298 mostly European civilians lost their lives when a civilian airliner was apparently shot down by a sophisticated homing missile available only to the most advanced armies in the world and fired from an area controlled by Ukrainian insurgents. Such weapons had allegedly been previously used to shoot down Ukrainian military aircraft. Whether it was operated by Ukrainian insurgents, Russian “advisers”, or regular Russian troops, is almost immaterial: Putin and the Russian federation are almost certainly ultimately responsible. And yet European leaders do little but wring their hands and complain about the chaotic crash scene investigation and the recovery of bodies and personal effects.
No one expects European leaders to go to war with a nuclear power like Russia over such a provocation – but the repeated mincing of words by Obama and his Nato allies is nothing short of embarrassing. Well might Putin et al obfuscate until the outcry dies down. But isn’t it about time that the EU took some concerted action? How about a strategic EU energy policy and plan to reduce all dependence on Russian gas within 10 years to zero by building a European supergrid powered from largely sustainable sources?
The problem with most forms of sustainable energy is that they require very large amounts of capital upfront, reasonable interest rates, and guaranteed feed in tariffs to be economically viable. This is problematic at a time when many EU states – particularly those at the periphery are over-borrowed and under huge pressure to reduce Sovereign and private indebtedness. But how about making such capital available through the European Investment Bank for EU Commission approved projects?
Irish and Scottish wind, wave and tidal turbines allied to eastern European and Mediterranean solar farms could make up a huge amount of the energy deficit created by a progressive reduction in Russian energy imports, whilst at the same time providing a much needed boost to investment and employment starved peripheral EU economies. Would it be too much to ask the EU to be proactive and actually take the lead in such a continent wide project? Would it be too much to ask for the EU to actually have a continent wide energy policy?
Only one such allegation as of last Thursday.
Kiev specifically blamed this on Russian military inside Russia and not Ukrainian separatists in Ukraine. Kiev may have changed the story since the original report — but have yet to see any evidence from the crash site.
Have we any reason to doubt this Ukrainian report? Shooting planes down at 21 or 33 thousand feet isn’t done with hand held missile launchers or unguided missiles.
yes, plenty of reasons to doubt statements from Kiev. Particularly when they’ve changed their story from one day to the next, appear to have released doctored information, have held back international investigators in Kiev, and refused to put a cease fire in place as they continue bombing the region.
I don’t know what brought down MH17, but none of the parties are acting as if they are innocent.
That’s because none of them are innocent,” Marie2.
There are basically 4 groups involved in this criminal set of actions we are laughingly calling a “civil war.”
1-The U.S.-dominated NATO powers.
2-The U.S./NATO-dominated coup masters in Kiev.
3-The Russians
4-The Russian-dominated eastern Ukraine “rebel” forces.
U.S./NATO is on the hustle to control energy access throughout eastern Europe and the Muslim states. They will kill to win.
Ditto Russia.
Their surrogates are on the take.
No innocence anywhere in the neighborhood except for the civilians in Eastern Ukraine who are paying heavy dues for being in a Blood For Oil/Blood For Power war zone.
Lack of innocence equals lack of truth in advertising. The U.S./NATO powers and the Russians and their local surrogates are engaged in an advertising war. Like say Miller Lite and Coors Lite. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah about how good they taste and by extension how bad their competitors taste. The reality? All pisswater, all the time.
All criminality all the time.
Bet on it.
AG
If you are arguing “they’re all the same” how exactly does this analysis help us advocate for better outcomes? At least my diary attempts to do that.
Advocate at home for better governments. Talking about how rival gangs should act goes nowhere unless there is a superior force to stop them. There is no superior force short of the intervention of the universe in the form of some kind of karmic action. The Permanent Governments of the U.S./NATO, Russian and Chinese alliances are going to continue to gangster on until something happens to stop them. Internal change is the only answer other than some kind of real disaster like an environmental collapse or a nuclear war, both of which are looking more and more likely every day these thugs kill another few hundred or few thousand civilians for the privilege of spewing yet more CO2 into the already thoroughly polluted atmosphere.
Advocate for real change, before it’s too late.
AG
Red flag alert:
Ghouta gas attack
Sniper killings Maidan revolution
Downing Malaysian airliner MH-17
Apparently using the same blueprint to act on gossip, rumor, propaganda and lies as a year ago with the expected bombing raid over Syria.
What was the purpose of an Ukrainian Su-27 fighter jet flanking the MH-17 passenger plane. More questions than answers. You are moderate, the Dutch right wingers want to send the Marines to Donetsk to pick up the body bags of the victims by military force. Shame.
The junta in Kiev has intensified its siege on Luhansk and started bombing Donetsk this morning in the neighborhood between the railroad station and the airport. How are the revolutionaries in the Donetsk area able to cope with an assault from the regime and coordinating foreign media, OSCE observers, Dutch forensics have arrived for body identification, Malaysian experts will receive the two black boxes and the train with cooling has started to travel towards Kharkov. The bodies will be taken by the Dutch to the Netherlands for forensics and identification. Due to a number of plane disasters and the Srebrenica massacre, the Dutch are world renowned for their forensics. The Dutch team expressed their appreciation for the status of the collected bodies in the refrigerator wagons.
Distraught civilians in eastern Ukraine pass beneath a railroad bridge blown up July 7 over the main highway between Donetsk and Slovyansk. (Dmitry Lovetsky / Associated Press)
○ “30 Hours Earlier. Ukraine Crisis”
h/t Susan Sunflower. Yes, more dogs that don’t bark … Anne Applebaum’s article in Slate and a NYT editorial from yesterday are both notably “demur” when it comes to specifying exactly what concrete aid Russia/Putin has given the rebels … not ringing endorsement of the “it must have been highly trained Russian assets operating inside rebel territory who fired that rocket.” Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post: The End of the Russian Fairy Tale.
○ NY Times Opinion: Russia’s Anti-West Isolationism by Maxim Trudolyubov
○ NATO policy towards ‘containment’ of Russia, making it a pariah state by Ivo Daalder
○ Kerry Preaching Policy Contra Russia @Atlantic Council
After days of: “OMG they’re leaving the bodies to decompose in the sun and heat” and then “OMG they’re putting the bodies and body parts in body bags and moving them to a secret location” and then “OMG they’re putting the bodies in a refrigerated train car — echos of the Nazis,” today we get:
Nothing like manufactured hysteria/outrage to paint people as brutal savages when they were struggling with no outside assistance to do their best.
There is no doubt that the crash has been a huge propaganda boost to the Kiev regime and their allies in the West, which they are milking to the limit. Even though I regard Russia or it’s proxies to be the more likely guilty party, my proposal does not require an assignation of guilt. Making the EU more self-sufficient in energy is good policy for all sorts of economic, environmental and strategic reasons and should be pursued regardless. If such a policy shift can also channel some of the anger and grief away from a direct EU/Russia standoff, so much the better.
[sic] Obama and his team have really hit the RESET button. Brave warrior Joe Biden.
○ Pentagon Advocates More Diplomacy, Less Confrontation, in New Strategy Proposal – May 1992
○ Council of Europe says Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was the head of a “mafia-like” network
that dealt weapons, drugs and human organs
○ The New Yorker: Kosovo’s leaders have been accused of grotesque war crimes
To illustrate the point, a handy graphic of the percentage of natural gas supplied to EU countries by Russia. Reducing reliance on Russian non-renewables as you suggest seems reasonable and long-overdue (much as our nation really needs to reduce its own dependence on non-renewables in the Middle East by moving toward renewable resources and conservation). The devil is in the details as you note: investing in the infrastructure needed will cost a pretty penny, and it would take leaders willing to put aside an obsession with budget deficits and austerity to do as you suggest. Does the will exist to do so? Hard to say. Really, this is a conversation that is long overdue.
Good diary.
Many thanks
things not in evidence.
Shot down by a sophisticated homing missile? Maybe. But there is yet to be a proper crash investigation–which will not be helped by the crash being in a war zone–and all we really know so far is the plane fell out of the sky. Maybe mechanical failure. Maybe a bomb. Maybe an air-to-air missile. Maybe a surface-to-air. Maybe something we haven’t thought of.
Even if it proves to be a missile that does not suggest either the Russians or the Novorossiyans did it. It might have been them. But equally it might have been the Kiev government or the US–who on the one hand certainly had more to gain but on the other hand might–just as the Russians or the Novorossiyans might–have done it by accident.
The only real evidence we have is that the US propaganda roll-out was ready to go before the airframe hit the ground. While not proof, it does have the aroma of a false flag and really does raise the question of whether the US rather than Russia is, as you say, “ultimately responsible.”
At this writing, the Russias are the only ones offering evidence–tracks from civilian-aviation radar. Believe it or don’t, as you like, but what are the Americans offering? Nothing but innuendo and hot-headed talk.
So whether Europeans should run around like headless chickens, rather than merely “wringing their hands” is perhaps not so clear. I would want more evidence before committing myself to drastic action.
So what about that Russian gas? Buy it or don’t buy it. Nobody is forcing you. But don’t think you will buy it from the US–that is a mirage: The liquification plants do not exist. The gas itself will not exist in a few years: Production is bending over into decline.
So renewables! Good idea. At least the Germans are talking about it. But you cannot run industrial civilization on renewable energy–there is not enough of it. That is okay: Industrial civilization is dead man walking. The problem comes only if you imagine you can keep the corpse alive on green energy.
So what about green investment? Well, it is certainly not happening in the US. It won’t happen in Europe either unless you can free yourselves from vassalege. But how can you do that?
Not by siding with the US in the Ukraine War.
And that is what the Ukraine war is really about.
–Gaianne
As for evidence, the US is starting to offer more: Ok this is from US officials – take it for what you consider it is worth:
MH17: Rebels likely shot down jet `by mistake’, US officials say
And
MH17: Rebels likely shot down jet `by mistake’, US officials say
At least they are getting quite specific in their allegations…
MH17: Rebels likely shot down jet `by mistake’, US officials say
My proposal is simply to reduce EU dependency on Russian gas – this could take at least 10 years to achieve, as some countries are 100% dependent, and Germany 40%.
It was US posters on the DKOS version of my article which were suggesting Europe by gas from the US instead. I demurred – I couldn’t see it as being economic in any case.
As for their being insufficient potential renewal energy to support an industrial society, again I must respectfully demur – there is potentially no shortage of wind, wave, tidal and solar power. I envisage a not-too-distant future where only some high end applications like aircraft continue to use fossil fuels, and even these will be augmented by industrially produced alcohol.
The energy returned on energy invested for renewables is way too low.
The EROEI for oil has dropped from 100 : 1 to 10: 1 and industrial civilization is seizing up.
Renewables rarely achieve 10 : 1.
This is not an argument that they should not be done. It is an argument that you had better start thinking about a different–and much lower energy–way of life.
–Gaianne
a 10x EROEI is not a problem if most of the energy invested is also from a renewable source
Frank Schnittger
It’s not one or other blogger that is ‘absolutist’, that prize goes to the capitals of Kiev, London, Moscow and Washington DC.
There is an extreme propaganda war raging of lies, half-truths, desinformation and subversion. None is helpful to find a common denominator to the benefit of the Ukrainians. East Ukraine doesn’t want to be part of Russia, that has been clear from the coup d’état moment on February 28.
The Russian speaking population wants their minority rights upheld in some form of autonomy and existing economic ties with Putin’s Russia. Hundreds of thousands cross the border daily for their livelihood in the Russian Republic. The Rights Sektor should return to its cage and stop aggressive military action using tanks and fighter planes to shell cities in eastern Ukraine.
The protocal agreed upon between the EU and the Kiev government to end hostilities when Yanukovish was ousted, should be the basic document for negotiations with leaders from both east and west Ukraine. Outside politicians should butt out, at least not dictate their terms for a deal. Military action in a civil conflict will not bring the parties together. As I posted before, the oligarchs will remain, they just switch sides. The people already living in misery will suffer by a prolonged conflict.
In the US on CNN for example, the rhetoric has moved to the next phase: War with Russia. Good luck with choosing sides.
For a knowledgable view on the Ukraine crisis follow Matthew Rojansky and Mark Kramer.
My latest post – Mark, Don’t Ever Complain Again! [Rutte]. [caught up in the neocon rhetoric from Washington]