Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 shot down. 295 dead including 27 Australians.; Malaysia Airlines plane en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur shot down by surface-to-air missile
Tweet Topic Started: 18 Jul 2014, 08:23 AM (15,163 Views)
Try to get your act together Mike - Figure out if you reckon there is any significant separatist movement in Donetsk or if it's just a covert operation by the Russian Military at least please? And then try to be consistent in pushing that line maybe? It was and apparently remains an active war zone - Donetsk civilians were killed in the conflict yesterday. I have not questioned the capability of sophisticated military forces to track such things Mike - So I'm not sure why you feel compelled to tell me about such capability. Is there any particular reason you feel to tell me they have such capability when I have not questioned that they do have such capability? Yep, Ukraine remains 'piggy in the middle' - The West wants it; Russia wants it.
And Ukrainians remain divided as to what they want - It would seem? :
The West needs a strategy to contain the world’s newest rogue state — Russia
THE DESTRUCTION of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine may not have been intended by Russia or the militants it has supported and armed. But their behavior since the downing of the plane has been a lesson in barbarity and morally contemptible statecraft. While its proxies, commanded by some of its own citizens, did their best to cover up the atrocity, the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied the obvious, employing a blatantly mendacious propaganda campaign.
The tactics prompted angry statements Monday from President Obama and European leaders. But more Western rhetoric is not what is needed now.
Late Monday, rebels who control the region where the plane was downed finally appeared to be taking steps toward cooperating with the Malaysian government and other international authorities. Nothing, however, can compensate for the militants’ behavior in the four days after a Russian-supplied anti-aircraft battery on their territory shot down the airliner. According to numerous reports, they prohibited international investigators from reaching the site, haphazardly loaded bodies onto train cars and looted the personal effects of victims.
In Moscow, Mr. Putin disappeared from view after making a statement assigning responsibility for the downing to the Ukrainian government on the absurd grounds that Kiev had dared to fight back against the infiltrators dispatched and armed by his own regime. Moscow’s propaganda apparatus then swung into action, producing a blizzard of fake evidence and bizarre conspiracy theories to deflect responsibility. At a Defense Ministry briefing Monday, journalists were presented with concocted data purporting to show that the Malaysian flight could have been shot down by a Ukrainian warplane — a lie that is the more bold because of the ease with which it can be disproved.
It’s worth underlining that this rogue-state behavior is being practiced not by an acknowledged pariah nation but by an accepted member of the Group of 20 that aspires to be treated by the West as an economic and strategic partner. It follows the first forcible invasion and annexation of European territory since 1945, as well as a months-long covert campaign in which Russian military operatives, mercenaries and heavy weapons have entered eastern Ukraine.
Both the United States and the European Union have been too tactical and too tolerant in responding to Russia’s new barbarism. On Monday, President Obama was still focused on “investigating exactly what happened” — even though the evidence of Russian responsibility is already abundant. He had nothing tangible to say about consequences. He and European leaders say their objective is a “cease-fire” in eastern Ukraine , though that would likely freeze in place the men and weapons Russia has sent there and make it virtually impossible for Kiev to regain control over the territory.
What’s needed is a broad strategy for putting a stop to Mr. Putin’s aggression and, where possible, rolling it back. That begins with sanctions designed to inflict damage on the Russian economy, such as the “sectoral” sanctions Mr. Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened months ago but never deployed. Military measures are also necessary, including rapidly supplying the Ukrainian army with the material it has requested. It’s time to treat Mr. Putin’s Russia as what it has become — a dangerous outlaw regime that needs to be contained.
Huh?
21 Jul 2014, 10:43 PM
Czechoslovakia isn't in Europe?
Next thing you know they will give Israel a stern frowning for murdering 4 children on a beach!
Wow, the White House has a PR flack on Australian Property Forum.
Certainly many bankers wish that were so.
They have the Slicer Dicer in Russia too??!!! Awesome.
Doesn't Putin know that you need to accuse a country of having weapons of mass destruction before you can invade it and kill half a million civilians? Amateur! And in the Ukraine's case, they probably actually do have them, since they were formerly part of the Soviet Union. What a dunce!
If I was a betting man, my money would be on a peaceful military junta bringing democracy at gunpoint to Georgia or Azerbaijan.
Czechoslovakia was not annexed was it.
Murdering children? Blame Hamas they are the ones firing thousands of missiles into Israeli cities with no effort to avoid civilians in fact they want to kill civilians.
If Hamas had spent just a fraction of the money spent building hundreds of tunnels into Israel on the local population the people in Gaza would live a much better life. Or perhaps the thousands of missiles they waste money on.
I wonder what Putin would do if say the Ukraine was firing thousands of Missiles into Russia or Moscow, I think it would end in some mushroom clouds over the Ukraine. Israel has the right to destroy Gaza until it ceases firing missiles into Israel, no other nation would tolerate this. Imagine if Japan fired missiles into Beijing, what would the Chinese response. Israel is very constrained, if they wanted to they could level the entire Gaza strip.
If Hamas choose peace, you only need to look at the Arab Israel's living inside Israel as an example of what can happen if both sides agree to live in peace. Why are the 2 million odd Muslims living as Israel citizens not up in arms over this Gaza war, why....Hamas fired first and rains missiles down on Israeli cities.
But that is another war for another thread and while it is terrible it does not have the international ramifications that the Ukraine does. This comment shows Putin's true character, to bad Biden is not the US president as he see Putin for what he is.
As the US and other western powers express outrage with Russia over the plane tragedy, The New Yorker has published comments from US vice president Joe Biden saying that Mr Putin is a man with "no soul".
According to the magazine, during a visit in 2011 Mr Biden said to the Russian leader: "I'm looking into your eyes and I don't think you have a soul."
Mr Putin reportedly looked back, smiled and said: "We understand one another."
This comment shows Putin's true character, to bad Biden is not the US president as he see Putin for what he is.
"As the US and other western powers express outrage with Russia over the plane tragedy, The New Yorker has published comments from US vice president Joe Biden saying that Mr Putin is a man with "no soul".
According to the magazine, during a visit in 2011 Mr Biden said to the Russian leader: "I'm looking into your eyes and I don't think you have a soul."
Mr Putin reportedly looked back, smiled and said: "We understand one another.""
If I'd been Putin and Biden had just told me in his politest most diplomatic manner that he reckoned I was a 'dislikeable person', it's just possible I might have told him in my politest most diplomatic manner to go eff himself too Mike?
Though yes, that little titbit just 'could' win a few more hearts and minds in America's bible belt I suppose? Not that too many of them would need winning I guess - Being already won.
So what's the real message there Mike? That there's some Yanks out there throwing pretty much every bit of (what would to them seem to be) muck, they can dream up at this one, or some such???
If I'd been Putin and Biden had just told me in his politest most diplomatic manner that he reckoned I was a 'dislikeable person', it's just possible I might have told him in my politest most diplomatic manner to go eff himself too Mike?
Though yes, that little titbit just 'could' win a few more hearts and minds in America's bible belt I suppose? Not that too many of them would need winning I guess - Being already won.
So what's the real message there Mike? That there's some Yanks out there throwing pretty much every bit of (what would to them seem to be) muck, they can dream up at this one, or some such???
No I think Biden is a man who calls things as he see's them. He certainly got Putin correct.
Putin will do almost anything to try and bring about the rebirth of the Soviet Union or something similar. All his actions to date point in this direction. As I have said, I understand perfectly why he wants this. It is understandable.
However to do this means many nations around Russia have to suffer and either through force or the threat of force bow to Russia's control. We are not talking about setting up bases or allowing troops to be stationed in a nation like the US does via mutual agreements, we are talking about annexation and conquest. Putin first it was Georgia in 2008, then Crimea now Eastern Ukraine.
How much should we allow Putin to take prior to the world standing up and saying no more. Maybe after the Eastern Ukraine joins Russia and he gobbles up the rest of Ukraine and makes claims on the Baltic states or Moldova.
At what point should he be stopped.
Since you an others are so Anti-Amercian, can you tell me the last time the US invaded an annexed land to be integrated into the United States. Even after Iraq which I agree was a strategic mistake, the US left as the democratically elected Government asked them too. The US will do the same in Afghanistan if so asked.
Do you think Putin will hand back the Crimea to Ukraine and withdraw it forces if asked to do so?
I'm not Anti-American Mike. But since you bring the topic up, are you anti-Russia/n ?
I am Anti-Putin. He is taking Russia down a dark and dangerous path. The question is how much of the world will he take with him until he is stopped.
Most of my family are Slavs, I also have family in Russia, luckily not near the Ukraine. I do not like Putin and neither do most Russians without the threat of be jailed or worse.
Dr Watson
22 Jul 2014, 03:23 PM
There was a time when people were asking the same question about Adolf Hitler.
Well what did Hitler do.
Re-occupied the Rhineland, it was still German land just demilitarised. Annexed Austria Annexed Sudetenland then the rest of Czechoslovakia Then finally Poland (Danzig)
Now most of these regions had German speaking peoples or were part of the German Empire prior to 1918. Germany did have some type of claim.
Sound familiar, Putin claims Crimea as it is Russian speaking, Claims Eastern Ukraine Russian speaking where does it end. God help us if the Chinese start claiming lands as they are Chinese speaking, that's half the planet.
The timing is almost the same as well. The USSR feel apart in 1989/90, its been about 23 years since then and now Putin is trying to annex lands to recreate it. Germany lost it lands in 1918 then went about annexing lands 1938 starting with Austria. 20 years later.
WASHINGTON -- Video of a rocket launcher, one surface-to-air missile missing, leaving the likely launch site. Imagery showing the firing. Calls claiming credit for the strike. Recordings said to reveal a cover-up at the crash site.
"A buildup of extraordinary circumstantial evidence ... it's powerful here," said Secretary of State John Kerry, a former prosecutor, and it holds Russian-supported rebels in eastern Ukraine responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, with the Kremlin complicit in the deaths of nearly 300 passengers and crew members.
"This is the moment of truth for Russia," said Kerry, leveling some of Washington's harshest criticism of Moscow since the crisis in Ukraine began.
"Russia is supporting these separatists. Russia is arming these separatists. Russia is training these separatists, and Russia has not yet done the things necessary in order to try to bring them under control," he said.
In a round of television interviews, Kerry cited a mix of U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence and social media reports that he said "obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists" for firing the missile that brought the plane down, killing nearly 300 passengers and crew.
"It's pretty clear that this is a system that was transferred from Russia into the hands of separatists," he said.
Video of an SA-11 launcher, with one of its missiles missing and leaving the likely launch site, has been authenticated, he said.
An Associated Press journalist saw a missile launcher in rebel-held territory close to the crash site just hours before the plane was brought down Thursday.
"There's a buildup of extraordinary circumstantial evidence," Kerry said. "We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing, and it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar. We also know from voice identification that the separatists were bragging about shooting it down afterward."
In one set of calls, said by Ukrainian security services to have been recorded shortly after the plane was hit, a prominent rebel commander, Igor Bezler, tells a Russian military intelligence officer that rebel forces shot down a plane.
Shortly before Kerry's television appearances, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, released a statement saying experts had authenticated the calls.
"Audio data provided to the press by the Ukrainian security service was evaluated by intelligence community analysts who confirmed these were authentic conversations between known separatist leaders, based on comparing the Ukraine-released internet audio to recordings of known separatists," the statement said.
A new set of recordings apparently made Friday also appears to implicate rebels in an attempted cover-up at the crash site.
In one exchange, a man identified as the leader of the rebel Vostok Battalion Alexander Khodakovsky states that two recording devices are being held by the head of intelligence of the insurgency's military commander. The commander is then heard to order the militiaman to ensure no outsiders, including an international observation team near the crash site at the reported time of the call, get hold of any material.
The man identified as Khodakovsky says he is pursuing inquiries about the black boxes under instructions from "our high-placed friends ... in Moscow."
In another conversation with a rebel representative at the crash site who reports finding an orange box marked as a satellite navigation box, Khodakovsky is purported to order that the object be hidden.
U.S. aviation safety experts say they are especially concerned the site will be "spoiled" if it cannot be quickly secured by investigators. Based on photographs, they say it is a very large debris field consistent with an in-flight explosion and the main evidence to be collected would be pieces of the missile.
Because the integrity of the plane and actions of the pilots are not an issue, the experts do not believe the flight recorders will yield much useful information.
U.S. and Ukrainian authorities have been at the forefront of accusations that the separatists, aided by Russia, are responsible, although other countries, including Australia and Britain have offered similar, if less definitive, assessments.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said in an unusual front-page piece in the Sunday Times that there is growing evidence that separatists backed by Russia shot down the aircraft.
"If President (Vladimir) Putin does not change his approach to Ukraine, then Europe and the West must fundamentally change our approach to Russia," Cameron wrote.
Putin and other Russian officials have blamed the government in Ukraine for creating the situation and atmosphere in which the plane was downed, but have yet to directly address the allegations that the separatists were responsible or were operating with technical assistance from Moscow.
In his interviews, Kerry accused Russia of "playing" a dual-track policy in Ukraine of saying one thing and doing another. That, he said, "is really threatening both the larger interests as well as that region and threatening Ukraine itself."
He lamented that the level of trust between Washington and Moscow is now at a low ebb, saying it "would be ridiculous at this point in time to be trusting" of what the Kremlin says.
Kerry also said the administration was hopeful that the incident would galvanize support in Europe for increasing sanctions on Russia over its overall actions in Ukraine.
"We hope this is a wake-up call for some countries in Europe that have been reluctant to move," Kerry said, noting that President Barack Obama had signed off on a new round of sanctions on Russia the day before the plane went down.
Kerry made his comments in appearances on five talk shows: CNN's "State of the Union," ''Fox News Sunday," CBS's "Face the Nation," NBC's "Meet the Press" and ABC's "This Week."
However to do this means many nations around Russia have to suffer and either through force or the threat of force bow to Russia's control. We are not talking about setting up bases or allowing troops to be stationed in a nation like the US does via mutual agreements, we are talking about annexation and conquest. Putin first it was Georgia in 2008, then Crimea now Eastern Ukraine.
The Russians were never going to let the US cut them off from the black sea fleet or Sevastopol. The US provoked this response from Russia, and the Ukrainian people get to pay for it.
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How much should we allow Putin to take prior to the world standing up and saying no more. Maybe after the Eastern Ukraine joins Russia and he gobbles up the rest of Ukraine and makes claims on the Baltic states or Moldova.
What is the upside of that? Other than a buffer zone between Russia and Europe? The only area of economic value are the gas fields in Ukraine, and the pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Europe. The only area of real strategic value is Sevastopol and overland access to the Black Sea fleet. WTF would Putin or Russia want with Moldova or Estonia? Belarus under Russian sovereignty would probably be an improvement.
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At what point should he be stopped.
That depends on which side you are on. The answer will always be a selfish one, not a rational one.
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Since you an others are so Anti-Amercian, can you tell me the last time the US invaded an annexed land to be integrated into the United States. Even after Iraq which I agree was a strategic mistake, the US left as the democratically elected Government asked them too.
No, Iraq still sells it's oil in US dollars, even after the withdrawal of the military, so economic integration into the petrodollar system is assured and it only cost 600K+ Iraqi lives. The US is an economic imperialist. With few exceptions, it invades other countries to make them economic vassals, not political vassals.
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The US will do the same in Afghanistan if so asked.
No, the US is in Afghanistan for the long haul. Afghanistan is one of those few exceptions to economic imperialism, it is a strategic base. From Afghanistan the US can launch operations against Iran,Pakistan, China and through Turkmenistan it can control the Caspian sea.
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Do you think Putin will hand back the Crimea to Ukraine and withdraw it forces if asked to do so?
Putin will never give control of the Black Sea to a puppet Ukrainian government controlled by Washington, and that is a weakness that the US is currently exploiting.
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