All those people

I admit, as someone who's been a fearful flyer since she figured out it was possible for planes to crash, this kind of thing just horrifies me.

It horrifies me even more that it seems to have been confirmed that Malaysia Air 17 was shot down. Shot down from 30,000 feet. I didn't even know there were surface to air missiles that could do that, that had that kind of accuracy. That's chilling.

All those people. I hope they died instantly and didn't know any terror. And I also feel sad for the people who are the farmers and such living in that area, who had plane parts (and other things) come down in their yards.

What makes me especially sick? The US response to this will probably be a finger wagged at whoever is responsible, and that's it. And the situation in the Ukraine will continue to spiral downward. I'm trying to tell myself this isn't how World War III gets started, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself.

And it doesn't help that there's ugliness elsewhere in the world. (Though I will say, if what I've read about how Israel does its rocket attacks is true, it makes me hate Hamas even more, and feel even more like Israel is in the right - essentially, it sounds like Israel is doing *everything possible* to avoid loss of civilian life on the other side, and Hamas is trying to time its rocket attacks for when Israeli schoolchildren are going to or from school.)

Everything's such a mess right now. And we don't even have strong leadership to try to sort it out or even provide any kind of useful response.