Vladimir Putin Has Taken Up Residence in a Hellish Place

Dear readers, once again, the world's thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the people who lost their lives on a Malaysia Airlines flight. But, unlike the tragedy last Spring that has still not been explained or the wreckage found, this time we know with horrifying certainty what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 enroute from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur -- the plane was deliberately hit by a surface to air missile - a SAM that was fired from either eastern Ukraine or close by across the border in Russia. ~~~~~ And we know a lot more. ~~~~~ We know that this senseless act killed 298 people, all non-combatants, whose only "crime" was to board a commercial plane. ~~~~~ We know that the Ukraine government has intercepted and recorded a conversation between Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists and their Russian handlers. The conversation explains that the separatists shot down a commercial plane and that pieces were falling out of the sky. We hear the Russian handlers asking if people's bodies were scattered on the ground. ~~~~~ We know, based on this intercepted and recorded conversation, as well as radar-based confirmation by US authorities that flight MH17 was hit by a SAM, that it was these pro-Russian separatists or Russians who fired the SAM that brought down flight MH17. ~~~~~ And we know that the only country in the region that possesses SAM technology is Russia and so we know that Russian experts either fired the SAM or trained and permitted pro-Russian separatists to possess and fire the SAM. ~~~~~ We know that MH17 was flying on an authorized albeit quasi-warzone route. ~~~~~ And we know that these same pro-Russia separatists are not fully cooperating with international authorities trying to secure the crash site and collect the bodies, that the bodies are beginning to decompose, and that there are unconfirmed reports of looting at the crash site. We also know that some of the victims' bodies have been removed from the crash site by the separatists. ~~~~~ We also know that Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to blame the Ukraine government because it committed the "unpardonable sin" of trying to secure its own territory and negotiate a peace deal with the separatists, who along with their patron, Vladimir Putin, refuse to talk to the Ukraine president about peace. Somehow, in Putin's defective mind, this seems to justify the separatists' murder of 298 innocent people. ~~~~~ And, most disturbing, we know that there are reports that the plane's black box and other recorders have been taken into Russia. The pro-Russia separatists say these devices - vital to understanding exactly what happened to flight MH17 - are still in Ukraine. But they have not been turned over to the Ukraine government, which by international treaty, as the country where the crash occurred, is legally responsible for leading the investigation. Have the recorders been tampered with. We don't know. But until they are in the hands of the official investigation team, the black boxes are a smoking gun pointing to the guilt of Russia, Putin and the rebels. ~~~~~ My dear readers, war crimes have become the routine stuff of daily news. But even in our violent times, the missile downing of a commercial airplane is truly shocking to the sensbilities of normal people. And we can recognize a cover-up when we see it. Taking black boxes, removing bodies from the crash site, tampering with the crash site itself - all these are evidence of a cover-up directed by Putin and carried out by his pro-Russia puppets. And tonight CNN is reporting that the Ukraine government has photographic evidence of a Russian SAM unit on a flatbed truck going across the Russian border to be delivered to the separatists a week before the downing of flight MH17 and being taken back across the border into Russia after the downing -- with one missile missing from its launch tube. It seems very likely that Vladimir Putin has taken up residence in a hellish place that even the USSR seldom occupied.