> Motive: The motive "mistake" is a motive that works for both sides.
Yes but as I said, if this was a mistake from the Ukrainian part, the rebels would have everything to gain to prove it. But all they seem to be doing right now is strongly interfere with the investigation.
> Identity: The membership in the groups "Russian" and "former FSB" is at most an indication. "All former FSB members that are Russian shoot down passenger air planes" holds as much as "All Germans kill jews" and "All jews kill Palestinians"
That's not the point that I made there. The most likely explanation is that it's a mistake. Russia gave the "separatists" (which are truly agents of the government) a sophisticated anti-air weapon. Someone used it against a plane, only they messed up and ended up shooting down a civilian airplane. I am pretty sure that the Kremlin is super pissed off that this happened. This doesn't change the fact that: the "separatists" are Russian agents (who are maybe a bit too much on the loose?) and that Russia gave them the weapon that lead to this mistake. I'm certainly not saying that Russia wanted this plane to be shot down (and that seems very unlikely, considering how much backlash they are facing now).
> The thing is, I assume Western media is as biased as Russian media. The very fact they rarely even consider Ukrainian govt participation (as they should also with the Maidan sniper shootings) makes me wonder what side I should trust less.
I would disagree. Of course, Western media are biased, but the bias they have is mostly done through capital (big media groups with ties to politicians). Russian media is a propaganda machine. Despite all the flaws of our Western countries, they are still less corrupted and less susceptible to propaganda than Russia.
> The very fact they rarely even consider Ukrainian govt participation (as they should also with the Maidan sniper shootings) makes me wonder what side I should trust less.
It's a sad thing but that's something to be expected of "general consumption" media. Of course they will paint Ukraine as the good guys and Russia as the bad guys because it serves their story. But that doesn't mean that Russia isn't the bad guy here, and most of the evidence points that way.
In particular in this plane crisis, it has to be said that neither the USA nor the EU want to be involved in Ukraine. A war over there would be yet another mess (like Yugoslavia was). So far the position of the EU and the USA has been fairly tame, but the fact that Russia was caught red-handed delivering weapons to wage their proxy war (and annex some new territory to "the Greater Russia", which is Putinism's ultimate goal), changes things, and the USA and the EU may have to get reluctantly involved if Russia doesn't back off. Considering that the USA and the EU don't have much to gain or to lose in Ukraine (because let's face it, Western people don't give a shit about the fate of the Ukrainians for the most part, as has been demonstrated by the previous very weak involvement during the riots; and due to the fact that Ukraine has very little to offer since they don't have any significant natural resources), I'd say that Western media (and in particular more specialized media you can find on the web written by analysts and not general purpose journalists) are much more likely to be trustworthy on this.
> This view is partially based on the WMD allegations in Iraq and the use of chemical weapons by Assad, both of which can be considered "false flags".
The WMD allegations were largely countered by many of the Western media (in particular in Europe). France refused to participate in that war.
PS: An interesting read: the AmA of a Ukrainian man who lives in a rebel controlled zone on Reddit yesterday: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2b72ir/iama_ukrainian_...
