President Barack Obama should go on national television and call Russian President Vladimir Putin a killer, much like President Ronald Reagan did in 1983 when Russians shot down a Korean airliner, says Judge Andrew Napolitano.
"President Putin is a killer. This is more evidence of the fact that he's a killer," Napolitano said Thursday on Fox News Channel's
"Special Report."
Napolitano was referring to the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 earlier Thursday that left 295 on board dead.
The crash was reminiscent of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, which on Sept. 1, 1983, veered into Soviet airspace and was shot down by the Russian government, killing all 269 on board.
The Soviet Union denied shooting down the plane at the time. It admitted fault later.
Reagan took to the airwaves on Sept. 5, saying, "Let me state as plainly as I can: There was absolutely no justification, either legal or moral, for what the Soviets did."
Reagan called the downing of the plane "an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations."
Napolitano condemned Obama for continuing his schedule, including fundraising in Lower Manhattan, after the Malaysian Airlines flight was shot down Thursday over eastern Ukraine.
American officials have told journalists they believe Russian-backed separatists were responsible for the attack.
Separatist forces say they have recovered the plane's black boxes and sent them to Moscow.
Napolitano said Obama should isolate Putin diplomatically "and put him back in the black hole from which he came."
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