Terrorism or Incompetence?

The shooting down of flight MH 17 happened because the international air traffic control system is flawed.  We assume that in this area there are sound and competent people and systems in place.  But apparently not. We are astonished to find that air traffic control allows passenger jets to fly through zones where there is air warfare.  This is mind boggling.  It is the reason that this passenger jet was mistakenly shot down by the combatants in that war.

So Tony Abbott calling this terrorism is wrong.  It is so obviously wrong that he can only be knowingly using the tragedy for geopolitical purposes. It is disrespectful of the dead to lie about the cause of their death.  They died because air traffic control allowed passenger jets to fly through an air war. Again, it defies belief that this was the case.

Do I have to state the obvious?  Terrorism would require intentional and purposeful murder of civilians.

The Russian backed separatists had every reason to believe that all flights overhead were Ukrainian military.  They had been shooting Ukrainian military planes and helicopters down in the days and weeks previous to the MH17 tragedy. This was an established war zone, with air warfare being prosecuted. Why would a passenger jet be flying through there!? They were incredulous when they discovered that a passenger jet had been flying overhead, and that they had mistakenly shot it down.

You can be on any side of this conflict as you want, and you can criticize the Russians for supplying the weapons.  But it doesn't give you the right to dishonour the dead, to use their death for political purposes: you cannot call this terrorism, you cannot lie about the cause of their deaths.

The passengers of Flight MH17 are dead because air traffic controllers negligently and incompetently allow civilian passenger jets to fly through air war zones.  It was a tragedy that was waiting to happen.