The Empire Marches On

What? I thought that the recent Russian Airline crash in the Sinai was mechanical failure and that the claim by Isis for responsibility was bragging. But now it is reported in the Wall Street Journal that the US may soon be supplying "moderates" with hand-held surface-to-air missles to "keep the Russians at bay" as the article puts it. Here is the "money quote": 

"Mr. Obama has long rebuffed such proposals, citing the risk to civilian aircraft and fears they could end up in the hands of terrorists. To reduce those dangers, U.S. allies have proposed retrofitting the equipment to add so-called kill switches and specialized software that would prevent the operator from using the weapon outside a designated area, said officials in the region briefed on the option." 

What this means is that if this happens then any downing of Russian aircraft will be assumed to have been done by proxies of the US Government. The next paragraph says this: "U.S. intelligence agencies are concerned that a few older Manpads may already have been smuggled into Syria through supply channels the CIA doesn’t control." Thus it seems obvious that when, not if, this happens, the Russian government will assume the US is responsible. 

I do not post a link since the WSJ is subscription only. But one can google the title  "U.S., Allies to Boost Aid to Syria Rebels" to see the article. You need to do so.  

Most of these hand-held weapons, called Manpads, cannot reach the altitude needed to down a commercial aircraft except at take off,  but apparently some can.  So since these US made weapons, the ones with the altitude needed, are in the region, the crash of the Russian civilian airline could be laid at the US' feet.  (Note I am not saying that such a weapon was used, the altititude seems too high. We still do not know what happened, and we may never know.)

I would have thought that this was a false report, but this is the Wall Street Journal. The usual "meme" is the supposed "liberalness" of the Obama administration. I would say the opposite: It doesn't matter who is elected, the empire marches on.