comments on the Malaysian air disaster in Ukraine

[Darth Executor]

Et tu, OBM? Has everyone already forgotten Georgia and what happened there? Nah, surely not everyone! At least Wikipedia has a memory superior to DE's: en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

Yeah remember when the US sent in the army to Georgia and had a grand ole fight with the Russian military? No? Me neither.

Georgia was the same thing, Russian puppets stealing the land of a country too small to defend itself, the US doing nothing about it because it doesn't care. What exactly is this supposed to show, other than that you appear to be suffering from some sort of mental disability?

[Darth Executor]

Please cite the post that sticks out the most in your memory(?) as being especially stupid and/or insane and explain why.

Nah.

[seanD]

Just the current facts. Rerouting has commenced as a consequence of the downing of MH17. Maybe you should consider reading your own reference material.

In April, European and American aviation officials warned commercial airlines about the risks of flying over Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in the midst of disputes between Ukraine and Russia, which annexed the peninsula. The European Aviation Safety Agency published an advisory highlighting the possibility of "serious risks to the safety of international civil flights" due to air traffic control disputes in the area.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a similar advisory later that month, amid concerns of unrest in the region. In statements Thursday, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the FAA noted that the Malaysia Airlines jet had crashed outside the areas covered in their advisories.

The FAA added that all U.S. airlines had voluntarily agreed to avoid airspace near the Russia-Ukraine border after the crash.

Many companies were voluntarily rerouting their flights as per EASA and FAA advisory warnings in April. Also, this was before planes were being shot down just days before the Malaysian flight went down. You might want follow your own advice.

[One Bad Pig]

Et tu, OBM? Has everyone already forgotten Georgia and what happened there? Nah, surely not everyone! At least Wikipedia has a memory superior to DE's: en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

OBM?

I don't trust Wiki on anything controversial.

[Truthseeker]

Yeah remember when the US sent in the army to Georgia and had a grand ole fight with the Russian military? No? Me neither.

strawman.

Georgia was the same thing, Russian puppets stealing the land of a country too small to defend itself, the US doing nothing about it because it doesn't care.

The USA not caring about Eastern Europe? This part from Wikipedia contradicts you. To be sure possibly you meant in terms of trying to make the world better. But the USA was involved in Eastern Europe for many years now in any case. If you want I can dig up exposes of USA hijinks in Georgia. OBP (sorry, not OBM) sneers at Wikipedia but does not cite any opposing authority.

[tabibito]

Many companies were voluntarily rerouting their flights as per EASA and FAA advisory warnings in April. Also, this was before planes were being shot down just days before the Malaysian flight went down. You might want follow your own advice.

Or ... perhaps you could link to source material that is actually relevant - assuming there is any.
According to the article in the link, Air France has been avoiding the area since April. US airlines by contrast

The FAA added that all U.S. airlines had voluntarily agreed to avoid airspace near the Russia-Ukraine border after the crash.

A spokeswoman for German airline Lufthansa said that although Ukrainian airspace had not been restricted, the company had decided to fly a "wide detour" around the region, effective immediately.

the FAA noted that the Malaysia Airlines jet had crashed outside the areas covered in their advisories.

and with that last comment, it is probable that Air France has flown in the area where MA17 was shot down anyway. It is hardly believable that AF would avoid an area that wasn't identified as a risk.

[Truthseeker]

This part from Wikipedia contradicts you.

I forgot to put in the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#Enlargement
Sorry!

[Darth Executor]

strawman.


The USA not caring about Eastern Europe? This part from Wikipedia contradicts you. To be sure possibly you meant in terms of trying to make the world better. But the USA was involved in Eastern Europe for many years now in any case. If you want I can dig up exposes of USA hijinks in Georgia. OBP (sorry, not OBM) sneers at Wikipedia but does not cite any opposing authority.

Being involved in East Europe does not constitute caring about East Europe you tard. The US is nearly omnipresent. That doesn't mean it cares about what happens everywhere on the planet.

Again, repeat after me: the US being somewhere does not mean the US cares. The US bombing someplace does not mean the US cares. Being the only superpower left it has some obligations to keep, which it does as long as they don't cost anything significant. Sending some soldiers to train the Georgian military = low cost so why not? Sending the military to defend Georgia when Russia invades? Very high cost, and since the US doesn't care, it doesn't. Libya is another example where Ronulans hyperventilate but which in reality the US doesn't really care about and only got involved because the "International Community" was butthurt about Gadaffi slaughtering civilians. You can tell the US doesn't care because Libyan terrorists slaughtered its ambassador there and the US had one jack about it. CNN found those guys partying in some bar after 5 minutes of searching.

And let's do it a third time: The US being somewhere does not mean the US cares. The US's actions are entirely consistent with it not caring about East Europe as seen from the low level efforts with regards to doing just about anything meaningful there.

[Epoetker]

Ah, interests, how they do align in interesting ways.

1. If a military transport gets shot down over an actively contested area, then the agency that fails to reroute flights over the region is the one most culpable in the deaths of people from getting shot down. It is expected, especially nowadays, that deceptive tactics will be used by any side that can get away with it, so if you want to stay out of the conflict, then staying as far away from it as possible is the most sensible course of action. But I suppose attendees at yearly AIDS conferences are exempt from the laws of basic common sense.

2. Landlocked people are out of luck and allies in any invasion scenario. Ask the Kurds. Better yet, ask the families of the Germans at Stalingrad how they feel about contributing personnel and materiel to a new difficult supply line and horrific bloodbath in an area far from their interests.

3.Georgia started the 2008 war. Specifically, it was Saakashvili:

On August 7, Georgia launched a massive artillery barrage and incursion to retake the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

The next day Russian forces poured into South Ossetia, routed the Georgians, and drove deep into Georgian territory, a punitive attack aimed at the destruction of the Georgian military infrastructure. They attacked military facilities-especially those that had been certified by NATO-and destroyed coastal patrol boats, military equipment, communications, and a number of villages. The deputy chief of the Russian general staff said at the time that the Russian mission was to weaken Georgia’s military, but plainly the Russians were also sending a warning to other governments in Central Asia (and Ukraine) about the risks of trying to integrate with NATO.

The Russians had baited a trap, and the impetuous Saakashvili walked right into it. The Russians, Putin in particular, wanted to reassert Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, including in the Caucasus. I was asked by a reporter if I trusted Vladimir Putin “anymore”? I responded, ” ‘Anymore’ is an interesting word. I have never believed that one should make national security policy on the basis of trust. I think you make national security policy based on interests and on realities.” After meeting with Putin in 2001, President Bush had said he looked into Putin’s eyes and “got a sense of his soul.” I said to some of my colleagues privately that I’d looked into Putin’s eyes and, just as I expected, had seen a stone-cold killer.

As the invasion unfolded, President Bush, Condi, Steve Hadley, Admiral Mullen, and I were all on the phone with our counterparts in both Russia and Georgia-urging the Russians to stop and withdraw to the cease-fire lines while urging the Georgians not to do anything else stupid or provocative. When I talked with Serdyukov on August 8, I told him we were alarmed by the escalation of hostilities and urged him “in the strongest terms to halt the advance of your forces and stop the missile and air attacks inside Georgia.” I asked him point-blank if they intended to take all of Georgia. He said no. I was equally blunt with my Georgian counterpart. I told him, “Georgia must not get into a conflict with Russia you cannot win” and that Georgian forces needed to cease hostilities and withdraw to defensible positions. Above all, direct contact between Georgian and Russian forces had to be avoided. I assured him we were pressing the Russians not to introduce more forces into Georgia and to respect Georgia’s territorial integrity.

I agree that the United States has no particular loyalties for or against Eastern Europeans in general, but they do have interest in things like 'regional stability' and 'de-escalating conflict zones'. Obviously, I agree that a whole lot of these protracted conflicts have silly and, in the long run, destructive motives, and that a final war to determine the proper ethnic and racial boundaries is often called for-it's mainly that due to the persistent notion that the whole 'Cold War' and 'two halfway-civilized countries in a standoff held by mutually assured destruction" that we weren't encouraging that sort of thing anywhere in Eastern Europe at the time. Since US foreign policy now in the region now seems to be dictated by "Which State Department Employee Wants to STRIVE HARD ENOUGH FOR THAT PROMOTION?" I expect things in Eastern Europe to crapify even more.

[Truthseeker]

Being involved in East Europe does not constitute caring about East Europe you tard. The US is nearly omnipresent. That doesn't mean it cares about what happens everywhere on the planet.

Again, repeat after me: the US being somewhere does not mean the US cares. The US bombing someplace does not mean the US cares. Being the only superpower left it has some obligations to keep, which it does as long as they don't cost anything significant. Sending some soldiers to train the Georgian military = low cost so why not? Sending the military to defend Georgia when Russia invades? Very high cost, and since the US doesn't care, it doesn't. Libya is another example where Ronulans hyperventilate but which in reality the US doesn't really care about and only got involved because the "International Community" was butthurt about Gadaffi slaughtering civilians. You can tell the US doesn't care because Libyan terrorists slaughtered its ambassador there and the US had one jack about it. CNN found those guys partying in some bar after 5 minutes of searching.

And let's do it a third time: The US being somewhere does not mean the US cares. The US's actions are entirely consistent with it not caring about East Europe as seen from the low level efforts with regards to doing just about anything meaningful there.

I am sorry, but after trying to make sense of that a second time, I ceased to care about arguing with you.

[Shadow Templar]

[...] you tard. [...]

In case it wasn't clear, when you directly insult people like this, you already lost the argument. I'm sorry, but no one wants to talk to you or listen to anything you say when you conduct yourself in such a manner. This can be seen clearly when Truthseeker says:

I am sorry, but after trying to make sense of that a second time, I ceased to care about arguing with you.

He's not the only one. Conduct yourself like a respectable person, or no one will listen regardless of how good a point you might have.

[Darth Executor]

In case it wasn't clear, when you directly insult people like this, you already lost the argument. I'm sorry, but no one wants to talk to you or listen to anything you say when you conduct yourself in such a manner. This can be seen clearly when Truthseeker says:

Shaming doesn't work on people who have no respect for you.

[Darth Executor]

Ah, interests, how they do align in interesting ways.

1. If a military transport gets shot down over an actively contested area, then the agency that fails to reroute flights over the region is the one most culpable in the deaths of people from getting shot down. It is expected, especially nowadays, that deceptive tactics will be used by any side that can get away with it, so if you want to stay out of the conflict, then staying as far away from it as possible is the most sensible course of action. But I suppose attendees at yearly AIDS conferences are exempt from the laws of basic common sense.

I don't think attendees at yearly AIDS conferences were designing flight routes. More importantly, since the separatists' cause is unjust they are entirely responsible for any killing that happens as a result of the conflict. Don't play equivocation games like the liberals where wars are just chess games with no clear culprits.

3.Georgia started the 2008 war. Specifically, it was [URL="http://www.unz.com/isteve/did-us-okay-2008-south-ossetian-war/"]Saakashvili:

Depends what you mean by "2008 war". Georgia did not start a war with Russia, or really start a war at all. The breakaway regions rightfully belong to Georgia and they had every right to take them back from traitors, through military action if needed. Russia interfered because the traitors were loyal to them, and Putin is probably trying to rebuild the Soviet Union (sans communism).

I agree that the United States has no particular loyalties for or against Eastern Europeans in general, but they do have interest in things like 'regional stability' and 'de-escalating conflict zones'.

No, it really doesn't. If total war broke out in East Europe the US would barely feel it.

Obviously, I agree that a whole lot of these protracted conflicts have silly and, in the long run, destructive motives, and that a final war to determine the proper ethnic and racial boundaries is often called for-it's mainly that due to the persistent notion that the whole 'Cold War' and 'two halfway-civilized countries in a standoff held by mutually assured destruction" that we weren't encouraging that sort of thing anywhere in Eastern Europe at the time. Since US foreign policy now in the region now seems to be dictated by "Which State Department Employee Wants to STRIVE HARD ENOUGH FOR THAT PROMOTION?" I expect things in Eastern Europe to crapify even more.

As I commented before, Jim is a clueless dolt and there is no reason to rehash discussions over his inane drivel.

[Epoetker]

I don't think attendees at yearly AIDS conferences were designing flight routes. More importantly, since the separatists' cause is unjust they are entirely responsible for any killing that happens as a result of the conflict.

I don't take sides in long-running ethnic conflicts of which I know nothing about, my general rule is to steer clear of them, and it seems that at least a few people slated to go on MH17 agreed with me.

Don't play equivocation games like the liberals where wars are just chess games with no clear culprits.

By the time any of us in the regional superpower, global hegemon, or World Domination business get to them, they most definitely are. As far as anybody on our side is concerned, the war occurred last Tuesday when we got there, and any further action on anyone's part is going to be met with annoyance commensurate with the local effects of that action. The US really hasn't been in the business of straightforwardly picking the side and winning the war for them since Vietnam, probably earlier.

And the liberal game is generally NOT to support the hyperpower against the little guys, its to support fragmentation within the little guys and within the hyperpower as much as possible, and then to subsidize/'manage' the fragments for a full-time job in the international community. (What they do as domestic policy is also done as foreign policy.) The only reason they haven't played the game as assiduously or as ruthlessly as they would in places like India is due to the fact that both players in the conflict are white, which doesn't come up in their Diversity studies courses and thus only attracts the DoD world chess players.

Depends what you mean by "2008 war". Georgia did not start a war with Russia, or really start a war at all. The breakaway regions rightfully belong to Georgia and they had every right to take them back from traitors, through military action if needed. Russia interfered because the traitors were loyal to them, and Putin is probably trying to rebuild the Soviet Union (sans communism).

So you have precisely the same problem with the Russians that the British were likely to have had with the Americans, or perhaps: what the Austrians and Czechoslovakians thought about Hitler's designs on the Sudetenland. The claims aren't likely to be held up except under force or threat of force, if you don't have that force yourself then you have to rely on allies who may or may not have your own interests at heart, and any lasting resolution is likely to be seen as another maneuver to be counter-maneuvered later, likely after your big Western cousin is busy fighting someone else.

This is a lot of things, but it's not independence.

No, it really doesn't. If total war broke out in East Europe the US would barely feel it.

And if an Archduke was assassinated, Europe would have never destroyed itself. In point of fact, Eastern Europe is not an independent country. It's a protectorate of various nations and people who are historically more or less dependent on the imposition of social order from outside, whether from the Germans, the Russians, or the Americans. Its institutions are as strong as its men, and its claims to territory the same, so that if one leader goes down, it's an unmitigated crisis for whoever has the responsibility (whereas the cultural trust in institutions within America has never yet caused a war over something as trifling as a President getting shot. Nor even in Russia, or Germany.) What holds together the various Eastern European nations is generally the local rule of men-a good starting point, but until such time as the countries involved become truly sovereign, their laws and institutions well-known and respected among their people, and their control and responsibility for their own territories absolutely unquestionable....

...there will be nothing but opportunities for predation and other shenanigans among anyone contesting territory. Certainly there will be no nuclear capability or toleration.

Are there traitors among you, offering inroads to hostile and aggressive foreign powers? Why have you not rooted them out and executed them? Who's stopping you? What laws or codes have you tried them under, and who among your people is prepared to execute them immediately and irrevocably as a result of this infraction, which I'm sure the rest of the country will be of one voice in joining you with?

As I commented before, Jim is a clueless dolt and there is no reason to rehash discussions over his inane drivel.

Jim's a man with zero diplomatic voice, which makes him extremely valuable in a world of constant conscious and unconscious mendacity. If you won't hear it in a few words from him, you can always hear it in a great many from the son of a diplomat: Eastern Europe has no sovereignty:

Because EUSG includes those nebulous and distributed forces that comprise "international public opinion." Ie, the organs which dictate international public opinion - since people, generally, are not philosophers and believe what they are told to believe. While these organs are not monolithic or hierarchically organized, they somehow magically seem to always agree with each other. The Washington Post never gets into an organizational catfight with the New York Times, or Harvard with Stanford. This, of course, is because all are ticks on the same horse - Washington - and must gallop together.

There are genuine lacunae in EUSG's global sovereignty. China, for instance, or Russia. These nominal nations, rebel provinces of a sort, approach something like real sovereignty - although their ruling parties are still descendants of American progressivism (ie, Communism), and they have not confirmed their independence by formally rejecting the transnational institutions of the American era. If China dropped out of the UN, we would really know that the Middle Kingdom had regrown a testicle or two.

But China and Russia are not new lacunae, and their quasi-sovereignty is maintained by one thing: military power.

Just so. Needless to say, their sovereignty is not based on agreements of any local variety, except that they're backed by either the guarantee of military force or the guarantee of honoring their debt obligations to those willing to lend military force. If you wish to be a part of Greater America or Greater Germany instead of Greater Russia, fine by me, and you'll maybe get a better deal on the first two options in the near future. (Germany seems currently rather disinclined to be anything much greater than a financial state at the moment.) But to pretend that the local national agreements and arrangements are the actions of sovereign entities rather than what you managed to get away with while the superpowers were off focusing on other things seems uncharacteristically idealistic for you. I do admire and appreciate that loyalty, but at this point I would not let it cloud your judgment. When America has cleaned its own house and elected serious people to run it again, then you may rely on it to be the local arbiter once more.

Until such time as it does, the outlying provinces are going to have to accept Russian Federation control for the time being.

[Darth Executor]

I don't take sides in long-running ethnic conflicts of which I know nothing about, my general rule is to steer clear of them, and it seems that at least a few people slated to go on MH17 agreed with me.



By the time any of us in the regional superpower, global hegemon, or World Domination business get to them, they most definitely are. As far as anybody on our side is concerned, the war occurred last Tuesday when we got there, and any further action on anyone's part is going to be met with annoyance commensurate with the local effects of that action. The US really hasn't been in the business of straightforwardly picking the side and winning the war for them since Vietnam, probably earlier.

And the liberal game is generally NOT to support the hyperpower against the little guys, its to support fragmentation within the little guys and within the hyperpower as much as possible, and then to subsidize/'manage' the fragments for a full-time job in the international community. (What they do as domestic policy is also done as foreign policy.) The only reason they haven't played the game as assiduously or as ruthlessly as they would in places like India is due to the fact that both players in the conflict are white, which doesn't come up in their Diversity studies courses and thus only attracts the DoD world chess players.



So you have precisely the same problem with the Russians that the British were likely to have had with the Americans, or perhaps: what the Austrians and Czechoslovakians thought about Hitler's designs on the Sudetenland. The claims aren't likely to be held up except under force or threat of force, if you don't have that force yourself then you have to rely on allies who may or may not have your own interests at heart, and any lasting resolution is likely to be seen as another maneuver to be counter-maneuvered later, likely after your big Western cousin is busy fighting someone else.

This is a lot of things, but it's not independence.



And if an Archduke was assassinated, Europe would have never destroyed itself. In point of fact, Eastern Europe is not an independent country. It's a protectorate of various nations and people who are historically more or less dependent on the imposition of social order from outside, whether from the Germans, the Russians, or the Americans. Its institutions are as strong as its men, and its claims to territory the same, so that if one leader goes down, it's an unmitigated crisis for whoever has the responsibility (whereas the cultural trust in institutions within America has never yet caused a war over something as trifling as a President getting shot. Nor even in Russia, or Germany.) What holds together the various Eastern European nations is generally the local rule of men-a good starting point, but until such time as the countries involved become truly sovereign, their laws and institutions well-known and respected among their people, and their control and responsibility for their own territories absolutely unquestionable....

...there will be nothing but opportunities for predation and other shenanigans among anyone contesting territory. Certainly there will be no nuclear capability or toleration.

Are there traitors among you, offering inroads to hostile and aggressive foreign powers? Why have you not rooted them out and executed them? Who's stopping you? What laws or codes have you tried them under, and who among your people is prepared to execute them immediately and irrevocably as a result of this infraction, which I'm sure the rest of the country will be of one voice in joining you with?



Jim's a man with zero diplomatic voice, which makes him extremely valuable in a world of constant conscious and unconscious mendacity. If you won't hear it in a few words from him, you can always hear it in a great many from the son of a diplomat: Eastern Europe has no sovereignty:



Just so. Needless to say, their sovereignty is not based on agreements of any local variety, except that they're backed by either the guarantee of military force or the guarantee of honoring their debt obligations to those willing to lend military force. If you wish to be a part of Greater America or Greater Germany instead of Greater Russia, fine by me, and you'll maybe get a better deal on the first two options in the near future. (Germany seems currently rather disinclined to be anything much greater than a financial state at the moment.) But to pretend that the local national agreements and arrangements are the actions of sovereign entities rather than what you managed to get away with while the superpowers were off focusing on other things seems uncharacteristically idealistic for you. I do admire and appreciate that loyalty, but at this point I would not let it cloud your judgment. When America has cleaned its own house and elected serious people to run it again, then you may rely on it to be the local arbiter once more.

Until such time as it does, the outlying provinces are going to have to accept Russian Federation control for the time being.

There isn't much I disagree with in this post but this is a discussion on ethics, not pragmatism. That Russia can more or less do whatever it wants is not under dispute. Truthseeker's apologia is, and what irritates me in particular is his (and many other) libertarians' hypocrisy with regards to this issue.

Are there traitors among you, offering inroads to hostile and aggressive foreign powers? Why have you not rooted them out and executed them?

The Ukrainians did just that (sans execution, the Russian puppet ran). How'd it turn out? Mind you, even without Russia they'd probably still be poor and not really getting anywhere. Corruption, outside of Western and a handful of other countries is rampant. It's one of the reasons why I argue forcefully against mass immigration.

Who's stopping you? What laws or codes have you tried them under, and who among your people is prepared to execute them immediately and irrevocably as a result of this infraction, which I'm sure the rest of the country will be of one voice in joining you with?

In the case of the countries closer to Russia, Russia is stopping it, and punishing anyone who tries to overthrow their puppets. But modern Russia is an outlier. The general pattern with East Europe is to be fairly passive, corrupt and all around useless. This is a character shared by virtually all the people there. The only time where anything moves is when, once in a while, a powerful, competent leader arises. John Hunyadi (Hungary) is such an example. His son Matthias Corvinus was a traitorous scumbag who took money from Europe's gullible Catholics and spent it on cultural development instead of fighting the Ottomans like agreed. This was bad for Europe in general but still not bad for hungary. By the time you get to Louis II Hungary has pretty much gone back to the East European Baseline. I can't even fault him since he wasn't a bad man, he just wasn't good enough in a time where not being good enough isn't good enough. Putin himself is on the lower end of such figures (Hunyadis, not Louises) but there is currently such a huge vacuum of good leaders not just in EE but worldwide that he comes off as the Second Coming of Genghis Khan. The Soviet Union really got lucky with importing Stalin or Russia might well not even exist today.