European Politics

Perun said:
Because it violates human rights and poses a threat to the democratic systems around the world.
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Which is why I'm saying Obama is the scapegoat here. Yes, I understand that he deserves a small portion of the blame, but so does every other president after Truman and any high-ranking individuals in the organization.

In fact, most of the blame can be attributed to the latter.
 
Obama has the executive power - if he doesn't use it, he deserves all the blame. That's the problem with being a president, or a leader of a country. You take over the responsibility over this sort of thing. It's your bloody job.
 
Again, blame that could easily be attributed elsewhere, and more importantly, on the people running the organization and making the major decisions within. Obama isn't the spearhead in that regard (although he holds the power of being the spearhead, he is pre-occupied in other areas also).

As a Libertarian, I'm against what has become known. However, I also don't think Obama deserves nearly as much blame for it, and I also understand why such a system is in place, despite, as you put it, violating human rights.
 
I am not naive enough think this stuff has been happening forever .. and I think there are some points where spying on Germany was probably justifiable (East Germany for sure, perhaps West Germany early on. At this point in time, and for some time, it has not been.

To Obama specifically, I think he actually gets hit harder on this that Bush, or the "Cold Warrior" Presidents, because they essentially said American Security/being against the USSR was their primary Foreign Policy goals. Obama said that would change and people believed him because of the way he said it, it was not some throwaway line in a speech. Even while campaigning in the US, "restoring US credibility with our allies" was a theme he hit reasonably hard. I assume harder when speaking to Europeans.
 
Perun said:
Obama has the executive power - if he doesn't use it, he deserves all the blame. That's the problem with being a president, or a leader of a country. You take over the responsibility over this sort of thing. It's your bloody job.
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I agree and I might even get him a pass on the bugging Angela's phone as "well, he did not know" but after that happened, if he did not know what was going on, that is on him.
 
Malaysian passenger plane carrying 295 people shot down over Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine — An adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister says a Malaysian passenger plane carrying 295 people has been shot down over a town in the east of the country.

Anton Gerashenko says on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit Thursday by a missile fired from a Buk launcher.

A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/...e-shot-down-ukraine-109042.html#ixzz37k285OrD
 
Jesus Christ. The way this is escalating, we could have full-scale war with heavy NATO involvement.
 
.. and I am never ever getting on a Malaysian Airlines flight. Assuming the continue to exist.

If it is the separatists that shot this down, and clearly nothing is confirmed yet, I think that would (or at least should) end whatever misguided sympathy anyone might have towards them.
 
Understandable people will make jokes about Malaysian airlines (don't worry, I'm not angry at anyone doing it), but this plane could have easily been a British, French or German plane flying over, and Malaysian Airlines aren't to blame for this.

Coming back to the European super-power point, had it been a plane from there, the backlash would be unbearable. Not that I'm saying Dutch backlash won't be severe, but the world wont invigorate as much of a response as they would for a major NATO benefactor.
 
Probably, the "I could have been on that plane" factor would be higher with Lufthansa, British Airways, American, United, etc
 
Yeah, that's another good point. I was implying that I don't quite think we've reached the breaking point, but had it been a British, German or French plane, conflict has a major chance of occurring. There's still a chance of it happening carrying Dutch and Malaysian passengers primarily, but slimmer due to Holland's status in NATO.
 
Pro-Russian separatists deny any involvement. Somehow, I'm doubtful that that holds much weight.
 
Bloody hell.

I suspect it is an act of stupidity. Someone wanted to shoot down a military aircraft, but - lo and behold - it was a civilian one. I can't imagine that anyone would willfully shoot down a civilian aircraft, because noone has anything to earn from it.
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
Bloody hell.

I suspect it is an act of stupidity. Someone wanted to shoot down a military aircraft, but - lo and behold - it was a civilian one. I can't imagine that anyone would willfully shoot down a civilian aircraft, because noone has anything to earn from it.
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Yeah, it seems unlikely shooting down a civilian airliner was the intention.
 
NBC is reporting that AP journalists saw a SAM battery earlier in the day near where the plane went down. There was a Dutch tour group on the plane. No word if there were any Americans, but this is getting full coverage here in the US. All networks broke into programming to cover this.
 
RTC said:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...witter.com/dnrpress/status/483248037629018112

This all but confirms separatist involvement. The tweet was later deleted.
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All but confirms? Hmm I don't think I get that.

A military leader of the separatists declared with pride in a tweet that they shot am Ukrainian airplane from the sky, around the place where the Boeing crashed. The tweet was done around the time that the Malaysian plane disappeared from the radar. The Ukrainian army says it doesn't miss a plane.

It's (already) almost sure that this plane was shot down. Now let's get the black box before these dumbfucks get it.
 
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