[darthgoogle]

An independent investigation needs to look at this tragedy and figure out what happened. I think everyone would agree on that.

I just think it's ridiculous that minutes after the event, some Ukranian officials start finger-pointing and people want to believe them because they have been conditioned to associate Russia with bad things.

Up until yesterday, 99% of the people reading this thread had probably never even heard of a Buk, yet suddenly everybody's an expert. Might as well accept neo-nazis could have done it, after all, look what Brevik did to those kids in Norway and his reasoning.

Yes, this tragedy may be due to the separatists but it could also easily have been a mistake by the Ukrainians. In fact, a British major was just on TV saying that they could have accidentally shot down the plane because their air defence is "slack".

At the end of the day, look at this thread and see how quickly people are to blame Russia. It must be a Pavlovian response of some sort.

[kordless]

Blaming statements suck regardless of who's at fault (to blame) or who knows the facts about the situation. Unless everyone involved is totally Zen, which is highly unlikely, you are going to get this sort of behavior. The only thing I've been able to come to over the last few years dealing with this is that it only takes ONE person being rational to help a whole lot of others who aren't get settled down enough to talk about it. I think they are called diplomats! :)

We both agree this is wrong, and that's where we have commonality. I hear you about the blaming being laid about. It sucks on top of already a sucky situation.

[darthgoogle]

Agreed.

What I really find distasteful is that the Ukrainian nationalists immediately announce their theories to the press, with no evidence, whilst the wreckage and the bodies are still smouldering.

It smacks of sick political opportunism at a time when all sides should be trying to figure out what happened. The separatists have at least offered a ceasefire for a few days so investigators can come in and bodies can be recovered.

We simply don't know what happened and we should heed the warnings from missing flight MH370 where all kinds of media reports and intelligence turned out to be worthless.

Sadly many parties have an incentive to shape the narrative and they will use anonymous "tips" to push the frenzied media in different directions. Unless there is independent, corroborated and conclusive evidence, we may never know what happened to this flight.

[krschultz]

I don't think Pavlovian response is the right word. More like deja vu, considering the Russians did this once before (Korean Air 007).

[hga]

And Korean Air 902 in 1978 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_902).

You might also count a 1955 shoot down by the People's Republic of Bulgaria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al_Flight_402), and one shot down in 1940 during a period of nominal peace between Finland and the Soviet Union, but probably related to the latter's occupation of Estonia two days later (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleva_(airplane) ).

[vl]

Many countries did it before, including Ukraine:

"However, Ukrainian officials later admitted that it was indeed their military that shot down the airliner."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812