Americans Have Blood On Their Hands
Emergency vehicles surround the wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 near Aktau Airport in Kazakhstan.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few days, you’ve likely heard that an airliner crashed in Central Asia on Christmas morning. The flight, numbered as J28243, was scheduled to travel from Baku, Azerbaijan (GYD) to Grozny, Russia (GRV), a short, routine trip across borders. However, it diverted to Aktau, Kazakhstan (SCO) and crashed there, killing more than half the occupants.
Following the crash, two competing narratives have emerged from the Russian authorities. One is that due to fog at Grozny, it wasn’t safe to land there, so they had to divert. That, of course, raises the question of why they would risk flying all the way across the Caspian Sea to an entirely different country. The other narrative is that it was a bird strike, but even a relatively small plane like this one wouldn’t crash just because it hit a few birds. In other words, this is highly suspicious, particularly due to the holes on the plane consistent with artillery fire.
My condolences go out to the families of all those on this flight. According to Wikipedia, slightly more than half the passengers were of Azeri nationality , with others from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. Azerbaijan has declared a day of mourning, and I don’t blame them. However, this is eerily similar to something that happened ten years ago.
The image above is of a highway in the Netherlands, which was otherwise closed to traffic when the 298 victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were being driven to their final resting place. It’s probably different in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, but I feel like Americans forgot about this tragedy pretty quickly.
In case you forgot what happened, Russian-backed separatists (read: Russia) in eastern Ukraine shot the civilian airliner down with a Buk surface-to-air missile. I can’t imagine what it must have been like in those final moments on that plane as…you know what, I don’t want to imagine it. But sometimes I feel a moral obligation to.
Now, since the MH17 tragedy, civil aviation authorities have learned some things. For instance, you shouldn’t be flying a civilian airliner over an active war zone. However, it seems the American public have not learned their lesson.
On July 17, 2024, to mark the tenth anniversary of the shootdown, I posted the above image on the Pics subreddit. One of the top comments was reminding U.S. redditors to remember that Trump supports Putin, and by extension “this drama”, and to “vote wisely.” At the time, like probably much of Reddit, I was a bit annoyed by how every other post seemed to be linked back to American politics, even if it’s warranted. But in hindsight, I feel like this message wasn’t emphasized enough.
Now, I voted for Harris. If we could run the election again, I would vote for her as many times as it took for her to win. But the fact remains that half the electorate voted for Trump, and he won. And now Vice President Trump (because let’s be honest, Elon Musk is effectively President) is likely to stop aiding Ukraine, and might even aid Russia. Given that Trump has threatened to invade some of our allies already, I think it’s at least conceivable he drafts Americans to fight for Russia in Ukraine.
An image Donald Trump posted on social media threatening to invade Canada.
Let’s get back to the crash that occurred yesterday as of the time of writing. Evidence suggests it was not an accident at all, but rather that Russia knew it was a civilian airliner and deliberately shot it down. It’s a wonder that any passengers survived, and the pilots of Azerbaijan Airlines are heroes for saving as many lives as possible. But I can’t help but feel that this wouldn’t have happened at all had Harris won the election.
Think about it. If Kamala Harris had emerged victorious, that would have sent a signal to Vladimir Putin that NATO would not stop aiding Ukraine any time soon. Therefore, Putin would have less incentive to order attacks on civilian aviation. To be clear (and I can’t believe I have to say this), even if he did have “incentive”, it would still be a despicable act of violence that has no place in a modern world.
But Trump voters enabled this. They have the blood of 38 deceased victims on their hands, and many of the survivors have severe injuries that will require a long, arduous recovery process. They were willing to hand Putin not only Ukraine, but civilian aviation, on a silver platter, and they were willing to do it just because they thought eggs might be cheaper. There is no bottom for Republican politicians, and there’s also no bottom for the voters who enable these politicians to keep selling our allies out.
If there is ever an accounting for what will happen over the next four years, more heads than Trump’s must swing (not literally, of course - I’m vehemently against the death penalty). Half the U.S. population are traitors of the highest order, and they need to pay for what they’ve done to global stability. The only problem is that I don’t know how to make them pay.
In the meantime, as the mainstream media sucks up to Trump (along with most of the Dumbocrats in Congress), I am a dissident. I will not obey. And my goal is to make the lives of Trump voters a living hell over the next four years.
So join me. Please.
