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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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Prime Minister David Cameron: "This is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias, and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action."
Exactly. The first thing to do is ban Russian gas in Europe. that will hurt Putin far, far more than anything else could, and no other action in likely to rein in this aggressive Russian madman. Anything else he'll just ignore or (worse) treat as a provocation. Loss of gas sales will cripple him. Time to do it.
Time to take firm action in Ukraine too - but first things first: cripple the expansionist aggressor himself by not buying his natural gas. Once you have done that, he will be in a mood to be reasonable on other things, 'coz he really, really needs those euros.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives!
Last edited by Tannin on Sun Jul 20, 2014 10:15 am; edited 1 time in total |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| You and I are on the same wavelength, mr Dirty Tricks himself Mal Brough. |
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David 
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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Crucial reading for anyone wanting to learn more about what's going on in Eastern Ukraine at the moment (and where the responsibility for this atrocity lies):
http://theconversation.com/how-far-were-russias-little-green-men-involved-in-the-downing-of-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh17-29422
| Quote: | In Donbass, Russia’s approach was characterised by lending implicit support to separatist forces, while depicting them as a bottom-up, local rebellion. This kind of “hybrid warfare” blurs the boundaries between state-controlled regular armed forces and the rogue local and mercenary forces. This strategy was viable owing to the porous border between the Donbass region and Russia (the demarcation of the Ukrainian-Russian border has long been opposed by Russia), easy transportation routes and ready volunteers within and from beyond Ukraine. However, it was noticeable that the top commanders of the various self-proclaimed republics were Russian citizens from Moscow – such as Alexander Borodai and Igor Strelkov – the last one with extensive military experience in various hotspots in post-communist Europe.
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During my trip to Ukraine in June 2014, I queried the role of the Russian militants as opposed to local volunteers in a discussion with a Ukrainian expert from Donbass. The town of Snizhne – from which the expert came – had been taken over by the separatists three days earlier. She pointed out that nowhere in Donbass had there been an outburst of bottom-up support for separatism without so-called “little green men” arriving first and taking over the local administration building and subsequently recruiting the local population. These same “little green men” were seen in Crimea before its annexation. |
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"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Tannin wrote: | Prime Minister David Cameron: "This is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias, and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action."
Exactly. The first thing to do is ban Russian gas in Europe. that will hurt Putin far, far more than anything else could, and no other action in likely to rein in this aggressive Russian madman. Anything else he'll just ignore or (worse) treat as a provocation. Loss of gas sales will cripple him. Time to do it.
Time to take firm action in Ukraine too - but first things first: cripple the expansionist aggressor himself by not buying his natural gas. Once you have done that, he will be in a mood to be reasonable on other things, 'coz he really, really needs those euros. |
As I say, the only test of moral worth is wearing cost. The EU, led by Germany, has shielded Putin from critique for so long now in order to protect the German economy, we know what their priorities are. The complete opposite applies to Abbott and the US; it's a no-cost, no-brainer for them to oppose Putin and his competitor energy companies.
Moral gnats the lot of them.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Tannin wrote: | | Wokko wrote: | | The plane was a blip on a radar screen flying at 10km over a war zone. It was a tragic wartime accident. |
^ this is utterly moronic. "Accident"! What a disgusting, stupid, quite idiotic thing to say.
Murder is murder. You CANNOT fire a huge, complicated, deadly surface-to-air missile at an airliner 33,000 feet in the air by "accident". If you were in fact trying to murder someone else instead, that is still murder. |
Yep, I cant see that one working well as a defense. "I wasn't trying to kill them, I was trying to kill someone else"
Although, lets see how well it works for Oscar Pistorias I suppose.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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I think it does actually work in this case because if they genuinely believed it was a military plane they could claim self-defence. That might make it manslaughter, though obviously one of the worst cases of manslaughter imaginable.
Anyway, definitions are irrelevant. What happened was an atrocity and the aggressors must be brought to justice.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| pietillidie wrote: |
Except that does not in any way at all whatsoever weaken my claim, summarised as follows:
| pietillidie wrote: | | The point being there are enough powerful scumbags anywhere you bother looking to warrant a universal suspicion of everything you hear about such incidents. |
I'm sure the limbless Iraqi children really couldn't give a flying stuff about your "free and fair elections" and "free press". Like that helped them.
You're confusing the fortune we find ourselves in with my claim that there are enough scumbags anywhere you bother looking—scumbags ever-willing to cause suffering to others if given half a chance—to warrant a universal suspicion. It would be outlandish to believe otherwise, though I understand how hard it is to let go of the comforts of exceptionalism when you're not the one on the ugly end of it and haven't been tested by harsh life conditions.
If you analyse the problem less defensively, you'll discover the main reason people struggle with cultural and contextual relativism is that it demands they let go of that other opiate of the masses, namely delusions of national/cultural/racial/group superiority. Relativism is challenging because it implies we're members of the same species who just so happen to find ourselves born into better and worse situations, making morality a case of living up to our own internal cultural standards, rather than simply being "better" than some less fortunate group of Homo sapiens elsewhere. |
Oh, certainly there are psychopaths or scumbags in all times and places, and some of them have positions of power. My point is that some political systems - mostly liberal, plural democracies, though not all - put curbs on the ability of psychopaths to lie and oppress. Until we have clear contrary evidence, we are wise to credit and defend those systems when they are compared with dictatorships. It is simply harder for Obama, Merkel, Cameron or Abbott to lie wantonly without being exposed by opposition parties or the press - not impossible, just a lot harder. And a system that makes it hard for the ubiquitous psychopaths to obtain, keep and exercise power unchecked needs to be acknowledged and defended, not relativised away.
I noticed that you reference Germany's actions toward Greece as though these were comparable to the invasion of Iraq, or at least evidence of "scumbaggery".
Greece entered the Euro and its fiscal commitments on the basis of fraudulent national accouhts, then failed to abide by the fiscal charter, took on a great deal of internal public liability and debt, and found itself exposed when the credit tide went out post GFC. Germany did not station tanks at the border, or fund separatists ; it simply declined to commit the German taxpayer to make more loans that were unlikely to be repaid, unless Greece started to live within its means. Greece could have defaulted, but that would have meant freezing itself out of international credit markets for an extended period, and exiting the Euro. So as a sovereign nation, it decided on the lesser of two evils. Was it in Gemany's interests not to have Greece default ? Yes, of course it was - but it was hardly psychopathic to bail Greece out of a situation that Germany had done nothing to create. Did it hurt innocent Greek people ? Of course - but the responsibility for that lies with the deeply flawed Greek political system.
Last point - I may be analysing the situation "defensively" as you suggest - or I could just be analysing the situation in good faith, and disagree with your point of view. 
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Two more flags before I die! |
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swoop42 
Whatcha gonna do when he comes for you?
Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Location: The 18
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| David wrote: | I think it does actually work in this case because if they genuinely believed it was a military plane they could claim self-defence. That might make it manslaughter, though obviously one of the worst cases of manslaughter imaginable.
Anyway, definitions are irrelevant. What happened was an atrocity and the aggressors must be brought to justice. |
If they thought it was anything other than a commercial airliner then it would have only been a supply plane which hardly posed any immediate threat.
Besides it would have been flying within it's own airspace anyway and not in Russian airspace.
No there is no justification for what they done.
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He's mad. He's bad. He's MaynHARD! |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Tannin wrote: | Prime Minister David Cameron: "This is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias, and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action."
Exactly. The first thing to do is ban Russian gas in Europe. that will hurt Putin far, far more than anything else could, and no other action in likely to rein in this aggressive Russian madman. Anything else he'll just ignore or (worse) treat as a provocation. Loss of gas sales will cripple him. Time to do it.
Time to take firm action in Ukraine too - but first things first: cripple the expansionist aggressor himself by not buying his natural gas. Once you have done that, he will be in a mood to be reasonable on other things, 'coz he really, really needs those euros. |
It may be just that I live here, but let's at least be sure that we know the impact of doing so, and that we do not act precipitately and shoot ourselves in the foot. It has been a grave error of Eu policymaking to allow the dependence on Russian gas, but dependent (I believe) we are.
A modern economy cannot function without energy, and the incremental death toll in an EU winter without heating would probably be vast. It is very likely that this event will spur the building of LNG terminals in the EU to receive gas from Qatar and the US, and it may give a shot in the arm to renewables. It'd be a good idea to get that done first.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | I think it does actually work in this case because if they genuinely believed it was a military plane they could claim self-defence. That might make it manslaughter, though obviously one of the worst cases of manslaughter imaginable.
Anyway, definitions are irrelevant. What happened was an atrocity and the aggressors must be brought to justice. |
Yes, they could claim self-defence, but it's a pretty technical argument given that they were not immediately threatened, amd since they're not really operating within any recognised framework of national or international law, technical arguments are more than a little tricky.... That said, I think it was probably a case of gross negligence while in charge of a sophisticated piece of military hardware - it's hard to see any rational political or military reason to do it, as it has grossly weakened their cause and dramatically isolated their sponsor.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Tannin wrote: | | Prime Minister David Cameron: "This is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias, and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action." |
I did have to smile at this - I completely agree with the sentiment, but is this the same D. Cameron that put to the vote in Westminster, about 12 months ago, a motion to arm the Syrian rebels ? The world is a complicated place...
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Culprit 
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Port Melbourne
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| Got to love Tony Abbott, it always has to be about him. Now his daughters flew on that flight. |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| Mugwump wrote: | | Tannin wrote: | | Prime Minister David Cameron: "This is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias, and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action." |
I did have to smile at this - I completely agree with the sentiment, but is this the same D. Cameron that put to the vote in Westminster, about 12 months ago, a motion to arm the Syrian rebels ? The world is a complicated place...
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Good point. As much as I want to see Putin brought to account over this, we shouldn't forget how many times American-supplied weapons have been used to cause carnage. Doesn't make this any more justifiable, but it does mean we have to take the same approach in all such cases if we are to be at all consistent.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | Tannin wrote: | | Prime Minister David Cameron: "This is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias, and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action." |
I did have to smile at this - I completely agree with the sentiment, but is this the same D. Cameron that put to the vote in Westminster, about 12 months ago, a motion to arm the Syrian rebels ? The world is a complicated place...
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Good point. As much as I want to see Putin brought to account over this, we shouldn't forget how many times American-supplied weapons have been used to cause carnage. Doesn't make this any more justifiable, but it does mean we have to take the same approach in all such cases if we are to be at all consistent. |
I suppose, when one tries to think this through, that "consistency" is not necessarily the highest virtue here. Ultimately, it comes down to your view of the intentionality of the actors, whether they are acting from good will toward a subject populace, and generally on the side of human progress (which I associate with liberty and democracy), or whether they are acting on the foul side of history. This is, of course, hard to prove, but it's what a political moralist should try to do. Bit it was an unfortunate formulation of the part of my adopted home's PM....
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Two more flags before I die! |
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swoop42
Whatcha gonna do when he comes for you?
Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Location: The 18
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | Tannin wrote: | | Prime Minister David Cameron: "This is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias, and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action." |
I did have to smile at this - I completely agree with the sentiment, but is this the same D. Cameron that put to the vote in Westminster, about 12 months ago, a motion to arm the Syrian rebels ? The world is a complicated place...
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Good point. As much as I want to see Putin brought to account over this, we shouldn't forget how many times American-supplied weapons have been used to cause carnage. Doesn't make this any more justifiable, but it does mean we have to take the same approach in all such cases if we are to be at all consistent. |
There's a difference here.
What Russia is doing would be akin to America supplying weapons and man power to French Canadians in there quest for independence from the rest of Canada.
Supplying weapons to one section of Syrians fighting other Syrians in Syria is different to what Russia is doing by supplying weapons and expertise to Russian rebels trying to overthrow a government of a country that isn't there own.
_________________
He's mad. He's bad. He's MaynHARD! |
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