Shoutbox

This reminds me of the X-Files message: "I want to believe".  Conspiracy theorists want to believe their theories.  That does not make them true.

When I was much younger, I started out asking myself "why do people do the things they do?"  Having turned older (and hopefully wiser), I now understand that a much better question to ask is the approximate reverse, "what purpose does this action serve and whom does it benefit?"  The answer to the latter is also the answer to the former.

Looking at it that way, there is little reason to believe any conspiracy surrounding the Polish president's plane crash.  While staging it might not be beyond the abilities of the Russian special forces, there is no conceivable reason for them to do it.  Powers of significant influence don't do stupid things because they can, they do what they do for a reason.  Therefore, I don't believe the Russians did anything to contribute to or cause this.

What it sounds like is a pilot error, perhaps a pilot error under pressure.  The Polish president had a prior reputation for interfering with his flight crew's decisions, which puts them in a very difficult situation.  What do you do when you know this is unsafe, but your country's president won't hear of it and wants you to put his plane down in bad weather?

Edit: Also, it should be noted that Kiev is not anywhere close to Smolensk where the crash occurred, and it is in Ukraine, not Russia.