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Comment by irl_chad | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately I don’t know much about the Dutch perspective on this. As an American, this is the kind of thing that gets America to go to war - why didn’t the Netherlands decide to intervene after MH17?

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The U.S. shot down an Iranian passenger airliner and promoted the Navy captain who was in charge of the ship that did it. U.S. fighter pilots accidentally killed 20 people in Italy because they wanted to showboat. The Soviet Union shot down a Korean passenger airliner.

One does not go to war over such incidents unless you are already looking for an excuse to do so.

That said, we took responsibility for the Vincennes accident and paid reparations, as I recall. I wonder if Russia will ever do that much to compensate the Dutch.

A typical American reaction is to feel less outrage or feel absolved so long as we gave victims money. I say this as an American. The DOD initially lied about the events. We did not in any meaningful way take responsibility. We didn’t court martial any of the officers involved and the Vincennes received a combat action ribbon for that day.

That said, we took responsibility for the Vincennes accident and paid reparations, as I recall. I wonder if Russia will ever do that much to compensate the Dutch.

Lots of societies around the world have a tradition of 'blood money' in the sense of financial compensation for killing or other serious harm. It's not surprising to find that kind of thinking in America since it is a society comprised of migrants from all over the world.

I wonder if the US will do the same for their adventures in the middle East in the last few decades.

In a serious culture we could discuss these things using spreadsheets and data using strict epistemology, but in this culture we mostly discuss them in simplistic, cherry picked, "just so" stories, and pile on anyone who dares to step outside the Overton Window of consensus "truth".

All signs point to the downing of MH17 as an accident. That's not solid foundation for casus belli.

I would have agreed with you had Russia accepted that it made a mistake. In the absence of something small as an acknowledgment and a formal apology (followed up by large monetary compensations for the victims’ families), it isn’t obvious to me how anytime can assume it was an accident.

The apology should have come immediately after the incident, without anyone asking for it.

It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. - Epictetus

It is very well possible that it happened through discrete diplomatic channels (and then someone forgot to post it on HN)

And it should not be forgotten that Russia tried to blame Ukraine with stupid fakes.

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/mh17-seven-years-of-lying-and-denying...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/15/ukraine-fighte...

They shot the plane down on purpose, they took smiling pictures amongst the wreckage, and they prevented the Dutch or anyone else from picking up the bodies.

How do you know they did it on purpose? Taking smiling pictures with wreckage after the fact is horrific but not evidence of intent.

I just heard this story on NPR a couple weeks ago, it seems that there is unfortunately no conclusive evidence and likely will never be, but they do have strong evidence (intercepted audio recordings) suggesting that Putin was directly involved in supplying the BUK missile system to the separatists that shot down the plane.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1155401602/malaysian-airlines...

They shot a plane down on purpose, not the plane. Then they went full CYA mode, as at that time Russian involvement in the conflict was all about barely plausible deniability. Coming out and saying, "yes, we have sent a Russian SAM into Ukraine to shoot down Ukrainian airplanes and accidentally shot down a civilian airliner" was technically an option, but Russia preferred to deny everything and flood the infospace with a hundred conflicting theories.

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