people working with them.

Here is a pic of inside the launcher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system#mediaviewer/File:Inside_of_a_Buk-SAM_(cropped).jpg

America are now trying to pinpoint the exact spot where the missile was launched from.It wouldnt suprise me if their military sattelites could even zoom into the launcher on the ground.

Definitely agreed there must have been some type of training and operational support from people who actually know this stuff.

But it was probably a quick overview and not enough to fully know what you're doing ... And certainly not something to give the operator the necessary judgement to know when not to shoot because things are not 100% clear and consequences could be huge.

Muahahaha

I Heart Internet wrote: »

As bad as all this is, I don't think anyone is suggesting (save a few Ukrainians who want to make it sound even worse than it is) that pro-Russian sepratists or the Russian Government WANTED to down a civilian plane.

It was, I would be 99.9% sure, a mistake/accident. A grave mistake, and one that would not have happened if Putin wasn't acting the eejit in Ukraine, but a mistake nonetheless.

The US made a similar mistake back in the day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

A mistake shouldn't be the basis for rash judgements or actions.

I reckon that's it in a nutshell. The Russian separatists had already shot down a Ukrainian cargo plane this week. It's unlikely they were ever going to be allowed to shoot planes out of the sky without first having approval from Moscow. Putin would love to see civil war erupt so he can grab himself a good slice of Eastern Ukraine and extend Russia's borders further. One way of doing it was to shoot down enough of their planes to demand a military response and then the game is on as far as Putin is concerned.

It's a huge tragedy for the almost 300 dead and their families. It disgusts me even more than a megalomaniac like Putin can just play with people's lives like this and dish out military grade hardware to a bunch of militiamen with no discipline or restraint.

The US and the EU seriously need to re-assess their policy to Russia in light of this. Putins behaviour stretches from killing journalists to invading sovereign nations to now downing a passenger jet, not to mention the jailing of his enemies and anyone who promotes 'the gay lifestyle'. He is out of control at this stage.

comongethappy

Bob24 wrote: »

But I a wondering whereas the current type of sanctions have done anything in terms of preventing weapons from ending up in the wrong hands.

Well no.... But they can't anyway.

The bulk of the rebel's arms were seized or surrendered by Ukrainian forces when they pulled back or defected.

There is no sanction that could have stopped that..... especially retrospectively.

However Putin is one of the wealthiest men in Europe.
Hitting the money will hurt him& his buddies eventually.

ceadaoin.

Obama just confirmed at least one american was on board and named him. Also that the missile was launched from an area controlled by Russian backed separatists who receive a 'steady stream' of weapons from Russia.

darkpagandeath

Rhys Essien wrote: »

Any old eejit cannot operate one of these launchers.They were trained up or there was specialist people working with them.

Here is a pic of inside the launcher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system#mediaviewer/File:Inside_of_a_Buk-SAM_(cropped).jpg

America are now trying to pinpoint the exact spot where the missile was launched from.It wouldnt suprise me if their military sattelites could even zoom into the launcher on the ground.

This is correct, People are thinking these weapons are old and therefore easy to operated. TBH the stuff that has actually changed from that era is, The computerised equipment e.g modern touch screens modern interface. The underlying hardware radar identification is pretty much the same now. Many will not have a visual camera to identify distant targets. Most identification is done via radar signature, airspeed, flight path, direction, altitude. I think a lot of people get confused seeing planes dropping bombs on the news. That's usually a UAV relaying IR camera pictures. On this kind of vehicle you would not have a crosshair and a camera zoomed into what you are aiming at. Its all done via a radar image. A competent operator in this situation could miss identify this target, and if they were told an enemy plane was in the area that's all they would be expecting.

Xios

This is a look at some of the people on the ground and how it (the conflict) affects them.

**WARNING, Unsettling imagery**

The reason i put this link up, is to give an idea of what kind of situation has led up to this tragedy.

Angry_Mammarys

Just been confirmed there was an Irish victim.
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/mh17-irish-victim-of-plane-crash-was-relation-of-td-willie-penrose-30441184.html

BlaasForRafa

Xios wrote: »

The reason i put this link up, is to give an idea of what kind of situation has led up to this tragedy.

The situation that led up to this is Russia stealing territory from a neighbouring country and then stirring up unrest in that neighbouring country and arming, instigating and training rebels to incite a civil war to use as a pretext to invade eastern Ukraine.

Unfortunately for comrade Putin, his henchmen in Ukraine shot down an international civilian airliner.

fedor.2.

That video was hard to watch. I feel bad that the Garth brooks debacle was our top news story for so long. I feel lucky to live in Ireland and to have a life that has never been touched by war.

Xios

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

The situation that led up to this is Russia stealing territory from a neighbouring country and then stirring up unrest in that neighbouring country and arming, instigating and training rebels to incite a civil war to use as a pretext to invade eastern Ukraine.

Unfortunately for comrade Putin, his henchmen in Ukraine shot down an international civilian airliner.

It's more complicated than that, but yes, Russian influence is a factor and Putin shares a fair sizeable portion of the responsibility. But blame also falls on the poor handling of the military campaign by the Ukrainian Army and mostly with the seperatists who fired the missle.

Thoie

Dublin woman among victims of Malaysian plane disaster:
http://breakingnews.ie/ireland/dublin-woman-among-victims-of-malaysian-plane-disaster-636773.html

smurfjed

However Putin is one of the wealthiest men in Europe.
Hitting the money will hurt him& his buddies eventually.

Cut off his money and he cuts off the gas supply, do you know what impact that is going to have for a lot of European countries?

loughside

there are some things a normal person just can`t make up...

this is the latest disgusting gem from Igor Girkin, the Russian intelligence service officer, who wrote on his official Vkontakte soon after the tragedy...

`According to Girkin, the plane’s passengers were already dead when the plane went down.

“I just talked to two people who were gathering corpses, both from Shakhtarsk (the city where the plane crashed) so they came to the spot only 30 minutes after the tragedy. I am writing from their words. They said many corpses were totally bloodless and looked like blood had clotted long before the catastrophe,” the leader of Russian backed insurgents wrote.`

full text here http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/kremlin-backed-insurgents-now-claim-malaysia-airlines-plane-was-carrying-corpses-356780.html

comongethappy

smurfjed wrote: »

Cut off his money and he cuts off the gas supply, do you know what impact that is going to have for a lot of European countries?

70% of the Russian nations income is energy.

And It ONLY flows to Europe in any serious quantities....(if we don't buy it... no one can)

Cut that & Russia has the cash reserves to last a couple of weeks before total economic collapse.

Europe can bring him to heel, if they have the grapes to do so..... And a warm summer with a couple of months gas in reserve is just the time to do it.

ceadaoin.

[

loughside wrote: »

there are some things a normal person just can`t make up...

this is the latest disgusting gem from Igor Girkin, the Russian intelligence service officer, who wrote on his official Vkontakte soon after the tragedy...

`According to Girkin, the plane’s passengers were already dead when the plane went down.

“I just talked to two people who were gathering corpses, both from Shakhtarsk (the city where the plane crashed) so they came to the spot only 30 minutes after the tragedy. I am writing from their words. They said many corpses were totally bloodless and looked like blood had clotted long before the catastrophe,” the leader of Russian backed insurgents wrote.`

full text here http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/kremlin-backed-insurgents-now-claim-malaysia-airlines-plane-was-carrying-corpses-356780.html

I've already seen the theory that this crash was staged using the missing plane. A quote like this will just give those types more evidence that this is the case unfortunately.

Tarzana

Gawd, stuff like this hits home when the victims are not just nameless statistics anymore. Up until then, it can be hard to fathom somehow, like you can pretend it's not so awful because you haven't heard a name or seen a face.

Little CuChulainn

loughside wrote: »

there are some things a normal person just can`t make up...

this is the latest disgusting gem from Igor Girkin, the Russian intelligence service officer, who wrote on his official Vkontakte soon after the tragedy...

`According to Girkin, the plane’s passengers were already dead when the plane went down.

“I just talked to two people who were gathering corpses, both from Shakhtarsk (the city where the plane crashed) so they came to the spot only 30 minutes after the tragedy. I am writing from their words. They said many corpses were totally bloodless and looked like blood had clotted long before the catastrophe,” the leader of Russian backed insurgents wrote.`

full text here http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/kremlin-backed-insurgents-now-claim-malaysia-airlines-plane-was-carrying-corpses-356780.html

Thank god the first people on the scene were forensic pathologists.

My name is URL

comongethappy wrote: »

70% of the Russian nations income is energy.

And It ONLY flows to Europe in any serious quantities....(if we don't buy it... no one can)

Cut that & Russia has the cash reserves to last a couple of weeks before total economic collapse.

Europe can bring him to heel, if they have the grapes to do so..... And a warm summer with a couple of months gas in reserve is just the time to do it.

Do you have a link to somewhere that says how much each country has in gas reserves? Britain was down to 6 hours of reserves at some stage last year!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6829d914-c39c-11e2-8c30-00144feab7de.html

Imagine the price increase if that was to happen too. The public wouldn't stand for such a rise in costs just to stick one to Putin. It went up 7.2% just on the back of what happened yesterday!

SpaceTime

The problem is that other than France, most of Europe uses a huge amount of gas to produce electricity.

There would be total chaos ,particularly further east (including Germany) if the lights went out.

P_1

The only to cause any serious pain to Putin is for Europe to rip up the gas contracts. Unfortunately by doing that it will cause the normal people of both Europe and Russia greater pain. You have to ask the question of it being worth it.

iguana

Angry_Mammarys wrote: »

Just been confirmed there was an Irish victim.
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/mh17-irish-victim-of-plane-crash-was-relation-of-td-willie-penrose-30441184.html

Just reading through that. The one that has hit me worst was the 3 young siblings travelling with home from a holiday with their grandfather. Can't quite imagine the horror their parents are dealing with.

smurfjed

I was actually surprised by these figures. Do you think that Europe will have the guts to go powerless and cold ?

My name is URL

P_1 wrote: »

The only to cause any serious pain to Putin is for Europe to rip up the gas contracts. Unfortunately by doing that it will cause the normal people of both Europe and Russia greater pain. You have to ask the question of it being worth it.

Trillions of dollars belonging to Russian oligarchs and businessmen pass through European banks every year. Those assets can be frozen at any time.

That seems like a better idea than not buying their gas, but would probably amount to Russia cutting off the gas in return.

Little CuChulainn

If they boycott gas from Russia does that mean our famous Shell facility will be in big demand?