Murder Most Foul !

It is now over two years since the passengers and crew of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 died a horrible death in the skies over Ukraine.  Two hundred and ninety eight men women and children were slaughtered when their airliner was hit with a missile and simply disintegrated around them.

The aftermath contained criticism that airlines were persisting in travelling over war zones but what was happening below was viewed as merely a civil war.  Russian speaking Ukrainian residents of the border area were proclaiming their allegiance to Russia and the Ukrainian government was trying to bring them under control.

In reality, Russian troops with their national identity patches removed were fighting with the rebels, although this was denied by Russia.  Airlines deemed travel over the area to be safe because the planes were flying higher than twenty thousand feet and shoulder held "Stinger " anti aircraft missiles only served vastly lower altitudes.   Nobody imagined that the latest high altitude missile technology would be deployed in such a minor skirmish.

The aftermath made it quite clear that was exactly what happened.   Pictures emerged of a Russian BUK mobile missile battery trundling over the border with four missiles in place, and after MH17 disintegrated, this BUK was again sighted scuttling back onto Russian soil - with one missile missing.

The obvious question is whether that missile was fired by Russian troops, or by partisan Ukrainian rebels.  Russia denies its troops were involved and refuses to admit that it provided the BUK launcher, but intercepted phone and radio traffic tell a very different story.

An International consortium led by the Dutch held an exhaustive enquiry into the crash.   The recoverable parts of the airliner were assembled on a frame and it was proven that the crash occurred when the missile detonated and sprayed the cockpit and forward section of the plane with shrapnel, causing it to tear apart.

This evidence was sufficient for a United Nations Criminal Tribunal to launch an investigation to prosecute those responsible for what was clearly murder.   Russia used its veto to cause that prosecution to be abandoned.

Clearly, the limitations of the United Nations is there for all to see.   One of the five countries invested with the power of the veto because at the time the UN was formed they had a monopoly of being nuclear armed - is accused of a major crime.    It is a denial of natural, justice that they are able to invoke that veto - and shut down that investigation.
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Lesser bodies may choose to take the matter further, but Russia will stand behind the power of that veto and simply refuse to cooperate, and there is absolutely no chance that this case will appear before an International Criminal Court - and be judged on its merits.

So much for the power of a world body to deliver justice  !