country in a war-torn area like this. >> i'm feeling physically sick. >> a world reeling -- >> volatility index or the market's fear gate spiked 34%. >> of course a terrible human tragedy first and foremost, but a financial tragedy too. >> the world economy's integrated. >> and that's not all. >> the operation israel has dubbed protective edge began under the cover of darkness overnight. >> whoa! >> several dozen were killed in the first few hours alone. once troops are on the ground in close combat, military missions seldom go as planned. >> good afternoon to you from new york city, where it's been a highly unusual day at the united natio nations. two emergency sessions on two huge international issues. this very hour an urgent meeting about how to contain the all-out war between israel and hamas. the ground invasion now a full 24 hours old, and israeli officials warn it could last for

weeks. we will be watching for what happens there. but this morning, the world's top diplomats scrambling for answers about the missile strike that took down a passenger jet in eastern ukraine, killing everyone on board. as we just learned, including one american citizen. the white house and u.s. ambassador susan power have refused to rule out that russia may have blood on its hands. >> if, indeed, russian-backed separatists were behind this attack on a civilian airliner, they and their backers would have good reason to cover up evidence of their crime. thus, it is extremely important that an investigation be commenced immediately. >> russia, pro-russian separatists and ukraine must adhere to an immediate cease-fire. evidence must not be tampered with. investigators need to access the crash site. and the solemn task of returning those who were lost on board the plane to their loved ones needs to go forward immediately. and the united states stands

ready to provide any assistance that is necessary. >> let's get you right to the white house and nbc's kristen welker, who's breaking news from there on the show for us yesterday. what do you have today? >> well, toure, those comments that president obama made from the briefing room, the strongest that we have heard yet about who might be responsible for shooting down that malaysian airlines plane. the president saying that the u.s. does have confidence that that surface-to-air missile came from an area inside ukraine that is dominated by pro-russian separatists. president obama saying it's still too early to tell if it was shot down by mistake or if it was intentional, and the president did not say that the u.s. could confirm who specifically was responsible. but he did make the point that in recent weeks, pro-russian separatists have shot down ukrainian transport planes. he also said russia has been supplying more heavy weapons to those pro-russian separatists. but some of the strongest

language came from u.n. ambassador samantha power, who said, quote, russia has the capacity to ends the war. so the focus now, toure, moves to the investigation and trying to urge and create an international and independent investigation. we know that the u.s. is sending one official from the ntsb as well as two from the fbi. they will head to ukraine to begin and assist the investigation there. meanwhile, this comes against the backdrop of increasing tensions between the united states and russia. as you know earlier this week, president obama announced the stiffest round of sanctions yet against russia if it is determined that there is a link to russia. we want to stress that word if. this would only further enflame those tensions between the united states and russia. there would begin to be conversations here behind the scenes possibly about more sanctions. but the broader question will be, how will the united states' allies in europe react?

european countries have been less willing to impose the same level of stiff sanctions that the u.s. has imposed, and this could certainly change the calculation for the united states' european allies, like germany, for example, if it is determined and confirmed that there is, in fact, a link to russia. meanwhile, i can tell you that president obama heads to camp david this weekend. i spoke with a white house official about the decision for him to go there. they make the point that the white house travels with the president wherever he goes, so you can anticipate that he will continue to get briefings on this and likely reach out to his foreign counterparts as he continues to monitor this investigation. back to you guys in the studio. >> all right. kristen welker, thank you very much for that report. nbc's tom costello has the latest on the pending investigation with this plane crash. as experts are trying to reconstruct what happened, tom, what do you know? >> this is a very difficult situation because, of course, this should be ukraine's investigation. when a plane goes down in somebody's territory, generally it is that country's

responsibility to begin the investigation and very often bringing in international assistance. but the trouble is, as we've been discussing, this wreckage lies in rebel-held territory. while ukraine has asked for international assistance from the united states and elsewhere, so far we are told it does not have individuals -- government individuals on the ground at the crash scene. now, earlier today, according to several reports, a group of international observers was at the crash scene but were intimidated by russian-backed militias or separatists. there were even reports of shots fired, perhaps shots fired into the air. we're not clear on that. nobody was hurt, but those international observers elected to leave the area. the concern here is that while the rebels are suggesting that they are securing the scene and trying to make sure they have gathered together the bodies of those who died in the plane crash and gathering any evidence, the concern is they

themselves may be responsible for this plane having been shot out of the sky and therefore it would be difficult to go to them and expect any sort of objectivity. the united states, as you saw in that graphic, is sending one single representative from the ntsb and two fbi agents, one of them an explosives expert, to help in this investigation. this will not be an american-led investigation. it will very much be an international effort, and you can see three people is not the typical go team that would respond to a major incident. go team from the ntsb, for example, could include a dozen people, maybe even two dozen people. then you might even have, as you know, the fbi and what have you. this is a very small group that is going to be responding. the key, as the president mentioned, is just going to be able to get into an area and see whether the site is secured. the issue, however, with the black boxes. yes, there is concern the rebels may have already grabbed the black boxes. perhaps they have even taken those black boxes and according

to one report may have handed them off to russia or may be on the way to moscow. we have no information on that whatsoever. but the black boxes, of course, are not going to tell anybody who shot the plane down. that information is likely going to come from spy satellites that the united states has, from military intelligence and the like, and already today the president making very clear statements about the fact that the united states knows this missile was fired from ukrainian rebel territory, not territory that the ukrainian government has control over. so this is, as you might imagine, there are difficult investigations. this one would have to right now be at the top of that. a scene already compromised in a war zone in rebel-held territory when the rebels may, in fact, be the ones who shot the plane down. toure, back to you. >> tom costello, thank you for your careful reporting once again. let's bring in matthew, an expert on u.s. relations with both russia and ukraine.

picking up where tom left off, the plane goes down in a disputed area where there is a war, where the people who are in control of that area, they may not see it in their best interest for the truth to come out, but there are other ways in terms of spying, in terms of satellite, there are other ways of us figures out what actually happened. do you think that we're going to be able to get the answers to what really happened here? >> well, i think several layers of answers matter. the first layer is simply the political answer. i think you've already heard the political answer from the white house. the answer is russia somehow or other is responsible for this. it's created the conditions, the circumstances. it's supported those who we believe to be responsible for the shooting, even if the button wasn't pressed in the kremlin. not saying the position makes sense. i'm not saying i support it. but i think that is kind of the political answer as delivered from washington. the europeans have been a little quieter. obviously, there are more voices in europe. they're really in mourning

because we're talking about a great many deaths, particularly for western european countries like germany, the netherlands, belgium, the u.k., which for the duration of the ukraine conflict for the last six months, you know, they've been a little more on the sidelines. this doesn't feel quite as present to them as it does, say, for poland or the baltic states or the ukrainians themselves. they're going to have their own answer. then in terms of the actual facts on the ground, hard evidence, was this a buk missile shot from what was originally a ukrainian government launcher that was then captured by rebels, or was it something else that was provided recently across the russian border? we're not going to know the answers to those questions without a real investigation. you know, there's been intelligence all along about who's arming the rebels, what are they getting, and there's been doubts and speculation. i just don't think we're going to get to a clear answer unless we can get a cease-fire in place and an agreement by all the parties, including the rebels, that there needs to be a

credible international investigation. >> let's look at the implications of the answers that could be reached. from the european perspective, how much does it matter in your view with europe's response whether this would be determined to be an accident or some kind of actual targeting of civilian aircraft? >> well, on a certain level t doesn't matter because what's fundamentally changed the moment that this airplane went down and these people were killed is that the war has come home to roost for europe in a way that they were able to close their eyes to it up until yesterday. i think there are probably going to be some much tougher responses both statements and possibly actual sanctions coming from the europeans. the reason being, whether it was an accidental downing, in other words the missile was launched unintentionally believing that perhaps this was a military target or perhaps just not intending to launch it at all, listen, command and control in that region is very, very poor. we have open cell phone line recordings of the fighters talking to their commanders. these people are not following

mitt tear protocol. i think the european position is this is an open, bleeding wound in the heart of europe. this going to need to be dealt with. the question is, how tough are they going to be prepared to be on russia? but there's a corollary question here, too. let's not assume the russians can necessarily flip a switch at this point and end the conflict. they may not want to, and they may not have the capability. >> matthew, you mentioned the reluctance towards sanctions in europe. a lot of what's driving that is the deep economic ties between russia and western europe. the reliance that germany and other countries have on natural gas from russia. in the sense if they impose sanctions that wreak havoc on the russian economy, it'll affect the european economy. is that calculus changing? is there going to be a greater willingness to accept economic pain in europe in order to pressure russia in this situation? >> well, on one level, yes. on another level, no. you're exactly right that the question is never going to be about coming up with the perfect sanctions that don't affect your side at all and only hurt the other guy. the nature of trade is it is a

two-way street. if you block trade, both sides are going to suffer. the question is, how important is it to you and how likely is imposing that pain on both sides going to be to change the long-term outcome? so in that sense, i think the europeans of course have moved much closer to that threshold simply because they're already suffering so much pain. and really, to put it in very crass terms, the domestic politics has changed now. now you have a number of districts. think about this in american congressional terms. at home in european countries where you have people in mourning who are going to be demanding accountability, transparency, and ultimately some kind of positive result, maybe even compensation. that means getting to the bottom of this. on the other hand, russia is not going away. if you're a european foreign policy think, either eu or national leader or foreign min sterks you have to remember, this is going to have to be a negotiated solution. the russians are going to have to be at the table. the idea we can say vladimir putin shot down this airplane, he's the boogie man, the bad

guy, that probably precludes a negotiated outcome that involves the russians. >> so what does putin do now? for a while now he's been playing this double game where publicly he'll say he wants peace in the ukraine. we heard some good words in that direction on d-day with president obama. but then privately he's backing the separatists, sending armaments across the border, escalating the conflict there. is he going to feel actual pressure now to pull back from that region? >> i think whether it results in a pullback, i'm doubtful about that. i have no doubt that to the extent that putin, you're right, has played a double game, has exercised this plausible deniability, this cloak of ambiguity. well, we don't really control what's going on. it's not official government support. there are private volunteers going there, private weapons flowing in there. you know, it will remain possible for him to maintain this ambiguity. from vladimir putin's own interest, from the kremlin's interest and russia's interest, he now knows that the guys he's

allowing to behave this way are creating huge costs for him. they have brought down a civilian airliner, which is nothing but a tragedy, which is going to make life very complicated for putin, for the russians, and all of his allies for the foreseeable future. that's a cost he may not want to bear. >> matt, thank you very much for your analysis. the international community is demanding access to the crash site. our nbc news team is making its way there. we'll join keir simmons on the road to finding answers right after this. to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie's list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. you'll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare. now that we're expecting, i like the fact i can go onto angie's list and look for pediatricians. the service providers that i've found on angie's list actually have blown me away. find out why more than two million members count on angie's list. angie's list -- reviews you can trust.

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we are back with the latest on the malaysia air flight 17 tragedy. n bx's keir simmons is on a

train right now making his way to the crash site inside this contested area of ukraine. keir, what's the latest? do we have keir simmons there? all right. we lost keir, unfortunately. let's turn now to nbc's jim maceda. he's live in moscow. jim, putin is certainly feeling the heat from the international community. what's the latest there from moscow? >> reporter: krystal, i've been covering him for 15 years, and he never ceases to amaze me. you're right. vladimir putin is taking heat because of the malaysian airlines crash. some would call it mass murder. just today he was given that very public, verbal lashing by president barack obama. targeted sanctions are starting to bite, we're told, and scare the markets as well. we can see that. you might think with all that going on, wanting to build some

kind of momentum, you'd see a kind of reawakening of the opposition movement to vladimir putin in the streets. but these are the streets of moscow, and there's absolutely no sign here or anywhere else in russia for that matter of a public anti-putin opposition. on the contrary, according to a gallup poll just last month, the three-time president putin's approval rating now is a whopping 83%. that includes the 70% or 80% of the population who watched nothing but state-run television. like their leader, they actually blame the ukrainian government in kiev for the tragic shooting down of flight mh-17 and not the pro-russian separatists, who much of the evidence seems to suggest actually pulled the trigger on the surface-to-air missile. putin told reporters yesterday

that the tragedy would have never have happened in the ukrainians had lived in peace. as the u.s. and the west build their case against putin, he and his proxies have pledged to cooperate now with that international group of investigators, but you can't help but feeling this underlying fear on the ground here that the truth about who caused so much suffering may never be told. krystal, back to you? >> well, jim, one more question there. even by the standards of propaganda, this one would seem harder to swallow in russia, taking your point about the high approval rating. precisely, though, because putin has bragged they've taken more control, they have influence in ukraine. and the allegation is that this rocket came from a place where they are in control, these separatists. so how do you square that with him then trying to blame it on the rest of ukraine? >> reporter: right. it doesn't square very well, if you analyze it as you just did

astutely. and that's the whole card game. that's the whole game of faints that he had, the smoke and mirrors he uses. on the one hand, he doesn't deny that the separatists fired that weapon. he never came out publicly and denied it. he simply shifted the focus of the blame on his rival enemy, whoever he's dealing with. he's done that now as long as i've covered him. and it's been extremely successful. >> all right. nbc's jim maceda. thank you so much for that. for more on the fight over who shot down the plane, we turn to michael weiss, a columnist at "foreign policy" magazine. thanks for being back with us. let's say we find out russia was involved, whether it was them that actually pulled the tril y trigger, so to speak, or they enabled the separatists, which is probably more likely. what then for the u.s.?

we've already imposed sanctions. what more can we do here? >> i would argue, look, the real achilles heel of the kremlin, the sanctions we've imposed, the last sweep was by far the most impressive because we actually did blacklist some. there was some wiggle room. but we haven't done sectorial sanctions. we haven't sanctioned the state gas company and these other things. all of this to one side, the way you hit the kremlin, the way you hit vladimir putin is the way that the russian protest movement hit him in 2011. you remember hundreds of thousands of people turned out on the streets of moscow. what did they do it for? the stolen elections. but the real motif of that protest movement was what? united russia, the ruling party of russia, is the, quote, party of crooks and thieves. that was a coinage by the head of the russian opposition, still is to most degrees, but is now under house arrest and facing a battery of trumped-up legal charges. that opposition movement has

been neutered because putin has controlled the narrative. you just discussed how he owns state television, and that's where most russians get their information. if i was in charge, i don't pretend to be, and i know this may sound human being rhysic, but if i were in charge, i would call mr. putin up and say enough it enough. you have 24 hours to pull out your separatists, pull out the material you know and we can prove you have sent them. otherwise the next press conference i, president obama, will give will name the bank accounts you permly control. i will name the assets you have in europe. i will name the villas and the chateaus that you have had your oligarch loyalists and cronies buy on your behalf. there's evidence about this already that's come into the public domain. >> absolutely. we know putin is the richest leader in the world. what would that do? >> that would put the fear of god in him. you don't even have to do it. you just have to threaten to do it and threaten credibly to do it. this is where you get him, right. his whole schtick at present is

he's a great russian patriot. he's, you know, talking about pulling money back out of corrupt decadent europe. remember, the argument against ukraine joining the european union, this would be the, quote, homosexualizing of ukraine. it's not conservatism. this is reaction. classic totalitarian reaction. that's the message being pumped into the russian body politic. so he's talking about deoffshorization. bring the money home to moscow. fine, mr. putin. what are you doing having all of this money and wealth stationed in europe? this is where your bread is buttered. this is why the european union, so far, has been rather kittenish on imposing sanctions. i lived in london for three years. it's considered now an o blast of the russian federation. the people in the city of london, the politicians from westminster and even the media to some extent, how much influence the russian government and its proxies have. this is the problem. use the information we have. and look, we have a very vast

intelligence apparatus, right. i refuse to believe -- i've heard, you know, off the record from fbi agents about new york city being a money laundering capital because now the russians are investing in real estate. real estate is the easiest way to clean your money. we now all this stuff, and what are we doing with it? >> i wonder, though, if obama would engage in that sort of information warfare. but it would be very interesting. >> just to threaten to do it, again, is powerful. >> always interesting to have your insights. thank you so much for joining us again today. our coverage of this tragedy continues next with the human toll. it is large. and today it is hitting home. >> yesterday malay san airlines flight mh-17 took off from amsterdam and was shot down over ukraine near the russian border. nearly 300 innocent lives were taken. men, women, children, infants who had nothing to do with the

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the fastest speed dial. the fastest office plant. so why wouldn't i choose the fastest wifi? i would. switch to comcast business internet and get the fastest wifi included. comcast business. built for business. we're following breaking news from across town at the united nations where an emergency meeting is happening now to discuss the conflict in gaza. we're watching for a read-out of those developments anding thatting the latest on the ground throughout the hour. now back to our coverage of malaysia airlines flight 17, specifically the human toll. president obama confirmed today that at least one american, quinn schansman, was on board the plane when it was shot down over eastern ukraine. he was born in new york city but lived in the netherlands for most of his life. the president called his death an outrage of unspeakable

proportions. also on that plane, a 25-year-old from amsterdam that came to the u.s. to pursue her graduate degree. he was a highly decorated scholar athlete on the rowing team. of course, these are just two of nearly 300 people, including three infants, who lost their lives in this heinous act. chuck henry has made his way to the amsterdam airport where this flight originated from. >> reporter: that's an excellent point s there such a thing as getting back to usual? earlier today the same malaysian airlines flight with the same flight designator, kind of a co-chair can klm, took off around 12:30. once again, the group of people that boarded that flight, much like the ones that had done so on the previous day. one of the interesting things here at the airport is that they haven't changed the name of the flight. it's still mh-17. reason for that, because people who had booked tickets months,

weeks ago, they wouldn't recognize a new name on the flight. so that's why they're keeping it. another interesting thing is that people that come to it the airport, they want to show their support for the families and incidentally the families in a location just behind this, which is terminal three. this is check-in for international passengers. they have them in a hotel over there. they wanted to show their support and solidarity for the families. so the workers here at the airport have cordoned off an area where people can come and leave flowers. they have a book of condolences and people can come and sign that. i just spoke to the lady who's there tonight, and she happened to be at the first check point. you know, as you go through security, you hand them the ticket and they check it against your name and you go through the gate. she happened to be handling mh-17 yesterday. i asked her what she remembered most about it. i said, were there faces? she said, not really. she said, what i remembered most and what got me -- and she said she had a sleepless night -- was

watching all those people, family members that had brought loved ones to the airport waving good-bye to them, giving them hugs, and whatnot and getting on the plane and then knows and realizing, she said, that they would never see them again. so it is a quiet night right now here at the airport. the hustle that went on earlier today has really died down, and the airport is a quiet, a somber place, a place of reflection and a lot of mood and inspiration. >> sobering. knbc's chuck henry. we know it's been a long day. thank you. let's head now to the pentagon. jim, what's the latest you're hearing from the defense department? >> well, josh, u.s. military and defense officials have been telling nbc news that there is no question whatsoever that the missile that brought down malaysian airliner a couple days ago was, in fact, fired from the ukrainian -- from the rebel-held territory in east ukraine. the problem is at this point

they still don't know who pulled the trigger, whether it was the separatists themselves or whether it was their russian military, who had been assisting and advising the separatists in their battle against ukrainian forces. now, according to the pentagon spokesman rear admiral john kirby, the separatists could not have done this without a big assist from the russians. >> there's been incursions across the border by russian aircraft. so i mean, i think we have -- we don't have any reason to suspect that they haven't provided some measure of support on the other side of that border. i mean, these paramilitary forces that we don't talk about as much anymore certainly didn't act or behave like some ragtag milit militia. >> in fact, u.s. military officials are telling us that it's not clear yet. and even when the president

spoke at the white house today in the briefing room and talked to reporters, it's not clear exactly who was responsible. and there is a deep suspicion that some russian military, in fact, may have been at the controls of that missile system when it shot down the malaysian jetliner. they're not saying that's the case, but they have a strong suspicion it was, and they're digging through all available intelligence to try to figure that out, josh. >> and jim, you've done some reporting also mentioning the role of these trainers, russian trainers. how would that fit in financially here? >> according to u.s. officials that we've been talking to, even after president putin told president obama, look, i'm with you, i want to de-escalate the violence there in ukraine, the russian military kept pouring in weapons and now they've amassed another force of 13,000 on the border. but we're told that in addition

to providing artillery tanks and some of these missile systems, the russian military had to provide trainers and advisers to show these separatists how to operate these systems. even though some of those separatists are former russian military, not all of them are well versed or trained in using some of these more sophisticated weapon systems. and we're told that some of those russian trainers, in fact, have been embedded with the separatists at different intervals and different times. again, leading back to the suspicion that the russians may have been directly involved themselves in the shoot down of the malaysian airliner. >> jim, thank you so much. >> okay, josh. >> joining us now is someone with over 20 years of aerial combat experience, dan hampton. the author of the book "lords of the sky." dan, talk to us about these surface-to-air missile testimonies. the theory people are converging

around is the people who shot this down thought they were shooting down a ukrainian military plane. how difficult is it to hit the thing you intend to hit? >> ideally, the way this would work if it was under regular military control was the sa-11 system usually has three to four vehicles. one of them is a command vehicle with an acquisition radar which sorts through everything in the sky, decides what a target is, and then passes it to the target engagement radar associated with the missiles. what i suspect happened -- and this is just my opinion, but i suspect what happened is these guys got ahold of just the transporter erector launcher vehicle with the missiles on it. it also has a radar. it's a target engagement radar, but it's a lot less discriminating than the acquisition radar. if they locked on to this thing by mistake thing it was an am-26 or cargo airplane and shot off a missile and got malaysian flight 17 instead. that's what i think happened. >> dan, of course you're one of the greatest soldiers that

america has ever had. but increasingly -- >> oh, don't say that, toure. >> increasingly around the world, a lot of military action is being done by private soldiers, by paid soldiers of fortune, by paid mercenaries. it seems there were a lot of id pa russian mercenaries in this situation, perhaps running the insurrection there. is that inherently more dangerous when you have these sort of paid mercenaries rather than state-trained soldiers? >> not inherently. and actually, in some cases, it's safer. we do it too, just to play devil's advocate here. everybody's getting kind of bent about the russian regular military guys maybe being associated with this missile. maybe they were, maybe they weren't. the first fighter jet shot down in vietnam was shot down by a russian adviser using a russian system in vietnam. so it's not without precedent.

we do it too, okay. and we have, as you very well know, our own private military companies and our military officers frequently act advisers too. i hate to trivialize it, but it's not that uncommon. >> dan, would you be able to operate one of these buk missile systems without extensive military professional training? >> i'm going to say no, but you have to remember as somebody just mentioned that most -- not most but a fair percentage of the guys in this russian separatist movement were in the russian military through ukraine back when it was the ussr and even after. so finding some guys that could operate this isn't really that difficult. and in my mind, i think they're kind of getting sidetracked on figuring out who pushed the button. we're probably never going to know because i can probably guarantee you that system is back across the border in russia right now. what i would focus on right now is what happens next. okay, who did it?

why did it happen? it was an accident, i think. all right, who did it? it doesn't really matter per se. what i think is going to happen is i think president putin will probably make a big push for peace while he stalls for time to clean up that crash site, remove as much evidence as he can. if peace works out, great. if not, he's got a perfect excuse to move into the eastern ukraine, declare martial law, and get what he wanted anyway, which was a big slice of territory. this is a perfect excuse to do it. remember, he's a russian, so he's a chess player. he's got a plan. we don't know what it is, but he's got a plan, and he's doing damage control right now. >> dan hampton, thank you so much for being here. we've heard about the families. we've heard from the president. up next, we'll hear about the folks on capitol hill, who are processing another unpredictable week in global politics.

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columnist at "the washington post." we have seen responses from senator feinstein, mccain. but a lot of washington seems quiet. of course, the congress is out and adjourned. what is your take of the mood in washington, the reaction to this? >> well, i think what you're seeing now, ari, is more of a traditional reaction to a crisis where people pause and actually reflect, which actually is somewhat refreshing and somewhat new. you do have sort of the people out there. you have rush limbaugh saying that this is just an excuse for the media not to cover the border crisis. you have allen west saying this was done deliberately by obama to distract attention. but responsible people are pausing for a moment and saying, you know what, there actually is an enemy out there, and he's in russia. he's not in washington. >> dana, right now for the president it's not just one enemy. this is a situation where he's got multiple simultaneous

complex foreign policy challenges, not just ukraine and russia, but also israel and hamas, also isis, also syria still, also what's going on in central america. this is one of the most complex moments and multiple things are happening at once, making it more complicated. >> you're right, toure. even before the shooting down of this plane, the president just seemed to be overwhelmed by foreign crises and sort of responding to it. you see him trying to go about his day-to-day business, going getting barbecue, doing the fundraisers. he's got an bit of blow back for that. i think you saw him come out with a serious, sober statement today, getting a real grip on this. he can try to talk about infrastructure and other things, but the nation's focus for now is going to be squarely on this, so he really has to be there too. >> with these various crises around the world, one thing that's often pitched is arming more troops on the ground.

the usual argument against that is thekds be hostile later. we're seeing a different cautionary tale here that maybe they won't know how to use whaf whatever arms they have. do you see this maybe as giving people pause about involvement in syria or iraq where our involvement would involve strengthening some rebel group? >> that's interesting. you see mccain sort of saying reflexively this why we should be arming ukraine, taking that sort of action. but it's certainly in the longer term could have that other effect of saying, wait a second, this is what happens when things can get out of control. i think we're in this sort of a pause period now to figure it out. you can be sure that there's going to be fault found among republicans on capitol hill with how obama is handling this. they're just pausing to see how he handles it. >> certainly. dana milbank, thank you. president obama heads to camp

david later this afternoon. safe to say it will be a busy and working weekend for him. we have the latest from the unraveling situation in israel and gaza live with reports from the ground. that's next. [ brian ] in a race,

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thousands of them along with tanks, gun boats, and heavy artillery attacking hamas' rocket launchers and underground tunnels, which israel claims hamas fighters are using to move into enemy territory. in theunderground tunnels which they claim hamas is using to move in to their territory. netanyahu hinted the operation could grow larger. veteran nbc news correspondent martin fletcher is at our bureau in tel aviv. >> reporter: hi, touré. when netanyahu said that this morning that the operation could grow larger, he said the operation would be aimed at bringing what he calls sustained quiet to israeli citizens. that's a general formula to bring sustained quiet. how do you do that? what he meant in the short term any way is to take out the rocket launchers that have been sending all of those rockets flying in to israel, about 1600

in the last 12 days killing only one israeli and terrorizing the nation for much of that time. the immediate goal of the israel's invasion right now, he said, is to destroy the network of secret tunnels that the islamic militants have built leading from gaza to israel in which they use to attack israeli civilians and soldiers. there's been a significant success with for the israelis within this 24 hours. already they found 21 entrances in to tunnels, that doesn't mean 21 tunnels because some tunnels may have more than one entrance but in terms of clearing out the tunnels that is quite a few to discover already. at the same time, the troops are moving slowly in to the northern areas of gaza. if you remember, a couple of days ago, the israelis dropped 100,000 leaflets on the areas warning residents to leave, quote, for their own safety.

they are moving in now looking for rocket launchers and have not had direct con 0 frontations with soldiers. but one israeli soldier has died and two dozen palestinians killed. joining us with more on the crisis in israel is the vice president of the woodrow wilson center aaron david miller, an adviser to republican and democratic senators. your book sounds fascinating, aaron. israel's goals in this situation are to destroy the tunnels that hamas has been using. destroy hamas' military capability and not stay in gaza long term. the likelied to hood of success for this mission given no plan survives contact with the enemy? >> i would think if the israelis are prepared they can't stop the rockets merely by destroying and

identifying tunnels to be destroyed. they will have to move in to densely populated areas to get to production facilities, the factories that make local rockets to deal with the rocket repositories and launching pads. in 2008 and 2009, they did this with 10,000 forces. hamas largely avoided open confrontations and i suspect they will in this case, too. they have to deal with much more densely populated areas in a more comprehensive manner to end the rocket fire. by the way, the end will be temporary, assuming israelis aren't prepared for permanent reoccupation or to literally destroy hamas as an organization, kill all of the operatives and leaders. that would take months. >> aaron, this is pretty much only day that israel could have launched this operation and not have it on the front pages of newspapers around the world. does that matter for how this operation is likely to play out?

>> i don't think so. this operation concluded within the next 24 hours perhaps. but i suspect it is going to take more time. hamas is not ready to deal. we don't have right now a credible mediator with a deal. you are talking about days, i suspect. i'm not sure what kind of legs the tragedy in eastern ukraine is ultimately going to have. no, the tail of this started when hamas refused to accept two cease fires even though inadequate from hamas' pefr specktive. and he is a risked a a verse guy. he had two choices, hamas stops the rockets or we will. you know, he chose the latter. we'll see in the next two or three days what turn the israeli ground incursion takes place. >> i was in jordan in 2009 during the last israeli ground

incursion. i remember well, vividly the graphic images replayed on a loop on the news cycle there. what sort of regional impact does this conflict have? >> that's a good question. it gets to the notion that you can actually win the battle militarily and tactically but lose the war. in wars of asymmetry, when you operate in densely populated areas with -- i hate to use the clinical word collateral casusualties, when innocent people -- in this case palestinians -- die and are wounded, it is that public diplomacy, political propaganda war that in 2008 and 2009 israelis lost. 1300 palestinians were killed. a large percentage of those were hamas fighters but a large number of palestinian civilians, 13 israelis. after three weeks of the incursion were killed, ten

soldiers, four they think by friendly fire. in a paradoxically cruel way, the absence of israeli casualties actually, i'm not suggesting that that's a bad thing but the absence of israeli casualties does not serve israel's own political and public relations interest. that's the real problem here. it is going to be -- when this is done, when this is done, it will be the image of the war, quote unquote, perhaps rather than the reality of what transpired on the ground with respect to rockets. >> thank you very much for that really important point. we are back to wrap up the busy day on "the cycle" after this. ♪

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>> all right that. does it for "the cycle" today. thank you for joining us. "this week with alex wagner starts now." an airliner shot down. nearly 300 lives lost. think search begins for answers and accountability. it is friday, july 18th and this is "now." >> this was a global tragedy. >> the deadliest aviation incident since nine sglempb the debris field is in the active of a war zone. >> they know what brought down the plane. it was a missile. >> who's behind this? >> russian system, russian weapon. >> who fired the missile? >> did the russians fire it or did the separatists fire it? >> vladimir putin already taking a defensive tone. >> he's