A Malaysian plane has been shot down in the Ukraine.

[WeAreEternal]

The flight mh17 from Amsterdam to kuala lumpor with 295 people on board, it was a boing 777.
It was shot down with a buk ground to air missile.
They say there are no survivors.

It's awful.

God no, not at all. But advocating a bunch of bereaved people getting themselves shot to try and get to the remains of their loved ones in the middle of a war, because they are undeniably justifiably outraged, is going to make things worse not better. I am not at all for nihilism but I am for total realism, without it we will get nowhere.

I'm not watching Sky, but am following events on BBC webpage while I work, and they are headlining Gaza right now. Both terrible things, both worthy of our attention and concern and hopefully some action. Both so complex that no simplistic ideas are going to cut it (conflicts reaching back decades and more in the making). The lovely ideal of the League of Nations/United Nations preventing wars has sadly long since faded, it was based on the idea that human nature is very different from what it in fact is.

Cynical? Yes. Hopeless? No. (I have lived a pretty long time and seen a lot, and I still believe in the basic goodness of the individual, but not necessarily the group).

'I still believe in the basic goodness of the individual'

Not all individuals are good, that is the problem. It is powerful individuals who make decisions. Groups just follow those decisions.

Yes, true point, I put that wrongly. I mean the vast majority of individuals, not all. You are completely correct that it is the rare evil individual that causes/allows the formation of the potentially evil group.

Whilst the apathetic majority do nothing though it may well end up being the bereaved that go out there. I for one - having watched the news on Saturday, and continuous shots of the personal possessions, would have been on my way - if my child was in that field. Whether that's right wrong or foolish.

I can't believe you are still harping on about how you would go out there if, God forbid, it was your child Animation.

The families will long for their loved ones to be returned to them and to be able to give them a burial. I'm sure they would be desperate for their loved ones belongings to be returned to them but it's in the middle of a WAR ZONE. You wouldn't be able to get anywhere near the crash site. No-one would be able to give you safe passage to and from the area even if you were permitted through the road blocks (doubtful).

It's distasteful to keep reading your assertions of what you would do. I know you've explained that your posts aren't meant as criticism of the breaved but if I knew someone caught up in this tragedy, that's exactly how I would take your posts.

It is human nature to want your loved ones body returned and of course, you would feel as though you would walk over hot coals for it to happen but it's just not possible in this unstable region and it's not the fault of the breaved families that they are not there.

Rusty - you miss the whole point of my posts. If your loved ones are not retrieved, treat with dignity and returned to you - what then??

My posts are NOT about what I would do they are about - what then?

What are your options?

Saying it's an 'unstable region' doesn't quite cut it

This is about unnecessary and unbearable pressures put on the bereaved because of an apathy to confront the obstruction and handling of the crash site

What I saw on the news yesterday looked like apathy. Maybe today things have escalated. I liked Cameron talking about his anger at any rate.

"Unstable region" is a nice euphemism for "hell on earth" which is what war zones mostly are.

Your options are limited. You can't go out to the crash site, you just can't make it. Hopefully you have officials working for you behind the scenes, putting pressure on and not letting the matter drop.

However many bodies have now been moved onto a train, and it is likely they will be repatriated quite soon. The bodies will come back in this case I think.

All of us are reading your posts in the same way and finding them disrespectful to the grieving relatives. If that's not what you meant then rephrase them. If your posts aren't about what you would do, then please don't write "I for one...would have been on my way"...you wouldn't be on your way if it was you. All of us feel anger you know

You are very, VERY, mistaken if you think not letting hearts rule heads is apathy, Animation.

In this situation more than most.

Horribly, there will be some victims for whom there is not a lot of body left (if they were close to the point of the explosion). You would not expect to find 298 bodies after an accident of this nature.

However, because there has been this business over bodies being moved when they shouldn't, there will now be families who will be left feeling like someone took their loved ones body, when the truth is, there was simply nothing left to take.

Your options are limited. You can't go out to the crash site, you just can't make it. Hopefully you have officials working for you.

You might go to the crash site if you're desperate and have no faith in officials.

Rebels have recovered the black box

news.uk.msn.com/mh17s-black-box-recovered

You might go to the crash site if you're desperate

How?
It's been explained several times why you won't get anywhere near it
So you won't go to the crash site even if you're desperate

When the bodies reach government controlled Ukraine away from the war zone, it'll be a different situation. And the signs are positive that this will happen quite soon (unless I'm reading the news in the wrong way, I don't know, I could be)

Interesting article:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698823/Beness-Aijo-Putins-British-disciple-UK-student-29-linked-pro-Russian-rebels-blamed-shooting-MH17-arrested-Latvia-leaving-UK-fight-Crazy-Ukrainians.html

Wow Animation, picking on my use of "unstable region" doesn't null my point. Yours posts constantly say "well, if it were my child what I would do is" ignoring that there is no access... I've no doubt it is in effect a war zone but there is no formal war, sue me. Jeez.

Government and neutrals are trying to gain access to the site behind the scenes, we all know this so it doesn't help saying that nothing is being done. The bodies are being recovered and although not as quickly as is decent or right, they will be with their loved ones.

You aren't saying "what then", you are contstantly saying "what I would do". Why don't you try and get to the crash site then if it's so easy? How would you get bodies and possessions home?

"Unstable region"? Once again, I ask whether you have ever actually been in a war zone? Please take it from those who know, saying you would "go to the crash site" is, while trying to show your compassion for the bereaved, and your anger on their behalf, actually betraying a great ignorance of what these situations are really like, and in the process upsetting a lot of people.

'When the bodies reach government controlled Ukraine away from the war zone, it'll be a different situation. And the signs are positive that this will happen quite soon

I hope you're right. I hope the rebels have got their act together.

Animation, seriously, you just have no idea. God. Honestly, really- do you speak Russian or Ukrainian? Do you think you could rock up in Kiev and get yourself a driver who would be willing to take you? Are you planning to take a bus or walk? or hire a car? Have you looked perhaps at the Ukrainian website about how to get a visa? Do you have any idea of the distances involved?

And that is all if it were NOT a war zone, controlled by rebels, who are actively preventing people with a great deal more power than little old you from getting there.

In some ways I'd love to live in a fantasy world where things are so simple.

I'm sorry to sound frustrated, but I have worked in disaster zones (eathquakes) where a whole bunch of well meaning amateurs turn up and just make things a bit more complicated.

What ought to be happening is that the authorities are on the ground managing access for the relatives in a sympathetic, proper, respectful way.

But that aint happening. For a bunch of reasons.

[sigh]

Corn - I think I would try my damnedest .... if I had no faith in the officials and international powers. What's to lose?

You have no idea what you would do in that situation, Animation, because it is not your child who died this way.

Not an iota.

Your presumptions are insulting.

I've read some of John Simpson's books about getting to war zones as a journalist. It's bloody difficult even with contacts and a lifetime of experience. How the bloody hell is some normal British family supposed to manage it. What contacts have you got in the Ukraine or Russia?

And the parents have other children and family members to think of too, before they go heading off to a war zone completely exposed and unprotected.

You could lose your life
Your liberty
Other people's lives and liberty!
You could inflame the situation by angering rebels who might then obstruct everything even more
There's rather a lot that could go spectacularly wrong - if you got anywhere near the crash site which you wouldn't

I think journalists appearing to get to places so quickly and walking around gives a false impression to the public about what it's really like out there