Re: Malaysian Airlines MH17 crashed in Ukraine
Reply #13 –
One thing is certain, and that is that the missile seems to have come from separatist-controlled territory. After that things get murky fast.
1. The separatists are unlikely to have the technology themselves to be able to pull this off. I'd hazard a guess that left to their own devices, they wouldn't be much better armed than one of America's "militia" outfits.
2. If # 1 is true, and right now I personally have little reason to doubt it, then the missile and its launching system had to be either Ukrainian or Russian. If Ukrainian, how did a Ukraine outfit manage to get a missile, its launching hardware and so on into separatist-controlled territory without raising a ruckus that would have been noticed? Russian is easier in this case-- the separatists are in with and probably being supplied by the Russians so it's not impossible that the whole missile thing is Russian except for one little thing.
3. About that one little thing: An aircraft at 33,000 feet altitude is not the easiest thing to identify from a ground base. You can see the airplane and track it all right, but who owns it? I'm having a little trouble with the idea that Russians would shoot down a craft they didn't clearly identify as being enemy-- so that means that while the hardware may be Russian, it was most likely a separatist pulling the trigger/making the decisions in the belief it was a Ukrainian plane.
Now, of course the trigger-finger could be Russian-- &*$# happens and civilians get killed in war all the time-- but somehow I'd think professional Russian missile launchers might take the time to clearly identify their target. The situation already stinks so making an uglier international incident out of it is in nobody's best interest. Especially with the rest of the world suspecting that all three of the main players-- Russian, Ukrainian and Separatist-- have more than a little blame in all of this.