When death rained from the skies

Warning. Very distressing photographs ahead. Do not read if you're of a sensitive disposition. 

These photographs are from the ground in Ukraine where the MH17 plane's bits and bobs landed. Some bobs landed as well. You don't see these photographs usually on tv or newspapers. 

The sheer banality of the man still strapped inside his seat and has fallen to his death. Wheat fields giving birth to the dead. Just when I couldn't be more shocked, the other photographs managed to shock me even more. A body crashed through this man's bedroom. You can see the hole in the roof. And is lying next to the bed. All the clothes have been blown off the body. Can't make out if it's a man or woman. The dead have no dignity. 

And then the photo of the man with his head held low in the red shirt leaning on the windowsill is Igor. He owns this place. He was in the bedroom when the body came crashing through. 

I was trying to imagine the man's feelings. And trying to put myself in his shoes. And failed miserably. I don't know if they had family. But that bedroom would be associated with violent undignified death. 

What a tragic set of photographs. Makes me hate war even more but worse was to come. 

When death came at breakfast

At the world press photo 2015 awards, I saw this photo. It's a photo of a house in Ukraine. In the rebel held territory. When the household was waking up and making breakfast and having tea from their samovars in glass mugs. There were some apples in a bowl. Cloudy morning which filtered through the net curtains. When the 155mm shells came screaming in over the horizon and slammed into the ground and blocks of flats. The window was blown in, and shrapnel ricocheted across the kitchen table. Bloodying the curtains. Covering the table with dust. Breaking the glass mugs. 

Ukraine and Foreign Soldiers

I quote

There is a ton of context and history behind this photo that should be known. I made this post yesterday, which should help explain why some Ukrainians were initially so welcoming of the Nazi invasion. Copy-pasting

This photo was taken in the city of Kharkov at the height of the Holodomor. The Holodomor refers to the 1932-33 famine that affected Soviet Ukraine, but during this time famines struck other parts of the USSR too. Most historians now believe that the Holodomor was a man-made famine that occurred due to Stalin's "collectivisation" and "dekulakization" policies. But there are still huge debates about the Holodomor's death toll, its status as a "genocide", and whether it was deliberately planned or mostly caused by Soviet incompetence. It comes up often as a point of contention between Russia and Ukraine. Denial of the Holodomor is still a thing just like Holocaust denial. Timothy Snyder (in my opinion) is one of the best researchers of the Holodomor; he believes that though the death toll is lower than most believe ("only" 3.3 million died), Stalin did deliberately starve Ukraine to target kulaks and Ukrainians.

Thus it is not surprising why Ukrainians, who suffered horrifically under Soviet rule, would welcome the Germans in 1941. Many hoped the Germans would grant them autonomy or even full independence. This was not what happened. Instead the Reichskommissariat Ukraine was set up to govern the area. The policies they enacted quickly drove much of the population into resistance. During the Nazi occupation millions of Ukrainians died. After the end of WW2, anti-Soviet resistance continued but was eventually crushed.”

How soon the Ukrainians forget, eh? Specially the Eastern ones…and also explains the antipathy of the Western Ukrainians to Russia.

If you want to go to war, have a nuke

So here’s an interesting article on why Russia breached the Budapest Memorandum.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, brought renewed attention at the Munich Security Conference this month to the Budapest Memorandum, an instrument adopted some twenty years ago by Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.  The Chancellor said that the Russian Federation, by invading eastern Ukraine and annexing Crimea, “has broken its commitment to the Budapest Memorandum.”  Merkel asked, “Who would give up their nuclear capability if their territorial integrity were not respected?”

It reminds me of a quote that I read way back about when an Indian General was asked about his views on the second Gulf War (the first being the Iran Iraq War), he said, if you wanted to go fight USA, best have a nuke handy. I don't think the Ukrainians thought this through, did they? If they had nukes, would Russia attack? or maybe use battlefield tac-nukes to rip out the Soviet Armies massed on this side of the Ukrainian frontier? And will Russia attack back? I don't think so.

interesting.

Which reminds me of this recent article which I read about the Davy Crockett. Which has a 0.01 kiloton payload.

totally crazy, I tell you. Having nukes is so stupid, you cannot imagine…anyway, its out of the bottle now.

Counter Terrorism - a purely political or military or both solution?

An interesting book review here. The review is curious as it is obvious that the reviewer has not been exposed to actual counter terrorism efforts. For example, he talks about the fact that because USA is such as vast country, it is impossible to stop terrorism. Well, d'oh, of course it is. But that kind of blanket security checks stops the vast majority of terrorist events. It is like saying, you cannot stop dying because the number of diseases is so many that you cannot stop them all. So no point in medicine at all and lets just stick to prayer or perhaps sing kumbaya.

Fighting terror needs both military and political solutions. For those who are looking to get their rewards in heaven, well, you can do nothing but to help them get it without getting it from us here on earth. But you have to make it very difficult and expensive for the terrorists to force them to the political negotiating table.

Then there is the communist school of fighting terrorism which I am sure he would know about. Whether we are taking about Ukrainians in old USSR, Chechnya in Russia, the Uighurs or Tibetans in China or the peasants in Communist ruled West Bengal, the idea is simple, kill them all. If you cant kill them all, then kick them all out. If you cant kick them all out, then migrate your own people into the affected region to change the demographic character (such as the Lop Nor region or the Tibet region). And if that does not work either, over-react massively with state forces on the local citizenry.

Thank god liberal democracies tend not to follow the communist school. I have now got the book on my reading list and will review the book in due time!

Technorati Tags: Counter-Terrorism,Terrorism,Communism,Russia,USSR,China,India