Malaysian Airliner Catastrophe Update

As an update, the Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. intelligence agencies have told them that they can confirm it was a missile attack on the Malaysian airliner that brought the plane down. Since the Russians, the Separatists, and the Ukrainian Federation all have the SA-17 surface-to-air missile, it is still undetermined as to which of the sides fired the fatal missile but there is some recording evidence that the Separatists quickly reported a hit with a missile. And again, the Separatist unit might have had Russian technicians on site when the missile was fired.

To make the matter worse, the black boxes from the wreckage have supposedly been shipped to Moscow for analysis. While I doubt the boxes can offer anything other than flight data, it is an obvious concern that Moscow has control of the boxes since they are one of the suspects in this crime.

It will be interesting to see how Putin plays this. In the Crimea he basically told Obama and the western powers to suck an egg, but the ante is considerably higher in this instance. I would think he would hit the reset button at this point in his dealings with the US and European countries. You know, kind of ease back on the steroids in the weight room, somewhat. Maybe even put a shirt on. Germany and the other nations who benefit from Russian natural gas will have a difficult time swallowing this pill if Putin thumbs his nose at the West.

If President Obama can take a few minutes off from his fund raising he might ask Putin if he would mind shipping those boxes to some other nation for analysis, just to give the appearance of innocence.