Where the hell is my armadillo helmet?

You know I try to remain well grounded. I really do. Hard. Even in the face of a world that seems to offer up excuse after excuse to go "tin foil" I try and remain even keeled and evidence guided.

This downed jetliner in Ukraine is ~really~ stretching me to the breaking point.

We have a half-assed rebel army that doesn't seem to be any more well equipped than your local Montana volunteer militia that seems to be everyone's prime suspect. We have a government army that seems to be filled to the brim with drunks and Nazis. The government itself doesn't exist after it resigned last week. Days after the Parliament refuses to hand over half of its oil and gas companies to western bases "investors".

We make claims that Russian backed rebels shot the jet down. The Russians show just enough proof to call those allegations into serious question. Hell even our video showing the rebels moving around the suspected rocket launcher was shown to be that of Ukrainian troops well within the borders of Ukraine proper.

We up the claims and tell the world we have proof. Hard evidence. And now it is unveiled.

And what do we get for proof? A bunch of grainy black and white photos that would make a 50's era CIA spook blush in shame. My god, you couldn't find a nuclear explosion in those pictures if you were looking for it. I've seen security videos on VHS tapes that have been recycled every day for 10 years that had better resolution.

I honestly don't know whether to be more ashamed that this is our "proof" or that we spend almost a Trillion USD every year on defense in order to obtain this kind of "proof". Either way this is the kind of thing that is extremely embarrassing to me as a US citizen.

In spite of myself I can't help the doubts from creeping into my mind. I'm starting to believe we don't have any proof. And I'm starting to hear that voice in the back of my mind say there is a reason that we don't. That maybe we actually have very good evidence and proof of who did this but we won't show it because it ain't the people we want it to be.

Will

And another thing: Why in the hell are we showing these Polaroid looking monstrosities of supposed Russian missile batteries being used against Ukrainian government troops when we were promised hard evidence of the strike on the downed airplane? What the hell has any of this got to do with a jetliner being shot down while flying 5 miles high at 600 mph?

Will

To be honest, I have no clue what to think or believe in cases like this. All I know is, when I was a part of the intelligence community, it would baffle me as to how a lot of things were presented ... and even ignored at times ... until I was involved in the mechanics of some of it. I saw MANY "spy" pics back in the day as well as "copied" communications that seemed (on the outside anyway) to be ignored. The reason was ... (and I'm not saying it's the case here, but who knows?) ... is we never wanted to "show our hands" ... didn't want the "other side" to know what we knew or had, mostly because we did not want them to know how or where the info was obtained. There were a bazillion variables that were very hard for me to understand at the time, but would eventually make sense. What we see and are told, many times has nothing to do with what the government sees and knows. Is that the case here? I have no clue.

That's something to think on Jim. Thanks for chipping in. You are right, there probably is a heck of a lot that they know that they aren't showing.... I hope. I cannot fathom the embarrassment this nation will incur if we've made these allegations and cannot support them.

But don't get me wrong. I am not saying this is some kind of a false flag operation. Far from it. What I am saying is that the Ukrainian army and government remind me of an old Marx Brothers or Three Stooges episode. They already shot down a Russian commercial airliner back in 2001 and that was an accident during a training exercise. I can very well see this bunch of clowns doing exactly the same thing in this case. And it would surprise the hell out of me if it wasn't complete incompetence at work again.

I hope I am wrong. But the longer this goat fuck goes on without an adult stepping in and setting things straight the harder it is for me to believe that is the case.

Will

Sure makes me miss Ronald Reagan. :(

I really don't know who or what to believe on most of the shit that's going on right now but I am pretty sure that someone (USA, Russia, China, Britain, France etc. or all the above) had a satellite or two tasked to keep an eye on Ukraine and specifically that area next to the Russian border. I also know that they can very easily detect any sort of missile launch from the exhaust heat signature so someone does know exactly where the launch site of said missile was located. Was it in Ukrainian army held territory, separatist (for lack of a better word) territory or maybe even Russian territory? This has got to be a fact in evidence but is not being released for some reason. Got an extra tinfoil hat?

The whole situation and this thread is above my pay-grade. :D

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Originally Posted by Thumper

Sure makes me miss Ronald Reagan. :(

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Uh, what the hell did Reagan do that makes you miss him so much? We had one shot down by the Russkies with a whole bunch of Americans on board. As I recall he didn't do doodley squat. Nor did he do anything when Russia killed all those folks in Poland. I get that you'd love to see more action, although I don't know what that might be, but fond memories of a strong presidential response from Reagan are dreams. Like the current president, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could do.

Maybe we could send Lindsey Graham over there and make them listen to his gay ass. He'd drive them nuts.

BKB

I don't know whether Reagan would satisfy me or not. But I can tell you right now that a lot of what I'm seeing in the news from our government is nothing more than rank propaganda. And I'm using that word with the intent of assigning it the worst possible meaning. As in communist Soviet propaganda.

When your president comes out on national TV and assigns blame for this kind of tragedy/murder he has an obligation to follow that up with hard evidence that backs it up. If this evidence doesn't exist then he needs to retract his statement and then sit quietly in the corner until he has it. Shooting off your mouth and then expecting the rest of the world to buy in doesn't cut it. That kind of thing was at least ~possible~ back in Reagan's day. Not anymore. That is one consequence of having your empire unravel, you simply don't have the clout to shape events and opinions like we did in our prime.

I'm really trying not to go into the tin foil territory on this one. But having the POTUS stand up and assign blame and two weeks later not even have a scintilla of hard evidence made public? And what scant evidence we have seen trotted out by the usual political sock puppets is so weak that even the Russians can slap it down?

And today we have another sock puppet trying to change the subject. He accuses the Russians of bombing the Ukrainian troops and for evidence he makes public something that looks like it was taken by one of those disposable FujiFilm throwaway cameras? Does this look like the work of a competent "Superpower" to you guys? This is banana republic stuff here if you ask me.

Will

Its because in reality there isn't much of anything we can do about it. So we blow and blow and blow. Its all wind from the president on down to every congressman and senator who has said 'If it were me I'd.....', because not a single one of their plans makes any sense. Economic sanctions is about all you can do unless you want to go to war over something that happened that in reality is none of our effing business. We're just all huffy about it because we're huffy sonsabitches.

BKB

Now you getting it down to where I can understand...

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Originally Posted by BarryBobPosthole

We're just all huffy about it because we're huffy sonsabitches. BKB

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That's right in my wheelhouse! ;)

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Barry, that's about as good of an explanation as I've seen.

I just wonder how this is going down with the families of the folks who went down with that plane. I have to believe that all of this bluster and lack of evidence (or even the signs that a competent investigation was going on) is only making it harder for them to accept what happened. Hell they don't even have the option of being angry at the people who did it at this point. We don't have a clue who that would be.

Will

The difference with Reagan is ... if he said he was going to do something ... he DID it. If he had no intentions of tackling a problem, he didn't simply spew bullshit in the hopes it would stick. I'm so sick and tired of this embarrassing asshole we have in office now that even Jimmy Carter looks good! Heck, at least he had the balls to boycott the Summer Olympics in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ... no wait! WE recently invaded Afghanistan! I'm confused .... ;)

Hmmm...I'm not sure I understand what all that means. So Reagan didn't say he was gonna do anything (he actually did the EXACT thing Obama is doing now) and that makes him better? You just wanna bitch about Obama is what you're all about. You don't even make any sense. I agree that Reagan was twice the communicator this cat is but I'll also beg to differ that his foreign policy was any tougher. He was pretty much like this milquetoast character we have in office now. His successor, George Sr, now he had some cojones in his foreign policy. and some smarts too. Note he didn't get us bogged down anywhere militarily like his little boy did.

BKB

How 'bout I just make it plain and simple? I LOVED Reagan as President and was proud of this country when he was in office. I despise everything there is about this totally worthless asshole we have in office now ... and he's a major embarrassment to this country IMHO. Even more than a President who gets young interns to blow him in the Oval Office.

My interest wanes.

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Originally Posted by Thumper

How 'bout I just make it plain and simple? I LOVED Reagan as President and was proud of this country when he was in office. I despise everything there is about this totally worthless asshole we have in office now ... and he's a major embarrassment to this country IMHO. Even more than a President who gets young interns to blow him in the Oval Office.

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Strongly agree! If we had a like button I'd press it.... :D

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Back on the topic, Fareed Zakaria had an interesting take on actions that I thought made a lot of sense. His take is the most effective sanctions would be from the European Union since Russia has the most dependencies on the EU and that the US should be working to build a consensus among the EU for action with them as the leaders. I noticed today that the EU and US sanctions are a 'coordinated plan'. I haven't read what those sanctions are but I tend to agree the EU needs to take the lead. But they're as poorly led it seems as us.

BKB

I think the EU and the UN are about equals when it comes to effectiveness ... BUT ... I also agree it's prolly the best option.