I think that it’s important to question the facts of the official narrative, but I find it even more important that even if all the facts of the official narrative were true the responsibility is still primarily with the Ukrainian government. If you conduct air operations (air transport of troops, air strikes, etc.) against a rebel force which you know to possess anti-aircraft weaponry, then you should close the airspace. However, if it was really the rebels (and there were no Ukrainian warplanes in the vicinity), then the responsibility is probably of negligence (failing to close the airspace), and then the rebels also share responsibility (for not properly identifying the target before downing it). But it’s still not cause for sanctions or a hate campaign against Putin. (Who nevertheless is probably a thug, but still might be a better or at least no worse thug than our globalist overlords.)

Add to that the pre-crash events and we can now move onto the USA’s objectives in the whole campaign which probably begin in serious during the Sochi Olympics.

I can’t think of any good ones, but here are a few guesses.

1) A political ploy engineered by the Democrat party to portray strength and capitalize on rah rah sentiments? GOP cannot counter because god forbid they appear dovish.

2) A an expansion of NATO resulting from genuine fear (probably misguided) of a Russian threat?

3) Normal military-complex corruption looking for an actual war? Hard to imagine the US would go that far against a legit force like Russia, especially since it has not yet closed its Iraq and Afghanistan chapters, but maybe Russia is weaker then portrayed

4) A reaction by US hawks to Russia’s meddling in Syria, exacerbated by their smooth annexation of Crimea. Likely mostly ego-driven but also strengthens the waning global deterrent toward interfering with America.

None of these represent clear-cut geopolitical benefits to the USA. I surmise that the US is overreaching, but there are probably some smart players who know what they are doing. Either that or there has been some breakdown in US foreign policy such that it no longer represents the country’s interests.

Kennedy’s subjective estimate at that moment was that if he refused the Soviet premier’s offer, there was a 33% to 50% probability of nuclear war — a war that, as President Eisenhower had warned, would have destroyed the northern hemisphere. Kennedy nonetheless refused Khrushchev’s proposal for public withdrawal of the missiles from Cuba and Turkey; only the withdrawal from Cuba could be public, so as to protect the U.S. right to place missiles on Russia’s borders or anywhere else it chose.

Seems misleading. JFK’s estimate was based on a flat refusal of the deal. What he actually did was make a counter-proposal (or you could even say, accepted with a caveat): “Deal, except we won’t make the Turkish withdrawal public.” Krushchev will either take the deal or come back insisting that both withdrawals need to be made public. He’s not going to launch the nukes just like that. At that point, if JFK refuses, you can say it was reckless. Turns out the Russians accepted the counter-proposal.