There’s a lot of hype from multiple sources, each source putting its own spin on the problem.  From Moscow and Ukrainian separatists “Who?  Me?” to Ukraine’s “It’s them,” plus the Russian sympathizers limiting access to the crash site and carting off bodies to freeze them in railway cars (why? what are they hiding?), media outlets around the world echo the hype.  What do we know?  What are the facts?

Fact one: A passenger jet packed with 298 people was targeted by a missile; 298 innocents died.  That’s mass murder by anyone’s definition.  Fact two: In a briefing at the Pentagon two weeks earlier, a NATO commander informed publicly that Russians had placed vehicle-mounted SAMs in eastern Ukraine, the part controlled by separatists, most of them ethnic Russians.  Moreover, the Russians were training the separatists how to shoot the deadly weapons that can cover any altitude where jets can fly.

Fact three: On Monday, they shot down a Ukrainian troop transport flying at a “safe altitude,” one far above 10 kft, the altitude range of shoulder-carried missiles, proving effectively that Russian SAMs were in use by the rebels and that no altitude was safe.  Fact four: The Russian separatists in the Ukraine are hindering the investigations at the crash site and putting the victims on ice in boxcars.  Where are the boxcars going?  Probably Moscow.  Family and friends of the victims will never have closure, an obscene gesture by Putin and his thuggish sycophants.

It’s as if big daddy Putin gave his rowdy children, the ethnic Russian thugs running the separatist movement under Moscow’s watchful eye (their leader, a special forces Russian), loaded pistols and didn’t quite teach them that those things weren’t dangerous toys!  Oops!  And we complain about the NRA.  Since I write mysteries and thrillers, I conclude that my Detectives Chen and Castilblanco would say, “Yes, the evidence so far is circumstantial, but right now circumstances indicate Vladimir is my POI for this mass murder.”  Everything points to him.  I’m sure that a mental health examiner would indicate that (1) he’s a narcissistic and psychotic sociopath who knew exactly what he was doing (i.e. a pre-meditate murder charge is warranted, and there would be no insanity plea), and (2) he should be brought to trial.  Of course, that will never happen, and another despotic dictator gets away with mass murder.

The ethnic Russian thugs are denying the facts listed above.  I’ll accept that they didn’t mean to shoot down a commercial jet, but that oops! moment still points back to Putin.  You don’t hand someone a weapon if they don’t know how to use it.  Not even the NRA wants that!  Ukrainian pundits are also quick to blame Moscow.  I don’t blame them for that either.  Moscow took Crimea and they’re trying to take eastern Ukraine.  As Biden said, it’s a land grab.  Ex-KGB spy master Putin wants a return to the glory days of the Soviet Union, although the rest of the world considers communism, with a small c or big one, a debunked ideology decaying in its own stinking juices of ineptitude and lies.  That old “dictatorship of the proletariat” thing gave both Russian and Chinese communists a lot of latitude for evilly fascistic abuses.

If anyone ever thought Obama’s increasing sanctions on Putin and cohorts wasn’t justified, this incident has to be a wake-up call.  Both the Dutch and English have moved towards stronger sanctions, and the entire body of U.N. delegates seems appalled at Putin’s actions.  Putin might sneak around them by floating loans with the Chinese.  The latter, always the shrewd but corrupt extreme capitalists more than anything else, might end up owning controlling shares in Putin Inc., but Vladimir is such an absolute if inept CEO, the board of directors won’t be able to do anything as he continues to Russia’s paranoid plunge into historic irrelevancy.

What Putin has to worry about now is whether this incident will solidify European opinion against his take-over tactics.  The plane flew from Amsterdam.  The Dutch, initially hesitant to complain too much, are stirring now.  Britain is more adamant.  We’ll see if that changes.  It should.  Moscow is not and never was the friend of Europe.  Putin has with blinders on, focused on a greater Russia and appealing to the innate Russian paranoia to preserve power.  Like the Chinese, he has lost all touch with his ideological roots.  He is only interested in greed and power.  That’s a problem: it’s easier to debunk stupid ideologies, but it’s harder when greed and power replace them.

I’m not sure how this will all shake out.  At the very least, I predict a continuing and escalating civil war in Ukraine.  When Russians settle in a country, they like to take control.  Call it imperialism, paranoia, or simply a land grab, that’s what they like to do.  The U.S., of course, has a history of doing the same thing, again motivated by greed and power.  But there is no place for this in the 21^st century.

Ethnic civil wars are bad enough—for example, Iraq’s current one and the Palestinian conflict reflect centuries of suspicion and hate between Kurds, Shi’ites, and Sunnis, and Palestinians and Jews, respectively.  The one in Palestine also has the land-grabbing by Israel, of course, as a component, but this is complicated by the centuries-old claim of the Jews on this land.

But the thugs in Ukraine have no centuries-old claim on those lands.  They’re clearly in the wrong.  Just like the Soviet Union was in the wrong about the Baltic countries, Poland, Hungary, Chechpslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Rumania.  Beyond their illegal attempt to take over eastern Ukraine for comrade Putin in this civil war, an invasion of Ukraine by Moscow countered by NATO could be a disaster for the human race.  These are the possible scenarios.  It’s time humanity comes to its senses and puts a stop to Putin’s idiocy.  He clearly needs to be in a straitjacket and locked in a padded cell.

[Tomorrow, the sporadic Friday feature, “News and Notices from the Writing Trenches,” and, on Monday, #2 in the my “classic posts” on writing.]

And so it goes….

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2014 at 4:00 am and is filed under Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.