The New Age of Global Paranoia: Russia, Ukraine, and the Plane Crash

[madokie]

Collateral damage from Ukraine's civil war: The 21st century takes another sharp turn into the unfriendly unknown.

The catastrophic destruction of any passenger jet always hits a hot nerve of modern existential angst. The reality of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, shot down while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with around 300 passengers and crew, is infinitely worse. The speed with which both the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists denied responsibility — and accused each other of being the guilty party — tells us something critical. The course of history turns on events like these. How blame gets apportioned can swing the fate of nations.

In a week already full of terrible reports from Gaza, the news Thursday morning that a Ukrainian government official had accused the separatists of shooting down MH17 provoked a different kind of gasp. The ongoing horror in Palestine confirms a preexisting sense of intractable despair, but it doesn’t tell us anything that we don’t already know about the Mideast. What just happened in the Ukraine signifies a new morass of uncertainty and inevitable escalation. The geopolitical consequences are incalculable.

Vladimir Putin’s political future, the survival of Ukraine as a state, the question of whether other European nations and the United States get drawn more deeply into the conflict — anything and everything seems possible. As recently as Wednesday, the U.S. had announced sanctions on Russia tied to its military support of the Ukrainian rebels. As the relevant parties fight over who is to blame for the destruction of MH17, Cold War tensions are relentlessly heating up.

How that plays out, again, is anyone’s guess. But here’s what we do know: An already anxious world is sure to get more jittery. We’ve seen what happens after previous shocks to the global nervous system. 9/11 changed the psychology of a nation — changed our laws, the way we travel, the way our government spies on its citizens. We didn’t feel safe, so we became paranoid, with lasting effect.

http://www.alternet.org/new-age-global-paranoia-russia-ukraine-and-plane-crash

[Cha]

2. Actually Rachel Maddow laid it out pretty clear earlier tonight.. With the facts that we

do know.. and it points right at the air missiles and training supplied by Russia to the Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine.

[malaise]

3. Yes but the hiding of news - not covering the military aircraft attacks on the

citizens of Eastern Ukraine by the RW government of Ukraine -also created this particular crash.
Why was any civilian aircraft in a war zone? Why are the people of Eastern Ukraine shooting down military aircraft?

All are guilty here. Truth will out.

[sendero]

4. There is plenty of blame to go around..

... but IMHO the lion's share of the blame goes to whoever fired that missile. And I'm pretty sure we already really know who that was.