MH17: British families say 'Russian gangsters killed our loved ones'

The families of some of the 10 British victims of flight MH17 angrily accused “Russian gangsters” of killing their loved ones in an “act of war”, as evidence mounted that a missile supplied by Moscow brought down the Malaysia Airlines flight.

Grieving relations also demanded that the airline and the aviation authorities explain why the Boeing 777, with 298 people on board, was allowed to fly over a war zone where three military aircraft had been shot down in the previous four days.

Among the Britons killed in Thursday’s disaster in Ukraine were two undergraduates on their way to Australia, two Newcastle United fans travelling to watch the team play in New Zealand, a United Nations worker and a former RAF technician.

Ukraine said 80 children died, including three babies, together with around 100 experts in HIV/Aids who were on their way to a conference in Melbourne.

President Barack Obama said yesterday that he was certain that MH17 had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists.

Graveyard of desecration: Grave robbers. Ghoulish tourists taking pictures on their mobiles. Corpses left to rot: A shocking dispatch from the grim crash site

Investigators have claimed drunk soldiers stopped them accessing whole site, hindering their investigation

There are many circles of obscenity around this mass murder, almost certainly caused by a missile fired by crowing pro-Russian rebels armed, funded and trained by Moscow. But perhaps the ultimate insult is that even in death these poor people were denied dignity.

So their devastated and dishevelled bodies were left in the baking summer heat, exposed to the elements for three days while uniformed goons with guns stole from their suitcases and then stopped international observers trying to solve the mystery of their deaths.

Meanwhile, the pro-Russian rebels who most likely caused this terrible carnage treated an international crime scene with as much respect as a tourist site, allowing motley groups of paramilitaries and the growing media army to trample around some of the aircraft debris.

Perhaps the most sickening sight was a young male passenger whose body had been retrieved from a corn field and placed in a black body bag. But no one bothered to close it, so he lay there naked next to the road, his underpants around his legs.

However, one witness who had been at the crash site for two days alleged he had seen officials from all sides stealing possessions from the dead passengers. ‘It is simply disgusting. They are just picking over the remains like the worst kind of common thieves,’ he said.

‘I saw them steal cameras from a bag, then pick up a pair of binoculars only to throw them away because they’d broken in the crash.’

He took me to where he said he had seen the thefts, some 200 yards away. There was a pile of possessions that had fallen from a luggage rack, lying beside a chunk of the aircraft speared surreally into the soil beside a small lake.

Sure enough, a broken pair of Tasco binoculars were still there, along with their case.

But a big camera bag was empty. All that was inside was a pink sheet of paper showing black and white pictures of a baby called Ella Jane Hadfield, apparently born at 3.30am on December 6 last year to ‘proud parents... Cassandra & Joshua’.

The area was also strewn with travel documents, such as an e-ticket confirmation for a family of two Dutch adults and their child. Many passengers could be identified.

As I left the main road and walked past a small lake with wreckage poking from the water, I came across another small pile of possessions heaped on the grass.

There was a thriller in Dutch, a celebrity magazine, some women’s underwear, and a bag with two hairbrushes inside. Like so much of the stuff strewn across the hillside, it had almost certainly been rifled by pro-Russian rebels and others.

Indeed, I watched as one man in military fatigues picked through another collection of items nearby.

The rebel leader at the site was a bearded man ostentatiously carrying a bullet-laden machine-gun. He said his name was Grumpy – ‘because I get grumpy when I am not shooting Ukrainian tanks’ – and he was clearly enjoying his new-found power.

‘This is a provocation of the Kiev junta, who shot down a civilian plane,’ he told me, despite the lack of any facts to support such a statement. Before the recent declaration of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the breakaway movement of separatist stooges doing Vladimir Putin’s dirty work in eastern Ukraine, this ‘soldier’ was a delivery driver.

But yesterday, when a team of international observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe arrived to inspect the site, ‘Grumpy’ blocked their way with a vehicle and barked orders at them.

First he told them they could not drive down to the crash scene in their cars. ‘I have orders not to let you pass,’ he said. ‘I warn you once. You have security here to protect you. Whoever disobeys my orders will be dealt with accordingly.

‘I have told you many times. You are on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic. Arrivederci.’

Then he insisted the 24-strong team could not leave the road to walk in the fields where the bodies lay, and finally that only one or two could inspect the full site.

This was an improvement on the night before, when a drunken rebel started firing shots in the air over the observers’ heads. One OSCE officer said: ‘A visibly intoxicated armed guard fired his rifle in the air when one of the observers walked out of the prescribed area.’ But still ‘Grumpy’ was breaking agreements reached with the leaders of his self-proclaimed republic. Eventually the observers retreated again after being permitted only partial access.

Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the OSCE, said they had to tread carefully. ‘We are unarmed civilians, so we are not in a position to argue with people with heavy arms.We are looking at security on the perimeter of the site, looking at the status in the condition of the bodies, the status in the condition of the debris, and personal belongings.’

Bociurkiw added that the scene was very disturbing. ‘Some of the body bags are open and the damage to the corpses is very, very bad. It is very difficult to look at.’

In Donetsk, the separatist leader Alexander Borodai – a former journalist – denied the rebels had in any way interfered with the work of observers and, rather absurdly, accused Kiev of barring access.

Borodai called for help from Russian Federation experts to assist with cleaning up the site. ‘Bodies of innocent people are lying out in the heat,’ he said. He denied reports that bodies had been transferred from the crash site, although added that his forces reserved the right to remove bodies given the delays.

local Ukrainian officials said between 24 and 38 bodies were taken from the scene by pro- Russians, fuelling claims of a cover-up. Konstantin Batozskiy, adviser to the chairman of Donetsk regional administration, alleged the corpses were taken from Pazzypnoe village.
One can only imagine the terror with which these 298 passengers plummeted to earth – should they have been unfortunate enough to have still been alive

‘We have no idea where the bodies are now,’ he said. ‘These inhuman people simply threw the remains of passengers into the truck. They did not say a word and pushed away the rescue team with guns.’

Journalists also said they saw bodies being taken away by emergency workers. The revelations were met with fury in the Netherlands, where most of the victims came from, with Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans saying he was ‘shocked’ by the reported removals.

Unsurprisingly, there is growing international alarm over the way the crash site is being treated.

‘The integrity of the site has been compromised, and there are indications that vital evidence has not been preserved in place,’ Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said at a news conference in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. ‘Any actions that prevent us from learning the truth about what happened cannot be tolerated. Failure to stop such interference would be a betrayal of the lives that we lost.’

The location of the airliner’s black boxes remains a mystery and the separatist leadership remained adamant last night that they had not been located by them. Mr Bociurkiw also said that he had received no information on their whereabouts.

This was a revolting slaughter of 298 innocent people that becomes more callous, more cruel, more unspeakably grotesque by the day.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698563/Graveyard-desecration-Grave-robbers-Ghoulish-tourists-taking-pictures-mobiles-Corpses-left-rot-A-shocking-dispatch-grim-crash-site-IAN-BIRRELL.html

These Russians are animals not human, they are of the same caliber as the ISIS beheader scum!

Ukrainian rebels boasted on social media on June 29 that they gained control of a Buk-M1 system when they overran a Ukrainian armed forces base in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported. Mr. Nayda said that Ukrainian armed forces made that system nonoperational back in March, around the time when the fighting in the area kicked off. The core of the missile system remains on the base, but there are no warheads to arm it, he said.

“It’s about 90% certain that the separatists shot down the aircraft down by accident,” said Steven Pifer, director of arms control and nonproliferation at Washington-based think tank the Brookings Institution. Although Ukraine and Russia have Buk antiaircraft systems, “I would think it improbable the system would not have been provided by the Russians,” he said.

The U.S. suspects Russia has done more than deliver the equipment. Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said Friday that the SA-11 is “a sophisticated system” and that “it strains credulity to think that it could be used by separatists without at least some measure of Russian support and technical assistance.”

Russian officials have denied supplying the pro-Moscow separatists with surface-to-air missiles. In the months of conflict in the region, Russia has issued blanket denials it is training or coordinating rebels in their offensive against Ukraine.

Mr. Nayda said that Ukrainian intelligence showed that a three-man Russian military team entered Ukraine along with one of the Buk missile systems. He didn’t say when the equipment crossed the border into Ukraine.

Intelligence, including photographs and electronic intercepts, compiled by Ukrainian spies show that three Buk-M1 systems were shipped out of eastern Ukraine on flatbed trucks in two waves in the early morning of July 18, said Mr. Nayda. A system missing a missile crossed the border in a flatbed truck to Russia at 2 a.m., and two other missile systems with a complete set of missiles crossed at 4 a.m., he said.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-knew-of-separatists-air-defense-capabilities-say-officials-1405781508

10 Britons and 192 Dutch have been confirmed dead, along with 28 Australians, 44 Malaysians and one U.S. citizen.

US Ambassador Samantha Power told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Friday that the United States cannot rule out that Russia helped in the launch of the surface-to-air missile that shot down a Malaysia Airlines jet over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Power said the US believes the plane was likely downed by an SA-11 missile fired from an area in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists. She said Russia has provided SA-11s and other heavy weapons to the separatists.

Britain's UN Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, who called the emergency meeting, was more emphatic on assessing blame for the crash. And Ms Power it is likely that Russian military personnel were at the controls of the missile battery that downed the airliner.

New intelligence seen by the New York Times, suggest a surface to air missile on Monday shot down a Ukranian military plane from inside Russia’s borders – just days before MH17 was blown apart. It is possible that the same battery was then moved into Ukraine, where it shot down the Malaysian airlines jet liner.

'It is clear where responsibility lies: with the senseless violence of armed separatists and with those who have supported, equipped and advised them,' he said. 'The council must be united in condemning these actions, and in demanding that these groups disarm, desist from violence and intimidation and engage in dialogue through the democratic mechanisms that are available to them.'

The Malaysian jet was flying at a cruising altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 meters) from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on an established flight corridor when it was shot down Thursday, Power said.

Power said that early Thursday a Western reporter reported an SA-11 system in separatist-controlled territory near Snizhne, 'and separatists were spotted hours before the incident with an SA-11 SAM system close to the site where the plane came down.'

Power didn't identify the reporter. But on Thursday, AP journalists saw a rocket launcher near Snizhne.

Separatists initially claimed responsibility for shooting down a military transport plane, and claimed responsibility and posted videos that are now being connected to the Malaysian Airlines crash,' Power said. 'Separatist leaders also boasted on social media about shooting down a plane, but later deleted these messages.'

'Because of the technical complexity of the SA-11, it is unlikely that the separatists could effectively operate the system without assistance from knowledgeable personnel. Thus, we cannot rule out technical assistance from Russian personnel in operating the systems,' she said.

Power said Ukraine also has SA-11 missiles but the United States is not aware of any in the area where the plane was shot down.

She said the downing of the Malaysian airlines jet also follows a pattern of attacks on aircraft by the separatists in June and very recently on Monday and Wednesday.

'If indeed Russian-backed separatists were behind this attack on a civilian airliner, they and their backers would have good reason to cover up evidence of their crime,' Power told the council. 'Thus it is extremely important than an investigation be commenced immediately.'

Power called for a cease-fire by Russia, pro-Russian separatists and Ukraine so investigators can immediately get to the site.

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were prevented from conducting their investigation by militiamen during their first trip to the scene Friday, fueling speculation that the rebels are beginning a 'cover-up' by hiding all links to the Buk missile believed to have shot down the plane.

Pro-Russian separatists stand by as representatives from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) arrive to take a look at the crash site. They were forced to leave 75 minutes later.

Sergeyev said communications and intercepts, photos and videos indicate that the rebels have at least two SA-11 missile systems, also known as Buk. He added that detained 'terrorists,' including two Russian citizens who were going to join the rebels, confessed that the Buk system arrived from Russia.

The entire Security Council called for 'a full, thorough and independent international investigation, in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines, and for appropriate accountability." It stressed the need for "immediate access by investigators to the crash site to determine the cause of the incident.'

At the start of Friday's emergency meeting, all diplomats in the crowded council chamber rose to their feet and bowed their heads in silent tribute to those who died.

Ambassadors from all countries with passengers on the flight - Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Philippines, Vietnam, Canada, New Zealand and the United States - all spoke, demanding an independent investigation and calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

The BUK missile system photographed in Torez hours before MH17 was downed. Torez is rebel held town.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698068/Did-Russian-soldiers-trigger-finger-blow-MH17-sky-NOT-Ukranian-rebel-Tense-United-Nations-showdown-turns-heat-Putin-US-says-rag-tag-separatists-struggle-fire-missile-themselves.html

Read this comment below at link above, there are lots of pics with guys wearing balaclavas, not sure what guy he is referring to, maybe one of you can spot what he talking about. The guy who looks like rebel leader has blue and gold emblem on his chest.

"The guy with the balaclava is wearing the insignia of a Major of the Russian Federation."

U.S. Sees Evidence of Russian Links to Jet’s Downing

WASHINGTON — The United States government has concluded that the passenger jet felled over Ukraine was shot down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile launched from rebel-held territory and most likely provided by Russia to pro-Moscow separatists, officials said on Friday.

While American officials are still investigating the chain of events leading to the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Thursday, they pointed to a series of indicators of Russian involvement. Among other things, military and intelligence officials said there was mounting evidence that a Ukrainian military plane shot down three days earlier had been fired upon from inside Russian territory by the same sort of missile battery used to bring down the civilian jet.

Among the 298 people who died when the plane came down was Quinn Lucas Schansman, 19, who was born in New York to a Dutch father and had dual American and Dutch citizenship. Mr. Schansman had been studying in Amsterdam when he decided to fly to Indonesia, where his family was on a three-week vacation. “He was headed over there to meet them,” said Katinka Wallace, a relative.

Mr. Schansman’s Facebook page indicated that he had moved to Amsterdam on April 24 and had been in a relationship with a young woman since last year. His favorite quotation was “I have a dream!” On Friday, friends and relatives posted remembrances in Dutch. “Dear cousin and friend, we’re going to miss you,” one wrote.

American intelligence agencies concluded that the Boeing 777-200 was struck by a Russian-made SA-11 missile fired from a rebel-controlled area near the border in Ukraine. American analysts were focused on an area near the small towns of Snizhne and Torez, about midway between the rebel strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Their determination was based on an analysis of the launch plume and trajectory of the missile, as detected by an American military spy satellite. But the analysis did not pinpoint the origin of the missile launch or identify who launched it. “Those are the million-dollar questions,” said a senior Pentagon official who, like others, insisted on anonymity to discuss details of the analysis.

Although the separatists claimed to have captured a Ukrainian SA-11 battery in late June, a senior American official said the system was not believed to be operational. “We have high confidence that it was not a Ukrainian system,” the official said of the battery that shot down the Malaysian plane. “We have reason to suspect that it could be a Russian-supplied system.”

The downing of the Ukrainian military transport plane on Monday figured prominently in the evaluations. Western officials said there were strong indications that the missile that struck that plane, an Antonov-26, came from the Russian side of the border, although the crash is still under investigation.

It was not clear whether the same missile battery brought down the Malaysian aircraft on Thursday, but officials said that either way, they believed the unit had been transported over the border from Russia in recent days. The Ukrainian government released audio in which separatist rebels seemed to be discussing an SA-11 missile system that was moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia just before the Malaysian plane was destroyed.

American officials said that while they had not authenticated the tape, they had no reason to doubt it, and noted that the accents of the speakers and the scenario described seemed to fit existing information.

In recent months, Russians have funneled tanks, rockets, artillery and antiaircraft weapons to the separatists, according to American and European officials. Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the top NATO commander, warned last month that the Russians had trained separatists to operate some of the heavy weaponry, although he did not mention SA-11 missiles specifically.

At a briefing on Friday, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the top Pentagon spokesman, said it would have been difficult for separatists to fire the SA-11 without Russian help. “It strains credulity to think that it could be used by separatists without at least some measure of Russian support and technical assistance,” he said.

Admiral Kirby raised the possibility that the Russian military had transported the system into Ukraine and even fired it. “Whether it was a system that was driven across the border by Russians and then handed off, we don’t know,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/world/europe/malaysia-airlines-plane-ukraine.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Banner&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

This lying brute who has to be shackled

News of the destruction of Flight MH17 and the appalling murder of 298 people gave Russia’s president Vladimir Putin a chance to step back from a precipice.

Yesterday, he could have stood up before the world and denounced the crime; endorsed a full investigation and punishment of the guilty.

Instead – yet almost inevitably, given the nature of the man – he presented his stone face. He asserted, against all logic and evidence, that Ukraine and its rulers were the guilty parties.

He lied, as he has lied all his life since he was first schooled in deceit and brutality by those masters of the art, his old employers at the KGB.

Putin probably felt that no path was open to him save denial, because the facts point blame for this huge tragedy squarely at the Kremlin.

In March, Putin annexed Crimea, then embarked on a strategy of covert military support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, designed to sustain civil war and ruin the country.

Month after month, Western intelligence has tracked Russian special forces – ‘little green men’, as they are nicknamed, because they wear no uniforms or badges – working with the pro-Kremlin separatists.

Satellite photographs show heavy weapons and tanks trundling into eastern Ukraine from Russia.

Whether the Malaysia Airways plane was hit by a missile supplied by Moscow or captured from the Ukrainian Army is neither here nor there. Putin is the sponsor and puppet-master of the rebels. Thus, he must bear responsibility for this appalling act.

His apologists say the rebels thought they were firing at the Ukrainian military. That, too, is irrelevant. Putin has placed deadly toys in the hands of recklessly irresponsible people. For months, observers have expressed fears that Putin would find the separatists impossible to micro-manage. So it has now proved.

For those – almost all of us – who have hoped since the end of the Cold War that Russia could join the fellowship of nations, pursuing the values of democracy and freedom, this is a sad day.

It confirms what has seemed increasingly apparent since the Ukrainian crisis erupted: Putin’s Russia is not merely no friend to the West. It has chosen to make itself our enemy.

Whether the Malaysia Airways plane was hit by a missile supplied by Moscow or captured from the Ukrainian Army is neither here nor there. Putin is the sponsor and puppet-master of the rebels

On the credit side, there will be no return to the nuclear stand-off of the Cold War. Nobody among the Western powers wants to start shooting over Ukraine.

But Putin becomes more dangerous every day, because he has boxed himself into a corner from which it will be hard, if not impossible, for him to escape.

He has made Russia an autocracy in which free speech is a dead letter. It is now a crime to criticise the Red Army in history books as well as in modern speech.

All broadcast channels are state-controlled, and pour forth a torrent of deceits, not least about Ukraine. Russian viewers are obliged to feast on atrocity stories about alleged crimes by Ukrainian troops against Russian speakers, including public crucifixion of a three-year-old child.

In the mad world Putin has created, a dismaying number of his people are ready to believe such stuff. He may even do so himself: the Kremlin becomes ever more Stalinesque, with the president dependent for information and counsel on a slavish circle of intimates who tell him only what he wishes to hear. Enemies and critics are imprisoned after show trials, or liquidated by hitmen.

Unsurprisingly, Putin has failed in his efforts to modernise the Russian economy: 55 per cent of the nation’s budget now depends on foreign sales of gas.

Moscow’s Ukrainian adventure has caused growth forecasts to be slashed from 1.8 per cent to below 1 per cent this year, and at least £40billion of foreign capital has left the country.

Putin has constructed a narrative to explain all this: Russia is encircled by enemies, Nato and the EU foremost among them, forever seeking to extend their tentacles into Moscow’s rightful sphere of influence.

He said in March, justifying the Crimean annexation: ‘Russia finds itself in a position it could not retreat from. If you compress a spring all the way back to its limit, it will snap back hard.’ He tells his people that Russia is a proud nation, responding to Western threats, insults and expansionism.

So how should the West address this pocket Stalin? Since the end of the Cold War, US and EU diplomacy has been extraordinarily clumsy: wilfully humiliating the Russians; then making offers of partnership to Ukraine and other neighbouring states without considering their implications or impact on Moscow; and finally, responding feebly when Putin began to lash out.

But whatever the West’s mistakes in the past, these should not obscure the fundamentals today: Putin is a brute and a bully who must be shackled.

Since the spring, US rhetoric has been far more robust than that of Europe, and especially that of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. She seems morbidly afraid of taking any action that might tempt Putin to cut off her country’s gas supplies.

Back in March, the EU issued a solemn statement: ‘Any further steps by the Russian Federation to destabilise the situation in Ukraine would lead to additional and far-reaching consequences for relations in a broad range of economic areas.’

It seems hard for anybody in Brussels or Berlin to deny that the killing of 298 innocent people, most of them EU citizens, does indeed constitute ‘further steps’.

Putin has acted throughout his tenure of power on the assumption that European leaders are marshmallows, to be defied with impunity.

It is time, and beyond time, to prove him wrong. Baroness Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy supremo, has a last chance to show that she is not wholly ridiculous.

The first round of Western sanctions against Russia in the spring addressed only some named individuals. The list of Putin associates whose funds are frozen and whose family members are denied access to Western countries must be drastically extended, even if some of them own European football clubs and mansions in Kensington.

Graduated sanctions must be extended to Russia as a nation. France should refuse to continue construction of warships for the Russian Navy. There should be no EU finance for Russian projects.

There must be a carrot and stick: if the Russians pull back from eastern Ukraine, they get rewards. Dangerous state enemies should always be offered a way out. But if Putin persists on his current path, his country has to be punished economically for his actions.

Even though the West is rightly unwilling to consider military action against Russia over Ukraine, iron-clad and very public security guarantees must be given to Poland and the Baltic states.

It is just possible that Putin is reckless enough to raise the stakes, to try to create new regions of instability beyond his frontiers. He must be made to understand that if he does so, Nato will respond militarily.

Russia, and explicitly its president, are today complicit in an appalling crime in the skies over Ukraine. If the West fails to punish Putin for the ruthless adventurism which has caused this to happen, it will be a bad day for the security of us all.

A cruel and dangerous man is rampaging on the Eastern horizon. If he cannot be checked there, how can we trust our governments to protect us from such threats nearer to home?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2697942/MAX-HASTINGS-This-lying-brute-shackled.html

This weak and timid President talks big... and does nothing: A devastating attack on Obama by a top Washington insider

Clark S. Judge believes Obama’s reaction to the tragedy was ‘disconnected’
Immediately ‘reverted to script’ to praise his administration
Former adviser to Ronald Reagan says it confirms ‘chaos’ of foreign policy

At a political event in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday, President Obama devoted only 40 seconds to the shooting down of the Malaysian airline, his first statement to the world following the news.

His emotionless reference to the attack as ‘a terrible tragedy’ seemed disconnected from the horrific moment, particularly as he immediately reverted to script to praise his administration and criticise Republicans.

It was a far cry from President Reagan’s 1983 fierce denunciation of the Soviet shooting down of a Korean airliner as a ‘crime against humanity’.

But it only confirmed the chaos into which US foreign policy has descended since the summer of 2012 when reporters at a White House briefing asked Mr Obama about the security of chemical weapons in the Syrian stockpile.

The commander in chief went beyond safety and said: ‘We have been very clear to the Assad regime … that a red line for us is [when] we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised.’

The term ‘red line’ is the kind of clear, emphatic language major powers use only when they are prepared to back words with action.

A little over a year later, the Assad regime utilised chemical weapons against its own people.

The number of blunders that the President and his administration committed in the ‘red line’ affair is hard to fathom.

Before the President spoke, no one vetted the term and its consequences in the White House policy process and, once the words came out, no one undertook preparations in case Syrian president Bashar al-Assad called Mr Obama’s bluff.

According to reports, no one made the diplomatic rounds to line up the support of allies just in case, or the congressional rounds to line up the support of Congress. No one developed military plans or sent quiet signals to Assad that the US was not to be trifled with on this matter.

These actions are routine when any White House makes as definitive a commitment as the President made, except, apparently, this White House.

Even bigger blunders came after the Syrian chemical attack. Mr Obama began signalling that, despite his remark, he did not want a response, any response. First there was the verification charade. Multiple eyewitness accounts of rockets rising out of Syrian army installations and falling into the stricken zones at the time of the chemical attacks were not enough to warrant quick action.

Then there was his call for a congressional vote, delivered just when the need to respond was most urgent if air strikes were to deliver an effective message.

Finally, there was the utter failure to attract congressional support, assuming Mr Obama really wanted Congress to endorse the proposed attacks.

That the Parliament of our closest ally, Great Britain, rejected an air campaign first gave Mr Obama an additional reason for inactivity. The flailing seemed to end when Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the door to a negotiated deal with Syria. But it was not the end; it was the beginning.

For as the administration rushed to that door, all over the world those who depended on America when in harrowing circumstances were asking themselves: How reliable is America now? How strong now?

Also asking was Mr Putin. He noted the contrast between Mr Obama’s bold talk and timid response. As the former head of a friendly government said in a small meeting I attended not long ago: ‘Putin is cautious. He will probe. If he encounters resistance, he will pull back.’

The US failure to follow through in Syria gave the Russian president confidence that he could move with impunity.
It was a far cry from President Reagan’s 1983 fierce denunciation of the Soviet shooting down of a Korean airliner as a ‘crime against humanity

SOON he was picking a fight with Ukraine. Like the scene in The Godfather – when, at his child’s baptism, Michael Corleone renounces the devil as the camera cuts back and forth to his men eliminating rival gangsters – Putin, before global television cameras, watched the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics as Russian troops began movements preparatory to seizing Crimea.

This week, in the skies over Ukraine, we saw the consequences of the recklessness that the Russian godfather’s probing has unleashed.

Putin was not the only one to detect opportunity in American indecision. China stepped up its probes in the East and South China Seas. In the Middle East, with the US military presence drawn down nearly to zero in Iraq and soon Afghanistan, an army of ruthless fanatics gestating unnoticed in Syria’s east saw the chance to break out of national boundaries and within a few weeks occupied much of western and central Iraq.

Why has so much of the global order come apart so fast?

For the same reason that, as a friend reports, on the streets of San Salvador those who will smuggle your child to the Rio Grande have been securing an unprecedented volume of sign-ups. When asked about the chances of the child staying in America once the border is crossed, they tell parents: ‘It has never been easier.’

Now the word on weakness is everywhere, even the poorest barrios of Central America.

The fact that you have a crisis in Ukraine has nothing to do with Gaza,’ a deputy national security adviser to the President told an interviewer recently.

The current White House doesn’t understand how US fecklessness in Syria can reverberate to Ukraine, and from there to the South China Sea, and the Americas, and Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East.

In all this I have referred to the United States as the primary shaper of world events, which is, in fact, a misleading shorthand. The US is not a superpower so much as the biggest player in a set of super-alliances, the most critical of which is with the UK.

Since the Second World War, when the US and Britain have been of one mind, liberal values have been secure and even advanced. When either has lost its sense of direction, neither has been nearly so effective.

The great danger in being the anchor to the global order is that when we lose our way the general peace itself is threatened.

This is just what we are seeing in theatre after theatre around the world. Perhaps it is time for a key ally like Prime Minister David Cameron to have a friendly talk with the President.

It is not just American interests that a flailing White House threatens. It is that of peoples everywhere.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2698685/This-weak-timid-President-talks-big-does-A-devastating-attack-Obama-Washington-insider.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.