PUTIN IS A BRUTE WHO MUST BE SHACKLED
News of the destruction of Flight MH17 and the appalling murder of 298 people gave Russia's president Vladimir Putin a chance to step back from a precipice.
He could have stood up before the world and denounced the crime; endorsed a full investigation and punishment of the guilty.
Instead - yet almost inevitably, given the nature of the man - he presented his stone face. He asserted, against all logic and evidence, that Ukraine and its rulers were the guilty parties.
He lied, as he has lied all his life since he was first schooled in deceit and brutality by those masters of the art, his old employers at the KGB.
Putin probably felt that no path was open to him save denial, because the facts point blame for this huge tragedy squarely at the Kremlin.
Putin has acted throughout his tenure of power on the assumption that European leaders are marshmallows, to be defied with impunity.
It is time, and beyond time, to prove him wrong.


