World events

Watching coverage on dutch tv, the whole thing feels even harder to comprehend than an accidental plane crash with it having been taken out at 10 km height by a missile. Crazy. Has this ever happened before to a commercial flight?

— April 20, 1978: Korean Airlines Flight 902, which diverted from its planned course on a flight from Paris to Seoul and strayed over the Soviet Union. After being fired upon by an interceptor aircraft, the crew made a forced landing at night on the surface of a frozen lake. Two of the 97 passengers were killed by the hostile fire.

— Sept. 1, 1983: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shot down by at least one Soviet air-to-air missile after the 747 had strayed into Soviet airspace. All 240 passengers and 29 crew were killed.

— July 3, 1988: Iran Air Flight 655 Aircraft was shot down by a surface to air missile from the American naval vessel U.S.S. Vincennes. All 16 crew and 274 passengers were killed.

It is very graphic. You find yourself wanting to look. But I now wish that I hadn't.

Concur with all, horrible
Tom

What I find exceedingly disturbing is that apparently these separatists have weapons on a military grade enough to take out a passenger plane at extreme altitude.

Putin has LOT to answer for.

I'd read that at least one of the black box flight recorders was on its way to Moscow. Maybe it would "go missing" in transit?

Putin is a chip off the old red block.

The major difference is that in the Gaza both parties are committing acts of atrocity, and every action -from either side- calls forth an equal (or worse) reaction. Like Yugoslavia in the nineties, there are no good guys. Just a bunch of maniacs killing each other. And of course the innocents, as always, die in the crossfire under the banner of the age-old excuse "but THEY started it".

The MH017 incident isn't comparable as it was never a military target. They didn't get in the crosshairs, they were never collateral damage. A military group just randomly fired a rocket, uncaring about anything, destroying a plane. Because they could. No one from that plane could ever be accused of starting anything, let alone be a party to the conflict.

If Hamas would target an international school complex, or if Israel gunships would target a Greece-funded old age home, destroying hundreds of lives in one fell swoop, you bet your bottom dollar the US would be vocal.

Anyway, I doubt very seriously the US' interest will wane.
As I suggested before, this has great potential for the Cold War heating up again, especially as Putin is getting his hands dirty now (what with shipping the blackl box in). This will cause the international community to have a much closer look at the current conflict in the Ukraine, which I have no doubt will uncover some very sinister Russian machinations. Some very major global relations are at risk here.

Not so, of course, in Nigeria.
Which is why these demons are still running free.

Yeah, with the exception being that according to international law, this happened on Ukrainian territory. The boxes should go to Kiev, not to Moscow.

Yeah, you're not wrong. I find myself rather agreeing with this sentiment for a while now.

"Der Krieg ist eine ewige Tatsache. Wäre die Welt ein Einheitsstaat, würde man die Kriege Aufstände nennen."
"War is an eternal fact. Would the Earth be one unified state, wars would be called insurrections."

Oswald Spengler

Your right Demetris it has been here so far.
Tom

Yeah, but what would you have Obama do? Go to war? Against Russia?
Reagan faced the same dilemma after the Korea airliner incident.

Best we can hope for is sharper trade restrictions (which have all but been committed to) and a much keener international eye on the Ukraine situation. Even though it is blatantly obvious Russia has a large part to play in this horrible event, more than, as I said before, a heating up if the Cold War (or, if you will, a cooling off of the US-Russian relationship, which will mainly have economic consequences rather than military ones) is just not a realistic global political scenario.

No, no war, but he should urge Uk and Germany to get off their politically correct asses and force more sanctions against Russia. And Obama avoided to directly blame Russia. Same as UK and Germany who take the safe, 'let's wait and see first' route. Wait and see what? The crash area has been looted, littered, destroyed. God knows where the cvr and fdr are and who will be handed to. Russia's MAK will someday soon announce that the post-impact fire and impact forces destroyed the cvr and fdr and cannot be read out anymore.

Same as here, in Cyprus. We financially depend largely on Russians. But what does that mean? he will spin the world around? EU must take action. In the meantime, more articles come up with indications that the missile might actually have been Russian-driven and controlled and not pro-Russian Rebels, at least not without Russia's help'cause it's a very complex, Russian-built system. There's much much more to this story it seems.