Airliner Shot Down over Ukraine

[kato13]

We signed an agreement with the Ukraine where they gave up their nukes in exchange for promises from the US to prevent exactly what is going on with the Russians now. And I doubt the MRE's we have delivered have done much in the way of honoring that agreement

Technically this was never submitted to the Senate and therefore never signed as a treaty. It is legally null and void.

This still floors me that the Ukrainians accepted this fact and still got rid of their nukes. Given it was politicians making the promises, it seem a bit like paying for insurance but never getting anything in writing in return. "We will cover you Trust us."

[Askold]

Technically this was never submitted to the Senate and therefore never signed as a treaty. It is legally null and void.

This still floors me that the Ukrainians accepted this fact and still got rid of their nukes. Given it was politicians making the promises, it seem a bit like paying for insurance but never getting anything in writing in return. "We will cover you Trust us."

Or they just wanted to get rid of the nukes and perhaps did not believe that a war (with nuclear weapons) was likely.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/russia_demands_investigation_into_claims_finns_joined_fighting_in_ukraine/7368805#susi1

Not saying that this is impossible, I'm sure we have some people who would like to have a "rematch" with Russians but all these claims from Russia and the Donetsk gang are getting crazier everyday.

[Adm.Lee]

An interesting take on this, going back to the Cold War: http://johncbeck.tumblr.com/post/920...lane-goes-down

This time, however, I am in agreement with many that it sure looks like the separatists did it, with a SAM they got from Russia, and the same separatists are muddying the evidence to deflect blame.

[Damocles]

Great Link Adm.Lee. It takes guts for someone to admit such a mistake. Quite a useful article for me professionally as well. Thank you!

[Adm.Lee]

These also seem relevant:

http://www.newrepublic.com/node/118782

and:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/07/science_fiction_writers_predicted_ukraine_conflict_now_they_re_fighting.html

This last one, along with a biography of Putin I just finished last month, has me really suspicious about how long the current hostilities have been planned years in advance.

The first one can remind us that when a population has no outside sources of information, even a large population can fall for propaganda. And the latter one can show us a valid kind of propaganda, warming up the fear of/desire to fight against "fascist invaders".

[pmulcahy11b]

Does Putin actually want a war They'd end up with a pyrrhic victory at best.

I like Sting's take on this: "It's such an ignorant thing to do, if the Russians love their children too."

[Schone23666]

Does Putin actually want a war They'd end up with a pyrrhic victory at best.

I like Sting's take on this: "It's such an ignorant thing to do, if the Russians love their children too."

No...not exactly a "full-blown war" in the old Cold War sense if you will, I think Putin is just applying the old Soviet playbook of war by proxy against the "evil Western Imperialists", much the same way we (the West, that is) played against the Soviets during the Cold War. Problem is, you have to be careful not to gamble too much when rolling the dice, which some are afraid Putin or some idiot is going to do at some point, which is not without historical precedence.

Putin's not stupid enough (I think anyway) to want an all out war, but he and his inner circle really do miss the glory days of the U.S.S.R. and they've also got a bit of a chip on their shoulder in regards to the U.S. for various reasons, real and imagined. So none of this is surprising, it's just a question of how much he thinks he can control the situation.

To whit, here's an interesting article from Daily Beast (no, I'm not a fan of the site, but the article is interesting, take it with a grain of salt of course):

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/25/putin-s-number-one-gunman-in-ukraine-warns-him-of-possible-defeat.html

Everyone knows the Pentagon has been watching this mess. Now it seems, the rumors are confirmed they are "dusting off the old books", according to this article, make of it what you will:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/dempsey-us-military-dusting-off-decades-readiness-plans/storyid=24713043

And to top it all off...it seems Putin's decided he's riding the tiger now and he's not getting off:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/russia-rocket-systems-ukraine_n_5621172.htmlncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

The Russians are transferring heavy artillery rocket launchers (Anyone know more about these or what model they might be, BM-9P140 Uragan perhaps), and more APC's and MBT's to the separatists, and it seems they're building up Russian troops along the border, AGAIN.

[Askold]

Russian claim that an Ukrainian SU-25 shot down the plane is facing some problems. Mainly that an SU-25 cannot go higher than 7km (and that is without weapons. If armed the max altitude is 5km.) To combat this problem someone from Kremlin tried to edit the wikipedia pages of SU-25 to make it look like they could have flown to 10km.

http://gawker.com/did-russian-officials-edit-wikipedia-to-back-up-a-bogus-1609071757

Oops...