Sunday, July 20, 2014

Mourn the victims... but don’t turn one tragedy into a global catastrophe


Mourn the victims... but don’t turn one tragedy into a global catastrophe

By Peter Hitchens
One thing we should have learned in the past 100 years is that war is hell. We might also have noticed that, once begun, war is hard to stop and often takes shocking turns.
let us just mourn the dead and comfort the bereaved, and regret human folly and the wickedness of war
So those who began the current war in Ukraine – the direct cause of the frightful murder of so many innocents on Flight MH17 on Thursday – really have no excuse.
There is no doubt about who they were. In any war, the aggressor is the one who makes the first move into neutral or disputed territory.
And that aggressor was the European Union, which rivals China as the world’s most expansionist power, swallowing countries the way performing seals swallow fish (16 gulped down since 1995).
Ignoring repeated and increasingly urgent warnings from Moscow, the EU – backed by the USA – sought to bring Ukraine into its orbit. It did so through violence and illegality, an armed mob and the overthrow of an elected president.
I warned then that this would lead to terrible conflict. I wrote in March: ‘Having raised hopes that we cannot fulfil, we have awakened the ancient passions of this cruel part of the world – and who knows where our vainglorious folly will now lead?’
Now we see. Largely unreported over the past few months, a filthy little war has been under way in Eastern Ukraine.
Debris from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which landed in a field of sunflowers in Ukraine
Many innocents have died, unnoticed in the West. Neither side has anything to boast of – last Tuesday 11 innocent civilians died in an airstrike on a block of flats in the town of Snizhne, which Ukraine is unconvincingly trying to blame on Russia.
So PLEASE do not be propagandised by Thursday’s horrible slaughter into forgetting what is really going on.
Powerful weapons make it all too easy for people to do stupid, frightful things. Wars make such things hugely more likely to happen. 
In September 1983, the Soviet air force, inflamed by Cold War passions and fears, inexcusably massacred 269 people aboard a Korean Airlines 747.
In July 1988, highly trained US Navy experts aboard the cruiser Vincennes, using  ultra-modern equipment, moronically mistook an Iranian Airbus, Iran Air Flight 655, for an F-14 Tomcat warplane. They shot the airliner out of the sky, killing 290 innocent people, including 66 children.
All kinds of official untruths were told at the time to excuse this. In October 2001, bungling Ukrainian servicemen on exercise were the main suspects for the destruction of Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 over the Black Sea. Whoever did it, they killed 78 passengers and crew en route from Israel to Novosibirsk – though Ukraine has never officially admitted guilt.
So, let us just mourn the dead and comfort the bereaved, and regret human folly and the wickedness of war. Let us not allow this miserable event to be fanned into a new war. That is what we did almost 100 years ago, and it is about time we learned something from that.
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1 comment :

Anonymous said...

An msm report (not the Roberts article) says:

From satellites, sensors and other intelligence gathering, officials said, they know where the missile originated -- in separatist-held territory -- and what its flight path was. But if they possess satellite or other imagery of the missile being fired, they did not release it Tuesday. A graphic they made public depicts their estimation of the missile's flight path with a green line. The jet's flight path was available from air traffic control data.

This smells to high heaven. "IF they possess satellite or other imagery of the missile being fired" does not fit this scenario of a government that had just accused Russia falsely and had admitted it had satellite images of the missile but now suddenly reporters are told no one knows if there are images.
The REAL truth of the matter is that for some reason, the US government will not release the images which it already admitted it had. A friend of ours who has worked in government security said it is not easy for Washington to release satellite photos. Yet a while back, it did release photos purportedly showing Russian tanks arrayed at the border with Ukraine and that was supposedly very shortly after the photos were taken.
Funny how easy it is to release satellite photos when they implicate the country that neocon Mitt Romney claims is our most dangerous enemy (ignoring China's gargantuan arsenal and open threats) but how difficult it is to release images that may well exonerate Russia, a country that so far, has only intervened when asked to do so and by traditional allies.
This is BS!
BTW, I often whince a bit before reading a Roberts article because he is not always objective. However, here he did a pretty good job of controlling his feelings (I have the same problem, gotta admit. I love my country but LOATHE the government. Why lie?).
Don Hank

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/no-direct-link-to-russia-in-downing-of-flight-mh17-u-s-officials-1.1925639#ixzz38LitPCWE