Malaysian 777 Plane Crashes in Ukraine

I for one, am optimistic, that IF handled correctly, this horrific tragedy will work to stabilize the region and make Putin more timid in his next moves.

The New York Times, as always, is starting to spell it out here...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/w...icmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=2

What I think people fail to understand is Putin is really just a figurehead of the power brokers in Russia. They are using him (and Putin is using them) to advance their motives in what they want. With the downing of the airliner which will bring an unbelievable amount of increased scrutiny from the international community on Putin and these power brokers and that will hopefully lead to increased strains in their interpersonal relationships and it will start to crumble the circle of power they have set up.

Look at what Obama was doing when he found out about this. He was talking to Putin about the economic sanctions. If these sanctions weren't working against Putin and these power brokers do you think Putin would care to discuss this with Obama? Can Germany really stop pushing Russia on Ukraine now because they may be mad at the United States spying on them? I don't think so...

Reading between the lines I think the sanctions are working and with increased scrutiny this will hopefully lead to a quick end to this unrest and put Putin in a much more defensive position, not only abroad, put within his power circle.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
It can be either. Neither is any of our business. Get out of their countries, go around their air space, stay out of their politics. Befriend none of them, make enemies of none of them.
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Hehe, I read that with the candence from Pirates of the Caribbean!
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There are some parallels with WWII looking at it purely as a annexation of a country, maybe some lessons for all of us getting into a shooting war over this Malaysian shootdown in WWI. I don't think I've found a clear cut example in the past and I completely understand @mshunter and your concerns on the matter. Obviously no one is looking to wipe out Ukrainians.

For something like Russia's annexation, I think you need to pull a lot of levers and isolationism isn't one of them. With the Israeli conflict, I have my own opinions but they aren't German to the conversation (pseudo WWI & II pun).
 
jynxyjoe said:
Hehe, I read that with the candence from Pirates of the Caribbean!
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There are some parallels with WWII looking at it purely as a annexation of a country, maybe some lessons for all of us getting into a shooting war over this Malaysian shootdown in WWI. I don't think I've found a clear cut example in the past and I completely understand @mshunter and your concerns on the matter. Obviously no one is looking to wipe out Ukrainians.

For something like Russia's annexation, I think you need to pull a lot of levers and isolationism isn't one of them. With the Israeli conflict, I have my own opinions but they aren't German to the conversation (pseudo WWI & II pun).
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Hey man, I'm more than willing to send over some help for this accident investigation. But leave the politics out of it.

"Here are the facts of what happened here. Do with this information what you will."
 
mshunter said:
Hey man, I'm more than willing to send over some help for this accident investigation. But leave the politics out of it.

"Here are the facts of what happened here. Do with this information what you will."
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I agree with the first part but I wouldn't stop there. A little more fiscal pressure needs to be put on Russia to clear out it's unofficial help in country. Time to stomp out the rebels and get back to being a country.
 
Seggy said:
I for one, am optimistic, that IF handled correctly, this horrific tragedy will work to stabilize the region and make Putin more timid in his next moves.

Reading between the lines I think the sanctions are working and with increased scrutiny this will hopefully lead to a quick end to this unrest and put Putin in a much more defensive position, not only abroad, put within his power circle.
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They were talking about this on Bloomberg yesterday and today. We imposed unilateral sanctions on Russia, which hurt them, but not as much as European sanctions will because the amount of trade between Europe and Russia is more important.

Get the Europeans to go along with those sanctions and they will really start to bite. And that is bad for the oligarchs who are Putin's power base and who he needs to have on his side to maintain power.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Only if we're talking about a dictator who has openly discussed wiping out a race of people and taking over Europe. And we aren't faced with anything like that.

Sorry, but the Nazi Germany analogies are ridiculous and have no applicability to modern foreign policy.
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Foreign policy? Where?
If we had a coherent foreign policy, I would hope that it didn't completely dismiss the danger of genocide. While its clear and present danger status may have diminished, genocide is by no means no longer a threat. There have been several major public genocides in the second half of the 20th century. And, lest we forget, Putin's strategic (and seemingly psychological) mentor, Stalin, killed more people than anyone in history.
That said, military actions are rarely engendered by moral outrage even when accompanied by actual morally outrageous events. Acquisitive interests drive military expeditions. Follow the money. Moral outrage is an intellectual weakness encouraged and exploited by financiers in a Judo-like fashion to encourage taxpayer and politician comfort and compliance in the expenditure of their national treasures. Loud screaming is generally just distracting noise. Follow the money.
 
MikeD said:
Rest of the world. Handle your problems and clean up your own backyards in your collective continent HOA.

Have a nice day.
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Not that I'm saying we should be totally isolationist, but I can't help but feel like a ton of our problems would be solved if we stopped playing world police, or not even going that far, the dad that's constantly turning around and saying "Don't make me turn this car around!" when the kids misbehave.

We catch crap every time we do get involved in something, and if we don't get involved all we hear is "why isn't the U.S. doing something?!" Unfortunately it's probably too late for us to throw our hands up and say "everyone's on their own", and the rest of the world knows that.
 
JordanD said:
Not that I'm saying we should be totally isolationist, but I can't help but feel like a ton of our problems would be solved if we stopped playing world police, or not even going that far, the dad that's constantly turning around and saying "Don't make me turn this car around!" when the kids misbehave.

We catch crap every time we do get involved in something, and if we don't get involved all we hear is "why isn't the U.S. doing something?!" Unfortunately it's probably too late for us to throw our hands up and say "everyone's on their own", and the rest of the world knows that.
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Cable news and most of the loudest voices have no idea what they're talking about.
 
Derg said:
That's my point.

There's a disturbing number of people in the thread that don't realize just how close this event hits to home.

Forces shot down a civilian aircraft on a super-busy air route that a number of us regularly operate.
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Seriously. This thread is a mind-numbing to the point it'd make CNN proud. I'm sickened by this because I know I've flown that routing before over Ukraine, and not terribly long ago. Could have been a Delta or Atlas jet, for all we know.
 
dasleben said:
Seriously. This thread is a mind-numbing to the point it'd make CNN proud. I'm sickened by this because I know I've flown that routing before over Ukraine, and not terribly long ago. Could have been a Delta or Atlas jet, for all we know.
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I've flown it more times than I can remember. Multiple times per month actually.

I read some of the posts in this thread and it makes my head want to explode. But again, that's the nature of the internet and hyperbole is sexier than a rational, dispassionate discussion.
 
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