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Buk-M1-2 SAM system.
9A310M1-2 self-propelled launcher. MAKS, Zhukovskiy, Russia, 2005.
A mobile Buk
surface-to-air missile launcher, similar to that believed to have been used in
the incident
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28 May 2014 5:33 PM
Ukraine - A
Warning to the Furious
I feel a strong foreboding about
Ukraine. Stories quite a long way inside most of today’s papers recount
appalling carnage in and around Donetsk, where jet fighters and helicopters
were used earlier in the week by the Kiev government to retake the airport from
rebels, and where the mortuary is said to be full of tangled, maimed bodies.
There are unpleasant stories from the
town of Gorlovka (which I have visited, and which is twinned with Barnsley)
claiming that policemen have been murdered by rebels there.
It all sounds extremely dangerous and
chaotic, and I feel great sympathy for the courageous journalists attempting to
report what is going on, and being rewarded with inside pages.
This is the kind of conflict where one
could easily become dead, or very badly wounded, simply by driving down the
wrong road at the wrong time of day, or by not leaving a building quickly
enough. I have been very lucky in such circumstances, but plenty are not.
But my concern for the reporters and
photographers and cameramen is just a small part of it. Who is in charge? What
are they trying to achieve?
Although he is not really legitimate,
as his predecessor was never lawfully removed, we have at least to give a fair
wind to Petro Poroshenko, the newly-elected president in Kiev.
But can he, only just elected, have
had any personal say in the use of overwhelming force in Donetsk? If so, things
look very bad. Russia is plainly angling for a compromise over Eastern Ukraine,
a federal system which would allow the east of the country to retain strong
economic and political links with Russia.
There are good material reasons for
this. Much of Russia’s defence industry, pretty much its only successful
industry apart from oil, still depends on quite advanced factories in this part
of Ukraine. An EU-dominated Kiev, subject to the sort of economic and trade
constraints that EU satellites must obey, could not long permit such an
arrangement to last.
There are also (as discussed here to
the point of exhaustion) strong political reasons why Russia will do all in its
power to prevent the transfer of Ukraine from its current buffer-state
neutrality to EU/NATO loyalty. And Moscow sees a federalisation of Ukraine,
with a good deal of autonomy for the east, as a tolerable way of doing this. It
would without doubt prefer the whole Ukraine in its sphere. But it recognizes
that this is not a realistic objective at present or in the foreseeable future,
so does not seek to pursue it. This is just grown-up diplomacy, not all that
difficult.
So when Vladimir Putin said he would
recognise the outcome of the Ukraine presidential election, it was a
significant concession, made not out of the kindness of his heart but in the
hope of receiving something worthwhile in return.
An airborne attack on Donetsk airport
does not seem to me to be that something.
Now, perhaps people in the Kiev regime
were trying to bounce Mr Poroshenko, or hem him in by creating impossible
hostility and so preventing compromise, before he was fully in charge. Perhaps
some of them still half-fear and half hope that Russian tanks will come
storming across the border. I have noticed how supporters of the Kiev
putsch have always believed very strongly in the likelihood of such an action,
and have wondered if it was wishful thinking, since it would compel the USA and
Western Europe to intervene unequivocally on Kiev’s side, in some way. And this
is what many of them want(in my view, quite madly, as it would cause untold
grief. But they don’t seem to grasp this).
I have until now always doubted that
Mr Putin intended an invasion It would be an act of emotional folly, likely to
lead in the end to his own downfall, and I do not get the impression that he
does such things. As Sir Rodric Braithwaite has said elsewhere, he usually
knows when to stop. He knows his history. He knows that Nicholas II’s
mobilisation in 1914 led directly to the murder of the Imperial family in a
cellar in Yekaterinburg, and to the disaster of Lenin.
If he had done it before now then I
would have to confess to having completely misunderstood his nature and
motives. The Crimean takeover was quite different, aided by the fact that
large numbers of Russian troops were already legally there, the status of
Crimea was legally dubious from the start, thanks to Kiev’s blocking of a
referendum on Crimea’s position 20-odd years ago, and the action had
popular support.
Now that Kiev is deploying such strong
violence in Donetsk, I cannot be quite so sure. Violence of this kind and on
this scale can make men take leave of their senses, as history also shows. In
1914 it was as if they had put something in the water, so quickly did
politicians take leave of their senses.
I must just hope that people on both
sides keep hold of their reason and their sense of proportion. And also that
this is not Mr Poroshenko’s will, and that he has the real power to control
those who are seeking to ramp this up.
Meanwhile, where are the condemnations
of the Kiev government for ‘killing its own people’? There is no doubt that it
is doing so, and using indiscriminate methods. It is all very well saying
(truthfully) that it faces an armed insurgency and claiming (almost certainly
correctly) that this insurgency is being aided and armed by outsiders.
Exactly the same was and is true in
Syria, but that has not prevented the liberal interventionist chorus from
condemning the Syrian government and classifying it as a ‘regime’.
I’ll say again what I have said
several times before. The EU and the USA are the aggressors in this matter. It
is they who have intervened openly and actively in the internal affairs of what
they simultaneously claim is a sovereign state, overthrowing its legitimate
government when it failed to what they wanted it to do. It is they who
have sought to make a major and significant shift in the alignment of a key
state in South-East Europe, in the knowledge that such a change is highly
unwelcome to a major neighbouring power. The fact that they have used NGOs, civil
society organisations and gullible idealistic youths (as well as biddable
media) as their weapons does not mean it is not aggression. This is how
aggression is done in the post-modern world.
Russia has no doubt used methods just
as cynical and dishonest, if not more so. But it has been reacting to an
attempt to alert the status quo, an attempt which only an ignoramus could
believe to be unimportant, or unlikely to meet opposition. The West has then
become righteously angry that its own methods have been played back, and that
the country the ‘West’ hoped to push out of Ukraine has pushed back.
This is unrealistic and morally
absurd. If you start a fight, then you cannot condemn your opponent if he
retaliates.
And if your actions lead (as this
adventure has) to deaths on quite a large scale, it is you, the aggressor, who
is responsible for them.
War is hell. Its face, which I have
glimpsed, is so ugly it is almost impossible to look upon. It always has been
foul and cruel and always will be. Sane, civilized people should do their
utmost to avoid it. The best way to avoid it is to compromise, and recognise
the limits of your power. Do the EU and NATO and the USA have any capacity to
do this, or do they think that because all Europe has so far fallen before
them, that they can sweep eastwards until they reach the shores of the Caspian?
This is not a board game. This is real earth, inhabited by real people with
lives they hope to lead.
I have yet to hear any of the leaders
of the 'West' talking like grown-ups. They aren't even cynical. They are just
adolescent. Meanwhile the warnings from retirement of Helmut Schmidt are worth
listening to. Look them up. Some of you may remember him as a very
distinguished Chancellor of West Germany, an old-fashioned Social Democrat, and
another man who knows some history, quite a lot of it from direct personal
experience. He’s old enough to know what war is, and how hard it is to
end, once it has begun.
21
July 2014 4:28 PM
A
Plea for Restraint on the Ukraine Tragedy
A
new plea for restraint, thought and justice on the Ukrainian tragedy.
What
follows is necessarily long. It is, among other things, a detailed
response to many attacks made on my article about the MH17 horror yesterday. I
don’t expect that the people who most need to read it will do so. But it is
here for anyone who is really interested.
I’ll
begin with an excerpt from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ of which I grow fonder and
fonder as the years go by :
‘Let
the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time
that day.
‘No,
no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’
‘Stuff
and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’
‘Hold
your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.
‘I
won’t!’ said Alice.
‘Off
with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.’
I’ll
begin with the things my detractors and slanderers will ignore. Here and on
Twitter, there’s been a distressing number of people grossly oversimplifying my
carefully-argued article .E.g. (these are rough summaries, I can’t be bothered
to trawl through the slurry for the exact wordings) : ‘Peter Hitchens says EU
is responsible for MH17 shootdown’ , ‘Go and work for RT where you belong!’ or
curious claims that I have just said what I say because I am in the pay of
Russia, or to play a game. Or I am something called a ‘contrarian’, who takes
up contrary positions for the sake of it.
None
of this is true.
I
write and speak what I believe to be true.
I
try when I do so to overcome any fear of being in a minority, or of being howled
down by a conformist mob. It is a human duty to refuse to be cowed by mobs,
real or electronic.
But
I must admit the experience of being slandered, interrogated as if I were a
defendant at a show-trial, distorted and abused, simply for urging caution in
face of what might become a rush for war, is unpleasant and dispiriting. After
an hour or so of tangling with it on Twitter yesterday afternoon (at one stage
I was actually accused by one of these twisters of excusing the killings of
such brave journalists as Anna Politkovskaya), I went off to Evensong at Oxford
Cathedral, partly to pray for the souls of my attackers (though with no very
great hope of success).
Our
Strange Willingness to be Rushed into War
Had
we not been in the midst of two major outbreaks of tension (The Ukraine and
Gaza, where I repeat that I think the Israeli attack is both morally wrong and
a severe political mistake), I had planned today to review a new book by
Douglas Newton ‘The Darkest Days – the truth behind Britain’s rush to war 1914’
,published by Verso tomorrow (22nd July), £20.
Professor
Newton’s book has already been attacked in at least one review, and I’m not
equipped to judge its historical scholarship, as I’m no specialist in this
field. But it is in step with Barbara Tuchman’s superb ‘The Guns of August’ in
showing how a small and determined group, headed by Henry Wilson, secretly
committed Britain to an unwritten but binding military alliance with France in
the years before 1914.
Some
People Really do Want Wars to Start
This
was kept secret from the Cabinet and Parliament, who were falsely told that no
such commitment existed, when in fact there were detailed plans for
Anglo-French naval co-operation and for the deployment of British troops in
France.
Did
you know that four members of Asquith’s Cabinet actually resigned in protest at
moves towards war in the days before the actual declaration? Few do. Herbert
Asquith and Edward Grey successfully persuaded them to keep their resignations
secret, and persuaded some but not all of them to return to government.
John Burns and John Morley emerge as men of some principle, and their
warnings against the danger of such a war are terrifyingly prophetic. Ramsay
Macdonald, whom I had previously rather despised, was not in government but led
the Labour Party at that time. He also emerges as a courageous and almost lone
opponent of war during the wretched, powerless, misinformed, overwrought,
propagandized and brief debate which the House of Commons was allowed before
the slaughter began. David Lloyd George, by contrast, shows up as a complete
weathercock, swinging in the wind.
It
is doubtful if the radicals could have stopped the war, as the Tories were only
too keen to start it, and would readily have formed a Coalition with pro-war
Liberals, including Winston Churchill (then of course a Liberal), whose
unilateral commitment of the Royal Navy to war stations deepened our commitment
to France and made war more likely.
Emotional
pretexts for war are seldom the real reason for it
Newton
is also adamant that war was already decided upon *before* Germany
invaded Belgium (it was a pretext invented later) , that Britain was absolutely
not treaty-bound to aid Belgium, and that the British government tried very
hard to avoid all mention that its alliance with France also meant an alliance
with Tsarist Russia, regarded by right-thinking people of the time as a
monstrous tyranny, suppurating with anti-Semitism and corruption.
I
fear that Newton gives too much credence and importance to German efforts
to keep Britain out , as I am sure Germany did want war with Russia, sure that
Germany knew this must mean war with France as well, and I suspect that Germany
had always planned to attack through Belgium and would never have been diverted
from it. What is interesting about this period, though is that the famous
Anglo-German naval race had in fact ended with a British victory some years
before 1914, and was not really an issue any more.
And
we all know that much (though not all) of the atrocity reports emerging from
Belgium in August 1914 was false, and exaggerated - and that compared
with what was to come in ‘legitimate’ warfare conducted by both sides, it was
quite minor.
I’m
also in the midst of a wonderful work by Adam Tooze (The Deluge, the Great War
and the Remaking of the Global Order: Allen Lane £30) , a refreshing departure
from the standard-issue account, concentrating on the way in which 1914
transferred power from Britain to the USA, and providing details about the cost
and financing of the war which are similar to the little-known things I
discussed in my recent Radio 4 programme, about the transfer of gold across the
Atlantic and the financial humiliation of the British Empire by Washington in
1940). Professor Tooze’s account of the Washington Naval Treaty is also lucid
and brutal.
What
I think about MH17
So,
with all this in mind, I turn sadly to the horrors of Grabovo, the wreckage,
the bodies of the dead, the claim and counter claim.
Those
who have not read my column item on the subject, published on Sunday , are
urged to do so here
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/07/mourn-the-victimes-but-dont-turn-one-tragedy-into-a-global-catastrophe-.html
It
does not excuse the action. It does not say ‘the EU caused the shootdown’. It
explains the context, which is undeclared war between two major European power
blocs, and which was indubitably and indisputably started by the EU, in the
knowledge that its action was provocative.
How
did this dispute become violent?
Russia’s
long-term alarm about the policy of NATO expansion up to its borders was
articulated more than seven years ago in this speech by Mr Putin, in language
of extraordinary bluntness. It is fair to say that nobody in the ‘West’
paid any attention.
http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2007/02/10/0138_type82912type82914type82917type84779_118123.shtml
I
should also point out that serious anti-Putin commentators, such as Michael
Mosbacher in a recent edition of Standpoint magazine, do not pretend that the
EU’s move into Ukraine, through the ‘Association Agreement’ is
non-political:
‘Much
more than a trade agreement’
‘The
critics are right that the Association Agreement is much more than a free-trade
agreement. In Article Seven it commits Ukraine to "promote gradual convergence
in the area of foreign and security policy". Article Ten of the agreement
provides for "increasing the participation of Ukraine in EU-led civilian
and military crisis management operations" and exploring the potential of
military-technological cooperation.
He
adds:
'The agreement may indeed undermine Ukrainian sovereignty, but surely is
nothing compared to the Russian-dominated Eurasian Customs Union. While the
latter may on paper be nothing more than a customs union does anyone seriously
believe that it will remain as such? Has Putin's aggression in Ukraine not
rather proven the point that Ukrainian sovereignty is not high on his list of
priorities?’
(You
can find the full context in the third section of the article here
http://standpointmag.co.uk/features-july-august-14-vladimir-putin-useful-idiots-left-right-michael-mosbacher-ukraine?page=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C2
)
I
agree with Mr Mosbacher that the Eurasian Customs Union is also political as
well as economic. Of course it is. This is a military-political struggle, which
was fought without bloodshed through diplomacy and politics until President
Viktor Yanukovych rejected the Association Agreement on 29th
November (proposing instead a three-way commission of Ukraine, EU and Russia
which would have left Ukraine as neutral or non-aligned between the blocs).
At
that point Clausewitz stepped in, and war climbed out of its gory, bone-heaped
cave, to continue policy by other means. But it was a postmodern war, so
a lot of people have yet to recognize it as such, expecting something out of
'War Picture Library'.
A
common misconception
Putin,
by the way, loathes Yanukovych, who angered him, by squeezing billions of
roubles out of him in tough negotiations over Russian rights in the naval base
at Sevastopol, a few months before. The idea that Yanukovych was Putin’s pet
does not stand up to examination.
It
was at that point that huge numbers of people suddenly allegedly discovered
that they could no longer stomach the corruption which has in fact been a
feature of Ukrainian public life since that country broke away from the USSR
(and indeed before then) and the ‘Euromaidan’ protests began, which were not
free of violence and intimidation, which were extra-constitutional, which were
openly supported by American and EU political and official figures including
Senator John McCain, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (with her
bags of bread and biscuits), by Catherine Ashton, the EU’s High Representative
for Foreign Affairs and by Guido Westerwelle, former Foreign
Minister of Germany.
Coincidence
theory – and a Miracle on the Dnieper
Quite
why there should have been this spontaneous eruption of discontent at Ukraine’s
corrupt and undemocratic nature, which had gone on so long with so little
protest before and since the (equally coincidental) ‘Orange Revolution’ of 2004
and 2005, must be a matter for coincidence theorists to resolve. Presumably it
has now died down because Petro Poroshenko’s government has miraculously solved
the problem of Ukrainian corruption. Or perhaps there is another explanation.
WE
don’t do this, of course
It
is of course quite unknown for the governments of Western countries to
intervene in the internal politics of nations in which they have interests, so
we can rule out any connection between the desires of those governments and the
appearance of well-organised demonstrations against a President who was
frustrating a EU attempt to gather Ukraine into its sphere of influence.
The
head of the CIA takes a cultural vacation
Likewise,
the later appearance of CIA Director John Brennan in Kiev last April was
purely done for schmoozing and tourism purposes. As Mr Brennan has since said
(one account is here) http://rt.com/usa/158268-cia-brennan-ukraine-visit/
‘I was out there to interact with our
Ukrainian partners and friends. I had the opportunity to walk through the
streets of Kiev and also go to Maidan Square and see the memorials to those
Ukrainians trying to find liberty and freedom for their people.’
Mr
Brennan said that the situation in Ukraine is ‘something that needs to be addressed” and
insisted that the US wants “the
Ukrainian people to have their ability to define their future.’
‘We
here at the CIA can work with our partners in Ukraine and other areas to give
them the information, the capabilities that they need in order to bring
security and stability back to their country.’
WE
don’t do that either, but THEY do
In
recent months, doubtless coincidentally, Ukraine’s ill-equipped, poorly trained
and largely feeble armed forces have begun to put up much more of a fight in
their struggle against the pro-Russian militias which have undoubtedly been
encouraged and assisted by Moscow, almost certainly via Russia’s military
intelligence arm, the GRU.
Constitutions?
Who cares about them? We’re democrats!
Last
winter’s mob pressure, uncritically backed by Western media, led to the
unlawful overthrow of President Yanukovych, who was then removed without resort
to the provisions on impeachment in the Ukrainian constitution, and replaced by
a government willing to sign the Association Agreement.
Violence and lawlessness beget
violence and lawlessness – as usual
From
these violent and lawless events date the sometimes violent and undoubtedly
lawless Russian actions, including seizure of Crimea and encouragement of
secessionists in eastern Ukraine, which have since grown into a small but
savage war, in which hundreds of civilians are believed to have died, often at
the hands of Ukrainian armed forces.
The
Laws of War explained
Whose
fault is this?
This
is a simple matter of the normal rules of engagement between countries. The
nation which first unleashes violence, and which - by any means - forces its
power into disputed, non-aligned or neutral territory is a) the aggressor. So
that b) it has licensed matching behaviour by its opponent, and c) is
ultimatelyresponsible for the later acts of violence which take place because
armed conflict has begun.
Arithmetic,
geometry and geography all show that the EU began this conflict by its open
encouragement of unconstitutional lawlessness in Kiev.
I
am, by the way, seeking details of civilian deaths and injuries in this
war so far, from the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in
Europe, the nearest we have to an impartial observer in this zone). A figure of
250 deaths in the Lugansk region has been suggested, but my e-mails to the OSCE
have not yet been answered and I have not yet been able to confirm its origin.
For
a little background to this I refer readers to a publication that cannot be
accessed online except via paywall, but which I have here in front of me
.
Funnelling
Euros to Kiev – and groundwork in Brussels
It
is the American Spectator, a magazine for which I sometimes write, and it
appears in an article (July/August issue, pp 28-30), broadly sympathetic to the
Euromaidan and Ukraine’s alignment with the EU, by Matthew Omolesky
In
his sometimes lyrical article, Mr Omolesky refers to a 2004 address to the
European Parliament by the Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych ‘Europe is waiting
for us, it cannot endure without us… Europe will not continue to be in all its
fullness without Ukraine.’
Mr
Omolesky says ‘Some might take issue with the rather grandiose claim that
Europe cannot endure without Ukraine, but the European Union has long had
designs on it. Brussels funnelled some 389 million Euros to Ukraine between
2011 and 2013 alone and distributions were made to a host of civil-society
NGOs…
...The
2014 protests, touched off by Yanukovych’s rejection of a European Union
association deal, constitute the natural and immediate consequence of
groundwork undertaken in Brussels, much to the Kremlin’s chagrin’.
Why
Ukraine really, really matters to the USA
It’s
useful, at this point, to recall words written by Zbigniew Brzezinski( Jimmy
Carter’s National Security Adviser, and the unsung architect of Moscow’s doomed
intervention and eventual downfall in Afghanistan. He wrote in his 1997 book
‘The Grand Chessboard’ : ‘Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian
chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an
independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases
to be a Eurasian empire.’
‘However,
if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major
resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again
regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe
and Asia.’
Now
do you see why this might be important?
Pay
Attention at the Back!
I
have attempted some brief history lessons about this interesting,
much-contested this region here before,
(Here
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2010/09/as-ukrainians-force-russians-to-turn-their-back-on-their-language-and-change-their-names-i-ask-is-th.html
Here
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/01/are-we-wise-to-take-sides-in-ukraine.html
here
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/03/prague-putin-stresemann-and-the-kgb-a-response-to-paul-p.html
and
here http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/03/on-freedom-of-speech-and-thought.html
…though
some of the class seem to have been looking out of the window at the time.
But
if you look you will find that the real, dangerous and decisive battles for
territory between Berlin and Moscow (in 1914-18 with Vienna fighting alongside
Berlin) took place precisely in this region. Distracted by our own narrow
obsession with the Western Front, most British and American people are
pitifully unaware of this aspect of both World Wars.
If
you don’t know what happened at the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, if you have never
heard of Stepan Bandera, if you don’t know what Lemberg is now called or how
many countries it has been in since 1914, then you need to know. Once you do,
you will understand that we see here the re-ignition of one of the great
disputes of modern Europe. That is why it is so dangerous, and above all so
dangerous to be rushed into hostile hysteria.
Sponsoring
Terrorism
And
now we come to the heart of the dispute. The new Defence Secretary, Michael
Fallon, has attracted some attention by saying that President Putin is
‘sponsoring terrorism’ .
Things
aren’t always as they appear
I
think he got carried away. I have known Mr Fallon, a funny, clever, enjoyably
blunt politician, since I reported on the 1983 Darlington by-election which he
lost (to the great grief of the Labour Party’s right wing, who had secretly
wanted their own side to lose so that they could stage a putsch against Michael
Foot and install Denis Healey as leader instead).
Labour
unexpectedly won because the Social Democrat candidate’s vote collapsed after
he was shown up on TV as embarrassingly inexperienced. So it was a good lesson,
for all involved, in the difference between appearance and reality, and the
importance of unintended consequences.
A misplaced accusation
The
accusation of sponsoring terror is wrong in a number of ways.
Most
importantly, it mistakes the nature of the outrage. The need to guard myself
against lying and slanderous misrepresentation means this will take a little
longer than it should in a civilized debate. The destruction of the Malaysian
airliner and the killing of those aboard was a foul and inexcusable action. But
there is no evidence that the culprits, whoever they may have been, intended to
hit a civil airliner and kill its passengers. Such an action would serve no
purpose for any conceivable culprit.
It
is most likely that they believed their target was a Ukrainian military
aeroplane.
Terrorists,
by contrast, have more than once deliberately killed airline passengers, or
other non-combatant innocents in large numbers, in the belief (sadly
often justified) that it will advance their cause. Men who planned and
executed such outrages have lived to become ‘statesmen’ , welcomed in the halls
of diplomacy. Or their chiefs and backers have lived to see their objective
obtained as a result of the fear and horror engendered by the action.
The
Ukrainian government, understandably, has milked the outrage for all it is
worth, and introduced the word ‘terrorist’ into the discussion at the earliest
moment, In fact, it has long been using this word to describe the anti-Kiev
separatists against which Ukraine has been fighting a bitter war for some
months. In general, impartial media have declined to follow the lead set by
Kiev. Presumably this is because they regard the word as contentious in this
case, raising ( as it does) questions about the legitimacy of the Kiev
government itself, and questions about the methods adopted by the Ukrainian
armed forces to put down the rebels.
What
does ‘terrorism’ mean?
The
rebels have certainly behaved in disgraceful ways, but so have the Ukrainian
forces, about whose exact composition, discipline and legality it would be
interesting to know more. There are no saints in war. The Ukrainians appear to
have been careless of civilian deaths in a way which (rightly) brings criticism
on to the heads of the Israelis.
If
the Israelis did this in Gaza, you’d rightly be against it
Ukrainian
shells have landed on Russian territory with fatal effect, and Ukrainian forces
are heavily suspect in the death of 11 civilians at Snizhne last week, when it
is believed a block of flats was attacked from the air. There is some
apprehension all round about how Ukrainian forces will avoid grave civilian
casualties if , having recaptured Slavyansk with heavy use of artillery, they
now use the same methods in densely-urban Donyetsk, (I have been there, I know
what it’s like) the rebels’ main stronghold.
So
far as I know, the rebels have not resorted to the methods generally associated
with terrorism in Ireland and the Middle East – the car bomb, the hijack, the
placing of bombs in bars and shopping areas. Though they have, disgracefully,
held hostages.
I
am not (despite what my attackers will claim) saying the rebels are nice. I am
just saying that ‘terrorist’ is a contentious name for them.
Anyway,
the destruction of the plane does not seem to me to be a terrorist act, not
least because it so unlikely to have been deliberate.
A
simple question
Here’s
a simple question. Do you think Vladimir Putin was pleased or sorry when he
learned of the shooting down of the airliner and the deaths of those involved?
Quite.
A
terrorist would have been pleased. That is what they do.
Letting
your bias close your mind to the truth
Now,
for the sponsoring. I was very, very pro-American when, as a defence reporter
back in 1988, I found myself writing about the shooting down of an Iranian
Airbus by the USS Vincennes ( and by the way, I mentioned the number of
children on board in my earlier mention of this because it might not be known
to modern readers, whereas the large number of children killed in this latest
outrage is all too well-known. It is amazing how careful one must be to avoid
accusations of bias).
In
1988, because of my then strongly pro-American leanings, I was anxious not to
believe that the US Navy was really responsible for something so terrible, and
so I was regrettably ready to believe all kinds of excuses and to sympathize
(quite wrongly as I now think) with the commander of the Vincennes.
I’m
still ashamed of that mistake. I hope I have learned from it. So though I am
openly sympathetic to Russia in its quarrel with the EU and the US over the
future of Ukraine, I can see that by far the most likely culprits for this
crime are the Russian separatists, who have been encouraged, armed, equipped
and assisted in many other ways by Russia. The same separatists have used
surface-to-air missiles to bring down several Ukrainian military planes in the
last few weeks, though this has not been widely reported, and most involved
seem to regard it as falling within the laws of war.
Careful
what you believe, and remember WMD.
Beyond
that, I would like to know a lot more. The question of how the rebels acquired
that particular surface-to-air missile seems not to be settled, though many
write and speak as though it is. Their information comes from the same sort of
sources who brought us WMD in Iraq, and who tried to panic us into backing
islamic fanatics in Syria - and which need to be treated with the usual
caution. It seems to me that loud declarations of blame and guilt should
be held back until we know quite a bit more, and when I say ‘know’, I don’t
mean from some partisan ‘dossier’.
I
mentioned the Vincennes episode (and that of Siberian Air flight 1812) in
my Sunday column not to excuse anyone, but to point out that the question of
intent was important, and that similarly hideous incidents, quite
unforgiveable and unbearable to those bereaved, have ended with muttered
compromise rather than with loud declarations of clear guilt and strong
justice. Before anyone draws himself up to his full height on this, whether in
Britain (where as I recall Lady Thatcher was inclined to sympathize with the
dilemma faced by the captain of the Vincennes) Ukraine or the USA, I think we
should begin softly and get louder if the evidence justifies it, rather than
start loud and then back off later.
For
what purpose does it serve to heat the matter up? It is quite bad enough that,
exactly a century since Europe rumbled towards the worst war of modern times,
there is now a bloody territorial war raging on the same Russo-German faultline
that opened up in the earthquake of 1914.
Whichever
side you take, or if you take neither, there is no joy to be had in cranking up
the passions and the rhetoric to the point where diplomatic relations are
broken and combat more likely to continue.
And,
seen through the stained and darkened lens of suspicion and rage, even the
ghastly, pitiful events at the crash site can be turned from the
more-than-sufficient horror which it already is, into another cause for war.
Let us not be hurried down this slope, either. Not all the reporters at the
scene, ready as they often are to join inthe lecturing, have behaved with
perfect propriety.
The
downed airliner and its slain passengers fell in the midst of a war zone, yet
within the reach of electronic media. This has not happened before in modern
times, so far as I know. No ordered or effective government controls the
area. The eventual destination of the bodies and wreckage has become
extremely sensitive because of the powerful involvement of propagandists.
Evidence
is always better than unsupported claims
What
passes for authority is a rabble of undisciplined men without experience,
knowledge or tact. This is ghastly, but until there is actual evidence of
looting, of deliberate theft or destruction of evidence, of desecration of the
beloved dead, do you think it might be both wiser and kinder to refrain from
too much attribution of guilt, crime and evil motives?
The
ordinary fellow-creatures of ours who live in this place are , I have no doubt,
at least as grieved and desolated by what they see around them as any of us
would be. Most are traped in their homes by circumstances they hate. And in
that impoverished and war-blackened place, they lack (as we would not) the
costly apparatus of modern government to help them deal with it quickly and
efficiently. Judge not, lest ye be judged. And if you hate the sight of torn
human bodies, especially of the dead bodies of innocents, do and say
nothing which might spread cruel red war deeper and further into our continent.
We have been playing with danger quite enough already.
