MH17 & Putin - What If?

quote:

---

What would be the US response to Putin if the claims responsibility, even tacitly, for shooting down this plane?

---

Obama will piss his pants. Michelle will come up with some stupid idea about talking shopping carts, then ValJer will write down what the puppet is supposed to read.

Then they will trot him out in fresh pants to read what ValJer wrote. Something about a red line, a joke or two, no questions.

Then he will return to the golf course and nothing will happen.

quote:

---

What would be the US response to Putin if the claims responsibility, even tacitly, for shooting down this plane?

---

It would be an amazing act of attrition for a world leader to take responsibility. We still haven't apologized for shooting down the Iranian passenger plane in the late 80's.

quote:

---

With that being the case, what can Obama and the US do?

Moreover, do the sanctions that we always hear about actually have any affect whatsoever against Russia?

---

Why would we do anything? If Putin took responsibility, I am guessing he would have Russia make a settlement with the families of the passengers and make some statement of changes to prevent the same from occurring in the future.

There’s no way Obama even does anything close to this, but I would demand the following of Putin:
1. Putin must come clean immediately about the incident.
2. US investigators must have full access to the MH17 crash site and all debris/wreckage.
3. Russia must pay the following in reparations:
a. $20MM to the families of ever passenger and crewmember on the flight
b. $2 Billion to Malaysian Airlines
c. $5 Billion to the Malaysian Government
NOTE: In addition to these reparations, Russia must pay all expenses related to the care of the remains of all who perished
4. Ukrainian Policy
a. The “Separatists” must be disarmed immediately. Russia must confiscate all weapons and assets they’ve supplied to the Eastern Ukraine insurgents.
b. All Russian military and intelligence personnel must withdraw from Eastern Ukraine

If Putin does not agree to ALL the above terms, the US and NATO would do the following:
A. Full economic sanctions against all sectors of the Russian economy
B. An offer for Ukraine to join NATO
C. Delivery of weapons and other “lethal aid” to the Ukrainians
D. Send Military Advisors and/or Special Operations forces to the Ukraine to help train their forces and provide intelligence
E. Forward-deploy ground forces into Eastern Europe (I think the Poles and Czechs would welcome this). Also, re-establish the missile defense sites in Eastern Europe (time to burn that "reset" button).

I'm sure the resident Ron Paul fans will call me an evil warmonger, but the US and NATO must respond as strongly as possible to Putin. We should also heed the advice of Rahm Emanuel and "never let a crisis go to waste". In this case, let's take the opportunity to neuter Vladimir Putin on the world stage and reassert our influence and moral authority in Europe.

What do you think the US should do? Unless you believe this to have been an intentional shoot down, I don't see why this should increase our involvement in this conflict whatsoever.

Assuming for argument's sake that it can be proven or is admitted by the Russians that they supplied the separatists with this SAM system, that doesn't indicate Russian intent to destabilize international peace or to expand the conflict. We arm people all the time in foreign struggles. If the Russians armed these separatists with this platform, it seems pretty obvious that the intent would be to target Ukrainian military aircraft, not international airliners.

I just don't understand the logic of people wanting to further aggravate international relations and escalate tensions over what appears to be an accidental shoot down of a commercial plane in an active conflict zone.