EDITORIAL - Casualties of war

The transcripts of intercepted conversations were chilling. They had shot down a plane, one man said, and it looked like a civilian plane rather than a Ukrainian military transport aircraft. There were bodies of women and children, the man at the site reported. The man at the other end asked: were there weapons? The reply: “Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper.” 

In all, 298 passengers and flight crew perished when a Malaysia Airlines jet flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was apparently shot down with a missile over the conflict zone in Ukraine last Thursday. Among the fatalities were a Filipina and her two children, residents of the Netherlands who were on their way to the Philippines for a family reunion.

The finger of blame is pointing at Ukrainian rebels who are widely suspected to be receiving arms and other forms of support from Russia to fight the government of Ukraine. An international investigation is shaping up as Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to pin the blame on the Ukrainian government.

The finger-pointing will not bring back the 298 people, most of them Dutch citizens, who obviously believed lightning could not strike the same airline twice. The only consolation for the loved ones left behind by the passengers and crew of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 is that the plane wreckage and remains of the fatalities were immediately found, unlike the still missing MH flight 370.

Why was MH 17 shot down? The short answer can also be found in the transcripts of the conversations between those who appear to be responsible for the attack and their superiors. A man said to be a Cossack commander, when informed that the downed aircraft was definitely a civilian plane, remarked, “They shouldn’t be f_cking flying. There is a war going on.”

Such war zones spawn the many deadly tragedies that are reported daily in different parts of the planet. Filipinos join the international community in mourning the latest casualties of the armed conflicts that the world can’t seem to ever be rid of. In war, a single mistake can snuff out 298 lives.