Reckless leadership

The crashing of a passenger aircraft carrying hundreds of human beings is a tragedy that impacts the lives of thousands of the victims' survivors. Malaysian Airlines' flight MH17 tragedy was one such tragedies but for this airline it was overly damaging because it occurred less than five months after its flight MH370 crashed (or did it disappear?) killing hundreds of innocent passengers.
To begin with, it is worth questioning why Ukraine's Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) didn't bar civil aircraft from flying over its war-stricken eastern region. UCAA had declared that air corridors below 32,000 feet over Ukraine were the "war zone" but aircraft flying above that level were not in the war zone - a stand that should have been rejected by the International Air Transport Authority.
The more unfortunate part was that, instead of instantly declaring cease-fire to allow rescue work, the Ukrainian government and rebels in Eastern Ukraine began a blame-game - the Ukrainian government saying that the rebels shot down the Malaysian aircraft, and the rebels insisting that they don't have the weaponry to shoot aircraft flying at a height of 33,000 feet.
What makes it worse is the fact that the US and the EU governments too have opted to join this blame-game because they look at this tragedy as another opportunity to malign Russia. This milieu is shocking because over 100 of the bodies of the passengers are still lying in the open in atmospheric temperatures in the low 30C range - a treatment that is simply shameful.
According to East Ukrainian rebels, while the state authorities aren't keen on coming to the site of the tragedy, the European rescue agencies too have not arrived to help in the rescue effort, claiming that they are being prevented by the rebels - a claim strongly denied by the rebels but, not having a powerful media of their own, they can't announce it to the world.
Interestingly enough, Western media, including TV reporters of the BBC and CNN, are reporting directly from the site of the tragedy round the clock. Obviously, they were not obstructed by the rebels. This conveys the impression that the Western aim is to delay the lifting of dead bodies of the passengers so as to portray the tragedy in its worst possible form.
Western media is blaming Ukrainian rebels for fiddling with the aircraft debris to whitewash evidence of its being hit by a missile. The rebels say they have not touched the site, and blame the Ukrainian authorities for not allowing experts' access to the site. The Organisation for Security Co-operation (OSCE) team now on the site of the tragedy too didn't complain about being obstructed.
The fact that parts of the aircraft are spread over 13 square miles suggests that the aircraft didn't crash; either there was a powerful explosion inside the aircraft or it was hit by a missile. Yet the Ukrainian government immediately blamed Russia for playing a decisive role in shooting down the plane, and called on Moscow to handover "the Russian crew of the SA-11 radar-guided missile system."
Until few months ago, Ukraine was a Russian ally and had Russian weaponry, including the SA-11 radar-guided missile system. But the fact that, recently, two Ukrainian aircraft were shot down by missile attacks (both blamed on Russia) affords enough ground to blame this tragedy on Russia because Ukrainian rebels rightly claim that they don't have such weapons.
But how will shooting down a Malaysian aircraft help Russia, is the question that hasn't been answered by the Western leadership, or its media. Isn't Russia already being made to suffer via economic sanctions on the Ukraine issue? Will Russia do something as stupid as shooting down a Malaysian aircraft to incite hatred for itself in the Far East and the Muslim world as well?
Isn't it possible that shooting down of two of its aircraft by the Ukrainian rebels afforded Ukraine an opportunity to use the SA-11 radar-guided missile system (that it possess) to shoot down the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, and then pass the blame therefor on to Russia? Won't this serve the Ukrainian (and Western) aim of enraging the world as a whole against Russia?
These unanswered questions that must be addressed by all concerned. What the Western leadership must not forget are its false claims about Weapons of Mass Destruction against Iraq that were used as the justification for invading Iraq - a war that the US itself now calls a blunder that defies being undone, now that the ISIS has emerged as a threat to the US allies in the Middle East.
Ukrainian rebels have made a just demand; that the aircraft's black box be handed over to the competent international authority to establish the truth. This is an indication of their intentions and of their not being involved in shooting down the Malaysian aircraft. What remains to be seen is whether Ukraine's government does so; not doing so will point to its involvement in this affair.
The fact that on Saturday, the Russian Foreign Minister called the US Secretary of State asking him to try to convince the Ukrainian government to agree to a cease-fire with its rebels, shows how concerned is Russia about the consequences of this issue flaring up into a serious confrontation with the West - a measure of Russia's concern about its global image.
Indeed, the perpetrators of this tragedy must be uncovered, arrested and made to pay for their crime. But the developing scenario - the blame game - doesn't promise that, as in the case of those who launched the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the "war on terror", and those who have been butchering the innocent Palestinians for decades and continue doing so openly even today.
It seems that the world leadership has learned nothing from these tragedies. In most countries, the poverty line is going up, which is the single biggest indicator of the failure of the world leadership. The leaders concentrated far more on grabbing power than on their social and moral responsibilities, and this is despite the leadership being far more "educated" than ever-before.
The world is going through its worst economic recession since the 'Great Depression' of the 1930s. In this setting, should its leadership be aspiring to fight more wars? Thanks to Russia that prevented another Western-inflicted war in Syria, but the Western thirst for wars has not been quenched. What exactly is the Western leadership interested in - a more misery-ridden world? Pakistan presents another example of how reckless a country's leadership can be, but here the priority is self-enrichment at the cost of increasing poverty - a tragedy of another shade.