Today marks the first anniversary of the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over Ukrainian by Pro- Russian rebels. While Malaysian Airlines can be faulted for flying over an area of known conflict even though the airspace was open, today there is no doubt that this was a deliberate act of mass murder committed by Pro-Russian rebels fighting the Ukrainian government. There is equally little doubt that the BUK Missile launcher used by those rebels was provided by the Russian Government of Vladimir Putin. Indeed many speculate that given the difficulty and considerable training needed to operate there may well have been Russian military advisors and or operators at the controls of the BUK launcher. These questions do nothing to change the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin bears personal responsibility for constructing the environment that lead to these deaths, a criminal accessory before the fact to 298 counts of murder.
Wreckage of MH17 in Days After Being Shot Down by Pro-Russian Rebels
Video which has aired today shows gruesome images of the Pro-Russian thugs rummaging through the personal effects of the dead and treating their remains without respect in the moments after the attack. International investigators were kept away from the crash site for several days and once they arrived it was clear the wreckage had been tampered with in such a way that there will always be unanswered questions. Very much like KAL007 in 1983, the Russian military showed they have no moral hesitation shooting down civilian airlines without regard to cost.
While the west was quick to express outrage at the shooting down of a civilian airliner by irregular Russian forces, they have been long on words and short on action. The European nations are reluctant to too deeply offend their commercial partner Russian and the Obama administration continued its policy of spineless appeasement. But let there be no doubt, Vladimir Putin is a cold blooded murder whose hands will be forever blood stained. Never has appeasement deterred international criminals from further bloodshed. As the families mourn the anniversary of their loved ones deaths, we must wonder who will Putin kill next?
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