Hotheads, Foreign and Domestic

We have two op/eds in the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle, each addressing extremists willing to threaten and use violence to achieve their objectives.  First, Anne Applebaum on the Russian-sponsored separatists in Ukraine:

Before there is any further discussion of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, it’s important that one point be made absolutely clear: This plane crash is a result of the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine, an operation deliberately designed to create legal, political and military chaos. Without this chaos, a surface-to-air missile would not have been fired at a passenger plane.  [snip]  

... So far there is no sign of shock or shame in Russia. But in truth, this tragedy offers Vladimir Putin an opportunity to get out of the messy disaster he created in eastern Ukraine. He has the perfect excuse to denounce the separatist movement and to cut its supplies. If he refuses, then we know that he remains profoundly dedicated to the chaos and nihilism he created in Donetsk. We can assume he intends to perpetuate it elsewhere. And if we are not prepared to fight it, we should be braced for it to spread.

We're also waiting for signs that the Russian people, who so far have shown overwhelming support for Putin's adventurism, are sick of what's been allowed to happen in Ukraine in their name.  Since they're only getting the official Russian government version of events in Ukraine, that won't happen easily.

But, of course, we have our own variety of cosplay toughs in this country.  Fortunately, they don't have access to surface-to-air missiles (that we know of).   Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) represents the part of Nevada where Cliven "Hoof" Bundy and his merry gang of gun-fondling "militia" and sovereign citizens are keeping justice at bay.  He writes that the extremists were fueled by the demagoguery of right-wing media and politicians:

In the frenzy to pillory the government that ensued, almost no viewpoint seemed too extreme to voice. Emboldened by attention from such high-profile conservative media figures as Sean Hannity, armed militia members set up checkpoints, stopped traffic and occupied roads. At one point, local police had to physically place themselves between the militia and agents from the Bureau of Land Management, fearing for their lives while trying to prevent a bloodbath. [snip] 

My plea to my fellow public servants and the media is this: Please, recognize that evocations of tyranny and oppression, counterbalanced by patriotic sacrifice and love of country, are powerful motivators. I watched as a small community was transformed into a hotbed for extremism. That did not happen organically but in an environment created by nonstop attention and demagoguery from media and politicians alike.

Without drawing any further analogies between the thugs in Ukraine and our own crackpot citizenry, it's clear that a "hotbed for extremism" can be fostered just as effectively by government action as by the actions of media and politicians with a political agenda.  It's gotten way out of hand in Ukraine.  We need to see to it that, in this country, fuel isn't continually being added to the fire of our own hotheads.

Malaysian Flight 17: From Fantasy To Reckless Aggression

Amid reports that Ukrainian separatists (in collusion with their Russian patrons) are destroying evidence from the Malaysian Flight 17 debris field,  Josh Marshall notes a striking similarity between separatist leader (who at first claimed credit for the shoot down) Igor Strelkov and fantasists in another part of the world.  Marshall first quotes from a Dave Remnick New Yorker blog posting, then adds his commentary:

“Strelkov is well known for leading historical reënactments of Russian military battles, like you have in the States with the Civil War reënactors,” Pavlovsky said. “It used to be a fantasy world for people like him, but now they have a realm for their imaginations.”

So that's who you're dealing with: some mix of civil war reenactor or Tea Partier decked out in revolutionary garb, with a mix of reckless aggression and comical incompetence. Here we have them break into nursing homes to photographs senator's comatose wives*; there Putin gives them heavy armaments designed for full scale land war in Europe.

The comparison can't be dismissed off-hand.  Remember the tea-bagging right-wingers in this country who compared Putin favorably to President Obama?  We do.

UPDATE:  Igor's floating a ghoulish theory that only a madman or moron would believe:

According to the Associated Press, rebel commander Igor Girkin [a.k.a. Strelkov] said on the Russkaya Vesna website that witnesses to the crash have informed him that “a significant number of the bodies weren’t fresh” when they fell from the sky. He also claimed that many of them had been drained of blood and stank of decomposition because they had been dead for days.

* Bonus points for the Chris McDaniel reference!

"It Was Horrible"

Yesterday's downing of a Malaysian Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile killed 298 people.  Among the dead were dozens of women and children, and approximately 100 HIV experts on their way to a conference in Australia.  The nightmarish scene of the debris field has been captured in countless videos, and was chillingly described in the New York Times:

"Pieces of the plane were scattered across the road and field: a seat back with its television display cracked; a giant white piece of the tail with the plane’s insignia emblazoned on it, and a jagged edge where it tore off from the plane. One televised image showed a travel guide for Bali, almost untouched."

Right on cue, Russian autocrat Vladimir "Vlad the Invader" Putin blamed the Ukrainian government, which has no control over the area from which the missile was fired.  Several of the plane's flight recorders have apparently been recovered, according to Russian-backed separatist officials, who have promised to turn them over to international officials.  Whether this tragedy causes Putin to reevaluate the level of support for the ethnic Russian separatists remains to be seen.  Certainly, the European community will have to re-examine the future of their relations with a nation that supports a lawless and violent movement within a bordering, sovereign nation.

UPDATE:  U.S. officials are now indicating Russian-backed separatists were likely responsible, adding that they may have had assistance in operating the mobile missile launcher from Russian military advisors.  Obama to speak shortly.  (Here's a report with the video).

UPDATE II:  In an editorial this morning, the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle indicates a direct link to the separatists:

Predictably, the Ukrainian rebels were doing their best Thursday to cover up what occurred. They denied shooting down the plane, though the wreckage landed in territory they control near the Russian border. Their commander, a Russian citizen and former military officer named Igor Strelkov, claimed in a blog post published Thursday to have shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane, then removed the message.  (our emphasis)