Flight MH17: Swallowed in The Confusion of Conflict

The happenings surrounding the apparent shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 are a perfect example of the confusion that reigns in the midst of conflict.

The Western media seem to think that conflict happens as a well organised choreographed activity where everybody knows their place and everything that happens can be attributed to a plan. The intended outcome is that every plan can eventually be attributed to someone.

Sad for them conflict is not choreographed. It is a mass of confused happenings often with the thumb not knowing what the forefinger is doing. The ethnic Ukrainian in the army will never know what the ethnic Russian sitting next to him is thinking and vice versa.

It happens in every conflict. The Americans never new what the Afghans sitting next to them were thinking, until maybe the bullets started flying in green-on-blue attacks.

The bottom line is that every single action is ultimately up to an individual person, who have their own individual aims apart from the collective aims. Once individual aims diverge significantly from stated collective aims confusion might set in. It is a sign of rebellion against the collective.

It is very much likely the responsible people in both Ukraine and Russia probably do not know exactly where all their BUK systems were. One cannot rule out that some, from either side, may have been in rebel hands.

This more likely for the Ukrainian side, since some of their own armed forced have defected or shown sympathy for the rebel cause. Like in Syria, units of the Ukraine armed forces have defected to the rebel side with their equipment.

This perfectly dovetails with my theory on clan politics and their role in the Ukrainian conflict. Members of the Russian clan in the Ukraine armed forces would have felt it better to join the rebels rather than turn against their own clan.

The act of shooting down the airliner itself may have happened because of the confusion that reigns in conflict. Nobody knows who was flying where and for what purpose. In such scenarios people tend to act on the famed gut feeling.

The handling of the aftermaths was also plagued by confusion. Bodies were left lying in open fields for days.

The rebels claim they were told by OSCE observers to leave the collection of bodies to experts. The OSCE denies this. However remember that the 'suggestion' did not have to come on an OSCE letterhead for it to be taken seriously. Especially in a confused situation like this. It may have been an off-the-cuff remark by an official on the ground.

One does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the rebels did not have the expertise to handle an air accident of this magnitude and nature. The way they eventually trundled around the debris field with cranes and heavy trucks is evidence of that. The rebels themselves clearly acknowledge that shortcoming and rightly expected someone better qualified than themselves to come and handle the task.

However the question of who to send was quickly swallowed up in the dust cloud of confusion. Western leaders seemed to suggest that Russia should take charge of the crash site while at the same time blaming Russia for interfering in Ukraine. If there was a moment Russia did not want to be seen as interfering in Ukraine I can't think of a worse moment than this one.

To make matters worse some leaders and media, particularly from the Western side concentrated on trying to allocate blame. On their part, Russia did not want responsibility for the bucket-load of excrement. They did their best to put some distance between themselves and the accident. 'No we are not responsible for anything' was their basic position.

The accident happened on Ukrainian territory. Conventionally they should be expected to have responsibility. However the fact is the Ukrainian government does not have full control of its territory, and could not be depended upon to handle the recovery.

The only way to handle the situation, in the interests of the bereaved families was outside of conventional ways. The bereaved families and governments, particularly the Dutch government, should thank the Malaysian government for having the wisdom and vision to wade through confusion and eventually extract the remains of the deceased from the rebel area.

If they had fallen lock step in with the Western approach of allocating blame, it is very likely those bodies would have languished in rebel territory for weeks if not months.