The Downing of #MH17

At the Wall Street Journal, "Putin is the one leader who quickly assigned blame for the disaster" (via Google):

The downing of MH17 should at the very least clear the fog around the conflict in eastern Ukraine. If not for President Putin, none of this would be happening. The conflict was conceived, funded and armed by Russia. The commander of the separatist forces is a Russian military intelligence officer. The leader of the separatist government in Donetsk is a resident of Moscow.

As Ukraine's popular new president launched an operation to liberate the east last month, the rebels acquired fancier new weaponry. Their ability to shoot down Ukrainian aircraft was remarkable for a supposedly ragtag force of mercenaries, locals and thugs. The Kremlin put advanced weapon systems in the hands of a band of outlaws—and it is ultimately responsible for how they use them.

This catastrophe brings to mind the Korean Air Lines plane shot down in 1983 by a Soviet military fighter, killing 269. President Reagan called the downing of KAL007 "an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate others." It was a moral turning point in the Cold War.

Perhaps the downing of MH17 will be a similar turning point in our post-post Cold War era. The Ukrainian crisis has been dismissed too often as a faraway battle in which the West has little stake, and in any case Ukraine is within Russia's "sphere of influence."

The deaths of 298 innocents from many countries should put that to rest. The Kremlin's attack on an independent neighboring state presents the gravest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War. Russia has supported non-state insurgents with the express purpose of sowing chaos. It's notable that Mr. Putin was the one leader who didn't show restraint on Thursday. He blamed Ukraine as "the government on whose territory this occurred." The world should ask why he would be so quick to jump to conclusions.

RTWT at that top link.