Malaysian Airlines MH317

[XabbaRus]

No surprises there then. But still who are these witnesses? Who was doing the wire taps. If you read the Guardian newspaper website, you would think that the Dutch investigation based a lot of their conclusion on Bellingcat and "open sourced" intelligence.

Why would Russia send a BUK system in with a Russian crew, risking detection, to shoot down an airliner and then run it back into Russia? That is the bit I don't get. That a BUK shot it down I don't dispute, that it was Russian crewed no I'm not convinced and I don't care what Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat writes.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Why would Russia send a BUK system in with a Russian crew, risking detection, to shoot down an airliner and then run it back into Russia? That is the bit I don't get. That a BUK shot it down I don't dispute, that it was Russian crewed no I'm not convinced and I don't care what Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat writes.

Someone correct me if I remember wrong, but I remember reading tweet from separatist leader celebrating shoot down of Ukrainian military transport (Antonov if I remember correctly). When it turned out that there was no military aircraft down, but an airliner that tweet was deleted.

[Skybird]

While some people may tend to focus on the moral justice argument and how great it is that the small, tiny Netherlands dare to confront big, powerful Russia, I think the Netherlands go for high risk here. Charging the four suspects, in absence, for murder, means they have to prove that the intentional and explicit decision was made and carried out to bring down this plane and intentionally, explicitly killing these people aboard. Because the intention to kill these now dead victims is what separates murder from any form of accident or misjudgement in whatever a sense (mistaking this wrong plane for a valid target: another plane). And I think it will be terribly hard to prove this intention. It already starts with the question for the motive. Cui bono? Ironcially, the answer to this question would be: the Ukraine. Neither the rebels nor Russia could have had an interest for the PR desaster this incident meant for them - but the Ukraine.

The likelihood is quite high that either they must give up these charges, letting the state attorney looking bad then, or that they must construct a fictional case to work beyond the impossibility to prove by evidence the intention that MH317 indeed was the target and was decided on to be shot down, and then again the Netherlands and the attorney would look bad.

So I wonder whether they maybe have bitten off more than they could chew here - just so to feel morally good themselves. And that the Russians will not cooperate in any way, can be taken for granted.

[Catfish]

^ oh i am sure the near-deaths of former russian spies in the Uk just happened by accident. Of course other people could have come in contact with those substances, but i guess this can be condoned as collateral damage.
Just like with the plane. Because shooting at something you cannot exactly be sure of, is "accepting errors". "Billigend in Kauf nehmen", i could not translate this properly.

I do not think that the shooting down of a civilian airliner was executed with willful intent, so it is not murder but rather homicide. I think the dead people of flight MH17 would not care much about pettifoggery though.

But how about shooting down the right plane, the Antonov, then? Was that a legitimate target, for Russia?
Russia is still intervening militarily, in the Ukraina.
"In December 2015, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russian military intelligence officers were operating in Ukraine, insisting though that they were not the same as regular troops. Currently, 7% of Ukraine's territory is under occupation."
I am not sure whether war is declared, so is the death of people in this interval of time murder, homicide or legitimate killing in a war?

B.t.w. Netherlands, Belgium or Russia - international law should always stand above brute force regardless of the nation's size. Should.

[Skybird]

Forgotten to take your pills today? Cool down. Breathe. Relax.

And then, with a calmer mind, be thankful for living in a law culture where guilt is not proven by just claiming it, but needs to be proven.

I may be a repetitive offender, but once again I say: understand what I actually have written, not what you think your third eye can identify between the lines.

And then answer the obvious questions. Who benefits from shooting down intentionally MH317. The rebels? Russia? The West? The Ukraine?

Is it reasonable to assume that this and right this plane was targetted and decided on to be shot down? Did somebody on the ground wish these people, and no other people, being dead? Considering the fallout? In what way would Russia or the rebels benfit from this? The global PR payd off badly for them. I fail to see any gainm for them

Its a war down there. Shots get fired, targets get identified, moves trigger counter-moves, people die. Often innocent one sget into the firing line. And mistake shappen. Like in casde of the jumbojet shot down by the Sowjets ov er Sachalin. Or the airliner shot dopwn over the strait of Hormuz by the US navy. Where these killings indeed murder? In my understanding of what defines "murder", the intention to indeed kill this and no other victim, the detemrination to form an according plan and carry it out, is the criterionn. In Germna law, until today this is the difference between "Mord" und "Totschlag" or "Unfall mjit Todesfolge". The firts ione is inetionally, dertah was planned to be broght upomn the victim, the other two cases are unplanned circumstances getting out of control for a mutlitude of different reasons possible: empotional arousal, drugs, accident, chain of unfortunate events, whatever.

If you want to sentence the four identified indiviuduals for"murder", you have to porove that5 they wanted to kill the peopole aboard MH317 - these people, and no toher ones.

And while think about how you could achieve that, do yourself a favour: leave mepotions out of it. Emotions and vague feeling of what is right anhd what is wrong, have no place at court proceedings. Its about bureaucratic formalization, and evidence - or absence of evidence. Talking by own repeated experience. Law, and courts, are not about "justice". I say again: its about a formalized bureaucratic procedure. Its often not satisfying, I agree. But the alternative indeed is: suspect found guilty by merely claiming the suspect guilty, that is enough Do you want that? Be careful with a too easy answer.


It probbaly was a fault, an error, an accident with the kind of consequenes accidents in wars tend to have: lethal ones. I have no clue what went wrong, but I tend to think that probably several things came together, especially in the chain of command. You can agree or disagree with the motives of both sides in this war. But the definition of murder still stands. As long as you cannot present evidence for the intention to get right this plane killed and nothing else as a target, this incident is as much a case of mass murder as was the shooting down of the airliner in the Strait of Hormuz, or the Sachalin incident.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Catfish

But how about shooting down the right plane, the Antonov, then? Was that a legitimate target, for Russia?
Russia is still intervening militarily, in the Ukraina.
"In December 2015, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russian military intelligence officers were operating in Ukraine, insisting though that they were not the same as regular troops. Currently, 7% of Ukraine's territory is under occupation."
I am not sure whether war is declared, so is the death of people in this interval of time murder, homicide or legitimate killing in a war?

B.t.w. Netherlands, Belgium or Russia - international law should always stand above brute force regardless of the nation's size. Should.

While Ukrainian official narrative is that it is at war with Russia, there is no formal declaration of war and near peace time relations (trade, travel, etc) are maintained. The narrative is there to mobilise the Ukrainian population away from the obvious systematic failures of Ukrainian leadership. Poroshenko tried to pull the wartime declaration through to get through the elections but failed.

I would also say that while there is a degree of foreighn (and not just Russian) intervention the war could be summarised as a civil war in Ukraine and has local roots.

As to who has shot down the airliner - my opinion is that it was the Kiev loyalists, but again that was due to operator error, much like the 00s shot down over the Black Sea.

[Skybird]

In the Eastern Ukraine, it is war for sure, no matter bureaucratic subtleties. Tanks blow uo, artillery strikes, villages get set ablazed, bombs get dropped, machine cannons fire, trenches are dug out, helicopter and fighters fly and fire, fighters die, civilians die - cant get any more war-like than this. - Heck, the Germans until the turnover from defence minister Jung to Guttenberg insisted that it was not a war what they had in Afghanistan. Formalities, and a tuning of the public's perception of reality.

Russia since the little green men has done what it can to confuse perception of its involvement and being able to FORMALLY deny any responsibility. That black ops and military operations in the grey twilight zone start with formally disconnecting the troops from their nation's and governments' responsibility, is not really the first time ever being heard of. It follows the scheme of bucaneers and privateers. It is clear who gives orders to the affected units and names.


Nebelkerzen.

[ikalugin]

My point is that while various Russian state and non state actors participated in various ways during the conflict it is still a civil war inside Ukraine caused by internal issues and mostly fought by Ukrainians.

A classical example of this would be the civil war in Spain where plenty of foreign powers participated but it is still called a civil war.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Skybird

While some people may tend to focus on the moral justice argument and how great it is that the small, tiny Netherlands dare to confront big, powerful Russia, I think the Netherlands go for high risk here. Charging the four suspects, in absence, for murder, means they have to prove that the intentional and explicit decision was made and carried out to bring down this plane and intentionally, explicitly killing these people aboard. Because the intention to kill these now dead victims is what separates murder from any form of accident or misjudgement in whatever a sense (mistaking this wrong plane for a valid target: another plane). And I think it will be terribly hard to prove this intention. It already starts with the question for the motive. Cui bono? Ironcially, the answer to this question would be: the Ukraine. Neither the rebels nor Russia could have had an interest for the PR desaster this incident meant for them - but the Ukraine.

The likelihood is quite high that either they must give up these charges, letting the state attorney looking bad then, or that they must construct a fictional case to work beyond the impossibility to prove by evidence the intention that MH317 indeed was the target and was decided on to be shot down, and then again the Netherlands and the attorney would look bad.

So I wonder whether they maybe have bitten off more than they could chew here - just so to feel morally good themselves. And that the Russians will not cooperate in any way, can be taken for granted.

My opinion is that they are already building a fictional political case. That said - the choice of those 4 persons is interesting, as they do not seem to expose Russian authorities.

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Why would Russia send a BUK system in with a Russian crew, risking detection, to shoot down an airliner and then run it back into Russia? That is the bit I don't get. That a BUK shot it down I don't dispute, that it was Russian crewed no I'm not convinced and I don't care what Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat writes.

But who says the MH17 was targeted on purpose?
It might have been an accident. The radar can't identify the plane, it can just tell 'something's there'. My guess is someone just got trigger happy.
That a passenger jet crashed, quickly spread, so I'd figure they quickly pulled the Buk out of the area again to cover the mishap up.

It was send their due to enemy jets appearing in the area, wasn't it?
I didn't follow the whole mess very much, but that's what I collected.

'Proof' looks different though.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

I found Yle's article about separatist messages. It is in Finnish and I'm at the moment too busy to translate it (sauna shift) but here it is: http://yle.fi/uutiset/3-7362851

P.S. Original claim was shoot down of Antonov An-26 transport aircraft

[XabbaRus]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

But who says the MH17 was targeted on purpose?
It might have been an accident. The radar can't identify the plane, it can just tell 'something's there'. My guess is someone just got trigger happy.
That a passenger jet crashed, quickly spread, so I'd figure they quickly pulled the Buk out of the area again to cover the mishap up.

It was send their due to enemy jets appearing in the area, wasn't it?
I didn't follow the whole mess very much, but that's what I collected.

'Proof' looks different though.

That was not what I meant. I don't think for one moment MH17 was targeted deliberately. What I'm saying is why would the Russians risk getting themselves conclusively caught supplying and operating such a system whether they hit an airliner or not? It's one thing to supply a system but so overtly? With a full crew too? They way the report reads however is that Russia supplied the system, they accidentally shot down the airliner then went home. If it hadn't been an airliner would they have gone home? Would the sensible thing have been to have left the SAM system in place and have the Russian crew change uniforms and ex filtrate quietly.

Given the height it was flying and direction I'm o the opinion they thought it was a Ukrainian air force transport. Also a lot has been made of the rebels being pushed back and losing ground to the Ukrainian government forces until the miraculous save by Russia. However most of that information seems to come back to bellingcat quoted in the media.

I would like to see the US radar evidence which they claim to have but haven't shown. I would also like to know who theses hundreds of witnesses they interviewed are. That aspect seems to have been lifted from bellingcat.

Just found this.


Just notice the comments and down-votes.
Looks like the RT-staff is doing double shifts...

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

Just found this.


Just notice the comments and down-votes.
Looks like the RT-staff is doing double shifts...

very well done video, I was impressed until 6:32 when it turned out one of their key piece of evidence of the location of the BUK was a photo which has been pretty much discredited as being a fake:

https://7mei.nl/2015/05/18/mh17-buk-...os-are-cheats/

The problem with the investigation is that it has been political from the beginning.

There are two suspects, Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine is part of the investigation, it has supplied the tapes, photos and witnesses. Why is a suspect part of the investigation? Is it not reasonable to assume Ukraine will conceal any evidence which could implicate it?

Russia and Ukraine both have BUKs. There was one held by the separatists, but Ukraine has 72. Where were they that day? no one knows, Ukraine has never said. Would it not be important to know where the UKR BUKs were located just to make sure it was not the UKR that fired the SAM?

Immediately after the shootdown, Kerry stated the U.S. had satellite images proving the SAM came from a Russian BUK. These images have never been released and as far as I can tell, the investigation team has not seen them either. Why? Do they even exist?

[Bilge_Rat]

again another problem with the video is that to get to the claimed launch site, the Volvo transporting the BUK has to go straight from Donetsk to Torez.

problem is, on that route in july 2014, there was a bridge that was TOO LOW for the Volvo to go under....duh:





http://kremlintroll.nl/?p=605