The NYTimes this morning published an official Ukrainian government
statement that constituted an admission of total responsibility for
the crime. The official admitted that the government's authorization
of passenger air travel over a war zone being bombarded by Ukrainian
government aircraft was made in full knowledge ("we know for sure")
that insurgent air-defense batteries were capable of reaching above
10,000 meters and that government aircraft were operating at those
heights.
Whatever else may be true about the conflict in the Ukraine (and not
much out of there seems worthy of belief) it is impossible not to see
the routing of passenger aircraft over a zone in which it was carrying
out aggressive aerial military operations as a criminal provocation
designed to make possible, and even likely, exactly such a catastrophe
as in fact occurred.
' Vitaly Nayda, the head of counterintelligence for the Ukrainian
State Security Service, said at a news conference...that the rebels
knew they were aiming at a plane flying above 10,000 meters, or 32,800
feet. While this is in the range of a passenger jet’s normal cruising
altitude, he also said that Ukrainian military aircraft sometimes fly
that high. “There is no doubt that terrorists knew that they had
launched a missile against a plane that was higher than 10,000
meters,” Mr. Nayda said, adding, “We know for sure that the terrorists
have the plan to shoot down every military plane, every military
plane, even cargo plane, every helicopter, in the air over Donetsk and
Luhansk regions.” '
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
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