If one looks at the facts already well established, the case for Russian guilt is compelling, both as to the shoot down and as to Russia engaging in aggression and acts of war against Ukraine. Russia's failure to make the evidence available and offer a credible argument for her innocence is also telling.
The prize at issue is the future of Ukraine. We know what its people want. Reliable polling and the record of election promises all indicate that the Ukrainian public overwhelming wants to be free of Russian domination, to affiliate with Europe, and to reform their weak economy and corrupt political system along European lines. The US and Europe would be foolish in the extreme not to support those objectives, which would do much to protect and solidify Europe's eastern flank and expand her common trade area.
The reason for the recent overthrow of the Ukrainian government was that, under Russian threats and bribery, it did an about face and refused to sign an EU affiliation agreement that it had negotiated and agreed to sign during its election campaign. The resulting Maidan demonstrations in the capital of Kiev were large, peaceful, and determined, enough so as to begin to collapse the legitimacy of the government.
Russian secret police, special forces, and paramilitary -- apparently answering to Russian military intelligence and then to Putin -- were sent in to break the Maidan demonstrations. As Ukrainian police attempted to clear the demonstrators from the government quarter, snipers began shooting to kill from government buildings. Dozens of demonstrators were killed by shots to the head or chest. That is the beginning of and the worst of the violence complained of by Western critics and falsely attributed to the Ukrainian Maidan demonstrators, who were in fact the victims of unjustified and brutal violence.
The Maidan demonstrators included Ukrainian Army veterans who organized parties to aid the wounded and clear the buildings that were being used by Russian snipers. As that effort progressed, many in the Ukrainian police and army went over to the demonstrators. The Maidan demonstrators generated little in the way of armed force and did little violence.
At the risk of being surrounded and eventually killed or captured, the Russian snipers and affiliated units were withdrawn. The leading figures of the Ukrainian government then resigned or fled, and a new, pro-Western interim government was selected by the parliament. This was followed by well-administered national elections that installed a reformist, pro-Western government.
Of course, these facts and the desire of Ukraine's people to affiliate with the West and to live in freedom do not get to the heart of what the critics are about: the appeasement of Putin and Russia based on the belief that doing so avoids risk and expense. Yet Germany, Poland, and Europe seem to recognize that their freedom and security are best secured by supporting Ukrainian freedom and its pro-Western government and people. Sadly, as if Churchill had never lived, there are British conservatives today who prefer appeasement as a matter of principle.
Well Said —
Please post this on a regular basis here on these threads for the benefit of those with short memories:
In case you missed it, affiliating and living in peace in the West from here on out is a joke. Look at your own country. How long is the US going to hold on to the last vestiges of our freedom? The time is running out. Ukraine gets no “freedom” either way.
Democracy is not freedom. So what you get to vote when the choices you have are cut from the same cloth?