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MH17 Tragedy

by Colman Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 02:50:49 AM EST

So, what do we have? My impression of the situation is laid out below - please pick holes in it.

MH17 went down last Thursday afternoon over a separatist held area of Ukraine. It appears that it was shot down by a surface to air missile that was either captured from government forces or recently supplied to the separatists by Russia (or elements in Russia …)

The flight seems to have been further north than was usual for airliners, but within an airspace that it expected to be safe, despite several downings of Ukrainian aircraft in the area.

The missile was, apparently, fired by a SAM battery operating independently and not as part of an integrated air defence net and so without the capability to positively identify aircraft by transponder. It seems most likely that they thought they were firing on another Ukrainian military craft.

The battery was either, depending on who you believe:

  • Under the command of the separatists, manned by separatists, probably (though not necessarily) recently trained by Russia. Seems like the most likely case to me.
  • Under the command of the separatists, manned by Russian "advisors".
  • Under the command of and manned by Russian forces.
  • Personally commanded and operated by Putin, who fired the missile and then leapt shirtless onto the missile, personally steering it to its target before gliding back to the ground using his armpit hair.

It seems incontrovertible that the separatists haven't adhered to anything near best practice with securing the crash site, but that's hardly surprising given that they're basically a new militia and don't really have an interest in a proper investigation anyway.

298 people are dead because some dickhead decided to fire on an unidentified aircraft. Meanwhile, everyone with an interest in the civil war in Ukraine is using their deaths to further their own political interests.

Update [2014-7-22 7:56:2 by Colman]: Edited to correct "identified aircraft" to "unidentified aircraft" in last paragraph, which rather alters the sense of it.

Display:
MH17 Tragedy | 65 comments (65 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
It seems to me that Putin has developed his very own analogue to  Israel: vicious thugs he has to support for domestic political reasons despite their acting against Russia's interests in all sorts of ways.

I don't think he ever intended to end up having to supply air defence weapons to Eastern Ukraine - he needed to keep Crimea out of NATO/EU hands and he'd like a weak central government in Ukraine. He got pushed into the current fuck-up by a combination of the separatists moving ahead of him in the early days and the idiocy of the new Kiev government immediately banning Russian.

However, supporting use of SAMs by badly disciplined militias has to count as reckless endangerment at least.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 03:00:12 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 3)
This can't be taken for evidence, but my impression on trawling international English-language media (where propaganda flowers bloom and wither) is that, unlike the period of Maidan and the Crimean takeover, the Russian media are on the whole decidedly cagey about MH17.

There's a lot of info and counter-info about how the armed separatists are running the crash site, calling for international monitors/wondering when they're going to show up/saying they are there and are given full access/saying there are not enough of them (Putin), finding/not finding and handing over/not handing over black boxes or other flight data records, supposedly dealing properly with the bodies... The result is thick smoke.

But the Russian media are not on the front-page offensive with supposed evidence that Ukraine did it. The current buzzword is "Boeing". Why? It was a Boeing aircraft, duh. Any serious investigation should involve Boeing. Because it was just a plane accident? Well, who knows? Boeing will tell us... in six months' time.

The overall impression is one of damage limitation. Clamp down on the site, put out contradictory signals about what's going on there, insist on a long crash investigation, give everyone time to forget about it.

In other words, it looks to me like Russia is very seriously embarrassed about this one, because it can't really even pretend to have evidence that Ukrainian forces did the deed.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 04:18:46 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
No one has raised any credible evidence to suggest the launch wasn't from separatist held territory, and the social media history seems pretty clear that they initially thought they'd taken down another military transport.

I don't trust intercepts provided by the Kiev government, for obvious reasons.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 04:39:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 4)
And there is a surprisingly high number of pro-russian commenters in the French media (I don't know if it's the same in other countries) trying to cloud the issue by disseminating false information or diverting the debate and accusing the US...  

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
by Melanchthon on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 04:50:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
The readers' editor on... pro-Russia trolling below the line on Ukraine stories

Guardian moderators, who deal with 40,000 comments a day, believe there is an orchestrated pro-Kremlin campaign

Trolling covers a multitude of sins but a particularly nasty strain has emerged in the midst of the armed conflict in Ukraine, which infests comment threads on the Guardian and elsewhere, despite the best efforts of moderators. Readers and reporters alike are concerned that these are from those paid to troll, and to denigrate in abusive terms anyone criticising Russia or President Vladimir Putin.



"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
by Melanchthon on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 08:15:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
Or there's a lot of angry Russians and the Guardian and/or their readers are being paid to depict them as paid trolls. Propaganda wars are fun.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 08:21:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
The irony is especially piquant after last weeks revelations that britint is tweaking internet polls, petitions, FB replies.

And FB is doing social engineering on the down-low.

Even new panties from the store have embedded chips in them to transmit aromadata far and wide.

Need more servers to store all the data, all the time, on everyone, everywhere!

Because freedom...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 01:40:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
There's a lot of info and counter-info about how the armed separatists are running the crash site, calling for international monitors/wondering when they're going to show up/saying they are there and are given full access/saying there are not enough of them (Putin)

The usual international actors, notably for the identification of the dead, are used to pushing expert teams into difficult situations. But not into a war zone. They are understandably circumspect about putting their people in harm's way. If Putin wants more international monitors, he should establish a security perimiter. He is the only actor with the ability to do this.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 05:45:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
Would Ukraine accept Russia establishing such a security perimeter inside Ukraine?

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
by A swedish kind of death on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 05:48:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
Well, the normal and preferable alternative would be for Ukraine to do so. Do you think Putin would allow this?

No, if the zone is to be secured, it has to be done by Russian troops. Otherwise shooting would be involved.

But probably the deaths of the 289 foreigners are not important enough to oblige the interested parties to secure the zone. So, the bodies and body parts will be transported by train to somewhere more secure. And forensic examination of the crash site will not happen.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 06:17:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
Do you think the local militants will permit it? Do we really think Putin has operational control here?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 06:49:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
Has Putin created/enabled/ridden a monster?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 06:57:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
Yup. I think he was overbalanced by the ease with which he ended up annexing Crimea and he tripped.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 07:03:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
So much for chess... and Judo.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 07:19:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
Are you suggesting that the local militants would oppose fire to advancing Russian troops? ... I think not.

Meanwhile, I just saw Putin on the news, deploring political exploitation of the tragedy, and appearing to lay out terms under which an "independent" international investigation would be permitted. I'll look for a transcript.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 08:29:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
You think NATO and the Ukrainians wouldn't find a way to paint it as an invasion?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 08:43:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
Vladimir Putin breaks silence on MH17 crash: let's not politicise this tragedy, he says

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, the leader at the centre of the international crisis over the downed Malaysia Airlines' plane has broken his silence, saying no country should use the tragedy for its own ends.

"We must do everything to provide security for the international experts on the site of the tragedy," Mr Putin said to Russian network Russia Today, in his first public comments about the incident.

"In the meantime, nobody should and has no right to use this tragedy to achieve their `narrowly selfish' political goals," he said. Mr Putin called for a "fully representative group of experts to be working at the site" under the guidance of the International Civil Aviation Authority, which governs the standards of crash-site investigations.



It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 09:33:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
"In the meantime, nobody should and has no right to use this tragedy to achieve their `narrowly selfish' political goals," he said.

"Please stop beating me with it."

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 09:38:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
It's sort of fun how the propagandists are exploiting the fruitful ambiguity of "Russian" in the coverage.

Is a "Russian soldier" an ethnically Russian militia member or a member of Russia's armed forces?

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 04:42:07 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
Brown Moses appears to be on the case

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 05:11:31 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
Does a battery under command of seperatists need to be recently trained by Russia?

Other possibilities as I see it includes veterans with training in either the Russian or Ukrainian military or defectors from the Ukrainian military.

Far as I gather, the weapons used are suspected to be the ones taken by the seperatists less then a month ago.

Donetsk militia takes control of Ukrainian anti-air installation

The self-defense forces of Donetsk People's Republic seized control of a Ukrainian anti-air military installation, RIA Novosti reports.

"The forces of Donetsk People's Republic assumed control of A-1402 military base," the militia's representative said. According to him, it is an anti-aircraft missile forces facility equipped with Buk mobile surface-to-air missile systems.

During the last several days the militia took control of two internal security troops' installations in eastern Ukraine.

That was June 29th. Since then they have shot down several military planes. Either they got some very quick training or they already had the skills and just needed the hardware. (I have no idea how hard these are to operate.)

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 05:46:43 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
That's why I said:
Under the command of the separatists, manned by separatists, probably (though not necessarily) recently trained by Russia. Seems like the most likely case to me.

Probably, because the chatter is that the captured stuff was disabled (electronics torn out) and that the operators didn't defect, but that's the sort of thing that could just be rumour.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 05:54:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 3)
Does a battery under command of seperatists need to be recently trained by Russia?

Other possibilities as I see it includes veterans with training in either the Russian or Ukrainian military or defectors from the Ukrainian military.

Or mercenaries or mentally unstable thugs or...

The Guardian: Three pro-Russia rebel leaders at the centre of suspicions over downed MH17 (20 July 2014)

Attention has centred on rebel leaders who reportedly discussed the downing of a plane shortly after MH17 exploded and crashed: Igor Strelkov, an alleged Russian intelligence agent leading the military forces of the self-declared "Donetsk People's Republic", and Igor Bezler, a notorious loose cannon who rules the town of Horlivka with an iron fist. A third suspect is Nikolai Kozitsyn, commander of a group of Cossacks, the traditional military caste that once protected the borders of the Russian empire.

...

Strelkov (his real name is Girkin) is an avid historical battle re-enactor from Moscow and a former colonel in Russia's Federal security service who recently admitted he was asked to lead the rebellion in eastern Ukraine, although he wouldn't say by whom. He fought as a volunteer in Bosnia and in Transnistria, a Russian-backed breakaway republic in Moldova, and was seen advising separatist leaders in Crimea before the peninsula seceded from Ukraine and was annexed by Russia.

Strelkov is good friends with Alexander Borodai, the political analyst from Moscow who leads the government in Donetsk, and both previously worked for a company owned by nationalist oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, who reportedly funded separatist activity in Crimea.

(My emphasis)

What a cast of characters.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 06:03:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
Meanwhile, Syria and Libya are busy burning down in the background.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 08:44:08 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
From tragedy to comedy:

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 08:54:32 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
A few weeks ago, I noticed that the path of my flight made a bend to pass north of Syria. To avoid flying over an internationally-recognised war zone.

Of course, we still flew over northern Iraq. Where, of course, there is no internationally-recognised war going on, and anyway, those nice ISIL chaps certainly wouldn't try to down any airliners. If they happen to have SAMs.

Apparently, there are still commercial flights over eastern Ukraine today (flight paths are being changed, but it's long and complicated).

Evidently, international air traffic regulation needs a serious shake-up. There is a shooting war going on, they had already downed several Ukranian war planes, and no alarm bells concerning commercial flights. Lunacy.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 09:10:02 AM EST
It wasn't me, and he started it (none / 0)
UPDATE 1-Russia challenges accusations that Ukraine rebels shot down airliner | Reuters

(Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry on Monday challenged U.S. and Ukrainian accusations that pro-Russian separatists were respnsible for shooting down a Malaysian airliner and said Ukrainian warplanes had flown close to the aircraft.

The ministry also rejected accusations by the United States and Kiev that Russia had supplied the separatist rebels in east Ukraine with SA-11 Buk anti-aircraft missile systems, known as "Gadfly" in NATO, "or any other weapons."

"Russian air space control systems detected a Ukrainian Air Force plane, presumably an SU-25 (fighter jet), scrambling in the direction of the Malaysian Boeing," Lieutenant-General Igor Makushev of Russia's Air Forces told a news briefing. "The distance of the SU-25 plane from the Boeing was from 3 to 5 kilometres (2 to 3 miles)," he said.

I have heard rumours about this. The Ukranians would have flown close to MH17 to escape detection or attack, and the rebels would have let fly with a missile anyway.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 10:29:44 AM EST
Re: It wasn't me, and he started it (none / 1)
Possible, though you'd think someone would have worked that out before now. Even if true, shooting at it with an unidentified airliner nearby is still reckless endangerment.

More likely just some conspiracy fodder to muddy the domestic media waters.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 10:41:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: It wasn't me, and he started it (none / 0)
I had heard rumours that the airliner had been escorted or intercepted by two Ukrainian fighter planes. Which made me think that, from the ground, an airliner flanked by two fighters must looks like a bomber...

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 11:04:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: It wasn't me, and he started it (4.00 / 2)
The way those rumours appeared and faded they looked like disinformation. Now it's one plane, intercepting from the direction of Russian airspace! Wait, that map was tweeted by the Kremlin and then deleted ... 
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 11:31:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
My hunch is this is psyops to provoke Putin into doing something rash. The AA gun apparently came with software designed to be warned of civilian aircraft, but it was de-activated.

The weakest link in the narrative was the Spanish air-controller's comments that were briefly discussed he, iirc. followed by the mysterious decision of Kiev to order the plane to fly at a lower altitude. Smells. Funny.

Putin's karma from how he treats his own people is coming back on him, through a twist of destiny, from Oceania. The people he was being nicer to. Russia's version of corrupt crony capitalism is as doomed as our own.

With all the continual bad faith from Oceania's Nato ploys this last decade, and the pols who've taken over Ukraine, the Chevron fracking contracts, the invitation to open up to the Troika (oops, the EU), the multicolour revolutions that don't revolve, I don't see the payoff for Putin to play macho in Ukraine, or to gratuitously piss off the whole planet by downing an airliner. Ukraine is an economic basket case he doesn't need on his books, Crimea was understandable if illegal, East Ukraine doesn't want to become part of Russia, they just don't want European ways and he knows that. Ukraine banning the Russian language was bad form and calculated to humiliate E. Ukrainians. The shelling of towns in the East by the Kiev army is just as reprehensible as the rebels' shooting down planes.

Sigh, no good guys to cheer for here... just those helpless civilians caught in the crossfire, as per. :(

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 02:01:46 PM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (3.00 / 2)
melo:
Ukraine is an economic basket case he doesn't need on his books

But a failed state would remain nicely within the time-hallowed Russian imperial orbit, and Russia can afford to keep it on survival rations as before. What Russia would not find in its interest would be a strong Ukrainian state.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 02:19:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
The thing is, nobody outside Ukraine has any interest whatever in a strong Ukrainian state. And the majority of the current Ukrainian government's shareholders have no interest in the Ukrainian state's continued existence beyond the time it takes for them to loot it.

But Russia does have an interest in not having a festering third-world hellhole the size of the Donau watershed sitting on its border. Ukraine is not Chechnya or Afghanistan - if it starts spewing forth annoying militants, the way festering hellholes tend to do, you can't just send a punitive expedition to show the flag and drop a couple of thousand ton of democracy on the locals. Too many important people would go frowny-face if you started bringing democracy to Ukraine on a regular basis.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 02:32:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 3)
Then Putin has to make up his mind what his Ukrainian strategy is. His Crimean play was clear, and to be expected in the light of constant Russian foreign policy. If it's in Russia's interest to avoid a festering hellhole, then underhand support for a protracted separatist struggle is likely to prove counter-productive.

As for looting by the current crop of stakeholders in Kiev, I take it you mean oligarchs looting other oligarchs, because Ukraine has been looted for many a long year.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 05:57:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
The fact that Russia does not have an interest in Ukraine turning into a failed state does not mean that Ukraine as a failed state is not more tolerable to Russia than Ukraine as a failed state in the Americans' pocket.

I'm with Helen in that Putin's problem is that his local goons in the East jumped the gun before the Kiev junta either fell apart under the weight of its obvious incompetence or its neo-Nazi elements provided him with a sufficiently strong casus belli.

So right now Russia's alternatives to the current policy of supporting a low-grade civil war amount to either full-scale invasion, or sitting back and watching Kiev massacre the people Russia needs for any long-term irredentist ambition against Eastern Ukraine. And given the powers that be in Kiev, I would not bet against a round or two of ethnic cleansing if they win, just to make sure that Russia can't make such ambitions stick in the future.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 02:02:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (3.00 / 2)
melo:
the mysterious decision of Kiev to order the plane to fly at a lower altitude. Smells. Funny.

Airliners routinely cruise between 30000 ft (9150 m) and 35000 ft (10675 m).

The "lower altitude" reportedly ordered by ATC was 33000 ft, down from 35000 ft, a difference of 600 m (out of 10 km). The airspace was reportedly closed below 32000 ft.

The SAM missile allegedly used is as lethal at 35000 ft as it is at 33000.

Nothing funny to smell here, except for people who do want to find something funny and are peddling the usual CT. YMMV.

by Bernard (bernard) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 02:39:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
A 5.7 % difference should be noticeable on the targeting instruments of a SAM battery.

If (and I haven't yet seen anything to confirm this, but if) commercial airliners had in prior week(s) cruised at 35 thousand and Ukrainian military supply planes had cruised at 33 thousand, then I would say it looks like someone in Kiev was trying the old riot police trick where your paddy waggons tailgate an ambulance through a roadblock.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 03:18:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
Bernard:

The SAM missile allegedly used is as lethal at 35000 ft as it is at 33000.

Nothing funny to smell here, except for people who do want to find something funny and are peddling the usual CT. YMMV.

Kinda absolutist, a tad summarily dismissed.

Coz it's normal to make sure a civilian airliner flies over a war zone lower than usual, with no other planes below it.

Okkk...

Pass the room freshener.

Pretend you're writing a novel, coz since 9/11 reality lapped fiction.

Cui bono?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 06:20:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
The SAM missile allegedly used is as lethal at 35000 ft as it is at 33000.

Nothing funny to smell here, except for people who do want to find something funny and are peddling the usual CT. YMMV.

Kinda absolutist, a tad summarily dismissed.
Yeah, because the missile in question has a range of 42Km and reaches to 25Km height, so plus or minus 300m at 10km makes zero difference.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 07:21:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
My trajectory physics qualifications are scant indeed, but how does telling the plane to fly 600m lower translate into plus or minus 300m? Is that zero you mention figurative?

Why not ask it to fly higher since it's a freaking war zone?

It's just using critical thinking, innit?

Or am I not even wrong?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Jul 21st, 2014 at 08:26:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 3)
Boeing: Boeing 777 Facts
The 777 is capable of cruising at altitudes up to 43,100 feet.
41300 ft = 12596 m, and that's maximum, unlike the Concorde that was cruising above 16000 m.

Jet fighters can fly up to 20000 m and above (MIG-25), which explains why sophisticated ground-air missiles like the so-called Buk can strike up to 25000 m (82000 ft).

If belligerents have such a weapon, you don't "ask jetliners to fly higher": you skirt the whole area altogether.

(as for novels, I prefer afew's :)

by Bernard (bernard) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 04:27:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 6)
melo:
Pretend you're writing a novel

OK.

Amazingly handsome Kung-Fu 20th Dan and Chess Grandmaster Brock Ballsdoppler, the Agency's finest asset in the war for Freedom! in Ukraine™, takes time off from screwing gymnastic Ukrainian women to strike deep into enemy territory on a perilous one-man mission to locate the SAM weaponry and disable part of its electronics. (Take several chapters here: he gets captured by the loathsome Commies Russian Enemies of Freedom!™ and is hideously tortured by the REF's psychopathic leader Vlad Putitin but heroically resists and plants false-flag information before escaping thanks to grit, determination, brilliant tactical thinking and the aid of Putitin's statuesque six-foot daughter Olga who has fallen in love with him but dies for it at the hands of her own father who is now Ballsdoppler's implacable hateful personal enemy and pursues him with tenacity and low cunning across Eastern Ukraine but fails as Ballsdoppler makes it to Kiev with the help of a curvaceous freedom-lovin' Neo-Nazi - all this should be good for ten chapters). Ballsdoppler seduces muscular chief air-traffic controller Irina Legova and with her help routes a civilian aircraft plumb over the SAM shooter that he partly disabled and just before Putitin can get a warning through, Bingo! the silly REFs shoot the aircraft down with resulting dire prejudice to their loathsome cause and Ballsdoppler moves on to new conquests of various and interesting kinds.

YMMV.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 03:07:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
Too much Ian Fleming at a formative age? ;0)

Eurogreen is on it by now, surely...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 10:27:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
Lest anyone should think this was frivolous in the face of tragedy, let me just emphasize that I meant to point out that thinking in terms of fiction about events like these is almost certainly the wrong way to go about understanding them.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Jul 23rd, 2014 at 03:02:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You are wasted here! n/t (4.00 / 2)


Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sat Aug 2nd, 2014 at 05:38:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 4)
I don't generally comment here much but I do value the community very highly for the insights.

The treatment of this subject though in the main article and the comments seems quite prejudiced and 100% within the limits that Western MSM have demarcated.

Yet, there are many contra-indications in trusting these sources after a continuous barrage of proven d/misinformation (Iraq war, Syria chemical attacks, ongoing Gaza atrocities) may not be entirely prudent.

I do not claim that I know the truth about this terrible tragedy but I am hoping it will eventually come out. Until then, what I see missing from the list of possibilities above is that the Kiev regime (with or without consultation) conducted a false flag.

They have the capability and the motive.

Indications of things that do not sit well with the official narrative:
- First and foremost no proof offered for a missile firing from the rebel-controlled area. Despite the huffing and puffing of satellite imagery / radar tracking that shows it none was actually revealed so far
-The amazing speed with which Ukrainian and then Western social media and media picked up the meme of a "Russian atrocity" - literally minutes after it happened a video that was shown to be a fake was released "placing" the blame on the federalist side.

  • the continuous botching of "they have a Buk" and they got from Ukraine, but no it came from Russia and the photographic evidence that may or may not be from the border
  • the fact that neither the federalists nor the Russians had anything to gain from such an action (and the mistake option is there but somehow it does not add up - a SAM is not a MANPAD and the operator of such a systems needs to know what they are doing)
  • The situation in the so called southern cauldron where Ukrainian forces were reportedly routed never appeared. This tragedy happens, and since then the Ukrainians have killed at least 300 civilians by blasting residential areas of Donetsk and Lugansk.

As I said, I don't know the truth but I cannot help but notice these string of convenient coincidences that make it less clear cut. At least let's keep these aspects in mind until clear proof - one way or another-  is shown and verified in a reasonable manner.

 

Orthodoxy is not a religion.

by BalkanIdentity (balkanid _ at _ google.com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 06:49:08 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (3.75 / 4)
There are two options here: a false flag operation by a "state actor" or a mistake by "irregulars".

The Cui Bono here is clearly the Western™ interests and not the Russian, but it's been clear for some time that the "insurgents" were not necessarily acting in Putin's best interest.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 07:14:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 4)
Well we have this shoot down on the 14th: allegedly at 6500m so somebody was shooting with something reasonably big.

There's a dispute about high they were and no way to resolve it, but if you take the Ukrainian claim at face value (unless you're going to claim it was part of the set-up for a false-flag) it indicates that the separatists have access to something more than a MANPAD.

Capability: they have a SAM battery. Motive: fight Kiev. Wrong target, but everyone does that occasionally.

If the SAM system was operating in a more-or-less autonomous battlefield mode as opposed to integrated into a air defence network I'm guessing that its target discrimination would be degraded, especially if it's being operated by recently trained staff or veteran staff not 100% up to speed on newer iterations of the system. Of course if anyone has the operation manual and can demonstrate why that's not true I'll be interested to hear it.

The story on social media went

  1. Plane lost contact while separatists celebrate shooting down another Ukranian plane.

  2. Realisation spreads that it was MH17 and those posts all get deleted. All references to BUKs etc removed from separatist accounts ASAP.

Incidentally, the official Western Media story is pretty much "Putin did it with his bare hands, beating a few babies to death for extra fun". "Putin's Victims" was a headline here. Strangely enough the Gaza dead don't get "Obama/Bush/Clintons/... Victims" headlines.

The media was always going to jump on the "Russian atrocity" bandwagon, that's how they work. NATO/EU/Ukraine were always going to try to spin it into anti-Russian propaganda. Russia and the separatists were always going to spin the other way. Confusion and lies and mayhem.

Now, it could be a false flag, but it's a bad one. Why MH17? Why not an Air France or Lufthansa flight instead of the ludicrously bad scripting of a second dramatic MH loss in a few months? Why not a direct outrage against Germany? Imagine how Merkel would be forced to react if a plane full of Germans had been taken down. Maybe the people involved had a sense of humour.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 07:54:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
Why not an Air France or Lufthansa flight

Because they were taking the precaution of staying far away?

Incidentally, Israel just killed seven Germans in Gaza. No comment yet from Merkel.

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 08:20:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
They were apparently overflying roughly that airspace until after the loss of MH17.

And that's Israel, normal rules don't count.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 09:12:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 3)
Thanks to both you and Migeru for clarifying your viewpoints.

The potential story line you are describing here is certainly plausible.

I am clearly not familiar with the workings of these (or any) SAM systems but it does make sense to have degraded capabilities in the case of single system operation.  Nevertheless, the problem here is that the altitude reading should be pretty straight forward and an aircraft at 33000ft that would enter Russian airspace in a matter of minutes could not have been construed as a danger by the rebels. Whoever fired a missile, more likely than not knew it was a civilian airplane.

Another problem with the limited capability system is that given the radius of the missiles and the tracking radar, the whole decision process would need to happen within a minute or two. This could support both options -fog of war decision to fire at anything (but then why leave all the other commercial flights that passed from the area?)

IF on the other hand you have the normal civil and air force radar readings you can plan ahead in choosing a target.

It could be a false false flag as Migeru suggested but  it is really a very strange coincidence to have the same airline involved in a dual airline catastrophe within a few months at no fault of their own. There were some who connect these events with the Kuala Lumpur war crimes commission.

I do not want to delve too deep into conspiracy theory but there seems to be something in these statistical anomalies and their timings.

Time hopefully will tell. Let's pray that the situation will normalize but the geopolitical endgame we are witnessing seems to head towards the opposite direction...

Orthodoxy is not a religion.

by BalkanIdentity (balkanid _ at _ google.com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 08:28:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
It's been suggested the flight was north of most of the other flights, looking more like  it might have been out of Kiev.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 09:11:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
Statistical anomalies do happen, even in airline mishaps: two of the 9/11 hijacked planes were from American Airlines. Barely two months after September 11, another American Airlines aircraft crashed in New-York city; terrorism was feared, but it turned out to be a tragic accident.

As for the geopolitical endgame, people should do well to remember July 1914: the Sarajevo assassination was fading away form the headlines, yet Europe would be at war less than a month later...

by Bernard (bernard) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 04:54:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
Both the planes being MH is the sort of thing only real life would dare do.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 05:22:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 0)
Coincidences are good for signaling domination.
by das monde on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 09:36:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
Doesn't all that tinfoil get uncomfortable in this heat?

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Jul 23rd, 2014 at 02:15:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
You use better tin.
by das monde on Wed Jul 23rd, 2014 at 04:45:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 3)
Imagine how Merkel would be forced to react if a plane full of Germans had been taken down

According to Der Spiegel, the German Foreign Ministry can only confirm the death of a German abroad once a German official has seen the dead in person. So Merkel would not be able to respond yet. Does that answer your question?

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 08:57:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
If the SAM system was operating in a more-or-less autonomous battlefield mode as opposed to integrated into a air defence network I'm guessing that its target discrimination would be degraded, especially if it's being operated by recently trained staff or veteran staff not 100% up to speed on newer iterations of the system. Of course if anyone has the operation manual and can demonstrate why that's not true I'll be interested to hear it.
The Wikipedia is not a user manual, but in any case it describes the Buk missile system allegedly used in this instance as quite a nasty piece of equipment:
The Buk is a mobile, radar-guided surface to air missile (SAM) missile system with all four main components -- acquisition and targeting radars, a command element, missile launchers, and a logistics element -- mounted on tracked vehicles. This allows the system to move with other military forces and relocate to make it a more difficult target to find than a fixed SAM system.
  • The acquisition radar component (several variants have differing capabilities) allows the system to identify, track and target selected targets.
  • The command component is intended to discern "friendly" military aircraft from foes (IFF), prioritize multiple targets, and pass radar targeting information to the missile launchers.
  • The missile launcher component can carry a variety of missiles (as listed below) and may be able to engage more than one target simultaneously.
  • The logistics component carries additional (reload) missiles and provides other supplies and parts for the system and the operators.
In general, the system identifies potential targets (radar), selects a particular target (command), fires a missile (launcher) at the target, and resupplies the system (logistics). The missiles require a radar lock to initially steer the missile to the target until the missile's on-board radar system takes over to provide final course corrections. A proximity fuse aboard the missile determines when it will detonate, creating an expanding fragmentation pattern of missile components and warhead to intercept and destroy the target. A proximity fuse improves the "probability of kill" given the missile and target closure rates, which can be more than 2,000 miles per hour (3,200 km/h) (or more than 3,000 feet per second (910 m/s)).

Alternatively, the command component may be able to remotely detonate the missile, or the on-board contact fuse will cause the warhead to detonate. The most capable radar, assuming it has a line of sight (no terrain between the radar and the target), can track targets (depending on size) as low as 100 feet (30 m) and as far as 85 miles (137 km). The most capable missile can hit targets as far as 30 miles (48 km) and more than 80,000 feet (24,000 m) in altitude. Since the introduction of the Buk in the 1970s, the capabilities of its system components have evolved, which has led to different nomenclature and nicknames for the components' variants. The Buk has also been adapted for use on naval vessels.



A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 09:39:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
Colman:
Now, it could be a false flag, but it's a bad one. Why MH17? Why not an Air France or Lufthansa flight instead of the ludicrously bad scripting of a second dramatic MH loss in a few months? Why not a direct outrage against Germany?

Those passports dropped out of a missile-hit plane in awfully pristine condition.

Went to the store today and a friend rewound my tinfoil turban for me by saying that the first Malaysian 'lost' plane had 4 directors of a global patent (for what??) of massive potential profitability on board. The 5th did not fly on that plane...

Woo woo.

Of course the reason to choose the second was the HIV-AIDS researchers.

And the reason for WWIII? Because the banksters need war to refill their coffers through financing the arms trade and the reconstruction afterwards.

I had to laugh because I draw the line at David Icky so have not kept up on Reptilian Shapeshifters' shenanigans too much lately.

That Counterpunch article comes closest of any media narrative, imo.

I think also there is a global consensus to take Vlad down, if not all the way (which is how it looks right now), then at least down a peg or three.

Then they can concentrate on China, then game over. The Mighty Hegemon takes the spoils, one world government here we come.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 10:49:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 5)
Those passports dropped out of a missile-hit plane in awfully pristine condition.
What do you expect from a SAM hitting an airliner? A cinematic fireball vaporizing the plane? This is how the missile works: it explodes and fragments at a distance from the target so that a cloud of shrapnel punctures the fuselage at numerous places compromising the structure.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jul 22nd, 2014 at 11:08:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)
Here's a fun analysis by Scott Locklin, in which he debunks the SU-25 story.

Interesting point: they (used to?) make SAMs in Donbass. They might have access to lots of people who understood the system.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jul 23rd, 2014 at 09:16:06 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (none / 1)
Rebels shoot down two Ukrainian fighter jets days after downing of MH17 | World news | theguardian.com

Pro-Russia rebels have shot down two Ukrainian fighter jets in eastern Ukraine just days after the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, a Ukrainian military spokesman has said.

"Two Sukhoi Ukrainian fighter jets have been shot down. The fate of the pilots is not known," a spokesman, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, said, adding that the planes had been brought down about 16 miles (25km) from the crash site of MH17.

But a second military spokesman said the jets had been downed at a different location by rockets fired by insurgents. The two pilots managed to parachute out, he said.

"Today in the south of the Lugansk region close to the village of Dmytrivka, pro-Russia fighters shot two Su-25 jets from a missile system," the spokesman Vladislav Seleznev said.

"The pilots took evasive action ... but the planes were hit," he said.

More details soon ...



It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Wed Jul 23rd, 2014 at 09:36:49 AM EST
Re: MH17 Tragedy (3.00 / 3)
With, I assume, bows and arrows.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jul 23rd, 2014 at 10:42:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: MH17 Tragedy (4.00 / 2)


A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jul 23rd, 2014 at 10:30:01 AM EST
MH17 Tragedy | 65 comments (65 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)


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