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Post by Blasted »

Koumei wrote: And our PM spoke angry words... not actually to Putin, because he's terrified of Putin ...

I assume most of the Western world has this shit going on in their papers?
The Australian political situation might be more unique, Abbott has jumped on it because his polling numbers are now so low and local issues so toxic. He's going to stick to this issue for as long as he can, I suspect he'd even piss off Putin. Putin isn't as scary as the knives in the party room right now.
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Post by Koumei »

In the party room, either the Libs will replace him and put forward "less bad" ideas while still being generally bad, and they'll hope that will keep people happy enough to support them in the next election, or they won't and basically the senate while wipe their dicks on his face until the next election where we never see him again. If he actually gets too close to Putin, The Commissar of Cool, P-Man will chokeslam him through a table. Abbott did some boxing in uni, Putin is trained in Judo (and Sambo?) and was in the KGBredacted.

In minor Australian news, dwarfed by international events, they repealed the Carbon Tax on attempt #4, and Populist Mining Billionaire Clive Palmer got everything he wanted. But they failed to repeal the Mining Tax - even Crazy Clive voted to keep it, because his political power relies on "the people" liking him whenever he pisses the government off. So he's basically said "Look, I'm okay with repealing the tax, but not applying the budget cuts that you've tied to it. If you want to reduce your revenue by $10mil, that's fine, but you're not just making the money back elsewhere. So blow another hole in your budget or remove Gina from your friendslist and lose all her support and backing."

It's hilarious. And now parliament is on a break until August, so the tax stays even longer while the PM fumes and decides how he wants to kill his career.
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Post by tussock »

http://rt.com/news/174412-malaysia-plan ... a-ukraine/

That's about the official Russian military data dump on MH17.

Which is basically, the Ukraine had a Buk nearby in storage on the 14th, which had been moved by the 17th (unknown by whom), there's a Buk in a field close enough to the crash site on the 17th (might be the same one), there's a couple Buk radar units active in the area on the 17th (among other active radars), and there's a Ukrainian Su-25 approaching the plane before it was downed (which they suggested deserves explanation).

I wonder if they tried to shoot down the fighter jet and got the airliner instead.


Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military are holding their data for investigators, but seem to have much the same info, what was used, where it fired from, where the plane was hit, and where it fell.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system

That has a note [73] saying the rebels (Donetsk People's Republic) claimed to be working on fixing an old Buk and also an old "Su bomber" they'd captured. Maybe they never fixed the command unit or IFF stuff properly and the missile just picked the bigger target for them?
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Post by Username17 »

The important thing about the range on the buk missile is that it is measured in kilometers. That's why it can hit a plane which by all accounts was flying ten kilometers into the air. Finger pointing about who had buk missile systems how close to the area is a smoke screen. The range on that weapon is so long that the Ukrainians could have shot down the plane from well outside rebel controlled territory and the Russians could have potentially shot down the plane from across the border.

Anyone arguing opportunity is blowing smoke. Everyone had the opportunity. The Donetsk government, the Moscow government, and the Kiev government. As well as potentially several other minor factions since missile systems may well have been looted by or transferred to criminal gangs on either side.

There is a question of motive. The plane was scheduled to fly close to Ukrainian military airspace, and if it dipped down into it both the Kiev government and the separatists would have reason to shoot it down (like the Soviet downing of a Korean passenger plane in 1983). But if it's a case of mistaken identity (like the US downing of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988) or accidental launch (like the Ukrainian downing of a Russian passenger jet in 2001), there doesn't need to be any motive at all. The flight recorders may be able to tell us if the plane had dipped into military airspace, but that still wouldn't tell us who actually fired the missile or whether they had orders to do so.

Right now, the Ukrainians and the Russians are in full evidence manufacturing and coverup mode, and I would be very skeptical of any actual smoking guns that were revealed. I would expect it to take years for the whole story to be settled, if it ever is.

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Post by Laertes »

Thinking it over, the theory that makes the most sense to me is the one that says that a nineteen year old conscript / rebel fucked up somewhere. I would be puzzled to discover that the Ukrainians are shooting down planes since the rebels don't have an air force, but the probability that the guy with the trigger finger fucked up strikes me as higher than the probability that he was acting on clear orders from above. That mistake could have been made by anyone, since dumb, nervous half-trained kids are the same everywhere.

The fact that everybody has clammed up with information makes sense in this light: nobody knows for sure that it wasn't them who shot it down, so they make like armies do and close ranks to prevent public scrutiny.
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Post by name_here »

The missile could theoretically have been launched from outside rebel territory, but US satellite coverage reports that in actual fact it was not.
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Post by Akula »

FrankTrollman wrote:This actually is an ad hominem, by the way. It's important to point these things out, because so often people claim that things are ad hominems when they are really insults.
It is an attack on your credibility. Because you are not credible. You also haven't offered a logical argument, all you have done is say that both stories are possible in such a manner as to suggest each is equally likely. There is no reason to believe the Russian party line here; the missile was fired from rebel held territory, and so far the Ukrainian army has not fired any surface to air missiles in the course of the conflict. Add to that the multiple sources that have rebels claiming to down an aircraft in the area which were subsequently deleted; and the fact that rebel operators would likely not have had much training with the weapon system, and by far the most likely possibility is that an idiot rebel fired on something by mistake and no one figured it out until they examined the wreckage for a while. But you can't admit to that, you started throwing around the idea that the Ukrainians shot down the plane and have continued to wring your hands and say we can't know while also saying that you wouldn't accept more evidence at this point.
Akula is of course a worthless shitbird who wouldn't know an honest argument if it was a flying candiru wedging its way up his or her urethra. I of course can't read Russian domestic news, so it absolutely doesn't matter how credible or not I would find it if I could read it. Nor am I subscribing to any elaborate conspiracies about zombie aircraft or fake missile launches.
No, your elaborate conspiracy is that the Ukrainian military snuck a missile platform into enemy territory increasing its risk of destruction or capture, and over which no enemy planes flew, so they could shoot down a plane to do what exactly? Blame the rebels? And they moved the AA system and it's support elements into and out of the area with no one the wiser and none of the soldiers involved have said anything. And that when a plane was shot down, the rebel military command was so eager to claim credit that they instantly did so multiple times even though they could call up the units they had in the area and learn that no one had done anything with their AA assets that day. I'm sorry but you do consider an elaborate conspiracy to be about the same level of plausibility as "poorly trained rebel fucks up".
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Post by Username17 »

How exactly is it an implausible conspiracy theory to say that it is entirely possible that Ukrainian military units may have been in a part of the Ukraine that the Ukraine claims as theirs and is engaging in active combat operations in? Ukrainian military units go into rebel controlled areas every day. They are fighting a war over that territory.

And that's assuming for the moment that it is established that the missile was fired from within rebel controlled territory, and not from territory that is either in Russia or controlled by the Ukrainian military. That determination has not actually been made.

Here, let's see what the BBC is saying about it:
BBC wrote:Intelligence has also been obtained which strongly indicates that the plane was shot down by an SA-11 BUK missile launched from a separatist-held area in eastern Ukraine.
Now, back in 2002, you may remember that the intelligence was obtained that "strongly suggest that Iraq maintains a stockpile of chemical agents, probably VX, sarin, cyclosarin, and mustard." You'll forgive me for my skepticism, but basically when American and British hawks announce that they have intelligence that "strongly suggest" things, that doesn't actually count for much. You may recall that in fact Iraq had none of those things, and tens of thousands of people died for nothing. It's actually kind of a big deal.

The investigation is moving ahead slowly and may never get a satisfactory answer. The crash site has never been secured and it still isn't. Rebels, journalists, military people from several countries, and just random people from the neighborhood have been poking around the wreckage, taking things home and dumping more stuff in for days. Even if someone managed to get scene control right now, there have been an unknown (but large) number of people tampering with the evidence with several different agendas for nearly a week already.

The last time the Ukrainian military accidentally shot down a passenger jet (and there was a last time), they stonewalled for eight days even though they had no plausible deniability at all. The last time Russia shot down a passenger plane (and there was a last time), they stonewalled for five days (it was somewhat complicated and involved the violation of their airspace by a recon plane shortly before the violation of their airspace by a passenger plane off course). Now there are three main interested parties and a bunch of splinter factions, and everyone has plausible deniability. You will be lucky if you get a straight answer on what happened in eight fucking years.

Seriously, this is all we really know:

Image

Good chance that is all we'll ever know. But of course, speculate away - everyone else is doing it.

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Post by nockermensch »

Koumei wrote:Our government and media are already doubling down on the assumption that Putin personally jumped into the sky and clubbed the plane to pieces with a rocket. The front page of the papers showed his face, and various pictures of Russians holding signs apologising for what their government has done*. With "Russians apologise but Putin still won't admit it". Because that is the quality of the newspapers we have.

And our PM spoke angry words... not actually to Putin, because he's terrified of Putin. He gave a speech to Australia, condemning Russia, and then said bad things to a Russian ambassador or trade minister. He specifically said big countries mustn't go around bullying smaller countries and infringing on their sovereign territory. In other news, a pot made racist remarks about the coloration of a kettle.

I assume most of the Western world has this shit going on in their papers?
Supposing Brazil counts as Western world, yes. Not exactly a paper, but one of the main three weekly magazines here had this cover this week:
Image
"PUTIN'S GUILT"

"283 passengers from a Boeing were killed on the skies of Ukraine by a russian missile, in this century's most serious threat to world peace."

You'd think that ISIS restarting the goddamn caliphate with the declared intention of getting all the muslim world (which for them includes Spain and Rome) back would constitute a more serious threat but these Veja guys are pros, so they must be right, right?

And meanwhile, british media goes full pathetic appeal.
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Post by Maj »

That image of protesting Malaysians looks entirely staged. It's like movie protesting. "And now, hold your arm up in the air like you're mad." "Like this? Am I doing it right?" "Perfect! <snap>"
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Post by tussock »

What is it? The specially hired coaches that bought them there? The all-male crowd? The pre-printed t-shirts? The high-quality all-weather signs in Russian and English? The low camera angle from a surrounded photographer to inflate the crowd size? All of the above?

The article text that says they're protesting outside the Russian embassy about Putin, while the photo comment says it's outside the Ukrainian embassy and the signs are about getting local investigator access to the scene. That's almost the same thing, hardly matters, really.


Anyhoo, I don't know enough about Malaysian politics to really say, but that sort of thing here in NZ is always highly political and funded by people on the edge of power in order to get a bit more local press for their own crazy-ass reactionary demands.
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Post by ishy »

FrankTrollman wrote:
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I'm not sure who made that picture, but last time I checked, Amsterdam is not in France.
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Post by Longes »

On July 17 the commanding officer of 156th Anti-Aircraft Regiment was instructed to conduct a training exercise of ground troops stationed near Donetsk, which involved deploying the troops, and carrying out a routine tracking and destroying of targets with the Buk-M1 missile,” the source said.
The source added that the actual launch of the rockets was not intended.
Two Sukhoi Su-25 combat aircraft on a reconnaissance mission participated in the exercise. It is likely at some point, the routes of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 and a Su-25 jet overlapped. Despite flying at different levels, they became a single dot on the radar of the missile system. Of the two, the system automatically chose a larger target.
Last edited by Longes on Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by tussock »

That could be nothing more than a rumour within the Ukrainian military, if it's a real source at all. Would also totally fit a carefully crafted Russian propaganda move, after they asked about the Su-25 presence in the area a few days back.

Because that's a pretty big story to keep quiet at all, even if you were sending said Su-25 pilots on entirely coincidental suicide missions in the days after the Russians started to figure it out. /weeeeeee-this-is-fun.

Which side is letting out the greater porkies is left as an exercise for future historians.
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Post by Username17 »

Yeah, Russian explanations of what happened aren't any more credible than American ones. We still don't know anything, and anyone who says that intelligence "strongly suggests" is just blowing smoke.

In a (possibly) unrelated piece of Ukrainian news: the Ukrainian parliament just declared the opposition communist party illegal and dissolved the coalition. This issues in new "elections" where the opposition parties are not allowed to stand and only gold certified junta members get to have their votes counted.

I didn't think it was possible for Ukrainian democracy to become more of a sham than it already was - but it did.

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Post by Longes »

FrankTrollman wrote:Yeah, Russian explanations of what happened aren't any more credible than American ones. We still don't know anything, and anyone who says that intelligence "strongly suggests" is just blowing smoke.

In a (possibly) unrelated piece of Ukrainian news: the Ukrainian parliament just declared the opposition communist party illegal and dissolved the coalition. This issues in new "elections" where the opposition parties are not allowed to stand and only gold certified junta members get to have their votes counted.

I didn't think it was possible for Ukrainian democracy to become more of a sham than it already was - but it did.

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Ukraine has denied those training exercises, though I can't find the article on the eng RIA website (it exists in russian).

Speaking of their government, prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has resigned.
“If no new coalition is formed and the existing coalition in a parliamentary-presidential republic had collapsed, the government and the prime minister have to resign. I announce my resignation because of the coalition’s collapse,” he said.
Yatsenyuk also expressed disappointment with Ukrainian parliament’s decision to reject a bill that allows the government to hand over up to 49 percent of the country’s gas transport system to investors from the European Union and the United States.
And in other, 'happier' news - Ukraine (probably) uses white phosphorus bombs on civilians.
Last edited by Longes on Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by hyzmarca »

nockermensch wrote:
Koumei wrote:Our government and media are already doubling down on the assumption that Putin personally jumped into the sky and clubbed the plane to pieces with a rocket. The front page of the papers showed his face, and various pictures of Russians holding signs apologising for what their government has done*. With "Russians apologise but Putin still won't admit it". Because that is the quality of the newspapers we have.

And our PM spoke angry words... not actually to Putin, because he's terrified of Putin. He gave a speech to Australia, condemning Russia, and then said bad things to a Russian ambassador or trade minister. He specifically said big countries mustn't go around bullying smaller countries and infringing on their sovereign territory. In other news, a pot made racist remarks about the coloration of a kettle.

I assume most of the Western world has this shit going on in their papers?
Supposing Brazil counts as Western world, yes. Not exactly a paper, but one of the main three weekly magazines here had this cover this week:
Image
"PUTIN'S GUILT"

"283 passengers from a Boeing were killed on the skies of Ukraine by a russian missile, in this century's most serious threat to world peace."

You'd think that ISIS restarting the goddamn caliphate with the declared intention of getting all the muslim world (which for them includes Spain and Rome) back would constitute a more serious threat but these Veja guys are pros, so they must be right, right?

And meanwhile, british media goes full pathetic appeal.
If that's the most serious threat to world peace, then we're doing pretty awesome.

By this time last century we already had the assassination of an Archduke and a series of ill-advised secret mutual defense pacts.
Last edited by hyzmarca on Sat Jul 26, 2014 6:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

So some of the Hindu Nationalist MPs in India's parliament were caught on tape force feeding a Muslim during Ramadan. So that's a thing.

The MPs claim that they actually didn't know he was a Muslim or care, and that what they were doing was simply protesting the fact that they didn't really like the cafeteria food by physically assaulting a randomly chosen cafeteria worker. I... think I believe that story. Their explanation is that rather than being religiously insensitive they are merely violent crazy people. And that sounds pretty plausible.

Just remember: these guys were elected to parliament in the world's largest democracy.

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Post by Maxus »

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Post by tussock »

He means Socialist, the state's going to take further control of the means of production, protect itself from foreign paid internal influence, tell the ECB to fuck off, and create jobs for everyone in place of a welfare state.

As compared to market liberalism where you sell everything to foreign rich men at bargain prices, let them write all your media stories about how wonderful that is, pay out the nose for the privilege to foreign bankers, and spend all your money subsidising a shitty standard of living for the mass unemployment it creates.

Also, fix your tags.
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Post by Username17 »

No, he obviously doesn't mean Socialist, he means Fascist. By the way, the unfucked tags look like this. If he meant Socialist, he would have been talking about successful socialist countries like Norway and Denmark rather than list such exemplars as Turkey, Russia, and China.

Obviously, what Orban wants to do is exercise more prior restraint on news outlets, cut contact with foreign NGOs, and force foreign corporations to give kickbacks directly to members of his political party. On account of those are things he has already been doing.

If this had anything at all to do with socialism and improving the quality of life of Hungarians, he would be working with Norway and cracking down on Russia instead of the opposite.

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Post by Laertes »

Yeah, this is pretty obviously an attempt to craft a more corrupt state while the world is distracted in Donbas and Gaza. My Hungarian friends are extremely pissed off about it.
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Post by Koumei »

This also isn't particularly surprising, although it is shitty. The government actions so far have been pointing to this happening.
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Post by Stahlseele »

http://www.neurope.eu/news/wire/german- ... -return-us

Yeah, no, german politicians are as stupid as everywhere else it seems . .
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Post by hyzmarca »

Stahlseele wrote:http://www.neurope.eu/news/wire/german- ... -return-us

Yeah, no, german politicians are as stupid as everywhere else it seems . .
He's right.

If Snowden could get the Justice Department to agree to give him complete immunity from arrest and prosecution for everything related to the leaks, in writing so that he could safely return to the US then it would probably be the best outcome for him.

Of course, it's highly unlikely that Snowden would get such a deal. He'd need some really good leverage for that.
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