[lbo-talk] Ukrainian responsibility for the mass murder

[Shane Mage]

The NYTimes this morning published an official Ukrainian government  
statement that constituted an admission of total responsibility for  
the crime.  The official admitted that the government's authorization  
of passenger air travel over a war zone being bombarded by Ukrainian  
government aircraft was made in full knowledge ("we know for sure")  
that insurgent air-defense batteries were capable of reaching above  
10,000 meters and that government aircraft were operating at those  
heights.

Whatever else may be true about the conflict in the Ukraine (and not  
much out of there seems worthy of belief) it is impossible not to see  
the routing of passenger aircraft over a zone in which it was carrying  
out aggressive aerial military operations as a criminal provocation  
designed to make possible, and even likely, exactly such a catastrophe  
as in fact occurred.

' Vitaly Nayda, the head of counterintelligence for the Ukrainian  
State Security Service, said at a news conference...that the rebels  
knew they were aiming at a plane flying above 10,000 meters, or 32,800  
feet. While this is in the range of a passenger jet’s normal cruising  
altitude, he also said that Ukrainian military aircraft sometimes fly  
that high. “There is no doubt that terrorists knew that they had  
launched a missile against a plane that was higher than 10,000  
meters,” Mr. Nayda said, adding, “We know for sure that the terrorists  
have the plan to shoot down every military plane, every military  
plane, even cargo plane, every helicopter, in the air over Donetsk and  
Luhansk regions.” '

Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64