Why aren't the bodies of MH17 being picked up and preserved???

[MoonRiver]

Those poor souls are decomposing rapidly. The families need their loved ones' remains back ASAP!

[hollysmom]

1. thyey are in a war zone, I don't know how easy it is to get to them.

[MoonRiver]

3. Well, countries where the victims came from need to demand safe access.

Plus there is a health hazard for the local populace if all those bodies are allowed to keep decomposing. How about somebody displaying some common sense and human decency?

[oldhippie]

28. And their demand will be backed up ....

.. by what?

[Niceguy1]

47. life sucks in a war zone

I am sure they are doing the best they can.......

[hlthe2b]

2. I've seen reference to the investigators being fired upon--so I'm guessing the combatants

in the area are not cooperating with removal of the dead.

A very sad sitution..

[Jenoch]

4. The Russian separatists are in control

and they won't let anyone in until hey can crqp all over the evidnce that will help to explain exactly what happened.

[former9thward]

9. They may want to loot but they are not trying to destroy evidence.

Everyone with satellites over the area knows exactly what happened. The debris on the ground does not give more information. The only question is whether the shoot down was an intentional attack on a civilian aircraft or an accidental shoot down of what they thought was a military aircraft. Debris on the ground will not answer that question.

[Trajan]

11. WTF kind of statement is that?

Sheesh ... you know for a fact that Ukrainian Separatists are not trying to destroy evidence?

How do you know that? ...

[former9thward]

14. What exactly would be the "evidence" they would be destroying?

Please be specific. There is only one question to be answered. There is nothing on the ground that will answer it. Experts have already said the black boxes will tell nothing. So again what "evidence" are they destroying? That is the WTF kind of statement.

[Trajan]

17. What a giant load ...

WHAT evidence? ...

The entire crash area is a crime scene ...

Material evidence is spread over a wide area ... just as every single aircraft accident that occurs in the modern world is investigated, piece by piece; so should this event ...

I cannot believe the level of cynical obfuscation that sullies this website lately ... completely and utterly dishonest ...

I've read your other posts over time ... This one takes the fucking cake ... ridiculous ...

[former9thward]

40. You did not answer the question.

No surprise there. If you don't like my posts use the ignore button. The admins put it there for a reason.

[HooptieWagon]

22. They could be picking up missile fragments, for one thing.

[former9thward]

39. They know the missile from radar and satellite.

No mystery there. Why the missile was fired is the question.

[muriel_volestrangler]

45. Fragments may identify a particular type of age of the missile system

which may identify if it was a system taken from the Ukrainians (a claim which has been both made and denied) or one that only the Russians had. This goes to the question of whether the Russian government was supplying the missiles or not.

[former9thward]

49. The Ukrainians got their systems from Russia.

[muriel_volestrangler]

53. Yes, but the type *or* age (as I should have typed above) may indicate

if it was a missile in the Ukrainian stock, or the Russian one.

[HooptieWagon]

48. Fragments would reveal WHOSE missile.

Was it captured from Ukr forces, or given to them by Russians? Clues to the model#, the seriel#, would reveal that. Perhaps they don't want that revealed.

[former9thward]

50. Perhaps, but what does it matter who gave it to them?

The rebels fired it. Unless you think Putin gave an order to shoot down a civilian aircraft unrelated in any way to Ukraine. No, I don't think he gave an order like that. There would be no point to it. And the U.S. with intercepts would know that anyway.

[pnwmom]

25. One of the stories on RT is that the bodies were actually from the Malaysian crash

of three months ago.

Examining the bodies now would disprove that theory.

[HooptieWagon]

35. I doubt anybody would take that claim seriously.

The passengers were certainly alive when they walked on board. And the airline and Dutch govt have a passenger list.

[Igel]

41. Those who need to believe that their cause is just and

their leaders are righteous are buying it.

Belief is a great motivator. Think about it: It kept the USSR together, with most of the believing that things were horrible in the West for decades. We were starving, uneducated, about to revolt against our oppressors.

My Russian teacher years ago said that he arrived in the US and was given over to a host family. He didn't believe them. They took him shopping a few days after they arrived and he was convinced they were at a special store. So they took him to another. And another. This was in New Jersey. At the time there was a liquor section in grocery stores--you could pick up corn flakes in one aisle and the vodka to go with them in another.

Finally they got tired of taking him to stores and they handed him a map. "Pick a neighborhood. There's likely to be a grocery store in it." So he picked a neighborhood and they drove however many miles and found a grocery store. Randomly chosen. He went to the liquor aisle and cried. The store had lots of food, lots of meat, and he just stared at the different brands of vodka at this no-name, randomly chosen store. The fourth or fifth that he'd seen that day.

Other Russians at the time said that they realized they'd been lied to not when artists and such went to Russia, not even when common Americans visited the country, and certainly not when people defected to the West, but when Russian commoners came to the US and returned not just with stories but with stuff. Because everything Soviet was better, they'd been told. They had the highest standard of living on Earth. They had the best and most food. The best housing. The best clothing. Theirs was a triumph of freedom and prosperity. Except everybody that went to the West returned with VCRs and stereos, nice clothes and good technology--and said these things were common, cheap, and the evidence was "better." They'd sacrificed for greatness and reached mediocrity, and the underpinnings came out from under support for the ideology.

[IronGate]

56. Evidence of a missile strike,

parts of the aircraft that would show a missile striking it.

[former9thward]

58. Ahhhh

Maybe you don't follow news much .... But no one anywhere is disputing the fact a missile brought it down.

[IronGate]

61. I know that,

but who knows what they're thinking.

[EX500rider]

62. The kind of evidence that traces a SAM to recent Russian manufacturer and ownership. that kind.

[former9thward]

63. That is not really the issue.

The issue is 1) did they know they were firing at a civilian airliner? and 2) was there Russian help in targeting the aircraft? No one is suggesting the missile came from Russian soil.

[EX500rider]

64. It may be no issue to you whether or not the Russians handed over..

....state of the art heavy duty SAM launchers to Ukrainian rebels....but it may a issue to others.

[Jenoch]

13. If the debris on the ground does not give more

information then why is the debris always collected and analyzed? Please tell us what your education and experience is in forensics n these kinds of situations.

[former9thward]

15. Most aircraft accidents are not shoot downs.

With the ones that are, such as when the U.S. shot down the Iranian civilian aircraft, people know the cause. You don't know the cause of the plane crashing? Incredible.

[Jenoch]

18. Are you for real?

The Russians are claiming that the bodies are of people who have been dead for weeks. There are hundreds of reasons to do a thorough investigation.

Exactly why do you believe an investigation is not needed?

[former9thward]

20. The Russians are not claiming that.

It that the position of Putin? Internet crap does not represent the "Russians saying something". Nice strawman.

[pnwmom]

26. There was also a claim that a top rebel commander said many of the bodies were days old.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/07/18/rebel-leader-suggests-victims-were-dead-before-plane-took-off/MIOJNrP0sKWDQcQX2Ym8WO/story.html

MOSCOW (AP) — A top pro-Russia rebel commander in eastern Ukraine has given a bizarre version of events surrounding the Malaysian jetliner crash — suggesting many of the victims may have died days before the plane took off.

The pro-rebel website Russkaya Vesna on Friday quoted Igor Girkin as saying he was told by people at the crash site that ‘‘a significant number of the bodies weren’t fresh,’’ adding that he was told they were drained of blood and reeked of decomposition.

snip

[Jenoch]

29. Thank you.

Your post is better than my vague reference.

[pnwmom]

30. I also read somewhere else that Russian television

was putting out three stories. And one of them was that the bodies actually came from the Malaysian crash of three months ago. But this was the first similar story I found on google.

[Jenoch]

34. Russia Today is pretty much the Pravda of the 21st Century.

Pretty amazing that the Ukrainians (or whomever RT was intending to implicate) were able to recover intact bodies from 2,500 fathoms deep.

[former9thward]

38. No it is not.

You believe anything you read on the internet? Yikes!

[former9thward]

36. You can read anything on the internet.

News Flash --those are not official statements.

[Jenoch]

44. Two fails on you.

I never wrote 'official statements' and I never wrote what source I used.

[former9thward]

51. LOL

" I never wrote what source I used." Now, that is a true statement. Maybe because it was a worthless source.

[Jenoch]

55. How would you determine that?

[former9thward]

57. Oh so you post stuff without a source

and then complain that no one can determine it is worthless. Classic.

[Jenoch]

59. You apparently did not read all of my posts.

[pnwmom]

24. The debris on the ground could include a black box, which certainly is evidence. n/t

[former9thward]

37. No, its not.

We know why the plane crashed. Don't you?

[pnwmom]

43. They need to prove the exact direction the missile was shot from

and some information from the black boxes could help in making that calculation. They won't know unless they examine it.

Yes, we know "why" the plane crashed, but we don't know all of the "how."

[former9thward]

52. The black box does not know anything about the missile.

The U.S. knows exactly where the missile came from and has said so. Keep up with the news. Satellites give that information not black boxes.

[pnwmom]

54. We need to be able to prove it to the world's satisfaction, not just ours.

And you don't know what information might be stored in those two black boxes, about what the pilots might have done or said, so you can't know that nothing in them would help in an investigation.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Because armed warlords aren't letting anyone near the site...

At least until they get their "official" alibi straightened out

[CatWoman]

10. lol

not funny at all, but that place is eerily similar to the Bundy Ranch.


the thought gave me a chuckle.

[MohRokTah]

6. Because the Russian terrorists won't let them be picked up. eom

[Crunchy Frog]

7. Because the heroic, anti-fascist freedom fighters won't allow it? n/t

[monmouth3]

8. I noticed the man that owns the vegetable patch was kind enough to cover the body that fell. So sad

[Brickbat]

12. All of the above, plus it's a crime scene.

[Jenoch]

16. Some of the bodies fell through

the roofs of houses.

[Hekate]

19. Uh, war zone?

[MoonRiver]

21. I'm sorry but bodies are routinely picked up in war zones.

Even if one has no empathy for the families, decomposition represents a very real biological danger.

[HooptieWagon]

23. I doubt the guilty party is worried about bio-hazard to civilian population.

They are more concerned with destroying evidence.

[flamingdem]

32. Yep, agree

this might be why they ordered the volunteers to leave suddenly.

[AngryAmish]

27. That place was fucked up before there was a war.

Most places are fucked up. The natural human condition is fucked up.

Civilization is hard. You have to work at it. Some folks are not capable of it.

Might as well damn them for not putting on a world's fair or making a giant water slide.

[flamingdem]

31. Rachel just said the separatists ordered volunteers to leave and that OSCE

members didn't have freedom of movement.

People can come and go and "take what they want".

This is really out there.

[Throd]

33. Probably because the evidence will prove damning to Putin.

If the armed forces in control of the crash area thought otherwise, they would welcome an investigation.

I expect a few days of dithering and pissing contests in which the wreckage will have been thoroughly compromised.

[Igel]

42. The initial reason was "it wasn't possible."

No power to the area. Nothing to preserve the bodies in--no refrigerator cars.

Now the lastest story is from the Donets'k official governor Taruta is that the rebels are trying to pick up the bodies and send them to Russia for "objective" analysis. Because all the Westerners are fascists and are trying to frame them. I don't know if Taruta is accurate. He's not on the ground and hardly unbiased.

There's a reason the rebels turn off all the tv stations (and more recently, radio stations) that aren't out of Russia and mostly strongly oriented to the official state version of events. Have closed newspapers and beaten up editors. Dozens of reporters have gone missing for a while-some still aren't found (and these aren't Russian reporters nabbed by the Ukrainians). They've been pressured to "tell the truth", to give "objective views of the facts". If it's not flattering to them, it's fascist lies and propaganda.

And if there's one word I refuse to translate from Russian, it's "objective." Because when that word is used in Russian its meaning is pretty much never "objective." It's a Marxist-Leninist philosophical term and was so warped that it'll never be unscrewed. As far as I can tell, the best translation for ob"ektivnyi is something like "in the view that I'm forced to have", if you're low ranking, and "in the view that I insist others adopt because they serve my purpose", f you're high ranking. Putin's told his forces to produce an "objective" analysis that casts light on what really happened. But what really happened, he'd already said, was that the Ukr government was responsible.

[SoCalDem]

46. Because their bodies are in a war zone

and the locals are more interested in looting the luggage and personal effects than they are about pressing for a cease fire that could allow for body removal..

[randr]

60. Russian tea party people in control