The "Archduke Ferdinand" Moment in Ukraine?

[JackRiddler]

.

Eastern Ukraine is a warzone with the Kiev military engaged in aerial bombardments as well as RPGs and missiles flying from all sides. I can't believe anyone was still passing passenger planes above that territory, but apparently everyone was! Why, to keep up appearances?

It's near certain that either the Kiev military or the Donetsk forces shot the Malaysian plane down by mistake. Obviously there is no imaginable reason for the Russian military to ever contemplate doing so, and that is an insane idea! Or rather, just the usual bloodthirsty war-mongering from the McCain-neocon faction. (I noticed it was echoed right away by U.S.-based "Syrian revolutionary" spokespeople on social media, so there's definitely a line there. I've also seen Israeli defenders seriously blame the "Hamas violence" on Russia, since Putin is the Hitler du Jour, although he in turn has also been backing Israel.)

There is also no particular reason so far to believe in a Western, U.S., globalist or other "Them" behind this incident, as some people here are conditioned to think predictably. That this can be an "Archduke Ferdinand" moment is obvious, and it's only a couple of weeks after the 100th anniversary.

Yesterday the BRICS announced their initiative to create an alternative to World Bank and IMF. The U.S. news was instead full of an inexplicable escalation in the sanctions against the Russian government for its supposed material support of the Donetsk Republic. This obviously makes for interesting timing.

In recent weeks Moscow has clearly sought to defuse the Ukraine crisis and made no major moves in support of the eastern Ukrainian uprising, despite the murderous offensives by a Kiev government that still includes neo-Nazis in its cabinet. To say so is not to "support Putin" but merely to understand that Moscow acts according to the accustomed rules of power and realpolitik. Russia's interest is clearly not to contribute to the bloodbath or to try to absorb a potentially intractable ethnic civil war within its own territory but to see the situation stabilized and the payments on its gas bills resumed.

The U.S. demand that the Ukraine-Russia border be altogether sealed is impossible for Russia both politically and physically. As long as Kiev pursues a violent solution to the reluctance of Russian Ukrainians to accept the new status quo, Russians in turn will support their ethnic brethren without need of any orders from Moscow. Meanwhile it's been admitted officially that CIA and FBI both are assisting the Yatsenyuk government in its attacks on the ethnic Russian areas, and very likely that Western mercenaries are mixed in with the forces conducting the offensive, which are largely irregulars recruited from the ranks of Svoboda and Right Sector. There have been cases of disobedience and desertion among Ukrainian army regulars, unsurprisingly.

This is an incredibly dangerous moment for the U.S. to be escalating the rhetoric or the material support, and the neocons and other warmongers with their instant accusations that Russia directly downed the plane (why the fuck?!) are literally trying to start a new World War with Russia.

Let's remember earlier accidents like the downing of the Iranian airbus and the bombing of the USS Stark by the government of then US ally Saddam. Which is to say, patience! No premature verdicts!

[applegrove]

1. Vibes to all the families. May this hurt the warmongers

enough that they stand down.

[SummerSnow]

2. So do you think that this Archduke Ferdinand moment will spark a conflict and escalate

and involve other countries? I was thinking that.

[JackRiddler]

5. No, I'm thinking it has that potential.

We need a general deescalation and less confusionism. (Confusionism would be to start seeing Hitler and Pearl Harbor everywhere, as many are wont to do, sadly also among our resident liberal imperialists.)

[randys1]

3. Thom mentioned this too...I worry about ANY neocon/rightwing influence in the WH whether

from inside or out

[JI7]

4. if you mean it will result in a world war, No , but if you mean it may result in some huge change

within Russian/Ukraine area , maybe.

[JHB]

6. At present I'd invoke KAL 007 or the USS Vincennes over Franz Ferdinand...

...as long as one keeps in mind that the potential is there to spiral into FF-hood.

People with missiles expecting trouble and forgetting that civilians are in the mix too, not just the people messing with them.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

7. My best guess is that it's not

Let's remember earlier accidents like the downing of the Iranian airbus and the bombing of the USS Stark by the government of then US ally Saddam. Which is to say, patience! No premature verdicts!

Agreed. There is not need for a fast and furious US reaction. For the moment, I'm assuming this is a horrific screw-up by pro-Russian forces until proven otherwise.

This is an incredibly dangerous moment for the U.S. to be escalating the rhetoric or the material support, and the neocons and other warmongers with their instant accusations that Russia directly downed the plane (WTF?!) are literally trying to start a new World War with Russia.

It could be an incredibly dangerous moment for the world when looking at the aggregate of an Israeli invasion; ISIS in Iraq; and now this incident in Ukraine. That said, there is no imminent threat to the US from any of this, and no threat to US allies. I would expect NATO to beef up forces in Poland and the Baltics, which would mostly be for show. Take heart: the neocons are stinging from the lack of support for going back to Iraq. Both conservatives and liberals alike want nothing to do with sending US troops back.

Yesterday the BRICS announced their initiative to create an alternative to World Bank and IMF.

Part of the inevitable move away from the dollar as the world reserve currency. We'll live.

[Rex]

8. No.

I speculate that it is not.

[closeupready]

9. Pre-WWI Europe was a very different place, so no,

I don't think the circumstances are even roughly parallel, and this is not the spark that will ignite WWIII.

[JackRiddler]

18. So was 1962 Cuba.

[SidDithers]

10. It could go hot anytime....

A sneeze could set it off.

Suffice it to say, it has a Guns of August feel to it.

Sid

[anneboleyn]

55. I know. It felt weird to me also. Maybe it is just the WWI documentaries I have been watching lately

and I know others are dismissing the OP but I thought of the summer of 1914 as well.

[JackRiddler]

11. Breaking: Ukrainian Security Chief Accuses Russian Intel...

Last edited Thu Jul 17, 2014, 05:21 PM - Edit history (1)

https://twitter.com/ReutersWorld/status/489859151485747200

This is not the kind of ally we need, trying to railroad the West into an escalated war, cold or hot.

[joshcryer]

12. No.

It'll go to drone wars and the DNR militas will be eradicated in due course as the terrorists they are.

[JackRiddler]

13. Thank you, Jen Psaki.

Or is it more John McCain? Hard to tell. Not sure Psaki's ever out-and-out called the reluctant Russians of the eastern Ukraine "terrorists," but it's a matter of style, after all. You can find pics of both McCain and Nuland standing with the Svoboda leadership, but McCain looks so much happier doing it!

So, thank you Samantha Power. Whatever.

[joshcryer]

14. Huh? Obama has no problem using drones.

In fact, Obama is the most drone-friendly president ever. And this was a terrorist act.

It simply follows.

[JackRiddler]

16. Wait, you're proposing U.S. war in Ukraine?!

FIRST REPLY:

Non-sequitur. Huh and huh? Fnord.

ON EDIT:

Oh, wait, I just got what you were trying to say there...

YOU are now endorsing (as an inevitability) the open entry of the United States military into the Ukrainian theater militarily with drones to help the Kiev supremacist regime (with its neo-Nazi cabinet ministers, etc.) exterminate those Russians in the east who don't want to go along with it (a.k.a. "the terrorists.&quot

Is this serious? You want U.S. drones flying in the Ukraine?!

And this proposed insanity of intervention on Russia's borders, you imagine, would not contribute to what may or may not turn into the "Archduke Ferdinand" moment!

I honestly don't think Obama or the present administration is this fucking insane, but you may be closer to their mindset than I am.

[joshcryer]

20. I'm saying what's going to happen.

That's what's going to happen. These guys committed a terrorist act. Obama has no problem using drones. If Ukraine allows it, Obama will fly drones in Ukraine.

Are you alleging shooting down a civilian craft is not a terrorist act?

[JackRiddler]

22. I'm alleging nothing, unlike you.

No facts have been established as yet except that the plane appears to have been shot down by a surface-to-air missile, while the combatant forces involved in the conflict on the ground have blamed each other. (Also, neocon maniacs looking for World War III, such as John McCain, Ralph Peters as well as spokespersons of your gentle Kiev government with its neo-Nazis have blamed the Russian military directly, which is insane.)



That anyone intended to shoot down this passenger plane and be blamed for it (thus risking their own destruction) seems rather unlikely.

But, clearly, very little is now certain.

Do you think that the 1988 accidental shootdown of an Iranian civilian airbus by U.S. military forces (that somehow found themselves on the opposite side of the planet from the U.S.) was a terrorist act?

Well then you can go ahead and call this act terrorist as well, even in advance of knowing who did it, or if the MH plane was an intentional target.

[joshcryer]

24. The rebels already said they did it.

They backtracked as soon as it came out it was a civilian plane.

Now, you can be all for revising history, stripping the internet of the truth, deleting histories, but the reality is that the rebel leader himself posted video of the crash, and claimed it was an An-26 that they shot down.

It's easy to see where you stand, on any issue, any issue at all, it's so damn predictable.

Regardless I'm telling you what's going to happen, even if, by some twist of logic, the Ukrainian forces did it as a false flag, it still gives Obama a pretext to use drones in Ukraine. Which is what he's going to do. So who did it is rather irrelevant at this point. The DNR militia is screwed. Of course, since they killed 295 people by all the evidence we have, I am personally not too upset that they're about to be obliterated.

BTW, this whole thing started from your idea that this would start WWIII. No. It won't. It's an isolated conflict. All it really means is the end of the DNR, that's it. No big boogie men to take the world to oblivion. Even Putin will back down now.

[JackRiddler]

26. Try linking to back up your claims.

All I've seen is that this talking point about "the drunken rebels already took credit" is being dispensed rather late in the game -- already after the Kiev government was blaming the Russian air force! And the other guy I saw claiming it didn't back it up either. I'm sure you can do better - convince me. Where's this video? Or the archive of it? At least, where are the reports that this video was posted and then deleted?

And leave the personal shit aside, okay? Because that you will always deliver the State Department line in liberal-imperialist (or even "anarchist&quot guise is just as bankable as the fact that I will not do so.

[joshcryer]

30. Here you go:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5252811

Leave the personal shit aside, then call me a fucking pawn for the State Department. Cute.

Ironically, the State Department is being cautious not to blame anyone in this incident. I am coming out completely against the rebels because I believe enough evidence exists to do so. The damage control throughout the blogosphere, forums, and twitter, by pro-Putin apologists is at the highest level I've ever seen.

[JackRiddler]

35. Very good.

Checking via Google Translate, appears to be what you say it is. I'll wait for further confirmation, of course. What's this second downed plane the post is talking about, however? He says they downed one that he took video of (can't see the video - do you have a link to that?), and then adds he heard a report of a second downing. Which is which, was he mistaken?

[joshcryer]

36. I think the "second plane" was a rumor.

There has never been a confirmation of it. They took down an An-26 July 14, an SU-25 July 16, and this plane, today.

He may have been referring to the SU-25 that they shot down yesterday. Or it was just a rumor. Or, better yet, a lot of mixed signals were being sent and he got stuff mixed up. People on the ground likely knew it wasn't a military plane right away. Reports of dozens of bodies strewn all about, etc. But in his haste to report a "victory." There's a reason they deleted the post.

Here's an image of the downed planes recently (it's no coincidence they're all in the same area):

[Brigid]

15. I have that uneasy feeling.

Maybe it's just all these scary events happening all at once.

[Itchinjim]

17. No.

Not even close.

[HooptieWagon]

19. No. No similarity to Archduke Ferdinand assassination whatsoever.

First of all, the jet was owned by an airline completely uninvolved in the conflict. Its origin and destination countries were completely uninvolved. The nationalities of the passengers are uninvolved.
Second, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand led to WW1 because of all the entangling alliances, which don't exist in this situation.
Third, the airliner downing was probably not intentional. Some SAM crew on the ground with itchy trigger fingers got over-excited and didn't use their brains.

[JackRiddler]

23. Sigh.

Thanks for the pedantic, machine-worthy rendering of obvious things necessarily known to anyone who can even identify who Archduke Ferdinand was.

The question has nothing to do with non-existent parallels in the details of 1914 as opposed to 2014, but with whether the downing of the MH plane will prompt an extended and grave international crisis with the potential for escalation into wider hostilities, or even great-power involvement on the ground.

Thanks!

[HooptieWagon]

27. No, because there aren't entangling alliances...

... that will drag all of world to be involved in a regional crisis. Perhaps some countries will join sanctions against Russia, but there won't be military action.

[JackRiddler]

29. I hope you're right.

There's a bit of powderkeg been set up in several regions with multiple great-power involvements at the moment.

Here's a post on this thread (#24) by someone who usually has an excellent nose for the mood at the CIA-State Department, who says it is now guaranteed that the U.S. military will dispatch drones to assist the Kiev government in the extermination of its ethnic Russian opponents (the "terrorists.&quot

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5253847

He won't be the only one, I'm certain. The complicated and disgusting Ukrainian mess has been cast falsely as a narrative of "democracy" against "Hitler" with calls even from liberal imperialists for the U.S. to "do more" (as if backing a coup d'etat against the elected government wasn't enough). There's enormous neocon bloviating in that direction. Not that they must be followed, but it's a form of pressure too.

[msongs]

21. in that scenario Maylaysia is the offended party, but not likely to declare war on anyone nt

[JackRiddler]

25. Less literalism, please.

Do you prefer a more generic metaphor, like "has the fuse been lit on the powderkeg?" Because that's what's meant. Some undexpected damned accident happens and then the dominoes start falling. Or the house of cards, or whatever. Pick your own image / analogy / invocation. Okay?

[HooptieWagon]

28. Pure Hyperbole.

There is no indication that the downing of the jet is going to drag England, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, US, Japan, and any countries of the former Ottoman Empire into a World War. Its simply not going to happen. Speculation of such is just silly.

[JackRiddler]

31. Okay, be as literalist as you like.

I'm capitulatin' to your awesome historical knowledges. It's true! Berlin and Vienna will make no demands of Serbia, no Australian soldiers will fight at Gallipoli, and no one will dig trenches in France, fly biplanes, take a sealed train car to the Finland Station, or invent the modern tank. Hooray, what a relief! (This should teach me never again to write English words expecting people to display more than a fifth-grade reading comprehension or appreciation for allusion and imagery.)

True, someone may get the Spanish Flu. Otherwise it should only be a matter of U.S. military drones and "advisers" joining the fight against ethnic Russian "terrorists" on the borders of Russia at the same time as the shit unfolding in Syria and Iraq, at the same time as an incipient world economic war, in a context of continuing crisis of global capitalism, on the brink of an ecological collapse and depletion of the hydrocarbon resource base.

Why should that be a geopolitical crisis? What could go wrong?

Thanks again!

[HooptieWagon]

37. If the Yugoslavian civil war didn't start WW3....

...why would a Ukraine civil war do so? Russia has certain strategic interests in Ukraine (namely Black Sea ports), but otherwise would be a huge economic drain. Ukraine's main value to both Russia and NATO is as a buffer zone. Neither side in current battle are "good guys", there is nothing to gain by picking sides. US apparently was involved to some extent in the coup, but since then Obama has appeared to be treading lightly. I'd be somewhat surprised if US sent drones, and I don't see any possibility of US involvement in combat. Rest of NATO will follow our lead. This will NOT escalate outside Ukraine borders, as a false comparison to WW1 suggests.

[Springslips]

45. You got it.

To say that the tragic downing of this airplane is like the assisnation of the Archduke is off the map; the two things have nothing in common; it doesn't trigger competing alliences or anything of the sort. And to say you are guilty of being too literal? What? There is not even a figurative comparison.

Things have to have some association of the structure of the facts to say "Could this be another..."

[Jenoch]

32. This situation is not remotely similar to the

Archduke Ferdinand assassination in the Balkans in 1914.

What makes you think the Ukrainians shot down the plane? The Russians claimed responsibility for it.

[JackRiddler]

33. "The Russians"? "The Ukrainians"?

Both sides in the Ukraine hostilities are Ukrainian. One is largely ethnically Ukrainian, while the other is largely ethnically Russian. I didn't say I think either shot down the plane, so please don't say I did. I think one of the sides definitely shot it down (and not the Russian government), and that whoever did it, almost certainly did so by accident. Try to be precise in what you write, misunderstandings are easy.

Otherwise, drop the literalism please. I didn't mean to draw details in parallels to a different situation a hundred years ago. The underlying thread title question is, "Has the fuse been lit on the powderkeg?" Get it?

[Jenoch]

38. Some of the Russian separatists might be

Ukrainian citizens, but their loyaltis have always been to Russia. There is npbody but you and the Russians who are even speculating that Ukrqinians shot down the airplane. The Russian separatiists wven claimed crdit for it. The Russian government IS responsible for this. It was their SAMs that were used to shoot down he aircraft.

Putin is behind all of this.

[JackRiddler]

39. I'm not speculating.

I'm waiting for a definitive report, though right now it looks like Donetsk militias are responsible for having targeted what they thought was a Kiev military transport. (The airlines - many of them, not just Malaysia Airlines - bear some responsibility for the bizarre and reckless decision to continue flying through a warzone where two such transports were downed in the last couple of weeks.)

Only you, sympathizers of the Kiev government, and demonizers of "the Russians" are saying things like "Putin is behind all of this." In what universe does he, or for that matter the Donetsk militias, benefit from intentionally targeting a passenger plane?

[Jenoch]

41. If Putin did not provid the Russian SAMs,

who did?

There have been no airliners of American airline companies flying over that part of Ukraine in quite some time.

I am not saying the Malaysian aircrqft as targeted deliberately. It was probably intended for a Ukranian plane. Either the Russans thought it was a Ukrainian plane, or the targeting software in the radar of the missle saw a larger target and switched course, at least that's what an 'expert' said on the radio.

[reorg]

42. The Ukrainian army

I think you are confusing the fact that SAMs in the possession of some Donetsk militants were built in Russia with the conspiracy theory that they were provided by the Russian government to the militants, perhaps with the intent that they shoot commercial airliners out of the sky.

Russian-built SAMs are also in the possession of the Ukrainian military, and that's from where the Donetsk militants reportedly obtained them.

DONETSK, June 29, /ITAR-TASS/. Self-defence forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic have taken control over a missile defence army unit equipped with Buk missile defence systems, the press service of the Donetsk People’s Republic told Itar-Tass on Sunday.

http://en.itar-tass.com/world/738262

Rebels from the separatist Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) overran a Ukrainian army garrison on June 29 and claimed to have captured at least one such weapon. They then posted a Twitter picture of the missile system, which was deleted yesterday as reports of the downed airliner spread.
The possibility remains that the plane could have been hit by a BUK in Ukrainian government hands, but Mr Richardson said that most government-held BUKs were stationed at fixed battery points where they would be closely familiar with civilian air traffic patterns.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10974861/Malaysian-Airlines-crash-Russian-Mobile-missile-launcher-could-be-responsible.html

[JackRiddler]

44. Shhh! None of this obvious stuff, please.

We're busy automatically demonizing the Hitler, okay?

[amandabeech]

54. Even if the SAM battery was once under control of the Ukrainian government,

anyone or any country that supports or can be shown to have any control over the separatists will be tarred by this.

Any egregious action by the separatists in Ukraine will tarnish Putin, because Putin will either be accused of approving the action, or will be accused of not keeping those he supports under control.

If the separatists did this, and to me it looks most likely that they did, Putin must distance himself from their actions, and fast, or he will be regarded as complicit by many around the world.

[TBF]

34. I give you credit for trying -

but this is out of our hands. Someone is bucking for war here and we average peons will not find out until well after the fact.

[JackRiddler]

40. Something like that, yeah.

[TBF]

43. I thought your post 39

Made a lot of sense.

it is frustrating to come on DU and see cold war BS ... I guess some folks will never let that go.

[JackRiddler]

52. Thanks.

[roamer65]

46. The BUK system requires extensive training.

If this was a BUK system, then I really want to know who was behind the controls of it. Were they Russian military? Ukrainian military? Poorly trained separatists?

[JackRiddler]

51. Some of the separatists are Ukrainian military.

It's not that far-fetched that the Donetsk militias have members who can operate it. And fuck up doing it, from all appearances.

But yeah, what you're saying.

[dflprincess]

47. Perhaps

but with a large dose of "Remember the Maine" thrown in.

[Renew Deal]

48. I thought about "Archduke Ferdinand" as soon as I heard this news.

I think your point is whether this is a spark and I think that's a worthwhile point.

[anneboleyn]

53. I actually thought of this also. 100 years ago this summer.

[MohRokTah]

49. Uuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh.....................................no. eom

[Renew Deal]

50. Some guy on CNN just compared it to the Lucitania

[Capt. Obvious]

56. No, not even a Juvénal Habyarimana moment

[JackRiddler]

57. 2001: Ukraine military accidentally shot down passenger plane

Interesting. I'd forgotten this.

Here's the initial NY Times report in 2001:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/05/world/76-on-board-perish-as-a-jet-from-israel-explodes-off-russia.html

Interestingly, at the time Putin (U.S. ally in the War on Terror!) right away blamed "terrorists," whereas it was the U.S. based on electronic surveillance that indicated a missile from Ukrainian military exercises.

This means the militaries of Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. have all at times shot down passenger planes by accident.

A current article on the 2001 incident from http://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912699/7-times-militaries-have-shot-down-civilian-planes

Perhaps the strangest precedent for the Malaysian Airlines crash in Ukraine is a shoot-down in 2001 caused by military forces in … Ukraine. On October 4, 2001, 64 Siberia Airlines passengers and 12 crew members onboard a Soviet-made Tupolev Tu-154 en route from Novosibirsk to Tel Aviv were killed when the plane was shot down over the Black Sea by a Ukrainian missile.

It took a while for Ukraine to admit that was what had happened, but after pressure from Russian investigators, Ukraine's then-president, Leonid Kuchma, accepted that the Ukrainian military was at fault. The day of the shoot-down, the Ukrainian military was conducting a massive military exercise which involved shooting 23 missiles at drones. "Experts say that the radar-guided S-200, among the farthest-flying and most capable antiaircraft missile in the arsenal of former Soviet nations, simply locked onto the Russian airliner after it raced past the destroyed drone some 20 miles off the Crimean coast," the New York Times' Michael Wines reported.

Kuchma accepted the resignation of his Minister of Defense, Oleksandr Kuzmuk, following the admission that the military was at fault. From 2003 to 2005, Ukraine paid $15.6 million to families of victims following a deal with the government of Israel.

[lovuian]

58. It is WWIII economically

its the BRICS initiative
that is bringing in a shadow economy of which the major corporations will have to play ball with them if
they want to play.


and the corporations don't like it