Obama Slams Russia Over Plane as GOP Hawks Beat War Drums

McCain Sees Direct US Military Involvement 'Just for Openers'

There’s still no concrete evidence as to what happened to Malaysia Airline Flight MH17, but US officials were quick to jump on the blame Russia bandwagon, and are sticking to it, hoping to turn the tragedy to political gain as a well to push their hawkish agendas.

President Obama loudly demanded Russia immediately end all aid to eastern Ukrainian rebels, and insisted that “we don’t have time for games” in a speech condemning Russia. He did, at the very least, rule out starting World War 3 over this.

The usual suspects in the GOP aren’t nearly so circumspect about their saber rattling, however, with Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) demanding broad sanctions against Russia, massive shipments of US weapons to the Ukrainian military, and direct deployments of US troops “just for openers,” with more escalation, presumably, continuing in spite of the lack of evidence.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R – NH) centered on the sanctions front, demanding Iranian-style sanctions against Russia for the “act of terrorism.” And if you think that’s as far as sanction-mongering goes, you’ve clearly forgotten Rep. Peter King (R – NY).

Rep. King not only demanding sanctions but an outright embargo on all of Russia, including banning all flights from leaving Russian airspace. King lamented that the Europeans needed to “show some guts” and go along with his act of war.

With so many top political figures hitching their horses to the blame Russia wagon, the fact that the investigation hasn’t even really begun seems very much beside the point. More concerningly, as evidenced in previous probes of their dubious allegations, they don’t like to be told their wrong, so US involvement in these probes must inevitable be questioned as an attempt not to find out the truth, but to find any shred of evidence, manufactured or not, that might vindicate the war party on their march to Moscow.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.