[Norm Lenhart]

When this particular group tells me water is wet, I tend to question it even though I know water to be wet. Could Putin be behind it? Yup. Is he capable? Yup. Does it make sense? Nope. Especially when so many in ‘congress’ want so badly to have an external non muslim target to pile all the worlds evils on.

I dunno what the truth is. But I do know I don’t trust our elected officials to tell it.

[MacMattico]

The two reasons I could think of for Russia doing this: 1) They thought it was a large Ukrainian transport or, and more importantly (2) Putin knows the West will do nothing, but the FAA did just declare (reported on Fox) Ukrainian airspace off limits. That will hurt Ukraine immensely if it applies to the whole country.

[DB]

It appears that Putin gave a powerful weapon to people who weren't being closely supervised and this is the result. Do I think the result was Putin's plan, no. His plan was to escalate things on the border to further his agenda, not escalate things internationally. So I think his plan blew up in his face for a change.

[ConservativeDude]

seems to me that by definition, it is an act of terror.

I’d be extremely cautious about calling it an act of war...which necessitates a response by the US against a state.

but I have no difficulty in saying that the terrorists should be quietly, systematically and thoroughly destroyed.

[dforest]

Damn Norm, I totally agree with you on this one.

[kearnyirish2]

“I dunno what the truth is. But I do know I don’t trust our elected officials to tell it.”

Same here, but I expect the media will run with this story until something else comes along to distract the American public. I’m not downplaying the significance of the loss of life, but I don’t remember such a stir created when an airliner was shot down in Africa twenty years ago with one or two African presidents on board. The West ignored it, and over the next few months 800,000 Rwandans were killed...