Posted on 07/18/2014 11:52:02 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Friday that the United States cannot rule out that Russia helped in the launch of the surface-to-air missile that shot down a Malaysia Airlines jet over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
Power said the U.S. believes the plane was likely downed by an SA-11 missile fired from an area in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists. She said Russia has provided SA-11s and other heavy weapons to the separatists.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, who called the emergency meeting, was more emphatic on assessing blame for the crash. And Ms Power it is likely that Russian military personnel were at the controls of the missile battery that downed the airliner.
New intelligence seen by the New York Times, suggest a surface to air missile on Monday shot down a Ukranian military plane from inside Russia’s borders – just days before MH17 was blown apart. It is possible that the same battery was then moved into Ukraine, where it shot down the Malaysian airlines jet liner.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
If you believe some punk rebel drive this Sam battery, set it up, and shot down the plane all by himself without Russian training and assistance then I have a bridge to sell you.
When Bush was pres he could manage Putin & now with Obama Putin is off the leash and dominating in his region.
It’s Eastern Europe. Back to late 1980s you had to hit three pop-up targets with a dozen rounds between 100 and 150 yards, one of these in full-auto just to graduate a secondary school and be eligible to high-school or college there. They taught kids how to IED a tank using chemicals and equipment one can find in store or how to aim at moving chopper to hit pilot. Tech students were brought from universities to summer camps and taught how to operate these SAMs including fire drills at drones. Give your neighbor’s mail-order bride AK and she would field-strip it in half-minute blindfolded if she isn’t shy enough to keep her skills secret.
Bush’s “compassionate conservative” was simply nonsense to confuse folks.
No Bush is a conservative and while president both grew the hell big bloated worthless gubmint.
Soooo, lets elect another non-conservative Bush?
Hell no!!
Clandestine Soviet-Russian anti-aircraft or air defense troop units engaged American air forces in combat in Korea and Vietnam.
One minor thing - the one time Putin did was in 2008 (Georgia), when Bush was a lame duck.
You seem to think they are super soldiers when most of them are lazy drunks created by decades of socialism.
~You seem to think they are super soldiers when most of them are lazy drunks created by decades of socialism.~
Many are lazy drunks but they are capable to use weapons, including advanced systems, and more competent in terms of warfare than, say, average American EBT-card holder or Arab terrorists employing spray-and-pray doctrine.
Look at the Balkan Wars and all the wars in FSU during Soviet collapse. They were particularly bloody and involved all sorts of advanced machinery.
Yes, and people forget that Ukraine is not just one big farm: Many people there are technically proficient, computer-wise, too. 2 weeks of training and “good to go”?Not only that, a good number also have had training on a variety of Russian equipment: The militaries used to work closely together, and Ukraine uses the BUK missiles to this day. I’d guess that at least 1/3 of the Ukraine military in the east of the country defected to the separatists - it’s one of the large problems the Ukrainian forces had and to some degree still have.
Still, if Putin handed over a BUK battery to the rebels without hands-on Russian army (clandestine) supervision, he was a fool. Even then, there was the guy on TV* talking about the likely operators’ “dangerous incompetence”: A BUK and a bottle of vodka an hour earlier is not a good combination...
*Related to me by my wife - some “military analyst” I guess, probably on FOX, but I’m not sure of the network.
In fact rebels has bragged they’ve overrun an air defense base capturing two Buks in late June, though it was reported both were in bad condition.
Being such a sophisticated system, it takes a lot of training to properly operate them, especially in terms of target recognition. It's possible if the separatists were operating them, they didn't know how to use the target recognition system fully, and as such when they fired a missile at what was supposedly another Ukrainian Air Force An-26 military transport, it ended up hitting a commercial jet airliner instead with tragic results.
(By the way, I've read that two Singapore Airlines jets were flying fairly close by at the time MH 17 was shot down. Just a few minutes' change in the time the missile was was and we could be right now trying to explain why a Singapore Airlines Airbus A380-800 carrying circa 455 passengers and flight crew was shot down in the second-worst single plane crash in aviation history.)
Someone should ask him why Russia allows civilian aircraft to fly over Donetsk which is bordered on 3 sides by Russia.
I can see that happening.
A little boredom a little vodka and a new toy.
While I would be the first to agree that GWB made mistakes in office but, when will people get over bashing Bush and put it to rest? The fish that needs to “fry” continues to occupy the White House. Odumbo has done more harm, and continues to do more harm to this nation than anything Bush ever tried to do or did.
~Being such a sophisticated system, it takes a lot of training to properly operate them, especially in terms of target recognition. It’s possible if the separatists were operating them, they didn’t know how to use the target recognition system fully, and as such when they fired a missile at what was supposedly another Ukrainian Air Force An-26 military transport, it ended up hitting a commercial jet airliner instead with tragic results.~
It is a regimental level highly automated system. In Russia it is operated by tankmen, not air defence forces. Target recognition is not a strong point of this thing because main idea behing BUK is to deny airspace in warzone over certain area for safe deployment of ground troops it’s assigned to protect.
You can read only basic info on your target like radar signature, altitude, airspeed and course from interface in base model and it is extremely easy to use.
Of course, competent operator can distigtuish between small attacking fighter-bomber and airliner based on limited indicators above but it is not the case for a noob who are still able to lock on and hit target like it is a video game.
I’m guessing the GO button is under the flap on the panel with nothing else around it? The switch or keyhole next to it is the ARM switch? My Russion Missile knowledge comes from Spys Like Us, and I’d be Chevy Chase with the rock. I don’t doubt that someone could learn to select a target from the screen and fire in a 10 minute session. Knowing what to shoot at would be harder. The kind of scenario where an airline gets shot down.
Where do you get serviceable missiles?
I’m not sure what difference it would make who actually fired the missile that brought down the aircraft. I don’t know anyone who believes that this incident involved the deliberate downing of a civilian aircraft (every indication is that the culprits thought they were shooting at a military jet) ... which means the Ukrainians/Russians will simply join a growing list of military forces — including the United States — who have done this sort of thing.
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