Is there enough evidence yet to indict anyone?
A week after the shoot-down, it's not at all clear who's responsible, or even if it was a deliberate act.
The Russian government is maintaining a relatively low profile, while seeming to behave appropriately -- calling for a neutral investigation, voting with everyone else at the United Nations (despite Samantha Power's over-the-top ranting and raving and all but banging her shoe on the table).
Nobody calls the Donetsk People's Republic government particularly competent, or even much of a government, but they've managed to get some things right -- retrieving and properly refrigerating most of the bodies, turning over the black boxes (which are red) to the Malaysian government, allowing increased access to international investigators (including Australians). To get the black boxes, the Malaysian government in effect recognized the government of the Donetsk People's Republic -- something even the Russians haven't done.
The Kiev government has both withheld relevant evidence and put out scare stories unsupported by evidence. Given that MH17 went down in a war zone where the Kiev government has been on the offensive, one might expect Kiev to call for a ceasefire to allow for a safer clean-up. Instead the offensive continues, on the ground, in the air, and out of the mouth.
The U.S. government continues to fulminate and froth, but can't seem to think of anything actually helpful to do, unless withholding evidence is helpful.
Kiev air controllers diverted MH17 about 200 miles to the north, over the Donetsk war zone. When the pilot asked to fly at 35,000 feet, the air controllers ordered him to fly at 33,000 feet. Part of the political attack on Russia is the claim that Russia provided the missiles that shot down MH17, which Kiev and Washington say they knew in advance. This raises the question of why MH17 was ordered to fly within range of known missiles with a range up to 70,000 feet.
The conventional international lemming view still being pushed by the U.S. and others is that somehow Putin is responsible for whatever happened and Putin can fix it. This is even less credible than arguing that Obama is responsible for whatever Ukraine or Israel does, and Obama can fix that.
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