Plane down. 295 passengers dead. Neocons squeal with delight.

Glaucus said:

Now, what if say France decided to arm a bunch of the separatist minority and they took over a bunch of Government of Canada buildings and stormed some military bases and some French special forces and mercenaries popped in out of nowhere and started causing all sorts of murder and mayhem?

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If France did that, then they would be doing what you claim Russia is doing (which is your point) but I don't see the evidence that Russia is actually doing that. Pretty much all of the weapons so far used by the resistance could have been acquired when the army units in East Ukraine defected. Moving munitions across the border would be far too politically dangerous for Russia and far too easy to spot with US surveillance. Advisors and intelligence is much less risky and that capacity Russia, I would say, is probably assisting eagerly. However, they clearly aren't operationally in control or MH17 wouldn't have happened.

To me it seems pretty simple. If the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine can't stand to live in Eastern Ukraine they can move to Crimea or Russia.

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And if Arabs can't stand living in Gaza or Palestine, the obviously they can move too.

Glaucus said:

Here's some very effective propaganda: Russia’s top 20 lies about Ukraine

Just a quick example:

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Which I find quite enlightening because I have not come across any of those examples and I'd suspect that they are quite fringey, possibly even manufactured for the purpose of spreading to discredit other information coming out of the region. Guilt by association, everything coming out of the east is propaganda, don't believe the propaganda, look at THIS stuff for example! If it really did come from a Russian source then it isn't one mainstream enough for me to have come across but always the crazy stuff gets carried either because it's crazy or because it sells papers as it were. There are serious reasons to believe that elements inside the US were fully aware of the 911 plot and for whatever reason prevented an effective response against the threat - but because there are "the towers were brought down by holographic planes" people out there you can't talk about fairly sober evidence without being called a tin foil hatter. It's very Karl Rove.

It's like the "gaza sniper video", we can talk about was in which it might be fake or details we think are not quite right in our opinions, etc, but it doesn't really do anything but distract from what's going on and it's fakeness or not barely even matters. There is a death toll in East Ukraine and it has been caused largely by Kiev. That's partly down to the simple fact that the resistance operate in the populated areas shooting outward in a defensive posture and the attackers naturally have to shoot in towards the towns and cities. And as in Israel, those who bomb and shell the cities blame the defenders for their need to do so. We wouldn't have to bomb them if they simple ceased resisting. I wouldn't have to beat her if she'd just let me rape her. It's victim blaming.

If France DID provide support and weapons to Quebec and a small faction decided to fight for independence, do we get to shell towns and destroy infrastructure and civilians in order to get back the tax base? Would we countenance that?

Anyway, here are things that are not from Syria or Chechnya.

To me it seems pretty simple. If the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine can't stand to live in Eastern Ukraine they can move to Crimea or Russia.

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FluffyMcDeath said:

And if Arabs can't stand living in Gaza or Palestine, the obviously they can move too.

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Call the moving vans

No bodies in this one but damage.
And Amnesty International doesn't think the Ukrainian army should be doing stuff like this:
But, hey, he got off light compared to what we did to Saddam and Moammar, eh?

Crowd control Ukrainian army style

And some more.
The crowd yells "Fascist"

This is called propaganda because it is made by the people with a vested interest and it disagrees with our propaganda - so don't watch it. You can't trust it.
This stuff is so everywhere that to stop people from seeing it all they have to do is sully it - just like the Fundies try to do to stop their flock reading Harry Potter.

Of course, you could just say - it's war, shit happens. Some people have said that before.

If you call the fighters terrorists when they resist then it's OK to drop bombs on civilians. Same principle as Gaza. And if Israel could help it they'd love to go back to the days when nobody would report the death toll of Arabs. However, that dynamic has changed. Israel has worn out that narrative - but it's still fresh and young enough to use in other places.

Kiev isn't very keen on allowing the investigators to get on with investigating the crash site. If they were I'm sure they could arrange not to be trying to retake the area just right now. After all, the rebels currently hold the site and are willing to allow the inspectors in and Kiev could simply respect that arrangement but for them it is more important to continue the offensive than to allow the inspectors to get in and do their work and find the bodies that are still missing.

Still, it's safe enough for family members to transit rebel held territory to visit to the site.

But Jerzy Dyczynski and Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski, parents of 25-year-old Fatima, travelled from their home in Perth, Australia to honour their daughter. They crossed territory held by pro-Russian rebels to reach the wreckage-strewn fields outside the village of Hrabove, where they sat together on part of the debris, his arm around her shoulder.

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Investigators still having trouble getting to the crash site because ... Kiev.

Yesterday, Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), made it absolutely plain that it was the Ukrainian government offensive that halted access to the crash site. Speaking in Donetz, he said: “We’ve been dealing with the [pro-Russian] separatists for three months and since the crash happened we’ve had access every day until this [fighting].”

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However, the US and its allies, which accused pro-Russian separatists of shooting down MH17, of tampering with evidence and desecrating the bodies of the victims, have remained virtually silent on Kiev’s military offensive in recent days around the crash site.

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I guess it is vitally important for some reason that the Kiev regime gain full control of the site before they let investigators in - even if that means leaving victims bodies in the fields for however many more days.

Ukraine's economy grows ... smaller. And the situation won't be made better by Russia building a pipeline around Ukraine.

Interestingly:

On July 24 Ukraine’s Parliament rejected the second reading of a bill that would allow EU and US companies to buy up to 49 percent of the oil and gas company Naftogaz and co-manage the national pipelines.

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After that Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said he was resigning, but on Monday he said he reversed his decision and returned to the office. He said that the Rada will reconsider the bill to outline operators of the GTS involving US and European investors at the next extraordinary meeting on July 31.

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Well, the Americans gave him the job for a reason. He better deliver.

If small inaccurate rockets fired toward populated areas is a war crime then what is it when someone fired much bigger but not much more accurate rockets at populated areas? Self defence, of course. Remember, it's not what you do that matters, it's who you know.

Whose aggression? Whose expansionist policies?

The other Hitchens.

Provocations continue as Russia refuses to rise to the bait.

The UN estimates that more than 1,200 civilians have died since fighting began in April.

Over 300 Ukrainian troops seek refuge in Russia. Russia lets them in instead of slaughtering them. They fear the Russians less than the rebels. Russia says they are seeking asylum but whatever, they have sought shelter in the arms of the sworn enemy of Kiev. How could this possibly be?
Even the Globe and Mail admits that the Kiev regime is causing civilian suffering.

As Ukrainian government forces slowly tighten their ring around the city — one of two major pro-Russian rebel strongholds — travelling in and out has become a perilous undertaking.

In an impassioned statement released over the weekend, mayor Sergei Kravchenko described a situation that is becoming more unsustainable by the day.

“As a result of the blockade and ceaseless rocket attacks, the city is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe,” Kravchenko said. “Citizens are dying on the streets, in their courtyard and in their homes. Every new day brings only death and destruction.”

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Putin wants a UN Security Council meeting. The US worries that Russia wants to send in "Peace Keepers" which would really soldiers sent in to occupy (which once again pins the irony meter, not because it couldn't be true, but the ruse of "Responsibility to Protect" and "Peace Keeping" have been used repeatedly to advance US policy).

Nonetheless, people are suffering from Kiev's war.

But the IMF requires Ukraine to come up with some money to pay off the loan they just sharked on them and you know where the country's coal is.

UN says a million people are displaced.