<ol>
<li><p>A non-starter as Russia will use its veto as one of the 5 permanent security council members to block such a proposal.</p></li>
<li><p>How would such a force be recruited and get to the area when it’s currently a raging battlefield and the rebels have refused to agree to a cease-fire to investigate/recover bodies and debris from the crash? </p></li>
<li><p>Even if Russia on the remote chance agrees, it’s no guarantee the Russian-backed rebels will comply and many member UN nations contributing troops to UN Peacekeeping forces are likely to be reluctant to risk their troops in finding out either way. </p></li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Russia claims they had nothing to do with it. Exercising veto would not speak well for them. It was an internation incident. No one “knows” how it happened. One can make a strong case fro an international investigation and protection of the site. We could move peace keepers fron Cypress. It won’t need to be huge</p></li>
<li><p>They had a better chance to agree to a temporary limited withdrawl of forces from the crash site.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It may not work but no one has even tried. The thing to do would be keep cool never mentioning who’s at fault. Emphasize securing the site from disturbance and recovering the remains for family members building up the international support. instead we were just busy pointing fingers pushing the others get defensive. Wouldn’t you say that was supremely dumb?</p>
<p>To save his ugly face, Putin needs to take measures to secure the crash site and do everything possible to aid the investigation. However, if the rebels are truly out of Putin’s control, which is quite possible, there is little he can do (other than cutting off all aid to them) to control them. This is his Taliban.</p>
<p>Netherlands and Malaysia should have stronger reactions to ask the UN to get involved.
We spent too much blood to defend Europe already. Europe needs to wake up now.</p>
<p>A friend of mine who is Russian married to a Ukranian had a polite but fevered argument with me today the gist of which is his belief that the Ukranian government did this. Why? The old idea: “look who gains” and since this essentially crushes the rebels’ public position then the Ukranians benefit. I pointed out that the US has verified the audio in which the plane being shot down is discussed and further argued that just because something “benefits” the other side that doesn’t mean your side wasn’t stupid enough to do it.</p>
<p>But he’s a strong believer and I think that is shared widely across the Russian population here.</p>
<p>Interesting, Lergnom. I have some former coworkers who are Russian (and some who are Ukrainian), and no one seems to believe the propaganda spewed by the pro-Putin Russian media. A bunch of crazy, armed and drunk thugs with a missile launcher are not going to think about the consequences of and who might “benefit” from their actions.</p>
<p>I’m not surprised that the Russians are buying the story that Russia is not to blame. That doesn’t make Russians any worse than anyone else. We all want to believe well of ourselves and our country. Israelis have all sorts of explanations about why it’s all right that their super-accurate weapons killed four little boys playing soccer on the beach, for example. Americans defend some pretty heinous American conduct too.</p>
<p>I saw on CNN the footage of many Russians apologizing. Though they seemed to claim that they didn’t think Russia was responsible, they were still apologizing. In notes and in person. Wonder what the apologies were for if they didn’t think Russia held responsibility?</p>
<p>The old, “we’ve done heinous things too,” defense doesn’t even make sense in comparison to shooting down a civilian aircraft with all those innocent men, women and children aboard. And then looting and stealing their bodies, after shooting at and hampering the investigators. Sick.</p>
<p>The terrorists are holding the bodies in a refrigerated railroad car, bus. No word about when the remains will be released to the families. My family is traveling by air next week (thank you, smart aviation brains for changing the flight path!) and I cannot even imagine what I would do if something like that ever happened to my loved ones!!!</p>
<p>Yes, so awful, Bunsen. I can’t imagine how I’d live another day if something like that happened to my family. But if your family is flying with a US carrier, they probably weren’t flying that route anyways. They will be fine!</p>
<p>Sadly, it is not a US airline, but it was one among the first carriers to announce (right after the crash) that they will no longer fly over these territories.</p>
<p>“I’m not surprised that the Russians are buying the story that Russia is not to blame. That doesn’t make Russians any worse than anyone else. We all want to believe well of ourselves and our country. Israelis have all sorts of explanations about why it’s all right that their super-accurate weapons killed four little boys playing soccer on the beach, for example. Americans defend some pretty heinous American conduct too.”</p>
<p>This rationalization of Russian behavior and essentially suggesting it is equivalent to Israel fighting a misogynistic, murderous, nihilistic and irrational fundamentalistic regime hiding behind their civilians as they diligently attempt to kill woman and children by firing missiles randomly at 80% of Israel, or saying it is equivalent to American conduct, is despicable.</p>
<p>Let’s not get carried away. It is generally agreed that they shoot it down by mistake. It is still bad but quite different from intentionally hunting downa civilian aircraft. About looting, may I remind you of what happened during Katarina? That’s why securing the site should have been a priority and send investigators/observers with an army to protect them. I am afraid the US missed an oopotunity to show the leadership ensuring that. We were overly eager to pin it on Russia and started a blame game. Securing the site is time sensitive. Blame game can wait.</p>
<p>I would think the more apt Katrina parallel would be the callous disregard for the bodies of people’s loved ones and leaving them to rot along side the road for lack of appropriate government action and first responder organization and access. Carry on . . . </p>
<p>There were lootings during the disaster. Not widely reported and may not be to the extent happening in Ukraine but there was. You’d think they were too stormy to loot.</p>