Malaysian Airlines MH317

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Since I do not give the Ukrainian "government" any more credibility than the politicians in Moscow or the mob bosses in Donezk and Luhansk, their declaration that they do not miss any missile is as trustworthy for me like Putin claiming something, anything. The lie is an opportunist by nature. What Kiew wants is the same what Georgia wanted in 2006: the West entering war with Russia.

That being said, the Ukrainian government isn't the one denying the OCSE access to the wreckage, in fact, if it's got any sense at all and if it does want the west engaging war with Russia then it will be as open and as transparent as possible in order to deny the Russians any ammunition to use against them.

So far the pro-Russian forces are not doing themselves any favours.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Yup, bickered under the carpet of history as with the Vincennes incident by politicos with 'brooms, milling about smartly'. [...]

"The U.S. government deeply regrets this incident"

This is all the US commented at that time when downing the airliner, so it seems it is not so hard to get away with such .... behaviour.

[mapuc]

There are things that I really do not understand fully and maybe I will never get chance to understand it.

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

That's like saying Japan was forced into attacking Pearl Harbor by US sanctions. Baloney. Contrary to whatever Putin may believe, Ukraine is a sovereign nation and can join any alliance it damn well pleases. Russia's reaction to that is their own fault. Putin bears full responsibility.

Oh you happy idealist, reality must be a harsh wakeup for you, eh?

Sovereign you are not by romantic claims about ideals for an ideal world were happy people dance around the campfire and do happy songs together while holding each other's hands.

Sovereign you are when you are strong enough to fill your claimed sovereignty with life, and can defend your sovereignty. When you depend on the good will of the other, stronger, to let you believe you are sovereign, then you are not sovereign. You are weak. Dependance and sovereignty are mutually exclusive.

Or like I said repeatedly before: you cannot be tolerant when being weak. You can only be tolerant from a position of strength, and deciding to not use yoiuzr strength to enforce your will on the other. Where you leave the other or follow his wishes while you could not change and stop him anyway - you are not tolerant, but weak, and thus: submissive.

Putin bears responsibility, you say. So what? Maybe we should ripple-talk it a hunbdred times per day: "Putin is repsonsible, Putin is responsible, Puztin is repsonsible". Feel better? So at least this is doing something positive at least for you. Claiming that Putin is responsible, makes you feel better. Fine, congrats. Enjoy the feeling as long as it lasts.

Snactions and Japan attack: well, there are quite some historians who see it right like yoiu said. And some of them say that Roosevelt indeed designed the sanctions so that they would leave no other way for Japan than to declare war - what he wanted, in oder to finally get his country into the war in Europe as well, an option the American people at the time before Pearl Harbour were totally opposing. Just one opinion in the debate amongst historians, yes - but it happens to be the one I share, because it makes more sense and explains more things, than the other theories. But Pearl Harbour is not the Ukraine, Putin is not the Japanese military leadership, and Russia is not the Third Reich. So lets end that argument there.

What you - and many other wellmeaning idelaistic people - need to learn, is sense for realism. Empires and big powers have interests, and geostrategic interests. Ignore them, no matter your motives, and you get yourself into conflict with these powers, inevitably. You may like it, or you may like it not - it doesn't matter. Russia has learnbed the lessons from the betrayal of American diplomacy twenty years ago, and they will not make those mistakes again. They have a geostrategic interest of not letting NATO any closer towards their borders, and it is naive to assume they would play the game to prevevent that move by rules that make sure they would lose it. This is not fair duel in the spirit of sportsmanship. The US has played as foul on other occasions, so don'T act as if you are now surprised by the Russians doing not any different. The US has sacriiceds whole people and coutnries and kicked them into desasters for its kind of "idelaisatic" visions which, translated into plain English, were not idealistic at all, but raw and unforgiving geostrategic powerpolitics - or the failure of these.

Ideals... Everybody talking about ideals when talking about politics, should get his mouth washed out with soap. And if it is a politicians talking about ideals, you know by defintion that he lies from all start on.

What it comes down to, is this: is the Ukraine - a state that in this form exists since just 20 years and has been a very unstable construction from all beginning on, a state totally corrupted by organised crime and so much in financial and economic misery that for decades it would not be able to contribute any positives to the EU or NATO but just will cost immense amounts of money of which most will go into rich oligarchs and criminals' pockets - is this Ukraine worth for the West to start a war with Russia? The answer is a loud and unmistaken NO.

We have much more dangerous and serious problems, really. Anmd we do not evcen digest Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegonvia, Romania, Bulgaria... The last thing we need is another impotent failed state demadnding to get paid by our taxpayers.

Let the Russians pay for it, or the Eastern parts of it. By that you give them far greater headaches, I promise you. The Ukraine, if it really needed to become an independent state, should have been founded as two states from all beginning on.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

That being said, the Ukrainian government isn't the one denying the OCSE access to the wreckage, in fact, if it's got any sense at all and if it does want the west engaging war with Russia then it will be as open and as transparent as possible in order to deny the Russians any ammunition to use against them.

Because they think it is in their interest. There were earlier opportunities when they gang in Kiev was not that much interested in "transparency" - when that was not in this interest.

I fear you have no argument there.

Trust nobody, Oberon. And that includes the Russians, the separatists, Kiev - and the Europeans and the Americans as well. TRUST NOBODY. It'S all politics.

"States have no friends. States have interests." -
Jack Kornblum, former US ambassador to Germany.


I could as well refer to Machiavelli, still one of the best political analysts ever. Not perfect and without occasional misjudgements- but still one of the best there ever have been. Because he was a realist who did not let politically correct thinking and emotions or ideals corrupt his observations and conclusions form them , and thus he was - before anything else - a precise observer.

[eddie]

Kevin Bishop, who is a news producer for the BBC, is at the crash site. He says the rebel soldiers are ordering them around, restricting where they can go. He also says the rebels are real suspicious of them, and are offering up their views on who brought the airplane down. One soldier told him, "See those dead bodies, your government did that! The Queen!"

Sounds like the rebels are on some cheap drugs over there,lol

[August]

Interesting article from leftist Slate of all places.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...tin_sowed.html

The End of the Russian Fairy Tale



The downing of the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane has exposed the chaos in Ukraine as a real war.

[mapuc]

Wondering what all this would lead to ?

Markus

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Because they think it is in their interest. There were earlier opportunities when they gang in Kiev was not that much interested in "transparency" - when that was not in this interest.

I fear you have no argument there.

Trust nobody, Oberon. And that includes the Russians, the separatists, Kiev - and the Europeans and the Americans as well. TRUST NOBODY. It'S all politics.

"States have no friends. States have interests." -
Jack Kornblum, former US ambassador to Germany.


I could as well refer to Machiavelli, still one of the best political analysts ever. Not perfect and without occasional misjudgements- but still one of the best there ever have been. Because he was a realist who did not let politically correct thinking and emotions or ideals corrupt his observations and conclusions form them , and thus he was - before anything else - a precise observer.

Well, that's the point I'm trying to make, and by denying the OCSE inspectors access to the wreckage the pro-Russian forces are destroying what tiny sympathy they may have been able to drum up in the west. It's really as if they are just handing the Ukrainian forces a cassus belli on a plate to pull out all the stops against them with western assistance.
Sure, in the short term it makes sense for them to cover up any evidence that they shot the aircraft down, but in the long term it will probably wind up have being easier for them to have just said "Yes, we did it, it was a mistake and the people involved have been punished, and if you like we can comply with a western investigation into the circumstances around it once a cease-fire has been reached with the Ukrainian government" which would then shift the attention back to the Ukrainian government who would be forced to halt military operations or be accused of trying to impede the investigation into the destruction of MH17.

It's all about spin, the manipulation of the situation to ones advantage, something that Russia is very good at, and western europe is no slouch at either.

I really must get around to reading 'The Prince', I do admire what I've heard of Machiavellis works and the reputation around it.

[Feuer Frei!]

http://theaviationist.com/2014/07/17...medium=twitter

[CCIP]

Personally, I'm amused that it's just now being revealed as a "real war" to some. It's been a "real war" since at least March.

More disturbingly, it's fitting more and more into the mold of a classic Cold War proxy conflict.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Well, that's the point I'm trying to make, and by denying the OCSE inspectors access to the wreckage the pro-Russian forces are destroying what tiny sympathy they may have been able to drum up in the west. It's really as if they are just handing the Ukrainian forces a cassus belli on a plate to pull out all the stops against them with western assistance.
Sure, in the short term it makes sense for them to cover up any evidence that they shot the aircraft down, but in the long term it will probably wind up have being easier for them to have just said "Yes, we did it, it was a mistake and the people involved have been punished, and if you like we can comply with a western investigation into the circumstances around it once a cease-fire has been reached with the Ukrainian government" which would then shift the attention back to the Ukrainian government who would be forced to halt military operations or be accused of trying to impede the investigation into the destruction of MH17.

It's all about spin, the manipulation of the situation to ones advantage, something that Russia is very good at, and western europe is no slouch at either.

I really must get around to reading 'The Prince', I do admire what I've heard of Machiavellis works and the reputation around it.

Better read the "Discorsi" first, its more general in scope. The Prince is best read second, imo. I welcome people reaidng Macchiavelli,m because the opinion on him is very misled. He did not favour underhanded or corrupted politics, he just tried to give precise, uncorrupted answers based on his observations what governing people techcially have to do in order to achieve this or that wanted effect. The moral dimension he generally does not judge. But it is the moral aspect he gets most criticism over. That is absurd. Machievelli was an empiric observer who tried to observe as objectively as he could. His conclusions do not say much about his moral judgements of things - but about how corrupt the mechanisms of powerpolitics by their very essence are. His writing should not scare us of the man - they should scare us about our celebrated ideas on what we call politics, and about ourselves: how easily we allow ourselves getting manipulated if.

On the rebels, and Russian/separatist media, people in the West should understand one thing: for the most, what the Russian say and print, is not meant for the Western audience or politicians, but the people in Russia. And the overwhelming majority of Russians is happy with the way Putin handles things in the Ukraine. Whether Westerners understand that, is not relevant. The confused acting by the rebels is in parts owing to this need to feed the wanted public opinion in Russia, in parts is result of the propaganda feeding back on the rebels themselves. That way you get reports about rebels showing reporters around and claiming that the shot-down was caused by the British.

Want to control the public opinion and media, like you want to control the elevated terrain.

And Putin - he knows he is Pariah by now in the West. He does not care, his political target audiences are not the Europeans or Americans, but his own people or the governments of the BRISC state, namely China. If the rubel runs slow, he can do like the Americans do like decades: print paper money. Buys him time beyond the end of his active career. That is the reason why he is increasing efforts to get the dollar dominance tumbling and falling. Sooner or later, he and China and Brazil will be successful with that.

[TarJak]

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-0...lution/5610108

UN Security Council resolution being considered to push for access to the crash site by international investigators. Don't see the rebels taking any notice.

[Jimbuna]

Agreed and playing devils advocate, why should the rebels take any notice from an organisation that doesn't even recognise them?

[Skybird]

The blackbox with 99% probability has been taken away already, and the rebels had plenty of time to search for evidence they do not want to see in Western hands. The main part of the game already is over.