Talk of War in Europe

Op-Ed by Wendy Laursen

We’ve all seen the MH17 headlines:

A crash that could spiral into war. Wars have bloomed from far, far less. Putin ‘has picked the wrong fight’.

Let’s hope the power of the media is not as strong as it can be this time. It is easier to make war than to make peace. We have all the technologies at our fingertips. We have all the words on our lips.

The finger of blame is already being pointed. 

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott “It's very important that we don't allow Russia to prevent an absolutely comprehensive investigation. This is not an accident, it's a crime."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the crash "an act of terrorism' and demanded an international investigation. 

Russian President Putin blames the Ukraine's government, which "carries responsibility for this horrible tragedy."

The personal tragedies are also surfacing. An Australian woman who lost her brother in the disappearance of MH 370 discovered on Friday that her stepdaughter was on MH17.

Her response was to look to her family, what’s left of it, for meaning. She said her family had kept her going through the first traumatic experience and urged relatives to band together. “[My family have] been my rock and they’ve kept me going so I hope all the families from MH17 have everyone around them and the support, because you really do need it.”

The China People’s Daily makes this point:  “Those victims, coming from different countries, never meant to involve in a conflict that could be thousands of miles away from their homeland. But they are now lying breathless on a foreign ground with their bodies waiting to be confirmed and retrieved.

“The tragedy serves a stark reminder that any regional instability could have disastrous impact on anyone in any quarter of the globe.

“When the world has once again plunged into grief over the disaster, the stop of bloodshed and violence is needed more than any time, not only in eastern Ukraine, but also in Gaza, in Iraq, and many other regions around the world.”

The talk of further trade sanctions against Russia is buried deep down in the news stories of the past 24 hours. It is a reminder, though, that there are other options than war when it comes to solving problems of violence and aggression.

Hopefully, this tragedy remains a ‘crime’ as Australia’s Prime Minister has called it, not a reason for war, and everyone thinks of banding together as relatives to deal with it.