Malaysian plane crashes on Ukraine-Russia border - live

[Igel]

274. Because you either use radar or sight.

Because I don't assume that all Ukrainians are just inherently bad people that like crucifying children any more than I think every Russian wants to crucify a Ukrainian on the front of an APC. I have no need to rustle up sins to pin to them.

(Missed the APC reference? It was reported about the same time as the kiddie crucifixion, but was supposed to have happened in Lugansk to a Ukrainian POW. I suppose one report must have preceded the other, but I don't know the order.)

That said, the most innocent place for a Ukr Buk to down a passenger jet is in rebel territory. But that would mean taking a big, expensive, dangerous piece of equipment where it would serve no purpose. There's no air force behind rebel enemy lines. It's also the least likely place.

If it's going to be downed, it would be downed where it can be observed, where it's a threat, and where they'd have the wreckage under their control. Not where it's observable only by radar (remember--not much Ukr radar in that neck of the woods) and where it's no threat at all.

My assumption is twofold. First, a lot of the spurious argumentation here is driven by a need to show moral rectitude that really has no business on this thread. Second, whoever shot it down assumed it was a military target.

Most of the moralizing immediate vanishes with the assumption that both sides are people and not cardboard cutouts in a morality tale. No need to impute ultimate evil to either side. No need to speculate irrationally that Putin was on a plane and it was attempt on the Great Leader's life. Once people are people, there's a great sense of relief, not just a great sense of accuracy.

The rest vanishes with the recognition that whoever shot it down thought they were downing a military plane. Then it's a question of negligence, and how easy it would have been to verify what the plane was. The rebels get off really easy on this score because they had no really fast means to track the plane.

What's left is a vestigial sense of guilt, the same kind of guilt that you have when you simply fail to see somebody on a dark, rainy night as they step in front of your car. You may not be guilty in any legal, preventable sense, but you feel guilty. And nobody wants to be allied with some group that is guilty in that nebulous sort of way.

But then there's PR. Not everybody can distinguish between the two kinds of guilt. It's hard to stop being an omniscient judge and reading hearts and minds of entire ethnicities, attributing evil or righteousness to one or the other. So it'll lead to bad press. They may be trying out spin--by shooting down a fighter the valiant insurgents actually saved a passenger plane, how could you accuse them of shooting down a passenger plane. But that relies to local rebel commanders being omniscient. It rings false through and through, except for those who already believe in their commanders' omniscience; they need serious counselling.

Then there's the additional attention. Some believers in ultimate goodness of the rebels rely on their being on the side of the little man, a lot of people searching for dignity and money and human rights against oppressors. If they suddenly have a country that can send in 50k troops and 5k tanks, who's been providing leaders, advice, munitions, funding, armaments and milintel for the last few months, that kind of myth pops like a bubble. The true believers in the Russian World and 3rd-Rome Orthodoxy are fine with it--they'd revel in knowing that Putin-father really does love for them personally (and in some cases, sexually) and they really are the heart of Russia, fighting to bend the arc of history to reverse the horrible historical injustice that occurred in 1991 and restore Russian greatness to what it was under Stalin. Meh. For the most part, more attention to Russian intervention is a bad thing for those people's ambitions.

And Western politicians must have groaned and knocked back a shot after hearing of this. Because they've been super-intent on the same goal: Let the war be a small one self-contained. If Russia really wants to control the country, we care about human rights but not 40 million Ukrainians. They care about stability, because that's money. They care about money and stability because that's votes. Sanctions = less money. Challenging Russia = less stability. As long as it's their war, let it be--sanctions are a show, sanctions force stability, sanctions serve the politicians. But 298 dead, including 3 infants and 23 Americans? Dozens of Europeans. And 3rd worlders! Dang. It's not a local problem, and if Russia's really involved with these rebels and they *did* shot down the plane, even by accident ... the politicians may have to *do* something.

And that can't be good for soldier of fortune Strelkov-Girkin, for the PR man Borodai, for Father Frost Gubarev. I mean, would you really want him to host your child's holiday party?

But once you get past all of the political ramifications, it's still a "whodunit". And it would be nice if one of the accused wasn't given all the evidence and told to lead the investigation.