Malaysian airline MH-17 discussion thread

Ironedshirt

Interesting article by Gary kasparov.

http://time.com/3006917/garry-kasparov-malaysian-air-ukraine-crash-putin/

kig

What's that got to do with it? Surely the instigator, in this case Russia, is responsible for the weapons and men it supplies. Even if you take it that the war is legit (which it isn't), you don't arm people who are incompetent.

kig

The Gary Kasparov article is exactly what I was talking about, it's the spinelessness of our governments that are to blame, to worried about annoying Putin. Now we have bodies of our fellow eu citizens lying in an open field, in the hot sun, being looted, being shown no respect what so ever, yet we, the west, is still pussy-footing around Putin.

Egginacup

DamagedTrax wrote: »

as opposed to the hundreds that are pro western?

does having a different view set to you automatically make him a troll? pathetic.

I wouldn't even say they are pro-Western....just completely blinkered. If the New York Times were to print an article full of falsehoods and innuendo aimed at a "western" country like say France or Spain, these people would just get on the bandwagon and not even think to question it.

John Kerry has come out and said he has proof the Russians are responsible. Nevermind that he can't provide a shred of proof but it's enough to taint the investigation. Intelligence experts and investigators now know that if any evidence they uncover lead in diverging directions they will now most likely pause rather than make this evidence known. Revealing it will cause their careers to be over.

There are many in Washington who have had their careers wrecked for trying to expose the fabricated narrative.

Remarkably, Kerry's knowledge is strangely at odds with that of his boss, President Obama who stated that he didn't know what happened to MH17.
He said, “I think it’s too early for us to be able to guess what intentions those who might have launched the surface-to-air missile might have had… In terms of identifying specifically what individual or group of individuals, you know, personnel ordered the strike, how it came about—those are things that I think are going to be subject to additional information that we’re going to be gathering.”

Kerry is the same guy who published a 4-page report "proving" Assad used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. After Obama held back from ordering US bombing of Syria, Putin help convince Assad to decommission his stockpiles of chemical weaponry.
Kerry's farcical nerve-gas claims later turned out to be a complete and utter fabrication. He should have been fired.

But here he is again tarnishing the debate, spewing out lies and falsehoods. I don't know how many times people on here need to be lied to before they start doing some thinking for themselves but it would appear that hell will freeze over first.

And you get called a "putinbot" if you point that out.

loughside

loughside wrote: »

how can anybody give any support to this scum is beyond me - this is their latest act..

`Richard Galpin, BBC News, Kharkiv The head of the Dutch forensics team, police officer Jain Tuinder, says the train which arrived in Kharkiv today contains 200 bodies, significantly less than that claimed by the rebels.`


and `can`t count` isn`t much of an excuse.

Didn't they say there were 250 on the train? That is quite a difference.

Where are the rest of the bodies?

Muahahaha

aloyisious wrote: »

Given the interest that Russia should/must have had in current events in Ukraine (ditto Western Govts) I'd be surprised if they ALL didn't have coverage of various kinds (Tech and People) targetting Ukraine giving feedback in various forms, just for "in case" policy. If evidence is found of a missile (eg: parts) hitting the plane is found, it might only end up proving a BUK hit the plane, NOT who had the missile on the ground. That's where possible satellite and radar coverage data recorded of the Ukraine general area be useful when it comes to launch of a missile and what happened to the launch vehicle afterwards, where it moved to. I cant imagine the "guilty" party leaving a piece of hard evidence around on the ground for journalists to see, photo and report-on, once it came out that it was a civil airliner (with hundreds of civilian passengers of Non-Ukrainian and Russian nationalities murdered) that was destroyed by the missile.

Yeah I reckon it is highly unlikely that the US haven't had their satellites trained on the Ukrainian/Russian border for months now so they can inform the Kiev govt of Russian troop movements in Eastern Ukraine. I'm not sure how satellites work, if they take photos every 15 seconds or 15 minutes. If it's every 15 seconds then there's a chance that they actually have a picture of a missile in the air with a stream of smoke coming after it. At a minimum you'd expect they have pictures of the SAM unit and battery used to launch the weapons.

Weather or not the US would release such a picture is another thing. After all the propaganda war is won, the whole UN condemned Russia yesterday so it's not like we're in a battle to establish who done it, that part is pretty much accepted by all rational people at this stage so the US releasing pictures outlining their intelligence capabilities in the area probably serves no good purpose.

gandalf wrote: »

The more statements that come from Putin, the more obvious it is that the Western world needs to stand up to him and increase the severity of the sanctions against those who are keeping him in power. If they make supporting him become too expensive for his backers then he will find his support suddenly evaporate. We'll see how much of a "strong man" he is then.

I hate to bring Hitler into a debate but if the west does nothing of substance after this latest episode from Vlad then commentators are going to start to compare it to the appeasement of Hitler in the run up to WW2, a war many believe could have been avoided had European nations stood up to Hitler earlier.

kig wrote: »

The EU and USA should impose full sanctions on Russia, not this watered down version, and start supporting the Ukraine army with expertise men and weapons if necessary. This conflict wouldn't be happening if the EU and USA were so spineless when the first part of the Ukraine was stolen by Putin.

The latest reports suggest that the west is ready to impose sanctions on Putins closest allies, all of them billionaires. This could get interesting because the way to hurt a billionaire is to freeze his billions in foreign bank accounts. If they do that to Putins wealthy backers then Putin himself might soon be seen as a liability to them. The only problem is this is Putin you're dealing with here, a former head of the KGB. He probably has all their phones tapped and if one of them even makes a noise about his position as President then he'll have them locked up after a quick show trial.

Egginacup

Piliger wrote: »

I believe he is only considering cancelling the second of two. Not the first which they say is definitely going ahead.

So does that mean now that only half of France will cease to exist since their very existence hinged on the sale of both?

Egginacup

pablomakaveli wrote: »

You obviously don't understand the point of air defence. You protect the airspace you're operating under which involves engaging any hostile aircraft. That's why this plane was shot down.

They assumed it was hostile, failed to properly identify the aircraft and fired.

By that logic one could also hypothesize that the Ukrainian military fired on the airliner believing it was a Russian reconnaissance plane returning to Russia, couldn't one?

Elmer Blooker

Piliger wrote: »

Oh I don't know. The French have a long history of accommodating their invaders ..

Have they? History is not your strong point I've noticed.
About 1.7m French died (about 4.4% of the entire population) defending France from invaders in a war that began exactly 100 years ago.

Piliger

kig wrote: »

The EU and USA should impose full sanctions on Russia, not this watered down version, and start supporting the Ukraine army with expertise men and weapons if necessary. This conflict wouldn't be happening if the EU and USA were so spineless when the first part of the Ukraine was stolen by Putin.

And what will happen if Putin cuts all gas supplies to Europe. Have you got a contingency for that ?

Piliger

Egginacup wrote: »

And you get called a "putinbot" if you point that out.

That's what's called saving me the trouble.

pablomakaveli

Egginacup wrote: »

By that logic one could also hypothesize that the Ukrainian military fired on the airliner believing it was a Russian reconnaissance plane returning to Russia, couldn't one?

The Ukrainians had no air threat to worry about. Also with their own aircraft there would be more onus for them to identify the aircraft especially when it's coming from the West when they'd be expecting the enemy to fly from the east. And thirdly if it was a reconnaissance aircraft flying back it would have had to fly in from Russia. So presuming they could pick it up it flying back they would have had to pick it up flying in?

Your hypothetical situation doesn't really stand up.

Piliger

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

Have they? History is not your strong point I've noticed.
About 1.7m French died (about 4.4% of the entire population) defending France from invaders in a war that began exactly 100 years ago.

Well selective history is certainly your strong point

aloyisious

Piliger wrote: »

And what will happen if Putin cuts all gas supplies to Europe. Have you got a contingency for that ?

Not saying that history will repeat itself but one nation cutting off another nation's fuel supply has been seen as a Casus Belli in the past. There'd also be the fact Russia (and it's oligarchs) would suddenly have extra cash liquidity problems. extra to those in the already imposed sanctions, if they could NOT sell their goods to the usual customers. Last week there was speculation about Mid-East oil suppliers making up any possible shortfall.

Bob24

aloyisious wrote: »

Not saying that history will repeat itself but one nation cutting off another nation's fuel supply has been seen as a Casus Belli in the past. There'd also be the fact Russia (and it's oligarchs) would suddenly have extra cash liquidity problems. extra to those in the already imposed sanctions, if they could NOT sell their goods to the usual customers. Last week there was speculation about Mid-East oil suppliers making up any possible shortfall.

Also, I guess there is a big difference between cutting off gas supplies now (limited effect I guess) and in the middle of the winter. Which means if gaze is a concern now is the time to act and the more the EU waits the largest the impact would be.

Piliger

Bob24 wrote: »

Also, I guess there is a big difference between cutting off gas supplies now (limited effect I guess) and in the middle of the winter. Which means if gaze is a concern now is the time to act and the more the EU waits the largest the impact would be.

Why ? Do you think it would be turned back on in time for the winter ?

The wider point is that Putin doesn't give a sh1t about the Russian economy so the European countries need to take measured careful action and not push it too far. He is worth billions, and he has huge popularity. Cutting off gas would damage their economy but it is assuming a huge amount to think that he would care. He already has oil income to keep going. The Saudis don't supply the gas to the best of my knowledge.

Egginacup

Muahahaha wrote: »

I hate to bring Hitler into a debate but if the west does nothing of substance after this latest episode from Vlad then commentators are going to start to compare it to the appeasement of Hitler in the run up to WW2, a war many believe could have been avoided had European nations stood up to Hitler earlier.

I suppose the Russians are just a tad sensitive to western empires conisistently attacking them. The same Hitler that you mention was the cause of 20 million Russian deaths. Maybe prior to Hitler if the western empires didn't decide to gut Germany after world war 1 and facilitate the rise of a lunatic there would be a need to contain a megalomaniac. In fact, maybe if prior to all that Franz Ferdinand's driver knew where he was going in Sarajevo and didn't take a wrong turn only for Gavrillo Princip to kill the Archduke, none of the aforementioned would have happened.
In fact maybe if aunty queen Victoria wasn't such a cow to her nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm of the Prussian empire then maybe the Central powers might not have been alienated.

Complex business this guessing and conjecture.

tomwaterford

Egginacup wrote: »

I suppose the Russians are just a tad sensitive to western empires conisistently attacking them. The same Hitler that you mention was the cause of 20 million Russian deaths. Maybe prior to Hitler if the western empires didn't decide to gut Germany after world war 1 and facilitate the rise of a lunatic there would be a need to contain a megalomaniac. In fact, maybe if prior to all that Franz Ferdinand's driver knew where he was going in Sarajevo and didn't take a wrong turn only for Gavrillo Princip to kill the Archduke, none of the aforementioned would have happened.
In fact maybe if aunty queen Victoria wasn't such a cow to her nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm of the Prussian empire then maybe the Central powers might not have been alienated.

Complex business this guessing and conjecture.

what became of this plane??

Piliger

Egginacup wrote: »

I suppose the Russians are just a tad sensitive to western empires conisistently attacking them.

Comedy Central is back on the air.

RebelButtMunch

Piliger wrote: »

And what will happen if Putin cuts all gas supplies to Europe. Have you got a contingency for that ?

Already done in Ukrainehttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27862849

Bob24

Piliger wrote: »

Why ? Do you think it would be turned back on in time for the winter.

Well, I would assume combined with other EU sanctions stopping gas sales to Europe would hurt Russia pretty bad, and there would be inside pressure to turn it back on.

How log would it take I don't know, but what is for sure is than Europe could wait longer for something like this to happen if the conflict was to start in the middle of the summer rather than in the winter.

Anyway this is all theoretical and I doubt we'll be lacking of gaz anytime soon.

My name is URL

U.S. Finds No Direct Link to Russia in Downing of MH17

The United States has found no direct link between the Russian government and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last week, three senior intelligence officials said Tuesday.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-plane-crash/u-s-finds-no-direct-link-russia-downing-mh17-n162426

Even if Russia were in some way directly responsible, as far as the US are probably concerned; it's in nobodies best interest to know that.

gandalf

Piliger wrote: »

Comedy Central is back on the air.

Must be getting overtime

Egginacup

pablomakaveli wrote: »

The Ukrainians had no air threat to worry about. Also with their own aircraft there would be more onus for them to identify the aircraft especially when it's coming from the West when they'd be expecting the enemy to fly from the east. And thirdly if it was a reconnaissance aircraft flying back it would have had to fly in from Russia. So presuming they could pick it up it flying back they would have had to pick it up flying in?

Your hypothetical situation doesn't really stand up.

Well it's being bandied about by Western intelligence agencies.
I personally think it's impossible but I'm not an expert. Now there are those who stated, John Kerry in particular, that there is evidence of a 150 vehicle Russian convoy being spotted heading to the region. Again no evidence, just talk. Yet American Intelligence agencies have not uttered a word about this claim. No pictures, no proof, nothing. Just this guy's accusations.

What I would really love to know is why Putin's alleged guilt rests so much on conjecture and lies and why those who express doubt are so wrong in doing so.

Egginacup

pablomakaveli wrote: »

The Ukrainians had no air threat to worry about. Also with their own aircraft there would be more onus for them to identify the aircraft especially when it's coming from the West when they'd be expecting the enemy to fly from the east. And thirdly if it was a reconnaissance aircraft flying back it would have had to fly in from Russia. So presuming they could pick it up it flying back they would have had to pick it up flying in?

Your hypothetical situation doesn't really stand up.

Well, others on here have stated that The Ukraine is at "war" with Russia. They've stated, emphatically that a state of war exists between Russia and The Ukraine. If that is the case then The Ukrainians most certainly have an air threat to worry about.

pablomakaveli

Egginacup wrote: »

Well it's being bandied about by Western intelligence agencies.
I personally think it's impossible but I'm not an expert. Now there are those who stated, John Kerry in particular, that there is evidence of a 150 vehicle Russian convoy being spotted heading to the region. Again no evidence, just talk. Yet American Intelligence agencies have not uttered a word about this claim. No pictures, no proof, nothing. Just this guy's accusations.

What I would really love to know is why Putin's alleged guilt rests so much on conjecture and lies and why those who express doubt are so wrong in doing so.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/22/ukraine-sightings-missile-launcher-mh17

Egginacup wrote: »

Well, others on here have stated that The Ukraine is at "war" with Russia. They've stated, emphatically that a state of war exists between Russia and The Ukraine. If that is the case then The Ukrainians most certainly have an air threat to worry about.

Who? Most posters, barring Russian apologists, that i've seen on here haven't been claiming Russia and Ukraine are at war rather the actual situation which is the Ukraine fighting Russia backed seperatists.

Egginacup

tomwaterford wrote: »

what became of this plane??

At last, some critical thinking.

Well Tom, from what we can tell so far it's a smashed wreck with all on board dead at the scene of impact.

Other than that I don't know how the misfortunate aircraft met it's fate.
Nobody has released satellite data showing missile batteries in a position to attack the aircraft.
Nobody has released data showing missile trajectories or launches.
Nobody has released the conversations between the Kiev air traffic control tower and the flight crew.
Nobody has released anything that would definitively show how the airliner was downed.
I have zero other information. I've searched but I can't find any evidence. If you have some more facts I'd be only too happy to hear/read them.

What I do know is that accusations are being made without a smidgen of credibility.

Piliger

gandalf wrote: »

Must be getting overtime

It's repeats wall to wall ... as usual.

pablo128

Piliger wrote: »

It's repeats wall to wall ... as usual.

Yep. 'Nobody has released anything.' And if they do, 'it' won't believe them anyway.

Egginacup

My name is URL wrote: »

U.S. Finds No Direct Link to Russia in Downing of MH17

Even if Russia were in some way directly responsible, as far as the US are probably concerned; it's in nobodies best interest to know that.

NBC...no evidence? But I thought they had irrefutable proof.

One can just hear the telephone call now between Washington and Moscow.

Washington: OK, we all know the big game we're playing here. We tried to stitch you up in Georgia and Syria. You got the better of us there. We also know you have evidence that it wasn't rebels who shot down the MH17. It was us but who cares about a bunch of civilians. They're going to die at some stage anyway.

We got caught with our hand in the cookie jar....so let's talk.
Can you sell out the Novorrussians and allow us to save face. We'll pull support from Poroshenko for now and we'll restart this scrap in maybe 5 years.

Putin: What about German gold and your attempts at blocking a train link from Beijing to Berlin?

Washington: We'll hold off...again we'll try to sabotage it when you're really old but for now let's let bygones be bygones.

Putin: How are you going to explain this to your people?

Washington: Most of them believe in miracles, Santa Claus and whatever John Kerry says. They're not going to question if we say it was someone who it wasn't.

Putin: Billions for the World Cup?

Washington: Done!

Putin: I want Lithuania back..at least half of it.

Washington: We'll see what we can do.

Putin: I want Dick Cheney as an advisor too. All that money he squirelled away in Swtizerland and France he should at least show me a few tricks. Yes?

Washington: Done. Cheers Vlad.

Putin: Nasdrovia!