Malaysia Airlines taken down again!

[DeepState]

Only in the last week the Euro zone had gone cold in supporting US sanctions against Russia.

So i ask a big question, "who really could have been behind this shocking event"?

Are you saying....it can't be...surely not....is it the same group that brought down the WTC so many years ago? Starting with C?

 

[Smurf1976]

This is the sort of event that, since it involves innocent civilians and has provoked widespread outrage, could end up starting a much bigger war if it gets out of hand.

I'm no expert on military history, but I've been told more than once that if you look into the history of wars generally, then some of them did start over relatively trivial incidents far smaller than this one.

I really don't like the overall direction this is heading in. Not at all.

 

[Julia]

It's a standard flight corridor. Ukraine had closed it below 32,000ft (FL320) but above it was business as usual. ICAO and IATA both said it was safe at high altitude, but some airlines had opted to avoid the area. Behind the Malaysian flight, there were Singapore and Qatar Airlines flights. All through the war in Afghanistan, the standard routing for Qantas flights enroute to/from Singapore/Bangkok to Europe went straight over Afghanistan.

Analysis on this point by aviation expert.
ABCTV Special this evening made the same points.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4049270.htm

With the terrible loss of almost 300 people onboard flight MH-17, serious questions are being asked about management's decision to fly over Ukrainian airspace.

Senior aviation commentator Ben Sandilands says the majority Malaysian government-owned company is facing a massive challenge.

BEN SANDILANDS: Well the first thing that they will have to deal with is the fact that they were flying over a warzone and commonsense and modern warfare technology says you don't do that. That comes back to the management of Malaysian Airlines as to why they were there.

 

[DeepState]

This is the sort of event that, since it involves innocent civilians and has provoked widespread outrage, could end up starting a much bigger war if it gets out of hand.

I'm no expert on military history, but I've been told more than once that if you look into the history of wars generally, then some of them did start over relatively trivial incidents far smaller than this one.

I really don't like the overall direction this is heading in. Not at all.

What you say is true when there is tension just looking for an excuse to release itself. WW1, sleepwalked into a catastrophe with something fairly irrelevant because it offered context. Other types of wars are identity/ethnicity/religion related, and they are pretty much the worst kinds. They are hard to stop and go all out. This is what the Correlates of War shows.

Something that I look at on matters of this type is that it has to get very personal to enter wars where you are not a neighbor. The effort is (more) massive. World Trade Centre and efforts to assassinate Bush I were strong contexts to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. The effort to fabricate a reason to invade Iraq was astounding...well, not really. The important thing here is that the US was insulted and they had the means to punch back...and did.

In this case, the country with the most losses was Netherlands. Second was Malaysia. Third was Australia.

Netherlands is actually far away to undertake a military offensive. Projection at distance is actually amazingly difficult. It is not part of NATO and cannot call an Article 5 violation. Netherlands is not going to attack Russian or its agents in Eastern Ukraine.

Malaysia hardly has any effective military assets. It could not launch anything that looks like an effective offensive maneuver. It is not a strong ally of the US and cannot transmit the anger to them so as to ask them to spill blood on their behalf.

In this case, taking everything you have said as solid, I don't believe this will escalate beyond more indignation. There is no appetite for war. The most aggrieved have limited ability to counterpunch militarily. They have even less ability to call on allies to magnify their force.

If they had hit a plane loaded full of nationals from Nato alliance countries instead, this assessment would be very different.

 

[Calliope]

This is the sort of event that, since it involves innocent civilians and has provoked widespread outrage, could end up starting a much bigger war if it gets out of hand.

I'm no expert on military history, but I've been told more than once that if you look into the history of wars generally, then some of them did start over relatively trivial incidents far smaller than this one.

I really don't like the overall direction this is heading in. Not at all.

Nonsense. There will be no war over this. There is no appetite for war in Europe. The infiltration of Islamism is a bigger threat than Russian imperialism, but European countries don't even have the backbone to stand up against this. Vladimir Putin has a free hand to do whatever he likes. He knows that NATO is a cream puff.

 

[wayneL]

Nonsense. There will be no war over this. There is no appetite for war in Europe. The infiltration of Islamism is a bigger threat than Russian imperialism, but European countries don't even have the backbone to stand up against this. Vladimir Putin has a free hand to do whatever he likes. He knows that NATO is a cream puff.

Perhaps a nuclear armed ICBM topped with cream

 

[McLovin]

Analysis on this point by aviation expert.
ABCTV Special this evening made the same points.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4049270.htm

That's just common sense after the fact. I'm sure there will be plenty of "experts" saying the same sort of thing in the next few weeks. The fact is though that this route was considered safe by ICAO. The only warning that had been issued by the FAA and ICAO was to do with multiple countries offering air traffic control services over the same piece of airspace over Crimea.

Netherlands is actually far away to undertake a military offensive. Projection at distance is actually amazingly difficult. It is not part of NATO and cannot call an Article 5 violation. Netherlands is not going to attack Russian or its agents in Eastern Ukraine.

When did they drop out of NATO? I think war is a very remote possibility. It was an accident, and one that the Russians would have very much not wanted. It gives the West some moral authority to interfere in what Russia sees as a regional dispute in its sphere of influence. I agree with you about the projection of power, the only country that can do it these days is the US.

 

[Boggo]

...The fact is though that this route was considered safe by ICAO. The only warning that had been issued by the FAA and ICAO was to do with multiple countries offering air traffic control services over the same piece of airspace over Crimea.

I think you may misunderstand the role of ICAO in situations such as war zones etc.
A NOTAM had been issued regarding the risks associated with using this airspace.

 

[McLovin]

I think you may misunderstand the role of ICAO in situations such as war zones etc.
A NOTAM had been issued regarding the risks associated with using this airspace.

The NOTAM was issued for the area over Crimea and was related to multiple parties offering ATC services.

That was the same warning the FAA gave for the same area.

 

[McLovin]

Here's an interesting chart of who and wasn't flying over the Ukraine...

 

[DeepState]

When did they drop out of NATO?

At approximately 4am Friday during a REM sleep cycle.

D'oh.

 

[SirRumpole]

Nonsense. There will be no war over this. There is no appetite for war in Europe. The infiltration of Islamism is a bigger threat than Russian imperialism, but European countries don't even have the backbone to stand up against this. Vladimir Putin has a free hand to do whatever he likes. He knows that NATO is a cream puff.

There were virtually no recriminations when a Korean 747 was shot down by a Soviet fighter. There will be a lot of words but it won't go anywhere. If it was a US airline, or there were US passengers, things may be different.

 

[DB008]

There are no facts,, yet.

Did not stop Abbott's conclusion though.

What about the intercepted phone calls where a Russian rebel calls a Russian intel person confirming they had shot a plane down?

 

[Calliope]

It was an accident, and one that the Russians would have very much not wanted. .

It was no accident. It was done in a deliberate act of terrorism against their own country, they just hit the wrong target. Of course Russia woud have preferred it to have been a Ukraine plane that they destroyed. Russia supplies terrorists with arms but claims no responsibility for how they use them.

It's a bit like giving your kid an air rifle and he shot the neighbour's dog, and you saying "it was an accident...he meant to shoot our dog".

 

[McLovin]

It was no accident. It was done in a deliberate act of terrorism against their own country, they just hit the wrong target. Of course Russia woud have preferred it to have been a Ukraine plane that they destroyed. Russia supplies terrorists with arms but claims no responsibility for how they use them.

It's a bit like giving your kid an air rifle and he shot the neighbour's dog, and you saying "it was an accident...he meant to shoot our dog".

Whatever you want to call their motives, it was accident.

 

[Calliope]

Whatever you want to call their motives, it was accident.

Pull the other leg. It was deliberate. If some terrorist can "accidently" pull the trigger on a Russian BUK missile system, then God help us if Russia ever gives them nuclear warheads for their missile systems.

It is strange how apologists for the perpetrators always claim collateral damage is accidental.

 

[McLovin]

Pull the other leg. It was deliberate. If some terrorist can "accidently" pull the trigger on a Russian BUK missile system, then God help us if Russia ever gives them nuclear warheads for their missile systems.

It is strange how apologists for the perpetrators always claim collateral damage is accidental.

Ahh...off you go sticking a label on anyone who disagrees with you. I was wondering how long that would take.

It's funny how simpletons see the world as black and white.

 

[Calliope]

Ahh...off you go sticking a label on anyone who disagrees with you. I was wondering how long that would take.

It's funny how simpletons see the world as black and white.

Obviously you can't justify your argument, so you resort to sticking a label of simpleton on me. All I asked was for you to explain how a guy could accidently pull a trigger on a BUK guided missile system and accidently hit a plane flying above 30000 feet. Obviously you can't, so you resort to playing the man.

 

[McLovin]

Obviously you can't justify your argument, so you resort to sticking a label of simpleton on me. All I asked was for you to explain how a guy could accidently pull a trigger on a BUK guided missile system and accidently hit a plane flying above 30000 feet. Obviously you can't, so you resort to playing the man.

Actually you didn't ask. You made a statement and the followed it up by calling me an apologist.

In any event, I certainly never said they accidentally pulled the trigger. But you knew that, it's just your usual game of obfuscation. Carry on.

 

[Calliope]

Actually you didn't ask. You made a statement and the followed it up by calling me an apologist.

Okay. We'll call it quits. You call it an "accident" and I'll call it an "atrocity". Time will tell.