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Among the best findings for the period were:
Ukraine, MH17 and the Struggle for Europe by Alastair Crooke, valdaiclub.com 30/07/2014
MH17 – Sacrificed Airliner, CounterPunch, Jul 28, 2014
Ukranian Army has announced their intention to capture the place of falling of the Malaysian Boeing, vzglyad.ru July 27, 2014
Ministry of Foreigh Affairs of Russia: the U.S. foreign policy rely on an outright lie, cycyron.livejournal.com Jul 27, 2014
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) | July17-19 | Week of July 20-26 | Week of July 27- Aug 2 | Week of Aug 3-9 | Week of Aug 10-16 | Week of Aug 17-23 |
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Occam's razor.
The simplest explanation is usually the right one. What is more likely? A group of untrained rebels who managed to capture a Buk missile system that Kiev says they rendered inoperable shot down a passenger airliner, or the military of a nation that recently had started to lose the war in a big way and deployed 27 such missile systems in the Donetsk area shot it down?
Occam's razor suggests that Kiev shot it down.
They are responsible for the airspace of their country. No country would allow this plane to fly over such an area even if the rebels only had shoulder fired missiles because they could have managed to get better weapons. The most likely explanation is that the Ukrainian army shot it down by accident. This wouldn't be the first time they shot down a passenger airliner. The second most likely explanation is that they ordered the plane to divert to the area and lower in altitude (which has been proven), hoping that the rebels would shoot it down.
The third most likely explanation is that the Kiev government shot it down on purpose, either with a buk system, or an air to air missile (it hasn't been proven that a surface to air missile was used), to pin it on the rebels in a bid to create a game changer in their losing war. Those who automatically believe that the rebels did it, are not basing their opinion on facts. They are basing their opinion on statements provided by the Kiev and US governments which have not been proven to be accurate. Both of these governments have a history of lying to the world.
NO ONE KNOWS WHO SHOT DOWN THE PLANE.
There are no facts to suggest who did it. It could be anything from the Malaysian government to Al Qaida to an accident. We still don't know what happened to the first Malaysian plane. We should determine what happened to that plane before we come to a conclusion as to what happened to this one. They could be related.
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originally posted by: Milleresque
My own "belief"--if I might gingerly call it so--that there is something more to the MH17 debacle, stems from the classic "see who benefits most" train of thought, coupled to the quaintly coincidental timing when laid against another world event.
Can we agree that geopolitics is a LONG game, not merely day to day but that the schtick is drawn out over weeks and months and even years? The evidence seems to suggest so. In that case, take a look back over the whole Ukrainian uprising/civil war/separatist battle that has been going on for quite some time now and has shown no signs of abating. The general consensus is that the Europeans and Americans wish to isolate Russia as much as possible. The problems in Ukraine, however, are dragging on and on, and in my opinion I believe that the Ukrainian military were staring down the barrel of a bloody and protracted stalemate.
I'm exhausted--less than four hours sleep last night--so I'll curtail my discursive post into something a little more...whatever you want to call it. The MH17 disaster BENEFITS the Ukraine. It puts a moral fire under their enemies. Mh17 BENEFITS other western powers; Russia becomes the boogey man, and this is fine because we might be able to make Putin jump through a few hoops and do what WE want for a change, instead of being so downright fierce and independent and not going with the occidental flow.
Take a look at the inordinate level of outrage to this tragedy. For DAYS now, various politicians are using this disaster like a well loved chew toy! Its as if the towers in New York had collapsed all over again! Meanwhile we've got HUNDREDS of civillian deaths in Israel and Palestine, and the responses are muted, measured and never rising to the height that the situation so sorely deserves. Coincidentally enough, didn't MH17 explode on the SAME day the Israelis rolled into Gaza? How much of a psychological cover has this provided?
I apologize for the poorly worded contents of this post. I shouldn't write when I'm tired. There IS more to this than meets the eye. To think otherwise is to be somewhat blind, to history, to basic rationalism, and to even an elemental grasping of political science and geopolitical mechanics--not to mention the dark hearts and minds of mankind.
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July 29, 2014 | The Sydney Morning Herald
Ukraine is hardly acting in the spirit of the UN Security Council resolution championed by Australia, which demands "all military activities" cease around the crash site.
But Kiev has a war to win. From the Ukrainian perspective, the best way to control the site is to reclaim its territory.
Justincaseudidntknow Location Date and timeJuly 30, 2014, 10:34AM
@ Pen
Interesting that now even EU & US web sites are reporting that it is the Urkainian's that are hampering the access to the crash site. The only access has been gained by dealing with the so called rebels. Even the black box was handed over by the Malaysian PM dealing with the rebels. From now on this may be the best option since the Ukrainian govt has collapsed. Yatsunyuk was the first to jump.
This evidence that you give is farcical:
Evidence:
Film of missile carrier well within terrorist held territory.
This footage has no coordinates and has even been shown to come from an area that was held by Ukrainian forces. Also Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakstan, India & Pakistan all have the BUK missle launchers from Soviet days.
Film of plane wreckage being loaded into trucks. WHAT DOES THIS PROVE?Satellite footage of Russian artillery firing into the Ukraine.
Came from a twitter account of something. Isn't the US govt more sophisticated than that?
Film of cranes removing the plane's infrastructure, therefore removing evidence.
These can neither be confirmed nor denied. Ukrainian Govt has been caught fabricating evidence in the past.MH 17 Black Box confirms the plane was brought down by shrapnel that caused "massive explosive decompression. No SURPRISES THERE.
Film of fuselage parts confirms shrapnel damage. AS ABOVE.
Still no answer as to why Ukrainian War plans where tailing MH17 just before explosion..Putin speaks of peace while doing nothing to further peace. Same for US & EU.
The evidence suggests the act a war crime. NO KIDDING -
JUST LIKE ALL THE EVIDENCE IN GAZA.In other words - right or wrong, wait till the evidence is out. I can't stand this US parroting.
SUDDAMS WMDs & Chemical weapons ring a bell anyone ?
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Al, August 2, 2014 at 6:32 amPulled BBC video of eyewitnesses of the crash taken from the comments below the RT piece you posted:yalensis, August 2, 2014 at 7:17 amThe Video Report Deleted by the BBC – ENG SUBS *
From the subs, two ladies:
"…There were two explosions.in the air. And this is how it broke apart. And blew apart like this. And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everybody saw it. It was proceeding underneath below the civilian one.
Next lady:
There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane made a sharp turn-around like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in that direction.
###The comments of the last lady now make sense to me. She was not saying that the exploded airliner turned 180 degrees at all, so this has been mis-reported, but simply that there was an explosion in the sky, and she saw an aircraft – that she does not identify at all as an airliner – and made a sharp turn. Can't trust anything but the source! The ladies can clearly tell the difference between an airliner and a military plane and they do not try and interpret what they saw. They are not aviation experts, and what they saw was certainly unfamiliar, but that in no way negates their witness testimony.
*everyone should save a copy of this video and the url
Yes, you are absolutely right,Al.I also previously interpreted the lady's comments to mean that the MH-17 itself turned around in the air, I apologize for spreading this "theory" earlier, in some of my comments.
All the witness saw was that "a plane" turned around. It could have been the fighter jet. After machine-gunning the MH-17 cockpit, the fighter jet would have veered off and returned westward to its base.
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Jul 31, 2014 | YouTube
Australia Airforce Chief Marshall Angus Houston Speaks. Commander of the Royal Australian Air Force Air Marshal Angus Houston
Quote: "We see that people separatists, very professional, ready to cooperate, very help us with the investigation, helping to move debris and fragments protect unarmed investigators and police., Where another investigators, journalists, and feel very comfortable and in complete safety"
Ben Pentreath
Has Ukraine shown the tapes from the airport that supposedly have records of who told the plane to go over the war zone.
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www.cbc.ca
Michael Bociurkiw was among the very first people to reach the Malaysian jet's wreckage...
Kent J Smith
This is what happened to journalism in Ukraine. http://un1.tv/ Cancelled Jun. 11th
Is this what CBC fears in our Fascist Harper Regime?Just Grampa
- Ukraine Nationalists celebrate Bander's birthday.
- "Bandera's army has finally crossed the Dnieper River," Yarosh said at a press conference
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/us-warns-russia-ukraine-moscow-snap-military-exercises
- Journalist or terrorist? http://en.censor.net.ua/photo_news/292318/in_the_donbas_ato_forces_killed_pavel_zyabkin_russian_terrorist_fighter_of_the_chechen_war_and_member
- CNN reports U.S. military tracking Ukraine missiles. http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/29/ath-starr-officials-ukraine-military-fired-at-rebels.cnn.html
- Why people in Eastern Ukraine do not support the Bandera Coupsters.
http://chersonandmolschky.com/2014/04/02/west-supports-ukraine/#more-2179
- Ukrainian fighter jet approaches MH17--and then it blows up.
http://rt.com/news/174412-malaysia-plane-russia-ukraine/- Pornoshenko's cease fire does not sound like ceasefire.
- Hroisman announces offensive on MH17 crash site
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July 31, 2014 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Intelligence on Shoot-Down of Malaysian Plane
Executive Summary
U.S.–Russian intensions are building in a precarious way over Ukraine, and we are far from certain that your advisers fully appreciate the danger of escalation. The New York Times and other media outlets are treating sensitive issues in dispute as flat-fact, taking their cue from U.S. government sources.
Twelve days after the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, your administration still has issued no coordinated intelligence assessment summarizing what evidence exists to determine who was responsible – much less to convincingly support repeated claims that the plane was downed by a Russian-supplied missile in the hands of Ukrainian separatists.
Your administration has not provided any satellite imagery showing that the separatists had such weaponry, and there are several other "dogs that have not barked." Washington's credibility, and your own, will continue to erode, should you be unwilling – or unable – to present more tangible evidence behind administration claims. In what follows, we put this in the perspective of former intelligence professionals with a cumulative total of 260 years in various parts of U.S. intelligence:
We, the undersigned former intelligence officers want to share with you our concern about the evidence adduced so far to blame Russia for the July 17 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. We are retired from government service and none of us is on the payroll of CNN, Fox News, or any other outlet. We intend this memorandum to provide a fresh, different perspective.
As veteran intelligence analysts accustomed to waiting, except in emergency circumstances, for conclusive information before rushing to judgment, we believe that the charges against Russia should be rooted in solid, far more convincing evidence. And that goes in spades with respect to inflammatory incidents like the shoot-down of an airliner. We are also troubled by the amateurish manner in which fuzzy and flimsy evidence has been served up – some it via "social media."
As intelligence professionals we are embarrassed by the unprofessional use of partial intelligence information. As Americans, we find ourselves hoping that, if you indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public without further delay. In charging Russia with being directly or indirectly responsible, Secretary of State John Kerry has been particularly definitive. Not so the evidence. His statements seem premature and bear earmarks of an attempt to "poison the jury pool."
Painting Russia Black
We see an eerie resemblance to an earlier exercise in U.S. "public diplomacy" from which valuable lessons can be learned by those more interested in the truth than in exploiting tragic incidents for propaganda advantage. We refer to the behavior of the Reagan administration in the immediate aftermath of the shoot-down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 over Siberia on August 30, 1983. We sketch out below a short summary of that tragic affair, since we suspect you have not been adequately briefed on it. The parallels will be obvious to you.
An advantage of our long tenure as intelligence officers is that we remember what we have witnessed first hand; seldom do we forget key events in which we played an analyst or other role. To put it another way, most of us "know exactly where we were" when a Soviet fighter aircraft shot down Korean Airlines passenger flight 007 over Siberia on August 30, 1983, over 30 years ago. At the time, we were intelligence officers on "active duty." You were 21; many of those around you today were still younger.
Thus, it seems possible that you may be learning how the KAL007 affair went down, so to speak, for the first time; that you may now become more aware of the serious implications for U.S.-Russian relations regarding how the downing of Flight 17 goes down; and that you will come to see merit in preventing ties with Moscow from falling into a state of complete disrepair. In our view, the strategic danger here dwarfs all other considerations.
Hours after the tragic shoot-down on Aug. 30, 1983, the Reagan administration used its very accomplished propaganda machine to twist the available intelligence on Soviet culpability for the killing of all 269 people aboard KAL007. The airliner was shot down after it strayed hundreds of miles off course and penetrated Russia's airspace over sensitive military facilities in Kamchatka and Sakhalin Island. The Soviet pilot tried to signal the plane to land, but the KAL pilots did not respond to the repeated warnings. Amid confusion about the plane's identity – a U.S. spy plane had been in the vicinity hours earlier – Soviet ground control ordered the pilot to fire.
The Soviets soon realized they had made a horrendous mistake. U.S. intelligence also knew from sensitive intercepts that the tragedy had resulted from a blunder, not from a willful act of murder (much as on July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people, an act which President Ronald Reagan dismissively explained as an "understandable accident").
To make the very blackest case against Moscow for shooting down the KAL airliner, the Reagan administration suppressed exculpatory evidence from U.S. electronic intercepts. Washington's mantra became "Moscow's deliberate downing of a civilian passenger plane." Newsweek ran a cover emblazoned with the headline "Murder in the Sky." (Apparently, not much has changed;Time's cover this week features "Cold War II" and "Putin's dangerous game." The cover story by Simon Shuster, "In Russia, Crime Without Punishment," would merit an A-plus in William Randolph Hearst's course "Yellow Journalism 101.")
When KAL007 was shot down, Alvin A. Snyder, director of the U.S. Information Agency's television and film division, was enlisted in a concerted effort to "heap as much abuse on the Soviet Union as possible," as Snyder writes in his 1995 book, "Warriors of Disinformation."
He and his colleagues also earned an A-plus for bringing the "mainstream media" along. For example, ABC's Ted Koppel noted with patriotic pride, "This has been one of those occasions when there is very little difference between what is churned out by the U.S. government propaganda organs and by the commercial broadcasting networks."
"Fixing" the Intelligence Around the Policy
"The perception we wanted to convey was that the Soviet Union had cold-bloodedly carried out a barbaric act," wrote Snyder, adding that the Reagan administration went so far as to present a doctored transcript of the intercepts to the United Nations Security Council on September 6, 1983.
Only a decade later, when Snyder saw the complete transcripts - including the portions that the Reagan administration had hidden - would he fully realize how many of the central elements of the U.S. presentation were false.
The intercepts showed that the Soviet fighter pilot believed he was pursuing a U.S. spy aircraft and that he was having trouble in the dark identifying the plane. Per instructions from ground control, the pilot had circled the KAL airliner and tilted his wings to order the aircraft to land. The pilot said he fired warning shots, as well. This information "was not on the tape we were provided," Snyder wrote.
It became abundantly clear to Snyder that, in smearing the Soviets, the Reagan administration had presented false accusations to the United Nations, as well as to the people of the United States and the world. In his book, Snyder acknowledged his own role in the deception, but drew a cynical conclusion. He wrote, "The moral of the story is that all governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The key is to lie first."
The tortured attempts by your administration and stenographers in the media to blame Russia for the downing of Flight 17, together with John Kerry's unenviable record for credibility, lead us to the reluctant conclusion that the syndrome Snyder describes may also be at work in your own administration; that is, that an ethos of "getting your own lie out first" has replaced "ye shall know the truth." At a minimum, we believe Secretary Kerry displayed unseemly haste in his determination to be first out of the starting gate.
Both Sides Cannot Be Telling the Truth
We have always taken pride in not shooting from the hip, but rather in doing intelligence analysis that is evidence-based. The evidence released to date does not bear close scrutiny; it does not permit a judgment as to which side is lying about the shoot-down of Flight 17. Our entire professional experience would incline us to suspect the Russians – almost instinctively. Our more recent experience, particularly observing Secretary Kerry injudiciousness in latching onto one spurious report after another as "evidence," has gone a long way toward balancing our earlier predispositions.
It seems that whenever Kerry does cite supposed "evidence" that can be checked – like the forged anti-Semitic fliers distributed in eastern Ukraine or the photos of alleged Russian special forces soldiers who allegedly slipped into Ukraine – the "proof" goes "poof" as Kerry once said in a different context. Still, these misrepresentations seem small peccadillos compared with bigger whoppers like the claim Kerry made on Aug. 30, 2013, no fewer than 35 times, that "we know" the government of Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical incidents near Damascus nine days before.
On September 3, 2013 – following your decision to call off the attack on Syria in order to await Congressional authorization – Kerry was still pushing for an attack in testimony before a thoroughly sympathetic Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. On the following day Kerry drew highly unusual personal criticism from President Putin, who said: "He is lying, and he knows he is lying. It is sad."
Equally serious, during the first week of September 2013, as you and President Vladimir Putin were putting the final touches to the deal whereby Syrian chemical weapons would be given up for destruction, John Kerry said something that puzzles us to this day. On September 9, 2013, Kerry was in London, still promoting a U.S. attack on Syria for having crossed the "Red Line" you had set against Syria's using chemical weapons.
At a formal press conference, Kerry abruptly dismissed the possibility that Bashar al-Assad would ever give up his chemical weapons, saying, "He isn't about to do that; it can't be done." Just a few hours later, the Russians and Syrians announced Syria's agreement to do precisely what Kerry had ruled out as impossible. You sent him back to Geneva to sign the agreement, and it was formally concluded on September 14.
Regarding the Malaysia Airlines shoot-down of July 17, we believe Kerry has typically rushed to judgment and that his incredible record for credibility poses a huge disadvantage in the diplomatic and propaganda maneuvering vis-a-vis Russia. We suggest you call a halt to this misbegotten "public diplomacy" offensive. If, however, you decide to press on anyway, we suggest you try to find a less tarnished statesman or woman.
A Choice Between Two
If the intelligence on the shoot-down is as weak as it appears judging from the fuzzy scraps that have been released, we strongly suggest you call off the propaganda war and await the findings of those charged with investigating the shoot-down. If, on the other hand, your administration has more concrete, probative intelligence, we strongly suggest that you consider approving it for release, even if there may be some risk of damage to "sources and methods." Too often this consideration is used to prevent information from entering the public domain where, as in this case, it belongs.
There have been critical junctures in the past in which presidents have recognized the need to waive secrecy in order to show what one might call "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind" or even to justify military action.
As senior CIA veteran Milton Bearden has put it, there are occasions when more damage is done to U.S. national security by "protecting" sources and methods than by revealing them. For instance, Bearden noted that Ronald Reagan exposed a sensitive intelligence source in showing a skeptical world the reason for the U.S. attack on Libya in retaliation for the April 5, 1986 bombing at the La Belle Disco in West Berlin. That bombing killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman, and injured over 200 people, including 79 U.S. servicemen.
Intercepted messages between Tripoli and agents in Europe made it clear that Libya was behind the attack. Here's an excerpt: "At 1:30 in the morning one of the acts was carried out with success, without leaving a trace behind."
Ten days after the bombing the U.S. retaliated, sending over 60 Air Force fighters to strike the Libyan capital of Tripoli and the city of Benghazi. The operation was widely seen as an attempt to kill Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who survived, but his adopted 15-month-old daughter was killed in the bombing, along with at least 15 other civilians.
Three decades ago, there was more shame attached to the killing of children. As world abhorrence grew after the U.S. bombing strikes, the Reagan administration produced the intercepted, decoded message sent by the Libyan Peoples Bureau in East Berlin acknowledging the "success" of the attack on the disco, and adding the ironically inaccurate boast "without leaving a trace behind."
The Reagan administration made the decision to give up a highly sensitive intelligence source, its ability to intercept and decipher Libyan communications. But once the rest of the world absorbed this evidence, international grumbling subsided and many considered the retaliation against Tripoli justified.
If You've Got the Goods…
If the U.S. has more convincing evidence than what has so far been adduced concerning responsibility for shooting down Flight 17, we believe it would be best to find a way to make that intelligence public – even at the risk of compromising "sources and methods." Moreover, we suggest you instruct your subordinates not to cheapen U.S. credibility by releasing key information via social medialike Twitter and Facebook.
The reputation of the messenger for credibility is also key in this area of "public diplomacy." As is by now clear to you, in our view Secretary Kerry is more liability than asset in this regard. Similarly, with regard to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, his March 12, 2013 Congressional testimony under oath to what he later admitted were "clearly erroneous" things regarding NSA collection should disqualify him. Clapper should be kept at far remove from the Flight 17 affair.
What is needed, if you've got the goods, is an Interagency Intelligence Assessment – the genre used in the past to lay out the intelligence. We are hearing indirectly from some of our former colleagues that what Secretary Kerry is peddling does not square with the real intelligence. Such was the case late last August, when Kerry created a unique vehicle he called a "Government (not Intelligence) Assessment" blaming, with no verifiable evidence, Bashar al-Assad for the chemical attacks near Damascus, as honest intelligence analysts refused to go along and, instead, held their noses.
We believe you need to seek out honest intelligence analysts now and hear them out. Then, you may be persuaded to take steps to curb the risk that relations with Russia might escalate from "Cold War II" into an armed confrontation. In all candor, we see little reason to believe that Secretary Kerry and your other advisers appreciate the enormity of that danger.
In our most recent (May 4) memorandum to you, Mr. President, we cautioned that if the U.S. wished "to stop a bloody civil war between east and west Ukraine and avert Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine, you may be able to do so before the violence hurtles completely out of control." On July 17, you joined the top leaders of Germany, France, and Russia in calling for a ceasefire. Most informed observers believe you have it in your power to get Ukrainian leaders to agree. The longer Kiev continues its offensive against separatists in eastern Ukraine, the more such U.S. statements appear hypocritical.
We reiterate our recommendations of May 4, that you remove the seeds of this confrontation by publicly disavowing any wish to incorporate Ukraine into NATO and that you make it clear that you are prepared to meet personally with Russian President Putin without delay to discuss ways to defuse the crisis and recognize the legitimate interests of the various parties. The suggestion of an early summit got extraordinary resonance in controlled and independent Russian media. Not so in "mainstream" media in the U.S. Nor did we hear back from you.
The courtesy of a reply is requested.
Prepared by VIPS Steering Group
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Larry Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)
Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret)
Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret); Foreign Service Officer (ret.)
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Aug 01, 2014 | Asia Times Online
The post-Cold War status quo in Eastern Europe, not to mention in Western Europe, is now dead.
For Western plutocracy, that 0.00001% at the top, the real Masters of the Universe, Russia is the ultimate prize; an immense treasure of natural resources, forests, pristine water, minerals, oil and gas. Enough to drive any NSA-to-CIA Orwellian/Panopticon war game to ecstasy. How to pounce and profit from such a formidable loot?
Enter Globocop NATO. Barely out of having its collective behind unceremoniously kicked by a bunch of mountain warriors with Kalashnikovs, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is now fast "pivoting" - that same old Mackinder to Brzezinski game - to Russia. The road map will be put in place at the group's summit in early September in Wales.
Meanwhile, the MH17 tragedy is undergoing a fast metamorphosis. When the on-site observations by this Canadian OSCE monitor (watch the video carefully) are compounded with this analysis by a German pilot, a strong probability points to a Ukrainian Su-25's 30 mm auto-cannon firing at the cockpit of MH17, leading to massive decompression and the crash.
No missile - not even an air-to-air R-60M, not to mention a BUK (the star of the initial, frenetic American spin). The new possible narrative fits with on-site testimony by eyewitness in this now famously "disappeared" BBC report. Bottom line: MH17 configured as a false flag, planned by the US and botched by Kiev. One can barely imagine the tectonic geopolitical repercussions were the false flag to be fully exposed.
Malaysia has handed out the flight recorders to the UK; this means NATO, and this spells out manipulation by the CIA. Air Algerie AH5017 went down after MH17. The analysis has already been released. That begs the question of why it is taking so long for MH17's black boxes to be analyzed/tampered with.
Then there's the sanctions game: Russia remains guilty - with no evidence - thus it must be punished. The EU abjectly followed His Master's Voice and adopted all the hardcore sanctions against Russia they were discussing last week.
Yet there are loopholes. Moscow will have reduced access to US dollar and euro markets. Russian state-owned banks are forbidden from selling shares or bonds in the West. Yet Sberbank, Russia's largest, has not been sanctioned.
So Russia in the short and medium term will have to finance itself. Well, Chinese banks could easily replace that kind of lending. Don't forget the Russia-China strategic partnership. As if Moscow needed another warning that the only way to go is to increasingly bypass the US dollar system.
EU nations will suffer. Big time. BP has a 20% stake in Rosneft, and it's already freaking out on the record. ExxonMobil, Norway's Statoil and Shell will also be affected. Sanctions don't touch the gas industry; now that would have propelled the EU's counterproductive stupidity to galactic levels. Poland - hysterically blaming Moscow for everything under the sun - gets more than 80% of its gas from Russia. The no less strident Baltic states, as well as Finland, get 100%.
The ban on dual-use goods - civilian and military applications - will badly affect Germany, the top EU exporter to Russia. On defense, the UK and France will suffer; the UK has no less than 200 licenses selling weapons and missile launching gear to Russia. Yet the French 1.2 billion euro (US$1.6 billion) sale of Mistral assault ships to Russia will go ahead.
Meanwhile, in the demonization front ...
This is what Associated Press spins as "analysis" and distributes to papers around the world; a collection of cliches desperately in search of a thesis. Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center, faithful to who pays his bills, gets a few things right and most things wrong. David Stockman at least has a ball deconstructing the lies of the Warfare State.
But the real thing is definitely Putin's economic adviser Sergei Glazyev. One of his key theses is that European business must be really careful to protect their interests as the US attempts to "ignite a war in Europe and a Cold War against Russia".
This, though, is the ultimate bombshell - delivered by a cool, calm and collected Glazyev. Watch it carefully. A detailed reappraisal of what Glazyev has been saying for weeks now, mixed with some outstanding comments here leads to a inevitable conclusion: key sectors of Western plutocracy want a still ill-defined war with Russia. And journalism's Holy Grail - never trust anything until it's officially denied - confirms it.
NATO's Plan A is to install missile batteries in Ukraine; that is already being discussed in detail in the run-up to NATO's summit in Wales in early September. Needless to say, if that happens, for Moscow, that's way beyond a red line; it implies a first strike capability at Russia's western borderlands.
Washington's short Plan A, meanwhile, is to organize a wedge between the federalists in Eastern Ukraine and Russia. This implies progressive, direct funding of Kiev in parallel to building up, via American advisers already on the ground, and vast weaponizing, a huge proxy army (nearly 500,000 by the end of the year, according to Glazyev's projection). Endgame on the ground would be to seal the federalists off into a very small area. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshensko has been on the record saying this should happen by early September. If not, by the end of 2014.
In the US, and a great deal of the EU, a monstrous grotesquerie has developed, packaging Putin as the new Stalinist Osama bin Laden. So far, his strategy on Ukraine was to be patient - what I called Vlad Lao Tzu - watching the Kiev gang hang themselves while trying to sit down with the EU in a civilized manner working for a political solution.
Now we may be facing a game changer, because the mounting evidence, which Glazyev and Russian intel relayed to Putin, points to Ukraine as a battlefield; a concerted drive for regime change in Moscow; a concerted drive aiming for a destabilized Russia; and even the possibility of a definitive provocation.
Moscow, allied with the BRICS, is actively working to bypass the US dollar - which is the anchor of a parallel US war economy based on printing worthless pieces of green paper. Progress is slow, but tangible; not only the BRICS but BRICS aspirants, the G-77, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the whole Global South is absolutely fed up with the Empire of Chaos's non-stop bullying and want another paradigm in international relations. The US counts on NATO - which it manipulates at will - and mad dog Israel; and perhaps the GCC, the Sunni petro-monarchies partners in the Gaza carnage, which can be bought/silenced with a slap on the wrist.
The temptation for Putin to invade Eastern Ukraine in 24 hours and reduce the Kiev militias to dust must have been super-human. Especially with the mounting cornucopia of dementia; ballistic missiles in Poland and soon Ukraine; indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Donbass; the MH17 tragedy; the hysterical Western demonization.
A bear with limited patience
But Putin is wired for playing the long game. The window of opportunity for a lightning strike is gone; that kung fu move would have stopped NATO in its tracks with a fait accompli, and the ethnic cleansing of 8 million Russians and Russophones in Donbass would never have developed.Still, Putin won't "invade" Ukraine because Russian public opinion doesn't want him to. Moscow will keep supporting what is a de facto resistance movement in the Donbass. Remember: in give or take two months, General Winter starts to set in those broke, IMF-plundered Ukrainian pastures.
The leaked German-Russian peace plan will be implemented over Washington's collective dead body. This New Great Game, to a great extent, is also about preventing Russia-EU economic integration via Germany, part of a full Eurasian integration including China and its myriad Silk Roads.
If Russia's trade with the EU - about US$410 billion in 2013 - is due to take a hit because of sanctions, then that also spells out a Go East movement. Which implies a Russian fine-tuning of the Eurasian Economic Union project. No more a Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok - Putin's original idea. Enter the Eurasian Union as a brother in arms of China's myriad Silk Roads. Still, this spells out a strong Russia-China partnership at the heart of Eurasia - and still this is absolute anathema to the Masters of the Universe.
Make no mistake, the Russia-China strategic partnership will keep evolving very fast - with Beijing in symbiosis with Moscow's immense natural and military-technological resources. Not to mention the strategic benefits. A case could be made this has not happened since Genghis Khan. But it's not like Xi Jinping is pulling a Khan to subdue Siberia and beyond.
Cold War 2.0 is now inevitable because the Empire of Chaos will never accept Russia's sphere of influence in parts of Eurasia (as it doesn't accept China's). It will never accept Russia as an equal partner (exceptionalists don't do equality). And it will never forgive Russia - alongside China - for openly defying the creaking, exceptionalist, American-imposed order.
If the US deep state, guided by those nullities who pass for leadership, in desperation, goes one step beyond - it could be a genocide in Donbass; a NATO attack on Crimea; or worst case scenario, an attack against Russia itself - watch out. The Bear will strike.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
Selected Comments (from To Sin By Silence: The Juggernaut of Ukrainian State Murder Lurches Onward)
davidt, August 1, 2014 at 4:40 pm"…MH17 tragedy is undergoing a fast metamorphosis.." Must read Pepe Escobar and must view the linked videoyalensis, August 2, 2014 at 3:48 am
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-02-010814.htmlVery interesting.Al , August 2, 2014 at 5:47 am
He alleges (rather convincingly,with the photo evidence) that the MH-17 cockpit was shelled by 30 millimeter calibre machine-gun fire.
The fighter jet would have had to be at close range. If they shot up the cockpit, then explosive decompression would have followed rather quickly.Which brings us back to the original "theory" that Ukes thought they were shooting up Putin's plane.
Which contradicts the other evidence that the "cover-up" and spin were set in motion one day BEFORE the shoot-down, i.e., on July 16. And around and around in circles..UNLESS:
These contradictions could be reconciled if the CIA somehow had advance knowledge of Putin's flight, so the Ukes were just waiting for it to happen, and had their little plan in place. Ukes would have thought, "What a clever fellow am I" if they could succeed in shooting down Putin while simultaneously blaming it on a rebel BUK. Oh, the exquisite irony of Rebels shooting down their own beloved Leader!
That would have been quite the political and propaganda coup! Banderites would have dancing in the streets in an orgy of glee.
Except, as always…The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley,…
Or, as Hercules Poirot was known to say, "There is no such thing as a perfect crime."Which brings us back to the original "theory" that Ukes thought they were shooting up Putin's plane.Al , August 2, 2014 at 7:19 amThe only way an Su-25 pilot could mistake a Boeing 777 (two engines good), with Putin's Il-96-300PU** (four engines bad, obviously) at all, let alone at such close range and altitude would be if the pilot was dead or blind drunk and his aircraft was being remote controlled by someone else.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_presidential_aircraft
I still think that in all probability it was an accident. But, I no longer rate it as most likely by the rebels. The most plausible theory so far I have seen and I will extrapolate a bit on my own is that: Kiev was fearful of Russian airstrikes in direct support of the rebels and sent their BUK ADF units east, just in case (as militaries usually do). The Su-25s in the air were for calibration/practice for the BUK crews so that they would get it right when and if there were Russian airstrikes. One of the BUK operators launched the missile by accident, but as in any simulation, whomever was in command of the exercise and his subordinates, it was their responsibility to make sure that there was a physical disconnect between the simulation and any ability to launch the missile/s.
A Su-25s 30mm canon strike on the cockpit seems to me far fetched because it is operating at close to its envelope (known as 'coffin corner') and would require extraordinary pilot skill (Mig & Sukhoi fighters have a laser synced to the cannon which then fires automatically when it has a high guarantee of a hit), the Su-25 is a strike aircraft with no radar (unless, as I think Mark pointed out, the Kopyo (sp?) bolt on one) and probably only a laser for guiding bombs to the ground. Sure, Ukranian Su-25s have been modernized but with what exactly and whether this was one of them is still open to question.
What is for sure is that the behavior of the US making almost categorical claims and just not backing it up is deeply suspicious, verging on incompetent. Much worse is the outright lying by Kiev, in particular not having BUKs in the 'hood, followed by sloppy and fabricated 'evidence'.
Most of the time, the most simple explanation is correct, just like in crime, which is in most cases done by someone know to the victim, either for personal gain, hate etc.
Either the US is directly complicit in a false flag operation at worst, which would mean they would have asked the question "what are the consequences of us getting caught" and leads me to believe that they are not some sort of failed evil geniuses, or, and far more plausible, that they are behaving the same way as they did back in 1990 (April Glaspie* was asked by Saddam if the US would have a problem sorting out Kuwait over their little oilfield/money back dispute) and occasions between including Georgia in2008 where Sukkashvili thought the US had his back in taking South Ossetia by offensive force), i.e. the US in their usual diplomatic way of ensuring plausible denyability, let their junk yard dogs to believe that they had 100% backing.
It is undeniable that the US is deeply involved with Kiev in trying to spin Kiev's problems away and providing military assistance, intel etc. and probably servicing of weapons through allies who still have experience on soviet equipment (Poland for example) which is as close to getting blood on your hands as puling the trigger themselves.
No one comes out of this well at all, apart from Maybe the Malaysian Prime Minister. The whole of Europe has faffed about and is riven by division which would not have been so likely if it was, as the Americans say, 'a slam, dunk, and even the Dutch PM's behavior has gone beyond simply representing a stunned and grieving nation, to a politician who will let Kiev off the hook for any of its actions if it is possible – Kiev breaking the MH17 cease-fire zone agreement. I think that the US is using the crisis in the Ukraine as a desperate measure to try and bind Europe closer to the US, which has been drifting further away for quite some time now. The US will fail because a) it is too late & b) they've badly overplayed their hand. 'Europe' cannot afford (literally) more of this kind of help from the US. Whatever happens in the Ukraine, there is no going back.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Kuwait#Iraqi-American_relations
"..On 25 July 1990, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie asked the Iraqi high command to explain the military preparations in progress, including the massing of Iraqi troops near the border.
The American ambassador declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, "inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion" on the disagreement between Kuwait and Iraq, stating "we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts".
She also let Saddam Hussein know that the United States did not intend "to start an economic war against Iraq". These statements may have caused Saddam to believe he had received a diplomatic green light from the United States to invade Kuwait.[30][31]
According to Richard E. Rubenstein, Glaspie was later asked by British journalists why she had said that, her response was "we didn't think he would go that far" meaning invade and annex the whole country. Although no follow-up question was asked, one might assume that what the U.S. government thought in July 1990 was that Saddam Hussein was only interested in pressuring Kuwait into debt forgiveness and to lower oil production…"
I forgot to add the the Euro-atlantacist states such as Poland, UK etc. are pushing really, really hard for Sikorski to take over from Ashton as head of the EEAS (European External Action Service) instead of the Italian Foreign Minister Mogherini (I saw some polish headlines briefly yesterday), even though the European center right parties have got their man, Jean-Claude Juncker – friend of bankers, tax evaders and PM of Luxembourg for 18(?) years as new European President. It is a concerted effort by center right pro-American Europeans to capture all the major EU posts and take effective full control of Europe regardless of the recent European Parliament votes.colliemum ,They want Europe to be an adjunct of the US forever. This behavior will cause extensive damage to whatever is left of 'European' political credibility so soon after EP elections and will only intensify political infighting at the new EP. It's crazy, self-destructive stuff.
Not 18 years, five at a minimum, possibly ten – which is quite sufficient.Al ,
Meanwhile, we all hope the EU/ Brussels is shredding itself, and getting deeper in the quagmire, because the easier it'll be for us in the UK to get us out.
Yes, the Poles are still pushing for Sikorski, but this is now all in the hands of Jean-Claude Juncker. So who knows what deals will be made. A Bulgarian lady (forgotten her name, sorry) may well turn out to be the default winner – because in the EU, women are preferred, and all must get prizes!Sorry for my sloppy english colliemum! What I meant to write is that Juncker was PM of Luxembourg for 18 or so years. It is fairly stunning that such a piece of work can get the job as EuroPres whilst most of Europe is still in recession so as much as one can attack eurosceptics for being 'anti-europe', the europhiles themselves provide actual ammunition to show that their high flown ideals and promises are not actually met in fact at the highest level. I am pro-EU, but I do actually want it to work in a commonsense and pragmatic manner with most voting powers kept by nation states, only those shared where there is a significant common interest and in the name of efficiency (and saving big money).yalensis , August 2, 2014 at 7:36 amUnfortunately a lot of MEPs are just treading water until their parties can return to power back home and this is no better seen currently when the current foreign minister of Italy can simply switch to Europe. I think it sets a terrible example for responsibility and accountability to voters.
A few years ago, there was this concept of subsidiarity the devolving of as many powers and decisions to member states as possible, with Brussels, the European Court of Justice etc. being there as the guarantors of basic EU wide rights for citizens, and the ultimate destination if your own country gives you short shrift of your rights. Then the concept and idea was dropped for more centralization. In the age of the Internet where efficient decentralization is possible, this is simply nuts.
Al, your theory makes sense, but did you SEE those photos? with the bullet and shrapnel holes in the cockpit?Al ,
Theories are theories, but direct physical evidence should trump any theories, however logical they seem.BTW, I get your point about the "Putin plane" theory being far-fetched, and also in contradiction to this evidence that a jet fighter flew alongside and blasted the cockpit.
Plus, Putin himself dissed the theory and denied that his plane ever flew over Ukraine, and surely he is too smart to ever fly over that hellhole.
And you're right, that the pilot, at such close range, would see quite clearly that this was a passenger plane, and not Putin's presidential jet.Yes, I've seen the pictures and read the reports. I am just extremely weary of being shown 'evidence</i?' and being told what it is with big arrows, especially when it is something I don't know much beyond the basics.Fern , August 2, 2014 at 8:06 amYes, it looks like bullet holes, but experts will know much better and have seen far more examples, real examples and will be able to say whether it is credible or not. So far it is an airline pilot, whom I'd trust on aviation stuff, but not military damage and his bio does not mention any military experience, and other people who do not appear to have an extensive military background. If an explosive fragment BUK warhead makes such marks, then it will be proved for sure, or it will be proved not to be. I don't really see that there is much latitude in more than a small handful of possibilities. I'm just being cautious. A little bit of knowledge can be dangerous….
When the news of MH17 broke, I first thought there was a slim chance this was a rebel shoot-down but that the most likely explanation was a CIA/black ops action. I now think it's unlikely that the US was involved in planning and carrying the attack in any meaningful sense, although they might have had some knowledge that a false flag was underway. Bringing down a civilian airliner and getting away with it is hugely risky – there's so much that can't be controlled – and it seems more likely to be Ukrainian recklessness behind this rather than US/NATO. The latter's role has been to provide cover for their Ukrainian allies but since there are already substantial holes in the story, this suggests to me that there was no great planning beforehand.colliemum ,When MH17 was downed, the US was desperate to get out in front of the story in order to control and shape the narrative. In its rush to do so, however, officials made a number of statements such as the slam-dunk evidence they had of where the missile was fired from that have boxed them into a corner. Covering Kiev's back was also hampered by the US not knowing for sure what information other intelligence services, specifically the Russians, had. The Russian satellite and radar evidence is difficult to dispute, particularly that the US had some sort of experimental satellite 'looking at' the area where MH17 was attacked which is why no MSM outlet has gone near it. Clearly, data from the black boxes isn't supporting the official story which is why there's been a complete silence on that front as well. Similarly, Ukraine/US/NATO have no idea who else may have a record of the conversation between Kiev's ATC and MH17 which makes any publicising of a doctored tape very problematic. Can anything this flaky survive a serious international air accident investigation? I don't think it can – the relatives and friends of those who died are still in shock. But that phase will pass and when it does, I don't think it will be easy to fob these folk off with the kind of 'evidence' we've seen in the media.
Indeed!patient observer , August 2, 2014 at 8:37 am
On the one hand, I think that Kiev thought and still thinks that NATO and the USA have their backs, so they feel free to do these things, also such as using ballistic missiles. It's become very quiet about that in the MSM, after the CNN report.On the other hand, more and more people on the comments pages everywhere ask why the black box data haven't been published, pointing out that those of the tragic flight in Mail, which was a week later, have been published. These are people who are not what certain other commenters so lovingly call 'Kremlin trolls', 'Putin lovers', or 'Putinbots', and these are comments on official MSM sites, not blogs.
"The most plausible theory so far I have seen and I will extrapolate a bit on my own is that: Kiev was fearful of Russian airstrikes in direct support of the rebels and sent their BUK ADF units east, just in case (as militaries usually do)."The Uke's would welcome an air strike by Russia as then the bait would have been taken. In fact the greater the carnage from an air strike then the greater the "crime" committed by the Russians. In other words, the Uke's are leading with their chin in hopes Russia will throw a punch. True, the punch could knock them flat on their ass but that's OK, the West now has an excuse for further escalation.
The immediate and total condemnation of Russia by MSM strongly suggests (as well as all credible evidence) that the Uke's did it and with prior approval if not ordered by the US. The media BS pump was fully primed and ready to spew and spew it did.
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July 31, 2014 | RT News
Dutch and Australian forensic teams have reached the Malaysian Airlines crash site in eastern Ukraine for the first time, accompanied by OSCE monitors, after almost a week of trying to access the scene.
Malaysia Airlines MH17 plane crash in Ukraine LIVE UPDATES
However, explosions have been heard close to the area, where the delegation is currently located according to the AFP and RIA Novosti news agencies.
There were four experts in the group, who used a new route to get to where the plane was downed. They had been trying daily to get to the crash site, but were unable to due to heavy fighting between Ukrainian troops and anti-government forces.
"The goal is to reach the spot where MH17 crashed and evaluate safety on the route from Donetsk," the Dutch team said in a statement.
Anti-government forces have repeatedly accused Kiev of blocking access to the crash site by fighting in the area.
"Ukraine continued to violate the ceasefire in the MH17 crash area, not allowing OSCE observers and experts from the Netherlands and Australia to enter the area," said Sergey Kavtaradze, an aide to anti-government leader Aleksandr Boroday.
"We hope the Ukrainians will adhere to the decisions of the UN and allow observers and experts to reach the crash site and facilitate the security of the place," he said.
On July 29, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said his government was ready for a ceasefire at the MH17 crash site, after repeated calls from Russia. Kiev continued its military offensive even after the UNSC urged a halt to fighting in the area last week.
The UNSC demanded that Kiev set up a no-fighting zone in the area of the MH17 crash site, in accordance with its resolution of July 21. Instead, Kiev beefed up its military forces in the region, starting an offensive in the area of the crash.
Poroshenko announced a unilateral ceasefire within a 20-kilometer radius of the MH17 crash site in a telephone conversation with the prime ministers of Netherlands and Australia, according to his press service.
The first bodies were delivered to the Netherlands on July 23, while 16 bodies of the 298 who perished are yet to be found.
The black box recorders were handed over by Boroday to the Dutch, who are leading the investigation, early in the morning of July 22. They were then handed over to experts at Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, who began sifting through the data from the downed Boeing 777.
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Jul 31, 2014 | The Guardian
Police and forensic experts from the Netherlands and Australia are expected to focus initially on retrieving bodies still on the site and collecting victims' belongings.
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Russian specialists also hope to visit the crash site to take part in the investigation. Sergei Izvolsky, of Rosaviatsiya, Russia's federal air transport agency, told the Associated Press that a delegation was due to arrive in Kiev.
Izvolsky said the experts would attempt to reach the crash site if it was safe to do so and would hand over all relevant materials they found to the Dutch delegation. Representatives of the Dutch and Ukrainian commissions would not comment on the arrival of Russian officials.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine had until now prevented a team of more than 50 international experts from reaching the crash site of MH17, which was shot down over rebel-held territory two weeks ago. All 298 people on board died.
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Ronald Thomas West, July 30, 2014 at 5:36 pm"if not for having actually shot down the aircraft themselves, perhaps even deliberately in one of the most cold-blooded and grotesque false-flag operations in history"marknesop, July 30, 2014 at 7:11 pmThe evidence is growing, it turns out Kiev's Sukoi 25 fleet had undergone an upgrade that allows for attaining 10,000 meters armed with air to air missiles:
http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/07/19/black-boxes-dark-arts-geopolitics/
^ updated. Why a ground attack combat jet at the limit of its altitude, rather than the SU 27 air to air combat jet? Plausible denial is part of the dark arts in geopolitical craft. It's probably why Flight MH 17 was ordered to drop altitude a few hundred feet, to just above closed airspace.
Insofar as Human Rights Watch, these type organizations have undergone penetration by intelligence agencies for a very long time. Francis Boyle was first (I am aware of) to point this out concerning Amnesty International in the early 1990s. The method is, work the cases that cannot otherwise be denied, simple as that.
Trouble is, the SU-25 uses the AA-8 Air-to-Air Missile, and the whole missile only weighs 96 lb. The warhead is a pitiful 6.6 lb. I highly doubt it could take down an airliner, and 5 km is right on the ragged edge of its maximum range. Another drawback, it's an IR homer, and would have gone for the engines and left characteristic damage for an air-to-air missile. That German chap I mentioned believed it was the SU-25, but that it had attacked with the 30mm nose gun, and that is plausible but it would have had to close to point-blank range and there's no evidence it ever got closer than 3 km.Ronald Thomas West, July 30, 2014 at 8:22 pmHere's a thought, though. All the Russian observers have to go on is the unique identifier being squawked by the aircraft, from which they determined it was an SU-25. What if it wasn't? What if they swapped out the IFF set from an SU-25 and put it in an SU-27? Or, easier yet, simply transmitted the identifier of an SU-25?
That would put somewhat of a different face on it. The SU-27 can carry the much beefier AA-10, weighing in at an impressive 558 lbs, 86 lb of which is warhead, and that can be blast/frag or continuous rod. The pattern, on long-distance observation from Russian analysts (since no Russians are allowed to formally have anything to do with the investigation, owing to the risk that they might stuff a 200-lb piece of fuselage down their pants and replace it with a fake piece that blames Ukraine – they just can't help themselves, and would be naturally compelled to "tamper with evidence") is assessed to be characteristic of blast/frag. The AA-10A and AA-10C are semiactive homing missiles which would strike center mass based on RCS return, and so would not necessarily hit the engines, and if they did so they would still not detonate on impact, but by proximity fuse. The F variant is an anti-radiation missile which can home on an aircraft's radar transmissions. All variants have a much more generous range capability than the relatively puny AA-8.
Just something to think about. So much has been invested in the BUK theory that it is clear whoever is behind it will lie to whatever degree is necessary to maintain the deception, and for such an identity, falsifying the unique identifier of an aircraft type would be a small matter. If it actually was an AA-10 there is a small risk the Russians would intercept the homing signal, but an acceptable risk as it would be radiating a narrow beam directly at the aircraft, and the signal would be of very short duration. Both missiles arm almost immediately and are designed to be usable at very short ranges.
Almost every theory has a hole in it. The BUK theory is compromised by the lack of a propellant trail, which should have been observable for miles, especially on a clear day. The Russians say they intercepted the signal from the BUK main acquisition radar at about the right time for it to have been used against the aircraft, and if that is actually true but there was really no BUK launched, it implies a degree of malice aforethought that is chilling. The nose-gun theory has a hole in it because although the gun would do the job, the SU-25 would have to be much closer, and I would not trust that method to kill the aircraft so quickly that nobody could yell a warning that would show up on the cockpit voice recorder.
But the main hole in the SU-27 theory is that the Russians are confident it was an SU-25, while the Ukrainians say none of their aircraft were even up. The Russians are basing their assessment on the unique identifier code which said it was an SU-25, which likely could not have shot down the plane.
As for the malice aforethought, Langley has a lab (more like an entire department actually) dedicated to modifications and inventions that could be addressed by that name (malice aforethought.) That's likely also true of the SBU. I expect an SU 25-M1 (upgraded) model could have easily done the job with a bit of TLC, so to speak… the Buk looks almost entirely like a ruse. A SU 25, if convincingly demonstrated in the air, likely would lead people (valuable in any case of a false flag) to doubt its capability (I don't, after reading up on the upgrade and knowing what spy agencies are capable of)kirill says: , July 30, 2014 at 8:23 pmI think the most likely explanation is a Buk 9M38 missile hit. But it could not have originated in Snezhnoye. The total path to the intercept point would be about 30 km (over 26 km horizontally and the flight path does not follow a hypotenuse up to 11 km). and it has to fight gravity to hit the target at 11 km. The maximal range I have seen quoted for the 9M38 is 35 km for targets at 3 km altitude. As with a shell, for targets at these altitudes it can use the built up gravitational potential energy to extract additional kinetic energy and range. For a target at 11 km it cannot take advantage of the "fall back to earth" effect as much.Ronald Thomas West, July 30, 2014 at 8:55 pmIf there was a false flag, then using an AA missile does not make sense. The rebels have none. A Buk missile is consistent with the available evidence and any frame up attempt. The usage of this shootdown to vilify Putin proves there was a false flag. The media propaganda orifice was used to full effect. Before the shootdown there was nothing to scream about since dying civilians in the Donbas are not newsworthy.
Kiev has admitted (probably because the candy king is not all that smart) the offensive in the area is to gain control of the crash site. Prior to this, OSCE people on the ground had stated the 'rebels' were cooperating with access. If it was a Buk, there would be no compelling necessity to gain control of the debris field by Kiev because evidence would be consistent with their cover story. If it was air to air missile, there would be motive to get control of the evidence. Just one more bit of circumstantial evidence.cartman, July 30, 2014 at 9:08 pmDon't they have 1 more day to accomplish this?Moscow Exile, July 30, 2014 at 9:16 pmRonald Thomas West , July 31, 2014 at 3:53 amSo they say: officially bankrupt tomorrow, August 1st 2014, because that's when hostilities will have to end in order for them to receive the dough off the free world donated to them by lovers of democracy so that the Ukies may be rescued from the Orcs' thrall and, therefore, be able to enjoy all the good things in life such as the pursuit of happiness, freedom of expression, doing your own thing, going to Disneyland, seeing the world, working as a whore in Hamburg or a dishwasher in Paris etc., etc….
Perhaps not exactly a case of 'the mouse that roared' but close enough from the perspective of plague infected rats who are too stupid to understand they are stupid (don't understand the extent to which they are being used.) 'Just saying' is the expression ;)Al , July 31, 2014 at 2:42 amThe big hole in the Su-27 as a Su-25 is something you mentioned already vis the AA-10 Alamo, namely RCS. The RCS & specific radar signature of a Su-27 is gigantic with its huge fins, air intakes etc. Sure, there are ways to fake RCS & signature, normally done by decoys used to mop up IADS missiles (used in Iraq, Balkans, Libya etc.) but the decoys have much smaller natural RCS which makes it easy to fake the RCS & signature of a larger aircraft. It would be much harder to reduce the RCS & signature of a larger aircraft to make it look like another, something the Ukraine certainly couldn't do by itself, but the US could, which leads to other conclusions…ThatJ, July 30, 2014 at 6:21 pmIt's easy not to see the woods for the trees. Even with an AA-10 with the ability to hit specific parts of an airplane, a) B-777 is big and fairly tough, b) a larger missile means more chance of finding parts of it in the wreckage. OTOH The only way this would not be too relevant, is if the
West jumped to a quick conclusion as a means to short-circuit any inquiry and the crash site is compromised and cleaned, which funnily enough is exactly what is happening.The US bashes Russia for allowing fighters cross the border to Ukraine. Russia, the US says, is not taking care of its borders, which is an implicit way of saying that Russia wants this development to continue.kirill , July 30, 2014 at 6:41 pmSo you have the US dictating what a proper Russian border security must be, which is pretty funny considering the realities on the American southern border. Russia has a powerful stick to beat Uncle Sam with:
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2014/07/immigration-gets-on-the-public-radar/Yet Russia is not aggressive in its replies. It's very timid, actually. It never seizes an opportunity to bash America, preferring instead to reply to threats and accusations but never raise them first.
There are Swedes, Poles and Finns fighting for the Kiev regime. Perhaps the EU should control its borders better.cartman , July 30, 2014 at 9:09 pmRemember all the Ukrainians who fought for Khattab…Al , July 31, 2014 at 2:53 amStrange things are afoot at the CircleK.Southerncross, July 31, 2014 at 3:10 ama) We have EU citizens going to Syria and elsewhere to join the jihad who will come back as fully trained terrorists;
b) We have Western neo-nazis/fascist going to fight in the Ukraine (like they did in Croazia & Boznia) who will return home trained and more likely be willing to protect traditional values;
which leads me to point c)
If a) becomes a real threat, then it is likely b) will be recruited by western intelligence services to mop up a) but outside of official channels (human rights is a PITA for security services), then b) will have an elevated position and influence within right wing political movements back home (and possibly paramilitary, i.e. a freikorps) that could represent a more serious threat to the traditional political systems back home.
The potential for it all to go Pete Tong is all there and all the major elements will be in place, the rest left to known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
Oh, what a tangle web 'we' weave!
Wouldn't be so sure. In Bosnia NATO pretty clearly indicated its preference for Jihadi cutthroats over the Ustasha variety. Franjo Tudjman might have wound up sharing a cell with Milosevic if he had lived a little longer.ucgsblog, July 30, 2014 at 6:55 pmSeems to me that both parties are doing everything they can to avoid working out a deal on illegal immigration. Impeachment, Obamacare, Ukraine, you name it, they'd rather discuss that than illegal immigration. Unfortunately for them, if it bleeds, it leads, and boy oh boy is illegal immigration bleeding. Quite literally: http://www.limitstogrowth.org/articles/2014/07/17/stockton-norteno-gangsters-rob-bank-and-kill-hostage/kirill, July 30, 2014 at 8:51 pmAs for Ukraine, it's amazing how Obama's Administration is just giving Poroshenko a free pass on everything. They're living in the Cold War mentality, and yet Obama doesn't believe that a Cold War's going on; not even Bush was that deluded. The last president to have such phenomenal delusions was Jimmy Carter and his actions harmed America's middle class more than any other president's, since Hoover's ineptitude, on a per year basis.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/official-over-360-soldiers-killed-in-east-ukraine-since-start-of-operation-358695.htmlMoscow Exile, July 30, 2014 at 9:24 pmAccording to the regime it has lost 363 dead and 1434 wounded since mid-April and the start of the "ATO". That is an average of 3.5 KIA and 13.7 wounded per day. Total nonsense. The 72nd and 79th brigade losses alone are more than this.
I think that multiplying these regime numbers by a factor of 10 gives a much more accurate picture of the situation. 35 KIA per day (with more in the last several weeks including the cauldron formation and failed drives to encircle and cut off the rebels and less initially) is closer to the mark. combined losses of about 17000 troops would explain the weak performance of the regime forces and the need for a mobilization drive. Mobilizing green civilian recruits implies that experienced fighters who would be much more useful are being lost too fast. It could also mean some sort of Chinese style onslaught with massive numbers but that is less likely.
We have a conventional war in the Donbass. It differs from WWII due to its regional scale and the lack of massive industrial inputs. But as long as the equipment is available the intensity is there.
Based on the nature of this warfare, I do not buy the 1129 civilians dead estimate of the UN. The regime is openly targeting civilians. We hear about deaths in Donetsk and Lugansk but we do not have total coverage of every village and town. We do not have Dresden and Leningrad type events but 11 civilian deaths per day is too small (it is actually only the part we hear about from my "feeling" after following the rusvesna and viocesvas coverage for weeks). Out of sight, out of mind for Washington's stooges at the UN.As linked above: Завершение июльской активности, from Cassad and kindly translated by Gleb Bazov in Saker:ThatJ, July 30, 2014 at 9:42 pmThe Ignominious Conclusion of the Kiev Junta's July Offensive, July 30, 2014
By the way, the Saker has requested that any with language skills volunteer their services for translation and proofreading. They've got Russian, German, French and native English speaker teams now. It's somewhat chaotic at present, but they're trying hard to spread the word
… [H]owever, more serious variants of rightism have their own flaws. In many ways the myopic nationalism of many "extreme right" movements is used by the internationalists to turn nations against each other, and use the resulting chaos to support western invention in some form, ranging from financial restructuring to full scale military enforced nation building. Today we see troops from the Ukrainian Social National Assembly dying for a pro-EU liberal junta that stands for the exact opposite of their national vision, simply to spite the Russians, all the while cheered on by US Secretary of State John Kerry and French Jewish liberal Bernard-Henri Lévy.Ali Cat, July 30, 2014 at 11:08 pmMoreover, liberals use the petty racial and religious bigotries of nationalists to justify their agenda in the name of combating the Islamification of Europe. Hence we see "right wingers" supporting feminism and Zionism in the Netherlands. I do not mean to mitigate the crimes committed against the native populations of Europe by Islamic immigrants, however the root of the problem is the mass immigration and free market policies of the Europeans. It is puerile to rail against the veil, while ignoring western treason and decadence. The root causes of mass Islamic immigration are ignored and their supporters are freed from culpability. The western liberal class manages to deflect criticism onto some distant amorphous threat of "Islam" while at the same time funding Wahhabi fundamentalist Saudi Arabia and demonizing the relatively moderate, but anti-Zionist, anti-liberal nation of Iran. In many regards the threat of fundamentalist Islam in modern times is entirely a product of English and later US support for the House of Saud. Indeed, the US had no qualms about siding with mujahedin in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Syria.
Conflict between nationalists and tradition oriented peoples of different nations is a serious manifestation of the futile and petty inter-tribal bickering which only strengthens the hand of the international liberalism. They have played off religious, ethnic, and national groups against each other since the First World War. It should be known to all Americans that the Nye Committee determined American involvement in First World War was motivated by the greed of banking and military manufacturing sectors.
The rootless forces of avarice have played empire against empire, faith against faith, people against people time and time again. Into the wreckage caused by these petty national conflicts step the forces of international finance, alien in nation, race, and religion, promising to rebuild the nation with loans from the IMF and the EU, the collateral of which is the real value of the nation. In the end the final result of these national conflicts is the dominance of internationalist foreign powers. The blindness of the petty nationalists prevents them from seeing that they are merely canon fodder for the colonial agenda of the liberal bloc.
Well this is really interesting and I begin to wonder that this isnt about ethnic hatred, but sadly its all about money, as usual.My dad was right when he told me that there most be a reason why Israel does what it does to the palestinians, and the reason is always money or resources.
This world is a pile of shit, and if there is a God, although Im begining to wonder that there is non, when does does people will get justice.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2014/01/russia-palestine-offshore-gas-field-gaza.html#
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a norwegian down under, July 30, 2014 at 7:38 amFile it under double standards or desperate last actions:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8703041/Col-Gaddafi-fires-scud-missile-at-rebel-territory-as-Nato-braces-itself-for-final-violent-showdown.htmlAn interesting passage regarding firing of scud missiles:
"That it didn't hit anything or kill anyone is not the point. It's a weapon of mass destruction that Col Gaddafi is willing to train on his own people,"
said one Western official.
colliemum, July 30, 2014 at 8:19 am
The hypocrisy is stinking more every day!
That's why I hope that Mr Putin will use the 'Libya Option', of which Mr Glaz'ev spoke last month. After ll if Gaddafi needed to be punished by NATO for that, then surely Russia can punish Kiev in a like manner, no?
yalensis, July 30, 2014 at 3:13 pm
And once again, all in unison this time
"Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi."
colliemum, July 31, 2014 at 12:42 am
Yes indeed!
Them Old Romans did certainly have a way with words: pithy and to the point, like : Si vis pacem para bellum …
Moscow Exile, July 31, 2014 at 1:03 am
Such as:
VENIMUS, VIDIMUS, ET MORTUUS EST
as quoth the great classics scholar Killery Hilton.
patient observer, July 30, 2014 at 8:11 am
Frogs shot down (or whatever)? S-400 pluck frogs out of the sky? Could it be? Check Saker, it would be stunning if true.
Al, July 30, 2014 at 8:58 am
I hope not as S-400s (preferably old S-300s) are the current air defense standard and available for export in their dumbed down version, their use would certainly help NATO who has SIGINT assets swarming over that area. with the S-500 is either going through trials or has just been accepted and is strictly not for export and won't be for quite a while.
patient observer, July 30, 2014 at 11:26 am
S-300s would be nice and it would be impressive to take out four relatively modern missiles at such distances in a war time situation. I recall how the Patriot missiles in the first Gulf war had a terrible interception rate of Scuds (despite the initial hoopla).
But the big news would be that Russia has created a no-fly (or no ballistic missile) zone over eastern Ukraine. Again, if its true, they were no cowered into non-use of their anti-air systems over the shoot-down of MH17. What next?
I think Russia has drawn a line in the sand (again if the news is accurate).
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July 29, 2014 | Russia Beyond The Headlines
Chief of the Russian Land Forces' tactical air defense troops Maj. Gen. Mikhail Krush said he doubts that the Malaysian passenger liner was brought down by a Buk surface-to-air missile system. "No one observed a Buk engaging targets in that region on that day, which provides 95 percent proof that Buk systems were not used in this concrete case," the general said in an interview with the Voyenno-Promyshlenny Kuryer military weekly to be published on Wednesday. "This is no more than a theory for now. However, a guided missile launched by a Buk missile system leaves behind a specific smoke trail as it flies, like a comet. In daylight this trail can be clearly seen within a radius of 20-25 kilometers from the missile system. It cannot remain unnoticed. There are no eyewitnesses to confirm there was any. No one reported a launch. This is one thing," he said. "Second. The holes left by the strike elements on the Boeing's outer skin indicate that the warhead blew up from below and sideways. A Buk missile strikes the target from above," he said. "The damage done to the plane suggests that a different missile was used. Our guidance method is a zoom, when the missile strikes the target from above covering it with a thick cloud of fragments" the general said. "I cannot state categorically, guided by this data, but I can suggest, using my experience, that it was not a Buk missile that hit the Boeing," the expert said. The downing of flight MH17: What ordinary Russians think Asked what was inside of the warhead - cubic or spherical shape charge, Krush said, "neither cubic nor spherical, but something bar-shaped. An expert will identify whether the target was hit by a Buk at first glance examining the traces it leaves. A Buk missile leaves no large holes and does not tear the plane's outer skin the way we could see on television," he said. The general said that a concrete answer to the puzzle over who shot down the Boeing could be given after experts in surface-to-air guided missiles examine the scene. He said at the same time that the emergence of Ukraine's 156th surface-to-air missile regiment near Donetsk was not accidental. "I think - again, this is just a theory - that this regiment's deployment near Donetsk was part of a special operation, devised by the Ukrainian side. If this regiment had not been there, only one aspect of the Boeing's destruction would have been considered - an air strike, which could only have been launched by the Ukrainian air force. There are no other aircraft in this region. Therefore, the theory proposed from the start was that the plane was shot down by a Buk missile launched by the militia. Who could have helped them in that case? Russia. Who is to blame? That simple!" Krush said.
Source: Russia Beyond the Headlines - http://rbth.com/news/2014/07/29/boeings_downing_by_buk_missile_system_unlikely_-_military_expert_38607.html)
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Al , July 31, 2014 at 4:38 amA quick rant about the BBC.Their current reports (on BBC World Nudes) around the MH-17 crash site studious refuse to mention that it was a Ukrainian army military offensive that broke the agreement to keep fighting out of a 40km zone. It's funny that when the Pork Pie Nedia Network (PPNN) wants to not upset the favored side, they suddenly become extremely careful in their reporting to the point that they actively excise relevant facts from the story.
While I'm here, following the Dutchie story, PM Rutte is stil slamming the Russians as if they were responsible for the Uke army attack closing in in MH17. Reading between the lines of his call with Porkoshenko, he clearly was not best please, but that now seems to be water under the bridge… for the sake of European 'Unity'? There are political risks here involved for the Dutch political class too, it just might take some time to filter through.
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30/07/2014 | valdaiclub.com
Immanuel Wallerstein refers here to two major articles, one an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, and the other, a major story in Germany's Der Spiegel. Both share a common theme: The German-American Breakup. Both, Wallerstein writes, are pessimistic that the unprecedented breach can be swiftly, if ever, repaired. The Der Spiegel piece, published on the same day, has as its headline: Germany's Choice: Will It Be America or Russia? One section of this latter article is entitled The Last Straw.
The 'last straw' of course refers to Germany's inability to shake itself free of America's Deep State: in this case its security Deep State. (Susan Rice peremptorily told German officials that America would not even extend any "no-spying" guarantee - beyond that of Merkel herself.) As Professor Hendrickson has noted "[the spying saga] showed [to Germans] that the U.S. national security apparatus is no less voracious than the Stasi in seeking to penetrate the deeper recesses of the human soul. It wants it all; worse, it thinks that 'wanting it all' is perfectly normal".
The spying episode however is merely the tip of a much bigger iceberg (for Germans). The iceberg itself is that the post-war dispensation of America's insertion into Europe via NATO - effectively took (and still takes) - security issues off the table for the European Union. EU security policy, in effect, is NATO policy: which is to say US policy.
It might seem that for the EU there is simply no alternative: the EU could never – with its 28 member states, and its East European neo-liberal implant – come up with an alternative security structure, absent the United States. But an alternative is there (although it is not one to be said aloud in front of the children): "If it had no other alternative, Germany could close its eyes, tap its slippers three times, and reconstitute the old European Concert [of powers] in short order, with nary an American soldier or airman in sight", Hendrickson argues. Its central axis of Europe would be less that of France and Germany, but more Russia and Germany (especially given the UK's present schizophrenia about its future political orientation, and France's political debilitation).What has this to do with MH17 and Ukraine? Well … quite a lot: after noting the articles seeing a German-US 'break-up' to be a major issue, Wallerstein writes that:
"The basic problem is that the United States is, and has been for some time, in geopolitical decline. It doesn't like this. It doesn't really accept this. It surely doesn't know how to handle it, that is, minimize the losses to the United States. So it keeps trying to restore what is unrestorable – U.S. "leadership" (read: hegemony) in the world-system. This makes the United States a very dangerous actor. No small number of political agents in the United States is calling for some sort of decisive "action" – whatever that could possibly mean. And U.S. elections may depend in large part on how U.S. political actors play this game.
That is what Europeans in general, and now Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in particular, are realizing. The United States has become a very unreliable 'partner'. So even those in Germany and elsewhere in Europe who are nostalgic for the warm embrace of the "free world" are reluctantly joining the less nostalgic others in deciding how they can survive geopolitically without the United States. And this is pushing them into the logical alternative, a European tent that includes Russia".
As the Germans and the Europeans in general, move inexorably in this direction, they have their hesitations. If they can no longer trust the United States, could they really trust Russia? And, more importantly, could they make a deal with the Russians that the Russians would find it worthwhile and necessary to observe? You can bet that this is what is being discussed in the inner circles of the German government today, and not how to repair the irreparable breach of trust with the United States."
Influential figures in America fear this prospect deeply: it has taken on the quality of being seen as an existential point of inflection that will determine America's destiny, one way or another, as a global leader. And Putin plainly understands the stakes: throughout the Ukrainian crisis, he has focused, above all, on courting European support. So when MH17 is brought down (by persons as yet unknown – see here and here), it is (as they say), seen by American politicians in terms of 'every crisis also having its opportunity'.
The stoking of emotional heart-wrench, and the western media's depicting of the militias, and by extension Putin, as barbarians inhumanly callous at the loss of the airliner and civilian life, of course, is intended precisely to close-off German options – and to leave Merkel with no option but to support 'level three' sanctions on Russia. John Kerry's rounds of US Sunday TV chat shows to hype a humanitarian 'outrage' at Putin's moral cynicism and irresponsibility sends the critical message to the German (and European) people that 'you cannot trust the morally-derelict Putin or Russia'.
Just to make it absolutely plain what this effort is all about, Zbigniew Brzezinski also took to the TV chat shows - in parallel to Kerry - challenging Europe's leaders to "stand up to Putin". He wonders if "Europe wants to become a satellite" and worries about "a moment of decisive significance for the future of the system - of the world system". (Kerry cited no hard evidence to implicate the Donbass militias or Russia in the aircraft's downing however – and much of the militia's supposed outrages were exaggerated for their emotional value: see here)
And the Wall Street Journal in a front page tap on Angela Merkel's shoulder - reminding her to vote 'yes' on the next 'Level-3' round of Russia sanctions - warned that "Deutsche Bank's giant U.S. operations suffer from a litany of serious problems, including shoddy financial reporting, inadequate auditing and oversight and weak technology systems." This 'hint' follows in the wake of the $9 billion 'fine' imposed by the US authorities on the French BNP bank, ostensibly for financing trade with Iran, but reportedly intended to punish France for refusing to cancel the Mistral contract with Russia. (Deutsche Bank is reported to have a total derivative exposure that amounts to just about $75 trillion (repeat trillion), which is about 100 times greater than the €522 billion in deposits the bank holds, or five times greater than the entire GDP of Europe.)
There are two 'realities' that flow from all this: Firstly, that Kerry's rounds of the TV studios probably have so muddied and emotionalized public perceptions that any outcome – whatever that investigative outcome might be – will not change American settled opinion. See this month's extraordinarily jaundiced cover of Newsweek for evidence of the impossibility of any subsequent objective analysis of what happened being a viable option.
Secondly, it will not have changed President Putin's Ukraine calculus (or policy). For all the stories, questioning "Can Putin Survive?", one simply has to look to recent polls for the answer: he has 83% approval ratings; whereas the US leadership enjoys the approval of just 4% of Russians: atlanticists in Russia have lost their entire constituency.
Why then, has Russia begun to offer a different official narrative on the MH17 loss, and backed it up with evidence from recordings taken off the ATC radar screens? These recordings showed that there had been a Ukrainian aircraft in close proximity to MH17 at the time of its disappearance (contrary to what Kiev claimed). The Russian military also produced satellite imagery showing the positions of Ukrainian SA11s in the locality to the site of the Boeing 777's disappearance (also contrary to what Kiev and Washington claimed). Russian officials – including the Deputy Defense Minister - however did not, in contrast to Kerry, seek to speculate on who or what had caused the airliner to crash, but rather posed ten searching questions about the circumstances of the airliner's disappearance, for which they sought answers.
In response, the US was pushed into offering an intelligence backgrounder to the press which was of a very different tone to Kerry's Sunday blitz of the talk shows: far from backing up his Sunday bluster, the briefers 'walked-back' the Secretary of State's stitched together circumstantial evidence around the repeated refrain of "we know". The briefers did not try to address the ten Russian questions, but rather US intelligence officials said they did not know who fired the missile, or whether any Russian operatives were present at the missile launch. They were not certain that the missile crew was trained in Russia, although they described a stepped-up campaign in recent weeks by Russia to arm and train the rebels, which they say has continued, even after the downing of MH17. In terms of who fired the missile, "we don't know a name, we don't know a rank and we're not even 100 percent sure of a nationality," one official said, adding at another point, "There is not going to be a Perry Mason moment here." They even said that that had been unaware of any SA-11 missiles being in the hands of the Donbass armed forces before the MH17 downing.
So what is the point of this Russian effort to get the facts out – if, inevitably, the media will rubbish them - unless they conform to fixed preconceptions? The answer is that the battle for the facts is the struggle for the confidence of the German leadership (as well as some other Europeans, including France, Italy and Austria). Russia has conveyed privately all of its evidence to Europe. Will Kerry's ploy succeed in eviscerating all German options – other than that of having to follow America's lead? Time will tell. But, if it transpires that the US is perceived as having stovepiped Europe into level-3 sanctions and to the brink of conflict with Russia on flimsy circumstantial evidence, this will weigh heavily with a German leadership that – as Wallerstein already noted – sees the US now as dangerously unguided and incoherent in its foreign policy.
European leaders would (I guess) largely agree with Peter Lee when he writes, that "sanctions [on Russia] have become and end in themselves for the United States [and that] my outsider's impression is that the US foreign policy for Russia has been pretty much captured by doctrinaire anti-Russians in a diplomatic and military deep state that pretty much permeates and survives every incoming administration". It is not surprising that Europeans ask to where will escalating sanctions take us? What is the end game? Sanctions will hollow out the significant European trade with Russia, and will leave European economies open and vulnerable to US commercial interests. That the American establishment sees sanctions as an end itself – sees 'breaking' and humiliating Putin – as an end in itself is a truly frightening prospect.
Is there a prospect that Putin will back down? How can he? The Ukraine falling entirely into hostile, anti-Russian, pro-NATO hands would be an existential threat. And why should he? In July, some parts of the federalists in Donetsk, (those aligned with the Ukrainian oligarch Akhmetov), attempted an internal coup against the Donbass militants. They had made a secret deal with Poroshenko's people, and were on the brink of yielding control over Donetsk to Kiev - when the plan was exposed and all participants purged. In parallel with this, following the retreat from the city of Slavyansk, the Donbass military forces were not only successful in breaking an attempted encirclement by the Ukrainian army, but then went on to sandwich the Ukrainian forces between the Novorossian forces and the Russian border, inflicting a major defeat on Kiev.
As a consequence of the failed Donetsk coup and the military defeat inflicted on Kiev's forces, a military and political alliance has been forming in East Ukraine, where (former Presidential candidate) Oleg Tsaryov's group is starting to play a real political role, whilst the military, led by Strelkov, lays the groundwork for the return to the idea of 'larger Novorossia' composed not just of two, but of seven to eight regions. This only became possible after the July defeats for Kiev. In short, Putin has real cards to play both militarily and politically. The Russian parliament has been recalled from holiday in order to debate an important Ukrainian new initiative (no further details given yet). We must wait and see.
Finally, does Putin's European 'play' preclude a consolidation of the alliance with China? We think not. We see the two initiatives linked through the notion of re-shaping the global order.
Alastair Crooke is Director of Conflicts Forum based in Beirut. He was formerly advisor on Middle East issues to Javier Solana, the EU Foreign Policy Chief. He also was a staff member of Senator George Mitchell's Fact Finding Committee that inquired into the causes of the Intifada (2000-2001), was an adviser to the International Quartet and facilitated various ceasefires in the Occupied Territories. He has 20 years' experience working with Islamist movements, particularly with Hamas and Hizbullah, and other Islamist movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East. He is author of Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution (2009) and is a regular media commentator.
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Related News
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07/28/2014 | zerohedge.com
Having $50 billion of assets under potential seizure is enough to make anyone whince. However, despite a quickly worded statement on the Yukos award, Vladimir Putin seems less than anxious to find a resolution. We think we know why, and it's very concerning.As The FT reports confirming our earlier comments:
The award is a landmark not just for its size – 20 times the previous record for an arbitration ruling. The tribunal also found definitively that Russia's pursuit of Yukos and its independently-minded main shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a decade ago was politically motivated.
...
Though Russia cannot appeal against the award, Moscow said it would pursue all legal avenues for trying to get it "set aside".
Even if the ruling stands, shareholders face a tortuous battle trying to enforce it. If Moscow refuses to pay, they must pursue Russian sovereign commercial assets in the 150 countries that are party to the so-called 1958 New York Convention on enforcing arbitration awards.
But perhaps this explains why Putin is not coming out swinging, as The FT concludes,
One person close to Mr Putin said the Yukos ruling was insignificant in light of the bigger geopolitical stand-off over Ukraine.
"There is a war coming in Europe," he said. "Do you really think this matters?"
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CounterPunch
... ... ...The area of Eastern Ukraine that they – the corpses – are now leaving, is full of local victims, too – those civilian victims of ethnic cleansing, whose only fault is that their maternal tongue happened to be Russian, or that they do not or cannot live in a country run by the pro-Western fascist dictatorship of the 'Chocolate King', Poroshenko, and his gangsters.
Now civilians are dying, every day. That does not bother the Western regime. Killing the rebels, their families and neighbors, is encouraged. Burning people in Odessa, burning them alive, is not even criticized in the lackey corporate media. The entire debate and coverage of events has become grotesque and sick.
More then 100,000 people have recently crossed into Russia, seeking refuge from Ukrainian bombers and rockets, or perhaps more, most likely much more.
Russian lives do not count. Asian lives do not count. African lives do not count. Middle Eastern lives do not count. The lives of Latin Americans do not count. That is why the West so freely and without hesitation has murdered tens of millions of 'unpeople', for decades and centuries.
The formula is simple: Dutch tourists do count. Ukrainian villagers don't. It was quite similar during Nazi control of Europe.
***
Right after the tragedy, the legendary thinker and Chief Editor of "The Greanville Post", Patrice Greanville, summarized the events and predicted what is coming. He did it with deadly accuracy:
"The US TV networks -the West's Ministry of Truth organs-and other media have been blabbering almost nonstop for the past few hours about the Malaysian airliner down in Ukraine.
In the early reports on CBS, ABC, etc., I perceive a marked tendency to suggest "Russia or her proxies did it", in this case also involving the "Pro-Russia separatists" in East Ukraine, who supposedly "have been shooting at planes" (the implication is indiscriminately) in their struggle against Kiev's all-out military offensive.
As you probably agree, this is either an outright blatant provocation by the West, or a direct result of Washington's criminal policies in Ukraine.
It's easy to determine several scenarios in varying degrees of plausibility and culpability. While it's plausible the plane was shot down by Eastern Ukraine separatists, it's also obvious they (and Russia) have little to gain from such an act. So at worst, it can be argued it was simply an error on their part.
Indeed, if the plane was shot down by a missile, it could have been fired accidentally by the East Ukraine rebels-perfectly understandable given the horrible pounding they've been taking by Kiev's air force, etc.
The second type of suspect involves not error but direct intention and therefore complete culpability. Here the lineup is clear, as the shot could have come from Kievan forces in the region, seeking to heighten tensions as per script, or a third party working for the West…
As usual, the larger context, that the US is the principal and very real meta-cause of this tragedy, will be lost to most in America…
Welcome to the new, even higher stakes Cold War, courtesy of the usual bastards in Washington, and their accomplices around the world.
The problem for us now is how to counter the inevitable propaganda wave sure to follow. Brace yourselves for the barrage of hypocrisy and sanctimonious accusations to pour out of Washington's mouthpieces."
All this was happening while I was working in Cambodia, trying to counter another fully perverse narrative manufactured by the West in this tortured country, several decades ago.
I met my friend, a fellow war correspondent, Andrew Marshall, and asked him, theoretically, about the coverage of similar events. Andrew is the former head of Reuters in Iraq, who later resigned from the agency because it refused to publish his critical findings about the Thai establishment and its 'elites' (I will be soon publishing my full interview with him). He offered his thoughts on the issue of the downed passenger jet. The point he was making: whatever the answer to 'The question' is (who is responsible for the act itself?), it does not change the wider geopolitical and ethical issue:
"There is a tendency in the 21st century World of 24-hour rolling news coverage to overemphasize and dramatize individual incidents in a conflict, subjecting them to intense coverage, while at the same time failing to analyze the underlying causes and patterns of conflict. The task of analyses is to focus on the "signal", not the "noise", but most modern media do the opposite. It's also clearly true that powerful global interests seek to control the narrative by staging events to drown out the signal with noise. Some opponents of this strategy seek to create their own "noise", trying to undermine the dominant narrative. In many instances it is justified, but a focus on the noise rather than signal can be counterproductive.
For example, I believe the overwhelming evidence of what happened on 9/11 is that men associated with Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This was then exploited by the United States to justify a disastrous "war on terror" in the Muslim world.
The modern news media seize on incidents such as MH17, or 9/11, to exemplify a wider struggle. But in fact, in conflict, all sides tend to commit atrocities sometimes, and all sides make mistakes. In any conflict, innocents on all sides, and innocents unconnected with any side, routinely suffer. This is tragic. But sensible analysts need to avoid conflating the horror and blame of specific incidents within a conflict with the overall moral calculus of the conflict. The two are totally unconnected."
***
Soon, things began to crystalize. As Western propaganda howling reached a crescendo, I contacted another trusted source, Sergei Kirichuk, the leader of the 'Borodba' movement, an influential left-wing organization in Ukraine, which is fully opposed to the Kiev junta, but at the same time maintains its independence, and cannot be defined as fully 'pro-Russian'. He replied at length, and I have translated most of his quote for this essay:
"Without any doubt, the tragedy of the Malaysian airliner has become the most significant political event of the last few years. The tragic death of innocent people shook public opinion in Ukraine and in the entire world. Unfortunately, the circumstances of the tragedy and the information related to it, offers more questions than answers. First, and the most important question, is how did a passenger airliner happen to be in the epicenter of the military conflict? In all those days leading to the tragedy, the mass media was carrying stories about attempts by the insurgents (both successful and unsuccessful attempts) to down airplanes belonging to the Ukrainian military. Earlier it was announced that the airspace was declared closed for civilian aviation. Besides, MH17 deviated significantly from its usual flight path; routinely it was flying more to the south. Answers to these questions should be given through an international investigation.
The second important question is based on the claim by the Ukrainian security services, related to some "intercepted communication of the terrorists", that the 'terrorists' were the ones who downed the plane. This communication appears to be a clear fabrication, fake, but were it to be genuine, it would provoke even more questions towards the Ukrainian security services: would it mean that they were able to monitor the communications of their adversaries, were familiar with their plans, but did nothing to prevent the tragedy?
The most terrible thing is that the tragedy of innocent people who lost their lives is being used by Ukrainian mass media as some sort of justification for the loss of lives of the civilian population in Donbas. The onslaught of the Government forces began with renewed zeal, not caring at all, anymore, about the losses among the armed forces or civilian population.
Besides that, pro-NATO elements now believe that there is solid justification for the invasion of Ukraine by Western forces…"
***
But a leading international lawyer, Christopher Black (he has investigated genocides and crimes against humanity all over the world), based in Toronto, Canada, went even further, and declared in a letter to me:
"The downing of the Malaysian airliner was either an accident by the Kiev forces or the anti-fascist forces of the Donetsk Republic, in each instance targeting the plane because they thought that it was a military and therefore a legitimate target, or it was a deliberate attack on a known civilian aircraft. If it was deliberate then it is a case of mass murder and a war crime since it took place in the midst of hostilities. I wouldn't call it an act of terrorism as some have said as an act of terrorism is designed to create fear and panic in a population. Clearly those who downed the plane had other motives than creating fear and panic among civilians.
Many writers over the past few days have commented that neither the DPR forces nor Russia had either the equipment in place to hit neither the plane nor the motive to deliberately shoot it down. But there is strong circumstantial evidence that the forces of the Kiev regime had the means, the opportunity and the motive. They had the equipment and engaged in very suspicious actions; they had BUK anti-aircraft systems in place for unknown reasons since the DPR forces have no aircraft, the Ukraine Air Traffic Control ordered the plane's crew to divert from the regular more southerly route to go north over the combat zone, a Ukraine jet fighter was recorded by Russian radar climbing rapidly towards it just before it went down, and, within minutes of the crash, it was the Kiev regime and its masters in Washington and London who cried loudly that it was the DPR and Russians who were to blame without a shred of evidence to support the claim. And now we know that the Ukraine SBU immediately seized the ATC radar tapes and do not appear to have handed them over to international investigators.
Kiev and Washington also had the motive: to smear Russia and the anti-fascist forces and to provoke the EU to abandon its political and economic relations with Russia. It does not take a Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes to conclude the most likely suspects are in Kiev and Washington not in Donetsk and Moscow.
President Putin has insisted on an objective international investigation since the news broke while President Obama and his minions in Kiev have done nothing but call for the head of Putin. History shows that President Putin has insisted on adherence to international law and civilized behavior consistently throughout his terms in office. His integrity is unquestioned, whereas President Obama has been consistent in his calls for war, war and more war in every region of the globe and insists that the Americans are "exceptional" and above the law and judgment.
It may be that the results of an independent investigation of this tragic and terrible event will have consequences for the United States that are beyond its imaginings and that will erase any remaining influence or credit that it may still have in the world. They have committed many crimes. This may be the one crime too many."
***
The presentation of logical arguments and proof, by Moscow, by the rebels, and even by some dissidents inside the Western regime, has not changed the dogged and extremist position of the Empire. But why should it, really, if the entire scenario had been, most likely, manufactured (or at least manipulated) by the neo-con mafia in Washington and by their counterparts in European capitals?
At some point, The Wall Street Journal reported in its article, "Russia Presents Its Account of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash," and it was refreshing that at least some quotes 'from the other side' were able to make it into the mainstream Western media:
"Russia's Defense Ministry on Monday presented its first detailed account of the final moments of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, saying Russian radar had spotted a second aircraft in the vicinity shortly before the crash and that satellite imagery showed Ukraine had moved missile systems into the area before the incident.
At a news conference, air force chief Igor Makushev didn't say who the ministry thought had fired the missile that apparently brought down the airliner on Thursday.
In an elaborate presentation displaying radar and satellite imagery, Mr. Makushev said it was likely that the second airplane was a Ukrainian fighter jet. He also showed satellite photos allegedly portraying several Buk ground-to-air missile systems in the area close to where the plane crashed. The systems, he said, could only belong to the Ukrainian military. Ukraine has accused Russia of giving the rebels a Buk system, with which they then shot down the passenger jet.
Mr. Makushev said the airplane deviated from its course by 14 kilometers, but then attempted to return to its course, before crashing shortly after.
He said Russia is prepared to hand all of the information it has to European authorities, which included satellite imagery and data from its own radars."
***
But there was much more to it – proof after proof painstakingly put together by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. And one is only left to wonder how many 'objective' and 'well-informed' European and US citizens ever read these accounts.
It is becoming clear and obvious, that even at the height of the so called Cold-War, citizens of the Soviet Union, even countries like Romania, were much better informed and knew more about the lines of thought of their adversaries, than the arrogant and thoroughly brainwashed Westerners now know about the points made by the people in the countries designated as their enemies.
But back to the Russian response:
The Wall Street Journal was referring to what occurred on July 21, 2014, at a Special Briefing by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777 in Ukrainian air space, the speech was given by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General A.V. Kartapolov. For those who are interested in what Russia has to say, these briefings are indispensable.
I worked for several hours, on improving the original translation, while trying to keep the original tone in which this was presented.
General Kartapolov argued that:
After the Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 accident on July 17, studying the international flight-plan for, Amsterdam – Kuala Lumpur, we can find a quantity of conflicting information. In this case, the Russian Federation Ministry of
Defense considers it necessary to submit the information which is at the General Staff's disposal. On the scheme you can see the international flight-path. The Boeing-777 was supposed to fly on this flight-path. Draw your attention to the fact that the aircraft was flying inside the specified air corridor to Donetsk, but then it deviated north from the route. Meanwhile the maximum distance from the left border of the air corridor was 14 kilometers.
Then we can see that the Boeing-777 turned back to the borders of the specified air corridor. Nevertheless, the Malaysian aircrew didn't perform the maneuver successfully. At 17.20 the aircraft began registering a rate reduction, at 17.23 the aircraft's point blinked off on the radar. Why did the aircraft cross the border of the air corridor? Was it a navigation mistake, or the aircrew following the Dnepropetrovsk ground control orders? We will find out the answers after the decoding of the "black boxes" and communications. According to our information on the day of the accident, the Ukrainian Armed Forces deployed 3 to 4 artillery batteries of Buk-M1 missile systems not far from Donetsk. The system can hit targets at a distance of up to 35 kilometers, and at an altitude, up to 22 kilometers. Why did the Ukrainian Armed Forces deploy these air defense units in the Donetsk region? As we know militants don't have any aircraft.
On the scheme we can see that both the projected impact point and the flight-path are inside the air defense battle zone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' Buk-M1 missile system. We have satellite photos of the Ukrainian Air Defense systems deployed in the Southeast of the country."
Then the photos of the Buk are shown, near Luhansk and Donetsk. The first three photos are dated July 14, 2014. There are photos from that day to the day of the accident: launchers, radar, all belonging to the Ukrainian military.
After the painstaking photo presentation, the General continued:
"I want to expose the airspace situation in the Donetsk area that day. In the picture you can see the information of the objective air traffic control between 17.10 to 17.30 Moscow time.
During that period, there were 3 civilian aircraft:
- Flight from Copenhagen to Singapore at 17.17;
- Flight from Paris to Taipei at 17.24
- Flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur… Beside it, the Russian system for air traffic control detected a Ukrainian Air Force aircraft, supposedly a Su-25, moving upwards towards the Malaysian Boeing-777. The distance between two aircraft was 3-5 kilometers.
The Su-25 can gain an altitude of 10,000 meters in a short time. It is armed with an air-to-air missile R-60, which is able to lock-on and destroy a target at a distance of 12 kilometers, and destroy it definitely at a distance of 5 kilometers. What was the mission of the combat aircraft, in the flight-path of civilian aircraft, almost at the same time and same altitude with the civilian craft? We want to have this question answered.
The video of the Rostov Aerial Center of the Joint Air Traffic Management
System can provide the information. The Chief of Staff of the Air
Force, Lieutenant-General Igor Makushev, will comment on the video."
Then the Chief of Staff of the Air Force of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General I.Y. Makushev presents his arguments:
"Today the aircraft Air Traffic Control has acquired some objective control materials from the Rostov Aerial Center of the Joint Air Traffic
Management System. The video presents the air control information on the airspace situation in the region of Donetsk in the period from 17.19 P.M. to 17.25P.M., Moscow time, on July 17, 2014. In the upper left corner there is a
Boeing-772 mark, as it was following the route from Copenhagen to Singapore. Under this dot, there is another aircraft – it is marked as Boeing-777, which is on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. And on its right there is a Boeing-778 mark making its way from Delhi to Birmingham. All these three aircraft have been steadily monitored by the three radar stations of the air traffic control of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The Boeing-777 is moving towards the Russian Federation state boundary, and is to cross it at the point of "TONAK". An air traffic control officer has been controlling the aircraft flight and keeps on enquiring for its flight variables to compare them with the given ones. At 17.20 P.M. at a distance of 51 kilometers from the Russian Federation state boundary and the azimuth of 3000 (degrees), the aircraft started to lose its speed inexplicably, which is to be seen quite distinctively on the table of the aircraft characteristics. At 17.21.35 (seconds) P.M. with the aircraft at a speed of 200 km/h, at the point of the Boeing crash, there is a new mark of an aircraft to be seen. The radar stations of Ust-Donetsk and Butirinskoe, during the 4 minute period, steadily monitored the aircraft. The Air Traffic Control officer, having enquired for the characteristics of newly appeared aircraft but couldn't possibly get them, because it is in all likelihood that the aircraft had no secondary deduction system mounted on it, which is typical of military aircraft. The early detection of this aircraft appeared to be quite impossible because those radars work in a standby mode and usually perform the air situation control. Detection possibilities at the given distance are over 5000 m altitude.
The detection of the aircraft turned out to be possible as soon as the aircraft ascended.
The further aircraft flight variables changed. It was now flying in the area of the Boeing crash and was monitoring the situation. Earlier the Ukrainian officials reported that on the day of the Boeing-777 accident, there were no military aircraft flying in the region. So, as you can see, it does not appear to be true.
…We also have some questions for our US partners. According to the statement of the US representatives, they have some pictures from space supporting that the militants launched the missile. But nobody has seen these pictures.
According to our records from 17:06 till 17:21 Moscow time on the July 17 over the Southeastern territory of Ukraine, a US space satellite flew overhead. This is a special device of the experimental space system designed to detect and track various missile launches. If the US party has photos made by the satellite, please let us ask them to show them to world community for further investigation.
Is it a coincidence or not? However, the time of the Malaysian Boeing-777 accident and the time of the observation done by the satellite over the Ukrainian territory are the same. In conclusion, I would like to mention that all the concrete information is based on the objective and reliable data of the different Russian equipment, in contrast to the accusations of the US against us, made without any evidence. A good example of such facts is that some mass media showed the transportation of a Buk-M1 missile system from Ukrainian to Russian territory. We can clearly see that it is a frame-up. These pictures were taken in the city of Krasnoarmeisk, which is confirmed by a banner situated close to the road. This banner has an address of the car shop situated at No. 34, Dnepropetrovskaya Street. Since May 11th, the Krasnoarmeysk city has been under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. That is why we have some questions. What kind of launching system is it? Where is it being transported? Where is it now? Why is it completely unloaded? What was the last time it launched missiles? To end my speech I would like to emphasize that the Russian Federation did not deliver any Buk-M1 missiles systems to the militants, and any other such equipment. All the data compiled by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation will be transmitted today to the experts of the European countries and Malaysia…
The Ministry of Defense will continue to inform you about the newly revealed facts connected with the air disaster of Malaysian Boeing-777.
***
Now why on earth should we not believe this presentation, backed by facts, images and concrete analyses?
Western and Ukrainian lies are piling up: wobbly explanations or no explanations at all for change of 777's course, lowering altitude, 'bad weather', and revealing testimony of the Spanish traffic controller working in Ukraine…
And why should we believe people like the current President of the United States, who openly bragged about US 'exceptionalism', at the military academy, which has been responsible for producing countless mass murderers?
And for the sake of objectivity, why would we not listen to the Russians, before imposing sanctions on them, for something that we are, most likely, responsible for, ourselves?
And although it is most likely that the pro-Western Ukrainian military shot down the plane, even if it were to be the other side that did it, the entire conflict began with the EU and the US destabilizing Ukraine, overthrowing the legitimate government, and igniting the war.
Angry Dutch families of the victims should stop pointing fingers at Russia. Instead they should go to Brussels and Washington to express their wrath and to demand justice.
***
And what about Malaysia and Indonesia? Indonesia lost 12 people on that ill-fated flight.
Most of the Southeast Asian countries are historically "client" states of the West, with hardly any independent, non-corporate media. Indonesia has been exactly that since the 1965 'events'. Malaysia, pushing for an independent course under Dr. Mahathir's rule, is presently being lured by the US, which is trying to establish military bases there, or to at least gain access to existing Malaysian ones.
Suddenly, a great amount of US funding has been unleashed, to win over Malaysian intellectuals, some of the most shamefully subservient in the region. Several have already began departing for conferences, cultural exchanges and writer's retreats, to destinations all over the United States, all expenses paid.
In Kuala Lumpur, there was deadly silence after the downing of MH17. Not one writer or filmmaker that I know and contacted wanted to go on record. One mistaken word and the entire rosy dream of Western 'funding' would go up in flames.
Only the official anti-Russian narrative was available.
Two filmmakers spoke, but off the record:
"To be honest, Malaysians are completely out of touch with what's happening or even with the political consequences of the 'deal' that our Prime Minister had made to bring the bodies back. No one has even questioned what the deal was. There is no discussion whatsoever, even in the educated circles as it's taboo to even start talking about anything other than the people who died. All Malaysians care about is that it's tragedy and that we should feel sad. But largely, Russia and Putin are the villains in the mind of Malaysians."
In Indonesia, theories vary. Some are far, remote from the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Agus Suhartono, a former aeronautical engineer at PT. Dirgantara Indonesia, thinks that Malaysia has been punished for creating an alternative banking system for the Muslim world:
"I think it is bit strange. How could a plane at an altitude of more than 30,000 ft be a mistaken missile target? At that altitude, the plane identification should be very clear. Whoever fired knew perfectly well what he was doing. The question should be why MAS (Malaysia Airlines) again? Did they rub somebody the wrong way? Why was Malaysia the target twice in a row? I think maybe because the financial turnover of the Arab world is centered in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is the gate. The sharia gate of the Arab financial world."
***
New sanctions are being leveled against Russia. "Cold Warriors" in Canada, Australia, UK and US are back in their saddles, like Major Kong in the unforgettable film, "Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb", they are ready to cover their skulls with cowboy hats, and stick A-bombs between their legs. Time to 'go and bomb the Russkies'.
Arabs are not tough enough adversaries, and most of the Muslim world is now in ruins anyway, thanks to the 'War on… ehm… terror'.
Russia and China are again blocking the West from fully controlling the world. 'How dare they?'
The most frightening thing is the state of the self-righteousness and self-deception of the Western public. One wants to scream: Don't they see? Do they refuse to see? Is it more comfortable not to see? How long are they going to pretend that they are blind? Or maybe they are blind…
After the MH17 tragedy and after the way it has been handled by the Western mass media, there is no doubt that we are back to the Cold War again. It is not just a war against Russia. The war is reflected in the arms race that is being accelerated by the US in Asia, from the revolting, racist anti-Chinese propaganda, and from the attempts to overthrow our socialist governments in Latin America.
We should never forget that Western imperialism murdered tens of millions of innocent people all over the world, after the Nagasaki 'A-bomb' and the official end of the WWII: all those crimes and horror to satisfy its unbridled obsession with controlling the world.
Tens of millions of lives already lost.
Why should they spare some 298 of those on MH17?
Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. The result is his latest book: "Fighting Against Western Imperialism". 'Pluto' published his discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and the market-fundamentalist model is called "Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear". His feature documentary, "Rwanda Gambit" is about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.
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M of A | Comments (82)
The federalists fighting in east Ukraine seem to be in trouble. The Ukrainian army and "volunteers are attacking in size and tries to cut the federalist held area into two by pushing from two sides into the direction of Torez.
The map shows the rough plan, not actually progress, as presented by the Ukrainian government side.
Torez, the center of the push, is the area where flight MH-17 came down. With this push to the crash side the Ukrainian army infringes on the July 20 UN Security Council resolution where point 7:
Demands that all military activities, including by armed groups, be immediately ceased in the immediate area surrounding the crash site to allow for security and safety of the international investigation;Dutch investigators planned to visit the site today but had to stay away while fighting occurred in the area. From the Ukrainian plan above it is obvious that the Ukrainian attack, not the federalists, is responsible for the fighting and the coup-government of Ukraine for impeding secure access to the site. Why is it so urgent right now for the Ukrainian government to get control of the crash site?
As part of its all-over attack today the Ukrainian army indiscriminately used Grad multiple rocket launchers to shell (vid) the surrounded city of Gorlivka which is in the hands of a few federalists. There are reports about several dozens of civilian casualties from this attack including a mother and her young child (photo).
Earlier Human Rights Watch had condemned such use of Grad rockets by the Ukrainian government:
The use of indiscriminate rockets in populated areas violates international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, and may amount to war crimes.How long will it take for the "west" to express outrage over this breach of an UN resolution by the Ukrainian governments and its indiscriminate killing of "its own civilians"?
jo6pac
How long will it take for the "west" to express outrage over this breach of an UN resolution by the Ukrainian governments and its indiscriminate killing of "its own civilians"?
That will never happen they really don't care and yes why the big push to the crash sight?
Thanks b for the update.
Lysander
Well, if Russia wanted to push it they now can go in under the pretext of enforcing the UNSC resolution that was passed unanimously. If they let the Ukies have control of the crash site, they will have no one to blame but themselves for the following whitewash. Russia needs to secure the site and invite in whoever wants to inspect it from any country that is interested.
john francis lee | Jul 27, 2014 1:58:52 PM | 10' How long will it take for the "west" to express outrage over this breach of an UN resolution by the Ukrainian governments and its indiscriminate killing of "its own civilians"? '
About as long as its taken the "west" to express outrage over Israel's serial breach of every UN resolution condemning its aggression in Palestine and its genocide of the Palestinian people?
The sun has set in the "west", long time passing.
Russian media allege flight MH17 shot down by Ukrainian missile unit
The Malaysian passenger plane MH17 may have been shot down July 17 by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft unit during an exercise, according to Russia's Ria Novosti, which cited an anonymous source in the Ukrainian security apparatus. The new and detailed allegations in the Russian media come amid mounting US and European Union charges that Russia is responsible for the shooting down of the jetliner.Maybe that has something to do with the 'new offensive' at the crash site?
somebody
yellowsnapdragonThe Ukrainian government does not seem to know what it is doing
This here is the - correct - Irish Times reporting
The Ukrainian government said its forces were advancing towards the crash site to try to free it from the rebels, who have impeded the work of international monitors and whom Kiev accuses of tampering with evidence pointing to who shot it down. "All our troops are aiming to get there and liberate this territory so that we can guarantee that international experts can carry out a 100-per cent investigation of the site and get all proof needed to deduce the real reason for this tragedy," said Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's Security Council. International monitors said the fighting itself could affect the crash site, underlining the growing complexity of trying to establish who shot down the plane.And this is the Los Angeles Times quoting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Klimko
The Ukrainian government said it does not wish to conduct a more wholesale military operation at the crash site because doing so, though securing the area, would compromise much of the evidence any investigation would need to preserve."If you do that, all the traces will be disrupted," Ukraine Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told CNN on Sunday when asked about a military intervention specifically aimed at securing the site.
So ...
German media is uniformly calling for sanctions and blaming Putin with virtually the same talking points, citing MH17 as turning point ...
yellowsnapdragon | Jul 27, 2014 3:01:50 PM | 15The Ukrainian offensive near the crash site may have the added benefit of fouling the evidence of the investigation, then. Traces of Uke munitions at the site? Well, that will be blamed on the fighting rather than the downing of the plane no matter who holds the territory after the offensive. Win/win for Ukes
Fighting in the area may be an added benefit, not a defining element. The West's psyops works by providing plausible possibilities not plausible probabilities anyway. Fouling the nest helps. Note that in spite of the plane's curious turn after the Uke fighter jets' presence, we are told the black boxes indicate a missile and rapid, catastrophic decompression. Is that more possible or probable given the radar evidence? I assume that info is from the flight data rather than flight recorder which will likely show what actually happened in the cockpit among actual human beings.
Noirette@ yellowsnapdragon
You didn't see the photo of the cockpit section on the ground? Instant death.
○ Shrapnel Damage of Cockpit MH-17 Devastating plus enlarged.
yellowsnapdragon | Jul 27, 2014 4:00:05 PM | 18I find it curious that the first (as far as I know) outside 'officials' who visited the site was the OSCE. There is plenty of vid. of them there doing nothing much except looking totally creeped out and taking photos..
They were obviously 'allowed and accompanied' in some way and had no difficulties. Now, it is so that the OSCE had some people there already, but I did read that one or another travelled there for that purpose. The mandate of the OSCE is incredibly broad - so broad as to be meaningless imho. Gender equality, good governance, free media, the environment, a buffet of 'Western' concerns. They are not and make no claim to be experts in any field related to an airplane crash or any other such disaster type event.
Their presence made a show of 'internationals' on the site. The separatists had no objections (and haven't had as far as I can tell to such moves, in fact it was the OSCE itself who brokered such an agreement, see more below.)
OSCE may have welcomed the visibility, and it is against the nature of such orgs. that when allowed or solicited they would refrain. Or they may have been manipulated somewhat, or even ordered, but their actual visit had absolutely nothing to do with any analysis, securing of the site, etc. Maybe they did play a role as 'intermediary' that was worthwhile.
In their declaration of 18 July, the day after the crash - thus really not many hours later, in a as labelled 'plenary meeting' that must have been organised at top speed - they already invoke Dutch experts, as if they knew the victims were Dutch. (Well that was easy to guess, but to put it in an official doc?)
http://www.osce.org/pc/121427?download=true
This document mentions a "Trilateral Contact Group" and its advice or decisions or guidance etc. This group is (from their website) composed of "senior representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and the OSCE" not named. The group convened in Kiev on 17 July (day of) and held a video conference with separatists in Donesk, not named, who agreed to cooperate in the usual (secure the site, let others in, provide safe access, etc. ..)
http://www.osce.org/home/121390
A later article (22 July, Interfax Ukraine, reporting on an OSCE news which I could not find) mentions video conferences with separatists, and gives names of the participants: Leonid Kuchma (former Ukr. pres.), Mik. Zurabov (Russian ambassador to Ukr.) and Heidi Tagliavini (yes Swiss and OSCE chairperson with a long history of such involvement, b. 1950.) This is the 'Trilateral Group.'
http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/214910.html
One article from Kiev Post shows a picture of Oleksander Borodai speaking to the Trilateral Group in a vid conf. (22 July.) He is the PM of Donesk Repub. (See wiki, news, etc.)
You can see him talking here on this matter and others (BBC with eng subs. ignore the BBC spin, 24 July.)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28450303
Since then, access to the site has become, say, 'more complicated.'
- Just some history that I looked up.
NoiretteThe pilots couldn't have turned as they did after a strike like that, so there is likely important information in the cvr detailing what the pilots were told by ATC, what they saw, and what they said to each other before that strike. Something happened first. What's been suggested by reports of the data recorder is that everything was normal until the missile strike, which couldn't be true if the plane turned as it did.
Yellow at 18, yes. The main questions are: Why was that plane deviated from the 'usual course' (by some ATC, Ukrainian or possibly Polish), why have the Kiev authorities taken the tapes (reportedly), what use is that as that info. will be in the black boxes? And then, why did it veer so sharply just before it finally crashed / was downed? My personal feeling is it was hit once by something, veered away, and then somehow it was downed for good. Anyway this is all speculation.
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The American Conservative
The downing of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17 was a great tragedy, and the world wants to make sure that such an event never happens again. People all over the globe, not least Australians and the Dutch who have lost more than 230 civilians, have been understandably angry about the failure of the Russian-backed rebels in Eastern Ukraine to respond satisfactorily to this calamity.
But it is imperative that we think clearly and, if necessary, coldly, about the underlying cause of the Russia-Ukraine standoff, which sparked the military blunder. If we fail to do so, we'll have little hope of trying to solve it. Alas, there is a real danger that the West's response-more sanctions against Russia, diplomatic isolation of Vladimir Putin, increased military support to Ukraine-could exacerbate tensions.
The conventional wisdom in the West blames the turmoil on Putin's goal to recreate the former Soviet Empire. The Bear is on the prowl again, we're told, and it must be put back in its cage.
But the United States and the European Union are hardly blameless. As John Mearsheimer, one of America's leading experts on international relations, points out in a forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs, it was the West's efforts to pull Ukraine away from Russia's strategic orbit that was guaranteed to cause big trouble.
By expanding NATO up to Russia's borders in the Clinton and George W. Bush eras, and by helping bring down a democratically elected, pro-Moscow-albeit corrupt and thuggish-government in Kiev last February, the West has poked at the Bear and failed to see how those decisions look from its perspective.
It has repudiated the implicit agreement between president George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990-91 that the Atlantic alliance would not extend into Eastern Europe and the Baltics, a region that Russia has viewed as a necessary zone of protection long before Stalin appeared on the scene. In so doing, the West has taken no account at all for Russian susceptibilities and interests.
For Moscow, unlike Washington and Brussels, Ukraine is a matter of intense strategic importance: it covers a huge terrain that the French and Germans crossed to attack Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries. As Professor Mearsheimer asks: why would any Russian leader tolerate a cold-war military pact to move into his nation's backyard? And why would he acquiesce in a Western-backed coup to replace an ally with an anti-Russian regime in Kiev?
Since the collapse of Soviet communism, Western liberals and neo-conservatives have declared the demise of power politics and triumph of self-determination. But Putin's calculations are based on an old truth of geopolitics: great powers fight tooth and nail when vital strategic interests are at stake and doggedly guard what they deem as their spheres of influence.
This is unfortunate, but it is the way the world works, and always has. Imagine how Washington would respond if Russia had signed up Panama in a military pact, put rockets and missiles in Cuba, or helped bring down a democratically elected, pro-U.S. government in Mexico.
It was inevitable that Moscow would push back somewhere. But if Putin were the reincarnation of Hitler, as Hillary Clinton and Zbigniew Brzezinski suggest, why hasn't he annexed the rebel strongholds of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine? (Putin even discouraged the insurgents from holding their referendum on independence in May.)
Where were the signs of the Kremlin's intentions to invade Crimea before the downfall of the pro-Russian Yanukovych government in February? It was this episode, remember, that sparked Putin's military incursion in the Ukrainian peninsula, the traditional home of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Which suggests that he is acting defensively.
For the West to further isolate Moscow and at the same time escalate military support to Ukraine is fraught with danger. Russia is a declining power, but it maintains a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. If made desperate and humiliated further, it could be dangerous, like a cornered, wounded animal.
Strident talk about banning Putin from the G20 in Brisbane will only backfire against the West's interests. The point of such institutions is not that they are a reward for obliging behavior, but rather that they provide a means to deal with common challenges. Moscow's help is needed in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran.
At a time when Americans are tired of the world, moreover, it would not seem prudent to pick a fight over a region where no U.S. army has even fought before. Although American views of Russia are less positive today than at any time since the end of the Cold War, few consider Putin a critical threat to the U.S. According to recent Chicago Council survey, only 30 percent of Americans support military intervention in Ukraine if Russia invades the rest of the country.
Rather than extend economic sanctions against Russia and boost military support to Ukraine, our leaders should tone down our bombast and understand the motives for Putin's conduct. He wants Ukraine to be a neutral buffer state (which is neither a NATO nor EU member) and its government to respect minority rights of ethnic Russians in this bitterly divided country. If Moscow and the Western-backed Kiev regime can't reach a settlement, and if the latter continues to bomb cities in eastern Ukraine, more disasters like the downing of a passenger jet can't be ruled out.
Let me be clear: my aim here is not to defend anything Putin has done, but simply to explain his response to what he deems a genuine threat to Russia's vital interests. If we understand Putin's motivations, his conduct is easy to understand, which is not to say we have to like it. We need to understand what caused this crisis to have any hope of trying to solve it.
Tom Switzer is editor of the American Review, published by the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre.
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RT News
Ukraine says analysis of the black box flight recorders from the downed Malaysia Airlines plane shows it was destroyed by shrapnel from a rocket blast. Dutch investigators, however, say they have not shared data with Kiev, calling the claim "premature."
The Ukrainian Security Council on Monday said that passenger flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine due to "massive explosive decompression."
The spokesman for the Council, Andrey Lysenko, told a news conference in Kiev the information came from experts analyzing the recorders from the plane that came down in territory held by anti-government forces in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 passengers on board.
However, the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), which is heading the investigation into the crash, was puzzled by statements coming from Kiev. According to DSB spokeswoman Sara Vernooij, the "premature" release of details of MH17 black boxes is "not in the best interest of the investigation."
Speaking to The Independent, Vernooij refused to confirm the claims or comment on the nature of the source used by Lysenko, saying that the board was not going to release anything until the crashed plane's black boxes are analyzed in full.
"We want to analyze [and] combine information of several sources before we bring out anything, so we can give a coherent view on the whole investigation. Bringing out fragmented pieces of information is not on behalf of the investigation," Vernooij was quoted as saying.
The DSB is expected to release its initial findings on the MH17 crash on August 1.
Heavy fighting in E. Ukraine prevents experts from visiting MH17 crash site
Britain was earlier tasked with downloading the data from two black boxes recovered from the crash site and handing that information over to international investigators for analysis.
Meanwhile, international monitors have failed to reach the crash site of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 for the second day in a row, due to clashes in the vicinity, Reuters reports citing militia leader Vladimir Antyufeyev.
The OSCE tweeted that its experts traveling with Australian and Dutch ones were forced to return to the provincial capital of Donetsk for "security reasons."
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The Guardian
Lyubov57 , 27 July 2014 6:51pm
Wojtek Sokol -> Lyubov57 , 27 July 2014 7:57pmKyiv is trying to destroy evidence of the crimes of its military, when trying to dislodge militia with a place of falling of the Malaysian Boniva. This opinion was expressed by Chairman of the government of the self-proclaimed Donetsk national Republic Alexander Borodai.
"The statement of the Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Parubiy that the Ukrainian troops are intensifying fighting to knock militias from the crash site, "Boeing", irrefutable evidence of the fact that Kyiv is trying to destroy evidence of the crimes of its military," - reports "KP" words Beard official representative DND in the Russian Federation Andrey Rodkin.
"The junta in panic, the main thing for them now is to get away from revelations," stressed Boroday.
He noted that the statements of Parubiy sounded exactly when international experts finally launched a full-scale work at the crash site, there is the examination and study its ruins.
"It seems that Poroshenko has understood, that the provocation with the plane fell down, and the U.S. is not going to help. So the Kiev authorities are not even confused by the fact that the statements of Parubiy directly contradict the decision Poroshenko to announce a 40-km zone around the site of the tragedy territory ceasefire," believes Boroday.
Today, as a result of military operations under the fire of the Ukrainian army in Gorlovka, killing 13 people, among them 2 children. In Avdiivka the victims of the attack, according to the press service DND, became at least 5 persons and 50 wounded. Data on victims is being clarified.
Military action repeatedly violated the work of international observers. A delegation of officials and experts from Malaysia on July 21, at first could not come to Donetsk from going up on the Northern outskirts of the fighting, then also could not pass from Donetsk in Torez.indoorain -> Wojtek Sokol , 27 July 2014 9:15pmgreat credible sources there buddy because we all know there is no way that Alexander Borodai would ever lie.
La Goulue , 27 July 2014 6:53pmyou post is a blatant try to discredit another post on a base of not having good argument for it.
All one need to do is just to Google the stated in the previous post and find for oneself. If you do so you may find a photo of a mother and her baby laying in the park on Sunday afternoon, shredded by shrapnels.May make you pause!
I can't even tell what these images are supposed to be, let alone actually are. Is there the possibility of higher res images? Is there the possibility we can see the actual gun positions?
I mean after WMDs and the dodgy dossier - we are right to be cautious. Especially as this will undoubtedly be used as a basis for more sanctions, more rhetoric and maybe even troops on the ground.
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The Guardian
The foreign ministry statement continued: "Judging by the relentless slander campaign against Russia, organised by the American administration, they increasingly rely on sheer lies while conducting foreign policy."
LoicdeMarsillac, 26 July 2014 6:58pmThere are no good guys here, although Kadyrov has certainly murdered less than certain Western leaders.
MIAsin, 26 July 2014 7:28pm
I'm sure Obama didn't fancy visiting Cameron's barbecue either, but in diplomatic language, Mr Kadyrov has essentially called Obama a war criminal and terrorist
About time someone did
knuckles66 MIAsin, 26 July 2014 8:56pm
And do you think any American cares? I bet the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico doesn't like the President either? Again, who cares?
If warlords and killers liked him, it might indicate a problem.joenightingale knuckles66, 26 July 2014 9:53pm
Warlords and killers do like him. The leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, indonesia, Maliki, etc. etc. He himself bragged: "turns out I'm good at killing people with drones."
MIAsin knuckles66, 26 July 2014 10:34pm
knuckles66 said:
And do you think any American cares? I bet the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico doesn't like the President either? Again, who cares?
Awww, you care --
Go and dry your eyes and go eat some ice cream
You'll feel much betterMIAsin knuckles66, 26 July 2014 10:34pm
knuckles66 said:
And do you think any American cares? I bet the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico doesn't like the President either? Again, who cares?
Awww, you care --
Go and dry your eyes and go eat some ice cream
You'll feel much betterpeluge MIAsin, 27 July 2014 10:27pm
Obama has made some very damaging, ill-considered decisions and supports, by choice or fear, an increasingly plutocratic and authoritarian system intent on undermining the best pillars of US society for its own gain, or ideological purity.
However, even considering drones, the war criminals who instigated the messes Obama was obliged to end were in the former administration. Have you already forgotten?
Sarfaraz Abbasi, 26 July 2014 7:59pm
Since Putin has not reacted to the U.S. sponsored sanctions; how about Chechen show stance on situation in Gaza---likewise, for which Putin has not taken position on either sides? It'd echo the balance of understanding this President's stance. And then, we'll understand if he (the President of Chechnya) really represents the Muslim-majority population?
Phil Greene, 26 July 2014 8:00pm
It would be a good idea to ban the USA from everywhere. Everywhere they have gone they have turned into a living hell. They have set the middle east afire along with their proxy, Israel. Now after setting Libya afire they have abandoned their Embassy there. Europe should be rid of the USA too as they plan to set fire there, over Russia. Watch out, they want you to join them in another war.
AntonKamaev, 26 July 2014 8:01pm
The funniest thing about all these comments is, of course, that when Kadyrov was one of the leaders of the separatists, you lot were cheering him on against Russia. But now that he is happy for Chechnya to remain in Russia, he's a murderous terrorist.
stonedage, 26 July 2014 8:43pm
Most comments on here seems to have missed the point, The ban shows the idiocy in the western policy, this guy can live with not entering the U.S (maybe not the EU) so his action is a big middle finger to the west. He won't miss not coming to the west. It's like play ground kids, don't come to my house and the other one responds don't come to mine. Its just so funny that it took this long for the brainiacs rleading the west to finally meet ther match.
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July 27, 2014 | vzglyad.ru
Ukrainian soldiers trying to seize the territory of the fall of the Malaysian Boeing-777, said the speaker of the information centre of the Council Andrey Lysenko.
According to him, these actions are undertaken in order to ensure international security experts and the opportunity to make an examination," reports "Interfax".
He also said that the Ukrainian military are fighting on the outskirts of Gorlovka, Donetsk region, as well as in the areas of Debaltsevo, Donetsk region and Pervomaisk, Lugansk region.
DND militia under control of which is the territory of the fall of Boeing not hinder the examination at the crash site and agreed to allow international investigators access. Earlier on Sunday it became known that Malaysia and the government of Donetsk national Republic agreed on the admission of police of a number of countries to the place of the crash of an airliner company Malaysia Airlines.
Meanwhile, it is reported that a large convoy of armored vehicles Ukrainian National guard went into the city Shakhtersk, trying to complete the encirclement of Donetsk. There are street fights in the city.
If the Ukrainian troops could take Shakhtersk, they will be able to cut main highway connecting Donetsk Lugansk region and Russia. Donetsk, Makeyevka and Gorlovka will be completely surrounded.
Earlier the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has instructed the Ukrainian military "not to use fire" in a radius of 40 kilometres around the site of the crash.
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dw.de
However, heavy fighting between Ukrainian government troops and the separatist rebels broke out across several cities, including in Shakhtarsk, which lies some 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of the crash site.
"All our troops are aiming to get there and liberate this territory so that we can guarantee that international experts can carry out a 100 percent investigation of the site and get all proof needed to deduce the real reason for this tragedy," said Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's Security Council, said, according to news agency Reuters.
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Jul 27, 2014 | NYTimes.com
ZUHRES, Ukraine - Just hours after the Malaysian government reached an agreement with Ukrainian separatists on Sunday over access to the crash site of a Malaysian airliner shot down in rebel territory, the Ukrainian military launched an operation to recapture the debris fields, again stalling international efforts to secure the site.
The heavy fighting threatened to torpedo hopes of a breakthrough and cause yet more delays in collecting evidence and retrieving the remaining bodies from the crash. Ukrainian security officials said they needed control over the site to prevent separatists from destroying clues to the airliner's downing.
By Sunday evening, the Ukrainian advance had blocked a key road leading from the provincial capital, Donetsk, to the airplane debris northeast of Shakhtyorsk, but it remained unclear whether government troops were in control of all or part of the approximately 14 square miles of debris fields.
Videos posted online appeared to show Ukrainian armored vehicles near the site, and reporters who visited earlier Sunday said insurgents were nowhere to be seen.
The combat spread out along the road in a fluid and chaotic scene, leaving it wholly unclear who controlled what. Fragments of rockets lay on the sunbaked macadam, and columns of black smoke rose in many spots on the horizon.
One separatist commander at a checkpoint outside Shakhtyorsk, about 10 miles from the crash site, said the Ukrainians had retaken the area, and a rebel leader, Alexander Borodai, confirmed that government troops were advancing.
"The attempts to clear militia from the crash site irrefutably show Kiev is trying to destroy evidence," he told reporters in Donetsk. His claim was apparently intended to counter earlier allegations that the rebels had been tampering with evidence to hide their own role in the downing of the plane.
Separatists seemed to be in a state of alarm, driving in convoys of buses and armored vehicles out of Donetsk toward the fighting. They controlled the road as far as the town of Zuhres. A monitoring mission by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that had visited the site daily was unable to reach the area on Sunday
... ... ...
Small groups of foreign police officers and forensic experts have managed to reach the crash site, but efforts to secure it with larger contingents have repeatedly fallen through.Earlier Sunday, the prospects for a more robust foreign presence seemed to have improved when the office of Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia announced in an email that he had reached an agreement with Mr. Borodai "to allow a deployment of international police personnel to enter the crash site."
After the announcement, around 30 unarmed Dutch police officers left the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv intending to reach the debris-strewn fields. But after traveling by road to Donetsk, the Dutch team put off trying to go farther because of fighting, a spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said.
The Dutch police deployment on Sunday, ordered overnight by the Ministry of Security and Justice in The Hague, reversed an earlier decision by the head of a Dutch police mission in Kharkiv. He had intended to delay movement toward the crash site until a vote on Thursday by the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev that he said would provide a "legal basis" for the deployment of foreign police officers.
While the bodies of most victims have been recovered and flown to the Netherlands for identification, forensic investigators have not been able to reach the area in sufficient numbers to ensure that all the bodies have been found. They also want to collect debris that could provide evidence of who had brought the plane down. The Netherlands, whose citizens accounted for around two-thirds of the crash victims, is leading an international effort to get to the bottom of what happened to Flight 17.
The area is tactically important for the Ukrainian military, which is trying to close access to Donetsk from the east, lest separatists in the city be resupplied and reinforced from the direction of the Russian border.
Clashes flared in half a dozen towns east of Donetsk on Sunday. There was also fighting to the north, with an artillery strike in the town of Horlivka reportedly killing at least 13 civilians.
The longer the crash site remains unguarded, the smaller the chances of recovering evidence. Responding to growing reports that the wreckage and passenger items had been tampered with, Australia said Sunday that it was sending unarmed police officers to the crash site to prevent any further meddling. Australia lost dozens of citizens on Flight 17.
... ... ...
The Ukrainian government has been loath to see foreign governments negotiate with the pro-Russia separatist leaders based in Donetsk, the capital of a self-declared republic that no foreign state, including Russia, has recognized. Malaysia has been particularly active in reaching out to the rebel leadership. It brokered a deal last week under which the rebels handed over the plane's data and voice recorders, which they had seized at the crash site.
The deal announced on Sunday would have allowed Malaysian, Australian and Dutch police officers onto the site. If successful, the Ukrainian military operation will end the need for any foreign negotiations with the rebels.
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Tyler Durden on 07/26/2014 - 21:01While it was already reported that the black boxes of flight MH 17 were supposedly not tempered with, despite early propaganda attempts via planted YouTube clips to claim otherwise (clips which have since disappeared replaced by other propaganda), the question of what the data recovery team operating in London would find was unanswered, until earlier today when CBS reported that "unreleased data" from a black box retrieved from the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine show findings consistent with the plane's fuselage being hit multiple times by shrapnel from a missile explosion.
"It did what it was designed to do," a European air safety official told CBS News, "bring down airplanes."
The official described the finding as "massive explosive decompression."
Of course none of this is surprising, and has been widely known from the beginning: it was also widely known that the black box would provide no additional information on the $64K question: whose missile was it, and was it a missile launched from the ground or an air-to-air missile fired by a fighter jet.
Perhaps a better question is who is leaking the "unreleased data" and what propaganda is it meant to achieve in what is, as we said a week ago, nothing but a propaganda war on both sides.
As for the real questions the "released" black box data should reveal, they remain as follows:
i) why was the plane diverted from its traditional flight path; and
ii) what was said between the pilots and air traffic control in the minutes before the crash.
Recall that the Ukraine secret service confiscated the ATC conversation logs a week ago, and the fate of said conversations has been unknown ever since, something that Malaysian Airlines revealed to the public promptly after its other, just as infamous plane anomaly, flight MH 370 disappeared forever from radar.
ThisIsBob
It was diverted from its flight path to act as cover for fighter jets and to bait the rebs - my take.
Beam Me Up Scotty
Divert it, shoot it down over rebel held territory. Blame the rebels and Putin. A set up.
Lets hear the unedited ATC tapes.
remain calm
I am surprised the black box did not conclusively point to the separatists as firing the missile. Can we please have the FBI re examine it please. This is preposterous
kliguy38
Wolf Bluster on CNN is certain the Ruskies did it.
Jack Burton
Wolf was hired by CNN from Israel to provide an unbiased Israel lover to deliver America the news.
Skateboarder
I don't know how anyone can turn on the teevee and take these pieces of trash seriously anymore.
knukles
Wolf Blitzer.... great name (perceptions management) for a war correspondent
Am I the only one.... CNN... et al
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July 27, 2014 | CounterPunch
A Tale of Three Aircraft Tragedies
"A civilian jet airliner shot down by US Navy surface to air missiles on 3 July 1988 as it flew over the Strait of Hormuz at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The aircraft, an Airbus A300B2-203 operated by Iran Air, was flying from Bandar Abbas, Iran, to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. While flying in Iranian airspace over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf on its usual flight path, it was destroyed by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes. All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, perished."
The captain of the ship that killed 290 innocent people was given a high military decoration by the United States of America "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service" during his period in command.
The following report about Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 sums up the attitude of the great majority of the west's media and political administrations to the disaster in Ukraine. It is from a British newspaper that I used to respect, the Independent, which announced that "The 192 bodies found after the Flight MH17 plane crash have been bundled into black body bags and unceremoniously loaded into large refrigerated train cars, bound, it is understood, for the rebel heartland." The paper didn't have a reporter anywhere near the place, and shifted its shaky ground a bit when stating that "the bodies were reportedly moved by Ukraine's emergency services who were working for the rebels under duress on Sunday." It had to inject that "under duress" bit, but couldn't avoid admitting that experts from official Ukrainian emergency services were involved.
If the bodies had been dealt with in the way the Independent claimed then of course there would be reason for disgust and condemnation. But it didn't happen that way. The bodies were not "bundled" into body bags, nor were they "unceremoniously" loaded into the refrigerated wagons. But lots of media outlets followed the same propaganda line. The UK Daily Mail, which is admittedly a joke of a newspaper, screamed that "pro-Russian rebels left the victims' bodies to decay for several days in body bags dumped around the crash site before eventually allowing them to be taken by train to Kharkiv airport." Absolute rubbish.
According to Euronews, to which (with Al Jazeera, AFP, AP, Reuters and the BBC) I increasingly have recourse in order to obtain unbiased accounts of world affairs, it wasn't like that at all. It reported that "the Ukrainian government announced that it had reached an agreement on the removal of bodies with representatives of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk, the pro-Russian rebels who control the territory around the crash site" and that "International observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) inspected the train before it departed. The train was made up of refrigerated wagons to preserve the remains of the victims." The BBC recorded that "the remains . . . have been loaded on to refrigerated rail wagons," and that "Dutch experts examined some of the 196 bodies kept in refrigerator wagons in Torez, some 15 km away from the crash site. 'I think the storage of the bodies is of good quality,' team leader Peter van Leit said after the inspection." There was no drama about these reports - because there was no drama.
But it's essential for the US-dominated west to manufacture anti-Russian fantasies, and the Independent (and other hate-Putin fraternities) recounted that there were "reports from the crash site of the rebels blocking investigations and even allowing the bodies to be looted." There were no verified first-hand reports of any such thing, of course, but then there was a bit of embarrassment when a western reporter at the crash site, a particularly nauseating little fragment of filth called Colin Brazier, of Rupert Murdoch's Sky News, was shown on camera removing personal items from the luggage of a dead passenger. (Why does Murdoch come in to almost everything that is slimy and disgusting?)
It wasn't exactly looting, of course, because no doubt Mr Brazier was well-equipped with personal items, but it must have been a little sad and upsetting for the relatives of victims to see on Murdoch television the set of keys and the toothbrush that he displayed. Make no mistake : the western media was at its most energetic - and hypocritical - in presenting the hideousness of the shooting-down of Flight MH17.
There is hypocrisy in the fact that western media castigated people - without evidence - for "looting" baggage while a strolling player of international television enjoyed a ghoulishly morbid dabble in suitcase contents. It must be pointed out that if local hooligans were acting as claimed by western media - forbidding entry of foreigners to the crash site - then how did the toothbrush-plucking Mr Brazier manage to get there for Sky News in order to titillate the world with displays of a dead person's keys? Make no mistake : there are plenty like Brazier. And his only mistake was to misjudge audience reaction. An equally abominable Australian journalist, Phil Williams, was also pictured poking around in the belongings of the dead. There's no limit to the depths to which these people will plunge. But it's all in what they think is a good cause - the pillorying of Putin, the man who is trying to do his best for the citizens of his country which has lots of oil and gas and other goodies and thus presents an economic threat to Washington.
The ghoulish manufactured reportage about the aircraft's flight recorders was another example of western media hysteria. The headlines fairly shrieked propaganda nonsense such as "Flight's Black Box 'Found and En Route' to Moscow for Investigation." But of course the two recorders were not on the way to Russia. They were found and handed over to officials of Malaysia Airlines, as was right and proper. No western reporter checked out the original story in spite of its being denied by the Russian government. Why should they? - They had got the headlines, and people believed their lies. The rebels handed over the recorders to Malaysia Airlines simply because they didn't trust the Ukrainians not to interfere with them. But this wasn't the sort of news that is acceptable to Russia-bashers.
The tsunami of malevolent anti-Russian propaganda surged on and still surges, thanks to such as the US Secretary of State John Kerry who is rarely at a loss for an intriguing declaration. (Remember his pronouncement of 2010 that "Syria will play a very important role in achieving a comprehensive peace in the region and in putting an end to the five decades of conflict that have plagued everybody in this region.") He did his bit to whip up hatred by announcing that there was "extraordinary circumstantial evidence" showing that the missile that destroyed MH17 was "a system that was transferred from Russia in the hands of separatists." But five days later, as reported by Associated Press, "intelligence officials were cautious in their assessment, noting that while the Russians have been arming separatists in eastern Ukraine, the US had no direct evidence that the missile used to shoot down the passenger jet came from Russia."
Kerry then jumped on the body bandwagon and declared on NBC that "What's happening is really grotesque. There are reports of drunken separatist soldiers unceremoniously piling bodies into trucks, removing both bodies, as well as evidence, from the site."
What proof had he for saying that anyone was "unceremoniously piling bodies into trucks"? Or that the missile system had been transferred from Russia? The word "circumstantial" in relation to evidence means "indirect, inferred or conditional." It is used by international political conmen like Kerry to make us believe they have proof about something they want us to believe. And the western media go out of their way to help them.
There was even more hysteria whipped up by the media which shrieked that it had taken far too long to collect the bodies - four days - and that this was absolutely scandalous. Does anyone remember the bombing of Pan American Airways flight 103 in 1988? The plane exploded and fell out of the sky onto Lockerbie in southern Scotland, killing 259 people. As the Guardian newspaper later reported "Search teams would comb through much of the 2,190 square kilometres of the county with the help of helicopters, airplanes and even spy satellites. But they would be unable to locate the bodies of seven of the passengers, as well as about 10 per cent of the plane. And in some cases they may have arrived too late: 10 years after the catastrophe, the chief pathologist reported that two of the passengers had suffered serious but not fatal wounds. Possibly they froze to death on the ground before the search teams found them in a forest four days later." Four days later. There was no media frenzy about that four day gap. Why was there media mania about the four days taken to find the MH17 bodies? - Because there is a well-orchestrated campaign of vindictive anti-Russian propaganda.
The West thinks they've got Putin at last. The Sochi Winter Olympics were a great success, to the great vexation of governments in Washington, London, Warsaw and some other capitals, and the plebiscite in Crimea in which its citizens voted without a single instance of bloodshed to rejoin Russia (yes - rejoin; not a word you'll have seen much in western papers), was similarly infuriating. But now there's a chance to imply that Putin is responsible for everything that's wrong in Ukraine, and especially the destruction of MH17, there is mega-lip-smacking in the corridors of conspiracy.
As noted above, many western newspapers and other media squealed and screeched about how terrible it was that the MH17 bodies were " bundled into black body bags and unceremoniously loaded into large refrigerated train cars" - but at the site of the Lockerbie disaster "the first corpses were brought to the town hall, but people [ordinary villagers, just as in Ukraine] then started bringing them to the hockey stadium because it was the only place large and cool enough to store so many bodies." There was no "ceremony" in Lockerbie. How could there be in any such circumstances? But the Putin-bashers seize on anything and everything that they think could whip up hatred of Russia. The "pro-Russia separatists" are guilty of everything that's nasty.
Then Kerry leapt on the next bandwagon and pronounced that "it is clear that Russia supports the separatists, supplies the separatists, encourages the separatists, trains the separatists."
Many of us remember the months before the US went to war on Iraq in 2003 when another US Secretary of State made similar pronouncements. We should remember that the then incumbent of that office declared "we have first hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails." He announced a lot more baloney about "rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents" -and so on - and there was not a scrap of proof or truth in any of it. It was all lies.
Why should we believe John Kerry's rabble-rousing proclamations about anything to do with the stricken MH17? Where is his proof?
Sure, many of the separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine are vicious horrible people. Their cause might be reasonable but some of their actions are barbaric. Many are former members of the Ukraine army. They are the Taliban of Ukraine's tribal areas. But their political leader Alexander Borodai said they had moved the bodies "out of respect for the families" because "we couldn't wait any longer because of the heat and also because there are many dogs and wild animals in the zone." That is an entirely practical reason, and would any of the ignorant and spiteful western critics have acted differently in such circumstances?
Borodai denies that the rebels shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight, but of course he would, wouldn't he? Just as the government of Ukraine denies having done it.
So there must be a totally independent international inquiry into this ghastly disaster. It should be an investigation on the same lines and with the same terms of reference as the independent inquiry that took place following the shooting-down of Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988. Or does my memory play tricks? Surely there must have been a full independent inquiry into that atrocity, as demanded, now, about MH17, by President Obama who has demanded a "a rapid and credible investigation" ? Or perhaps there wasn't.
Do you remember that international crime? It involved "a civilian jet airliner shot down by US Navy surface to air missiles on 3 July 1988 as it flew over the Strait of Hormuz at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The aircraft, an Airbus A300B2-203 operated by Iran Air, was flying from Bandar Abbas, Iran, to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. While flying in Iranian airspace over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf on its usual flight path, it was destroyed by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes. All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, perished."
There was no attempt to find bodies after Iran Air 655 smashed into the waters of the Persian Gulf. There were no toothbrushes to be brandished by the squalid morbid media - and nor was there an independent inquiry. The captain of the ship that killed 290 innocent people was given a high military decoration by the United States of America "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service" during his period in command.
It's OK for the US to shoot down an Iranian airliner and kill 290 people - there's never been an apology to the Iranian people for that war crime - but when there's an opportunity to claim, to shriek, to propagandise at cyclone-level, that a disaster has occurred in which there just might be the tiniest chance to blame Russia, then there is clamour for investigation.
Of course there must be an investigation. And let it take into account exactly where Washington stood in regard to the first rebellion in Ukraine, against the elected government, and precisely what it did to foment it. Let the whole gutter-gobbing sleazy tale be told. Let the culprits who killed the 298 innocent people on board MH17 be brought to justice. But without anti-Russian hysteria. Or western humbug. The hatred, of course, will remain.
Brian Cloughley lives in Voutenay sur Cure, France.
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July 25, 2014 | The National Interest
The outrage at Russia is more than sufficient. What Washington needs is a policy. Particularly in the aftermath of the MH17 tragedy, the drive to punish Russia, to raise the costs of its aggression against Ukraine by levying harsher sanctions and seeking to isolate it internationally, is understandable; it might also meet a profound psychological need to demonstrate that we are not indifferent to the loss of nearly 300 innocent lives. But punishing Russia falls short of a credible policy.
We need to ask hard questions about what we want to achieve, how we want to achieve it and the consequences of our actions. Today's turbulent world offers no easy answers or moral clarity. To protect and advance our interests, we will be compelled to make trade-offs that are less than fully morally satisfying. That is an inevitable part of statecraft.
Amidst the passions and calls for action against Russia, what do we need to consider?
- First, sanctions. Whatever their effect in the long run, in the short run, they have only served to bolster Putin at home and energize ultranationalist forces, particularly prominent in the military and security forces. Although they may alter his tactics, they have not deterred Putin from pursuing what he sees as a vital Russian interest, securely anchoring Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence. Despite international censure, Russia continues to send heavy equipment to the separatists in eastern Ukraine; fighting on the ground has intensified. If Putin yields to domestic pressure to send the troops across the border, what is the West prepared to do to defend Ukraine, especially since we have ruled out the use of force? Simply more sanctions?
- Second, Ukraine. We want to encourage Ukraine to take a Western path, while defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity. But Ukraine is broken, politically and economically. Russian aggression has not created, but has highlighted the domestic fissures between East and West, between the elites and the rest of society, and among oligarchic clans that have bedeviled Ukraine since its independence. Even if the separatists are defeated, Ukraine will need a generation-and billions of dollars-to build a component state and repair the economy. Does the West have the patience and resources for such a task, given its own profound socioeconomic problems? The recent trials in agreeing on rescue packages for profligate European Union members would suggest that it does not. Moreover, how does the West plan to repair without Russian help an economy that is-and will long remain-dependent on Russia for energy and needs Russia as a market for its manufactured goods, which will not soon meet the EU's stringent standards?
- Third, the Transatlantic Community. While everyone is mesmerized by Asia, it remains true that America's closest and best partner is Europe. We should be devoting considerable time and effort to restoring ties, especially with Germany, that have frayed because of neglect and more recently NSA-leaker Snowden's revelations. Concluding negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) should be a priority. But our rush to sanctions, our desire to lead the West, has only exposed further rifts between the United States and Europe and within Europe itself. Even after the MH17 tragedy, key European states are reluctant to adopt more stringent sanctions, because their deep commercial ties to Russia leave them much more vulnerable than the United States is to Russian retaliation at a time when they have not fully recovered from the global economic crisis of 2008-09. Europeans are not closing ranks under U.S. leadership.
In addition to sanctions, we are also pressing for revitalizing NATO against a resurgent Russia. To be sure, there is an urgent need to reassure the most vulnerable allies about our commitment to collective defense. But the Russian challenge is not so much a conventional military one (NATO has the superior forces) as a socioeconomic one, as its actions in Ukraine demonstrate. And NATO allies should not be focused so much on building up their capacity for conventional warfare or acquiring new capabilities as on tending to the internal problems that Russia might exploit, including the Baltic states' treatment of their ethnic Russian minorities, as well as the growing prominence of populist, anti-EU forces.
- Fourth, China. One immediate consequence of our effort to isolate Russia has been Moscow's redoubled effort to enhance its ties with China. Putin made a huge show of his trip to China in May to celebrate, as the joint statement put it, "a new stage of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation." He made a special point of heralding progress toward the formation of a "Sino-Russian energy alliance," which he said would be a critical element of energy security throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The showpiece was the thirty-year, $400-billion gas deal. But Russia is no longer negotiating from a position of strength, and the current troubles with the West will only further weaken it. The Chinese will have no qualms about taking advantage of the Russians, even as they talk of partnership. As a result, in punishing Russia, which does not pose a strategic threat, we are easing the strategic calculus of China, our greatest strategic challenge.
- Fifth, global economic governance. Economic sanctions appear to be a powerful instrument with which to check our opponents, while avoiding the risks of the use of military force. Whether or not that is indeed the case, we need to think about the long-term consequences of resorting to sanctions against a major economy for the global economic system we created after the Second World War and which has been a foundation of our prosperity and power ever since. Inevitably, other states will look for ways to defend themselves. The BRICS' recent decision to build alternatives to the IMF and World Bank and to clear more of their trade in their own currencies is a harbinger of things to come; even theirs looks like an uncertain enterprise at the moment.
- Sixth, Russia. This is the most complicated piece in the strategic puzzle. While we want to contain Russian aggression in Europe, Russia could still prove to be a partner in managing the turmoil in the Middle East, resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, and containing instability in Afghanistan as U.S. forces withdraw. In the long run, it could serve as a useful hedge against China's rise. But treating Russia as an adversary and levying harsher sanctions threaten to excessively weaken a country that could be an important player in building and maintaining a global balance that advances American interests.
In the end, as much as many might prefer it to be otherwise, we will have to accommodate Russia to some extent, as we did the Soviet Union during the Cold War, for our own strategic purposes. We should be debating the nature and extent of that accommodation, not simply how we can punish Russia more severely. To that end, we need to establish our global priorities, be honest about the limits of our still formidable powers, and weigh the costs and benefits of possible trade-offs with Moscow. Moral outrage does not absolve us of the responsibility to think critically about the consequences of our actions and, with regard to Russia, develop an effective and sustainable policy.
Thomas Graham is a managing director at Kissinger Associates, Inc., where he focuses on Russian and Eurasian affairs. He was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia on the National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007 and Director for Russian Affairs on that staff from 2002 to 2004.
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The Vineyard of the Saker
by Dagmar Henn
There can be no doubt, western media are full of propaganda. The claims that are in the centre of this propaganda, are almost identical. They are:
1. The crash is the fault of the Militia.
2. The Militia obstructs the investigations
a. the Militia confines access to the site of the crash
b. the Militia does not confine enough access to the site.
c. they take away the bodies of the deceased too fast.
d. they do not take away the bodies fast enough.With the German medias, it is not just the lower end of the newspapers that feels the need of using manipulative language.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) shows us convincing proof for this assertion. On the 21st. of July they published their article, "Fighting for Truth", starting it with these words:
"Specialists from the Netherlands inspect the victims of the airplane-crash in Eastern Ukrainia. People in the area don't want to hear about any guilt on the part of the separatists. They rather believe in weird rumours and Russian television."
Implicated assertions are one of the favourite tools of propaganda. The articles of the German news medias (and, unfortunately, not only news media texts), are full of them these days. In the introduction above, only the first sentence would pass the set of rules of journalistic scrutiny and integrity. With the second sentence the manipulative part starts: it is contrived to provoke distaste for the inhabitants of the area. In the third sentence, the implicit verdict is cast: Russian television is put on the same level as "weird rumours", and both are set in opposition to the afore-mentioned "guilt of the separatists".
They continue on this level. "The heavily armed rebels" that accompany the forensic team from the Netherlands, are furbished with "German shepherd dogs, machine-guns, anti-tank-weapons and sunglasses and tattoos on their upper arms" – clearly, these are dangerous people. Looking into the cooling-cars, into which the recovered dead bodies have been brought, as is customary in such disasters, reveals "in the darkness of the cars...black objects ...shapeless carrier bags, thrown down upon the metal screen of the floor in an disorderly fashion, one next to the other, one above the other." It would be superfluous to comment explicitly upon lack of respect for the dead. "Thrown down upon the metal screen of the floor in a disorderly fashion, one next to the other, one above the other" – what do you expect from heavily armed tattooed people!
Even commentaries that completely contradict this picture are integrated into the tale without any fuss. "Later the speaker of the team from the Netherlands, Pieter van Vliet, said that the storage conditions of the dead are "good". He did not expatiate on this. The corpses are lying around in a disorderly fashion. But it seems here that what is important is the cooling, and the cooling works."
Even this forensic specialist from the Netherlands is not immune from being, very casually, used as a liar or even – check for the very fine meanings between the lines here – a collaborator.
You can find this very same bias in all of the German printed medias, in a big way, from the very distinguished papers to the popular boulevard press, whether they pose as conservative, supposedly leftist or just plain cheap and crappy (Bild). The propagandistic agenda, which we find in almost all of the western media landscape these days, is packaged in dense clouds of sentiments, feelings and apprehensions, surrounded by subtle denunciations and has been launched in a very obvious emotional direction.
And today's BILD newspaper stays in exactly that pattern:
"The train is stationed inside the company terrain, behind high gates. Isolated in this way from the public, a dignified examination of the human remains is possible – very different from what the pro-Russian rebels are doing, in the middle of the fields on which the plane has crashed."
Implicit accusations, a strong emotional contrast, every detail is loaded with emotional connotations.
"The screened-off area of the factory as a supportive dwelling" is contrasted with "the middle of the fields", which suggests a helpless state of exposition, which, by adding a completely useless piece of "information", "the pro-Russian rebels", gains a clearly defined culprit – how could it be otherwise? The use of the unusual definition "pro-Russian rebels" has certainly been decided upon because of its sound, because multiple repetitions of the r sound evoke words and ideas behind them, such as "Russian" and menacing...
Just the normal tools of propaganda?
No, most European medias certainly touch on the very coherent motives of propaganda, but they don´t try to slip it into the readers´ minds. They certainly construct a picture of the enemy, with the manipulative use of information and statements which they distribute or suppress, but they do not load them to such an emotional degree and do not use every opportunity to denunciate. As mentioned before, the first example is from a very distinguished daily newspaper, which gives you the impression that the German press has worn out its democratic phase and ditched it like an old jacket.
But it is not only the media that use this old pattern. The German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, who is often seen as an intermediary voice (and, according to the magazine FOCUS, is currently eager to shed his image as Putin-sympathetic), in his statements about the crash of MH 17, follows the same patterns. In an interview with Bild am Sonntag he said (citing from the Tagesschau transscripts):
Steinmeier refrained from accusations or recriminations for the crash. In the end, there is really no big difference if "the shoot-down was done fully intentionally or was a terrible mistake". Whoever uses "such weapons", accepts "the possibility of a disaster".There is ample reason to be preoccupied that the "Russian" separatists, "even now, after this horrible disaster, will continue to thoroughly neglect the basic rules of our civilization", Steinmeier said.1This statement is rife for publication in handbooks of political propaganda. It is very important to realize, how far it is going and to discern the implicit signals and messages. Because the deeper meaning here is very different from what Cameron said, "if the separatists are guilty, Europe has to put its fist firmly down upon the table". In the same way, Steinmeier's negotiations in February contained the implicit message that Swoboda and the right sector should be allowed to come to power. It is very important not to be deceived by the fact that Steinmeier bears a label that means social democrat. He honours the basic ideas implied by that as much as does his comrade Sarrazin.2
To start with, Steinmeier builds himself a position of moral superiority, by "abstaining from laying blame" – something he is not really doing, after all, but by the time we notice that, he has already made his point. He paints himself as a prudent person. That increases the value of what he is about to say. Finally, he takes care that there is ample room to wiggle (after all, the facts are anything but clear!), by making the statement that "it does not matter if the shoot-down happened fully intentionally or was a terrible mistake." It seems obvious that he knew how unstable and ambiguous the American claims really were...
Emotional manipulation starts with the use of the words "such weapons." He leaves things unsaid, open to interpretations we carry sub-consciously with us, which everybody will fill with the pictures and projections that scare him most. It is to be supposed that only a few were thinking of anti-aircraft-units BUK M-1 – but rather something in the form of a mushroom (which was used to re-activate long-forgotten remnants of the cold war); an additional amplification of this sentiment came with his phrase of "the possibility of disaster."3
The real message, however, comes in the last sentence. The "Russian separatists" (look here – not "pro-Russian", they have now magically transformed into real blood-and-bone Russians!), "thoroughly neglect the basic rules of our civilization"; barbarians, in other words, savages, cannibals, Untermenschen...
Another phrase by Steinmeier in connection with the crash underscores this direction even more: "those who are responsible for this have forfeited any rights for concerns of their own in the name of human rights and humanity."
No more rights for human treatment and behaviour towards them.
These are exactly the same kind of statements that we can hear from Kiev. Cameron's statements are aggressive, but still completely in line with demands and insistence on sanctions. In comparison, even the hoarse outcries for "NATO-involvement" are more or less harmless. The version from Kiev is easy to discern, because of the open and unambiguous use of the key words. Steinmeier has produced a masterpiece of vicious propaganda, which puts the idea of the Untermensch in the head of the reader, without ever mentioning it himself. That, my friends, is the difference between a master and an apprentice!
The use of propaganda is so widespread and so dense, that these statements by Steinmeier in no way stand out as anything exceptional. After all, no German newspaper did have any problem with the announcement of Poroschenko, to kill hundreds separatists for every dead Ukrainian soldier. On the contrary, it was distributed with obvious contentment and approval. But Steinmeier does not promote sanctions here. This is propaganda for war, it outlines the type of war and it sanctifies any and all crimes of the Kiev junta, as far as Berlin is concerned.
He suggests "a way out of this" to the Russian government: to let go completely (and one-sidedly) of the two republics. "Moscow now has a chance, maybe its very last chance, to show that it is really and seriously interested in a solution."
This is not diplomacy any more, this is an open threat. It seems to me that Putin must have outlawed the opium trade.
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kp.ru
Information from as yet unpublished decoding of black boxes had shown that Boeing 777 was damaged by shrapnel from the exploded missile, said a source close to the investigation.
"The rocket did what she was designed to do -- shoot down aircraft", - said the source.
According to the American CBS TV channel he stated the the data obtained confirm that decompression of the cabin was the result of shrapnel hit.
On July 23, the Dutch safety Board said that the organization officially assumes the responsibility for the investigation of the circumstances of the crash of the Boeing Malaysia Airlines in the East of Ukraine. Besides, it is known that the office will coordinate the work of the groups of investigators from several countries - Ukraine, Russia, Germany, USA, Malaysia, Australia, UK, and International organization of ICAO, which currently consists of 24 people.
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Jul 24, 2014 | The Washington Post
Much has been made of the possibility that the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was the work of an anti-aircraft missile. Even without confirmation or corroboration, investigators will have a wealth of evidence from the crash site and images from the scene to piece together the airplane's last moments.
For the moment, there must remain doubt. The U.S. has indicated that it has satellite and signals intelligence that a Russian-made BUK-M/SA-11 surface-to-air missile was launched from separatist-held areas of the Eastern Ukraine. Russia, in turn, has claimed that it has radar tapes of a Ukrainian Air Force SU-25 flying near MH17 just before radar contact was lost.
Given the paucity of hard evidence and the amount of noise generated, how will we attempt to determine the actual physical cause of the crash and ultimately who might be responsible for it? Will it be the "black boxes," physical wreckage, the human remains or some combination?
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Step by step, how the experts will attempt to determine the actual physical cause of the crash.
Peter Hollingsworth | July 24,2014
Video
The final Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight lands in Kuala Lumpur on Friday before the code is dropped as a mark of respect for victims of the plane downed over Ukraine.
World | 15 hours ago
Video
The family of a woman who died on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 traveled from Australia to pay respects at the crash site in eastern Ukraine.
Europe | 20 hours ago
Gallery
People around the world gather to grieve for those who died when the plane was shot down above eastern Ukraine.
Europe | July 24,2014
Video
The heads of Ukraine's Emergency Situations Service and the Dutch Police Mission in Ukraine say armed separatists are hampering work at the scene of the MH17 plane crash.
National | 19 hours ago
The theories are outlandish and frequently offensive -- but they bear considering if only because so many believe them.
Caitlin Dewey | Lifestyle | July 18,2014
History shows that covert efforts to provide sophisticated weapons to warring parties often slides into active participation: This suggests that Russians may not only have provided anti-aircraft weapons to Ukrainian rebels, but personnel to man them, too.
Austin Carson | Politics | July 22,2014
The Kremlin-sponsored broadcaster is taking on the British government over its coverage of the MH17 crash.
Sebastian Payne | Politics | July 23,2014
Anchor disrespects 'Daily Show' star
Erik Wemple | July 22,2014
Video
Aleksander Borodai, a leader of pro-Russian rebels, handed over the two black box recorders from Flight MH17 shot down over Ukraine to Malaysian officials Tuesday morning.
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- Family visits MH17 crash site updated 6 hours, 28 minutes ago
The first family members of an MH17 passenger arrive at the crash scene. CNN's Kyung Lah reports.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/27/lah-mh17-family-desperate.cnn.html
- Security pact reached for MH17 investigators updated 7 hours, 34 minutes ago
Malaysia has secured an agreement with pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine to allow a group of international police to enter the MH17 crash area to provide protection for international crash investigators, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's office said Sunday.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/27/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html
- Ukraine residents flee fighting updated 22 hours, 9 minutes ago
Fighting in Ukraine is causing residents to flee and hindering the MH17 investigation.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/26/nr-donetsk-residents-flee-and-violence-halts-mh17-investigation.cnn.html
- What the Russian media is saying updated 1 day ago
Oliver Bullough, author "The Last Man in Russia", breaks down Russia's media propaganda on the MH17 crash.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2014/07/26/exp-smerconish-e-block.cnn.html
- Remembering the MH17 victims updated 1 day ago
CNN talks to a friend of Tim Nieburg and Sascha Meijer, both victims on MH17, about how he'll remember his friends.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/international/2014/07/26/exp-remembreing-the-mh17-victims.cnn.html
- Family's one last photo aboard MH17 updated 1 day ago
Dave Hally took one last photo of his wife and 4-year-old daughter before takeoff for their dream vacation aboard MH17.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/26/mcglaughlin-pkg-familys-one-last-photo-on-board-mh17-malaysia.cnn.html
- Parents: We believe our daughter is alive updated 1 day ago
Fatima Dyczynski's parents believe she is alive and traveled to Ukraine to find her near the MH17 crash site.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/25/erin-pkg-lah-parents-of-mh17-victim-journey-to-crash-site.cnn.html
- Who's running the MH17 investigation? updated 1 day ago
With so many different nations affected by the MH17 downing, who is actually in charge of the investigation?
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/25/lead-dnt-brown-who-is-in-charge-of-mh17-investigation.cnn.html
- The science of identifying a tragedy updated 1 day ago
Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports on the the science that will help bring closure to the families who lost loved ones on MH-17
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2014/07/25/sgmd-gupta-mh-17-forensics.cnn.html
- Human Rights Watch: Mass grave in Ukraine updated 1 day ago
An earlier headline referred to a mass grave found at the MH17 crash site. It was in fact found in Slovyansk, Ukraine.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/25/ac-sot-watson-human-rights-watch-bodies-mh17.cnn.html
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CNN.com
Editor's note: Mark Kramer is director of the Cold War Studies Program at Harvard University and Senior Fellow of Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine last week, most likely after being struck with a missile fired by pro-Russian rebel forces, was followed this week by the rebels' shoot-down of two Su-25 attack aircraft deployed by the Ukrainian Air Force.
These incidents reflect a typical pattern in insurgencies and counterinsurgency operations. Air power is often crucial in fighting insurgents, as it has been recently in Ukraine. The Ukrainian air force has made up for the poor performance of Ukrainian ground units by driving rebel forces into retreat. The Su-25 ground-attack planes that were shot down this week were part of a renewed Ukrainian air offensive against rebel positions.
Because governments fighting insurgencies often enjoy a monopoly or major advantage in air power, rebel fighters must try to offset this advantage by using surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, and other air-defense weapons. That is precisely what has been happening recently in Ukraine, where pro-Russian rebels have shot down at least a dozen Ukrainian military aircraft over the past few months.
The downing of MH17 was apparently a tragic mistake, not a deliberate attack on a passenger airliner flying at high altitude. The pro-Russian rebels evidently believed the target was a large military transport aircraft, only to realize afterward that they had committed a terrible blunder.
Who are Ukraine's pro-Russia rebels?
But even if the downing of the airliner had been deliberate, it would not have been unprecedented. Indeed, on numerous occasions, insurgents armed by Moscow have deliberately shot down civilian planes.
In September 1978, guerrillas from the Zimbabwean People's Revolutionary Army shot down an Air Rhodesia passenger airliner using a Soviet-supplied SA-7 shoulder-fired SAM. Dozens were killed in the crash, but 56 passengers survived. The guerrillas methodically hunted down the survivors and killed them (though a small number evaded death by hiding).
Five months later, in February 1979, Zimbabwean guerrillas once again used a Soviet-supplied SA-7 to shoot down an Air Rhodesia passenger aircraft. All the passengers and crew died in the crash. In December 1988, Polisario Front guerrillas in Morocco used Soviet-supplied missiles to attack two U.S. DC-7 civilian aircraft that were spreading insecticide against a locust infestation. One of the planes crashed, killing all five Americans on board.
After the Soviet Union broke apart, the new government in Moscow continued to arm and train insurgent forces, focusing on other former Soviet republics. On three consecutive days in September 1993, Russian-backed separatist guerrillas in the Abkhazian region of Georgia deliberately attacked Transair Georgian Airways passenger flights, using Russian-supplied shoulder-held SA-7s against two of them in flight and artillery against the third during boarding. A total of 136 people were killed in the three incidents.
This record of Soviet and Russian support for insurgents who target civilian aircraft is important to bear in mind when judging the latest crisis over Ukraine. In all these earlier instances from the 1970s through the 1990s, Moscow-backed guerrillas deliberately attacked civilian planes. By contrast, in last week's downing of MH17, the likelihood is that the rebels only targeted the passenger aircraft because they thought it was a military plane.
No one has yet apologized for the incident, and the pro-Russian forces' handling of the crash site has been despicable, but the downing was not akin to the deliberate attacks that occurred in earlier years.
Many flights soar over conflict zones
Many observers have depicted events in Ukraine, including the MH17 tragedy, as reflecting something peculiar about Russian foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin. But as the 1993 attacks by Abkhazian fighters indicate, Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin often dealt with Russia's neighbors in a similar manner, seeing them as little more than vassal states.
Under both Yeltsin and Putin, Russia has bullied, intimidated, destabilized and violated the sovereignty of its neighbors, especially Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, whenever they have been led by rulers the Russian authorities dislike. Since 1992, Russia has consistently supported the entrenchment of authoritarian regimes in neighboring states and opposed upheavals and popular unrest directed against authoritarian rulers.
The historical record of Russia's domineering policy toward other former Soviet republics has often been disregarded in the recent flurry of commentary about Ukraine and MH17. One observer, writing last week on Forbes.com, declared that the MH17 disaster marked "the first case of rebels, supplied by a major power with surface-to-air missiles, bringing down a passenger plane." That statement is absurd and reflects an underlying ignorance of the long record of Russia's imperious dealings with its neighbors.
When thinking about where things might head now in Ukraine, we need to separate entrenched patterns from what is truly distinctive. Many observers get caught up with the daily twists and turns and fail to consider relevant historical precedents.
In each case in the past when Moscow-backed guerrillas deliberately attacked civilian aircraft, the incidents had no lasting impact on the conflicts and did not induce the Kremlin to back down. After the September 1993 attacks that destroyed three Georgian passenger planes, Yeltsin not only maintained his staunch support of the Abkhazian separatists but also deployed thousands of Russian troops in Abkhazia to deter the Georgian government from trying to reclaim it.
Over the past week many have predicted that MH17 will be a "game-changer" and might even lead to the unraveling of Putin's regime. The historical record gives us little reason to be confident about such optimistic prognoses.
Read CNNOpinion's new Flipboard magazine
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marknesop.wordpress.com
Warren, July 26, 2014 at 6:06 pm, Podcast: Russia After MH17
marknesop, July 26, 2014 at 8:51 pmSo what happens now?
From Vladimir Putin's odd midnight video statement to the Defense Ministry's Dr. Strangelove-like briefing, the week after the shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 has been littered with mixed and confusing signals in Russia - at least on the surface.
Meanwhile, Russia's oligarchs and much of the country's financial eite are getting increasingly nervous about sanctions and a prominent former finance minister warns that the country faces isolation.
On the latest Power Vertical Podcast, we discuss the domestic impact of the downing of Flight 17. Joining me are Sean Guillory of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies and author of "Sean's Russia Blog" and Merhat Sharipzhan, an analyst with RFE/RL's Central Newsroom.
http://www.rferl.org/content/podcast-russia-after-mh17/25470556.html
Whitmore is such a pathetic propagandist and condescending idiot, through out the show he dismisses the evidence put forward by the Russian military. Instead he keeps laughing and repeating that because the Su 25 maximum flight altitude is 7000m and the MH17 was flying at 10000m somehow the Su 25 could not be tracking MH17 and shoot it down.
But that idiot Whitmore conveniently ignores, is that you don't need to fly at the same altitude to track another plane, and the missiles the Su 25 carries can easily overcome the distances in altitude.
The "prominent former finance minister" is Alexey Kudrin, who briefly got that ol' liberal religion during Navalny's Boltnaya Roadshow, and said he was forming his own political party, just look out and see if he didn't. Well, he didn't – like Three Dog Night once assured us, One Is The Loneliest Number. He was an okay finance minister, mostly because he listened to good advice and didn't rock the boat, and put money away for a rainy day. Paul Martin was a great finance minister for Canada for much the same reasons, but the people still threw him out on his ass. Anyway, RFE/RL rarely passes up an opportunity to mention Kudrin and tries to keep him from being forgotten, because the west likes the cut of his jib and I have a suspicion they would like him to replace Putin. Never happen under the present conditions, though – even at Bolotnaya he got booed off the stage, although that shouldn't be held against him because the much-exaggerated crowd was in the throes of Navalny delirium.Al , July 27, 2014 at 5:28 amAnyway, Whitmore used to sound fairly sane at RFE/RL, but that's because his partner was Robert Coalson, who was biting-the-heads-off-live-chickens crazy, which made Whitmore look stable by comparison. Once Mr. Coalson departed, Mr. Whitmore began to look increasingly partisan without the foil of nutjobbery to play off of.
The SU-25 would not even have to have his radar turned on – the ATC can see them both, and would be deconflicting them on a voice circuit to keep them from hitting one another. The missiles the SU-25 carries – if Ukraine has any SU-25′s left; the Ukrainian Air Force is kind of dwindling rapidly, I'm afraid – are heat seekers and could easily acquire and reach the airliner. While Whitmore is not really an idiot, I agree that his condescending and sarcasm make him sound like one. He has a huge man-crush on Navalny, and used to wax rhapsodical on the subject of what an unstoppable political juggernaut he was. Like the meteorologist who predicted it would be sunny on your birthday and instead it threw it down like a cow pissing on a flat rock, people forgot how dunderheadedly wrong he was about Navalny, and those who are disposed to listen to him – typically Russophobes who fancy themselves both intellectually gifted, and well-informed realists, much as he does – will continue to listen to him.
The ATC would also see the missile that hit MH-17, and could make a pretty accurate assessment of its point of origin; probably another reason the records were confiscated and locked away.
The SU-25 would not even have to have his radar turned onAl , July 27, 2014 at 5:09 amI guess that is an involuntary slip! It doesn't have a radar. I blame the journos mixing up the Su-25 strike aircraft with the Su-27, which is why they keep on referring to it as a fighter
After all the evidence presented so far, the BUK training using Su-25s a simulated targets now seems more likely than it woz the rebels wot dun it by accident. For me it is the US and others total failure to follow up with any credible evidence and the total absence of ATC recordings.
If we hear only opaque reports about the CVR & FDR recovered from the crash and the data and transcripts are not published un-redacted, then it will be very clear the fix is in.
And yes, they do publish them, though not always quickly: http://www.airdisaster.com/
Stuff I've cribbed from elsewhere:ThatJ, July 27, 2014 at 12:46 amPPRUNE http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/543733-mh17-down-near-donetsk-32.html#post8573292
2 ULMFlyerRegarding Su-25:
1. 7000 m is a "static ceiling", "dynamic ceiling" is much higher, at least 10 km is quite reachable.
2. To release an air-to-air P-60 missile there is no need to equalize the altitude with the target aircraft.However, it looks quite unlikely that 777 could be completely destroyed by such a small missile as P-60. Unless it exploded directly in front of the cockpit making the crew inoperable instantly plus resulting in massive cabin depressurization….
###UKROBORONSERVICE says up to 7000-10000m
http://uos.ua/produktsiya/aviakosmicheskaya-tehnika/84-cy-25A number of Ukranian Su-25s have under gone a local upgrade to Su-25M1 with new avionics and probably some other stuff.
I have a bad feeling about the plan to send international soldiers from, yes you guessed it, Western countries to Donetsk to 'secure' the area around the crash site.colliemum , July 27, 2014 at 1:17 amInternational special forces are preparing to go to the Ukraine, perhaps as early as this weekend.
A detachment of Australian SAS has arrived in the UK within the past 24 hours, Sky News has learned.
If authorised, they will help secure the crash site of MH17 in eastern Ukraine along with international partners.
They are currently working with British and Dutch special forces – all three nations lost citizens in the disaster.
http://news.sky.com/story/1307384/sas-forces-on-standby-for-trip-to-ukraineFrom militaryphotos.net:
You may (?) be too young to remember it, but it was very much like that during the Mau Mau Uprising. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and you moved a muscle you were likely to catch a bullet.In this case, an accidental mortar or shelling is actually more likely to come form the UA side as, according to reports, they are about to launch a major offensive on the region and indiscriminate shelling has been their preferred tactic in the past.
According to sovpl.forum it is a firm plan, to send in Dutch troops have them killed by UA soldiers (probably a mortar attack) posing as seps and escalate based on this carefully planned false flag event. There is a good chance it will succeed and the war will go hot.
Together with the upcoming September 1 NATO 'games' in Ukraine, we may be witnessing a trojan horse who will soon, 'based on the wish of the Ukrainian government', have its presence legitimized in Ukraine, likely following a 'deadly attack by pro-Russian separatists against our soldiers', i.e. a false flag operation.
By then any Russian intervention will start a hot war, so Russia will not intervene. Those foreign troops who make their presence felt in the country first will force the other side not to send soldiers because doing otherwise will appear confrontional/belligerent. If Russia does not intervene, NATO will be on the Russian-Ukrainian border securing it against further entry of non-Ukrainian citizens and materiel, which will add psychological pressure on the seps and demoralize them. NATO may even participate in the elimination of seps along with the Ukies.
If something along these lines happen, then we can rest assured that the downing of the airliner was a false flag, as was the attack on the international 'neutral' soldiers.
Words fail me: "British lawyers have flown to Ukraine to prepare a class action against the Russian president on behalf of bereaved families"Fern , July 27, 2014 at 4:39 am
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10993470/Putin-facing-multi-million-pound-legal-action-over-alleged-role-in-MH17-crash.html
Vultures, that's what they are.OTOH, watch this space because these lawyers may well find out that instead of Putin they better sue Porkychops – he's got enough dosh to pay the victims families twice over, and the lawyers' fees on top of that. Not that they'd do such a thing, him being an 'ally'.
But if there's nothing more reported on this 'case', then the lawyers know that there is no case.
colliemum, I suspect the real purposes of this story in the Telegraph are quite different from what its headline suggests. In fact, buried several paragraphs down is the sentence saying that representatives from this vulture-like law firm are in Ukraine to discuss only the 'possibility' of a class action.kirill , July 27, 2014 at 5:29 amIt's a useful exercise, when reading the article, to count the number of times an 'expert' says something along the lines of "well, it's all pretty difficult. The site's been contaminated, evidence has been moved. It'll take ages to get definite answers. Actually, we may never know". I suspect we'll be hearing an awful lot of this over the coming days and weeks. I have no doubt that the radar, satellite and black boxes' data contradict or, at least, do not support the official story. So a plausible, alternative narrative has to be started – 'we'll never really know' – and this article is doing yeoman service in that cause.
If the US brings a class action suit against Putin and the Russian government, that's also very helpful to this narrative since you then have an 'official' version of MH17 – 'we'll never really know' – interspersed with occasional reports on how suit is going so that almost all future mentions of MH17 in the media will be inextricably linked with Russian guilt.
You have to admire the cleverness of western elites even as you recoil from their sheer evil. There are times when I doubt they can be defeated.
It's schoolyard lying and not cleverness. The black boxes have established explosive decompression and parts of the aircraft on the ground show extensive shrapnel damage. There is nothing more to be obtained from the crash site. It's not a murder investigation in some alley where hair and fabric fibers and stains required of identify a killer. In the case of the Malaysian jet the crash site cannot establish the origin point of the missile. We need ATC records and other remote monitoring data for that. The Kiev regime seized the ATC records and is not releasing them. WTF has Putin got to do with any of this? Is he telling the Kiev regime what to do? The mere fact that the regime is not releasing the ATC records confirms that it was regime forces that are culpable. There is no other reason to sequester these records.Jen , July 27, 2014 at 4:40 amThis whole propaganda theater denying the rebels any independent existence from Putin and treating the unelected Kiev regime as legitimate is proving the west is a totalitarian toilet. This is by the west's own definition of totalitarianism. (Porosyuk's election does not validate the illegal activity of the kangaroo Rada and was itself not legitimate due to a low turnout, lack of proper alternative candidates and most likely outright fraud when counting the ballots).
Any case action might end up rather like the Litvinenko case or the Lockerbie case: dragging on for years with starts and stops because crucial evidence cannot be released or is classified. Anyone convicted in a trial is more than likely to be innocent but that won't stop the ambulance chasers from hounding him just as Al Megrahi was hounded.ThatJ , July 27, 2014 at 2:43 amThe EU has parachuted a team of security advisers into Kiev to assist the Ukrainian government in imposing the rule of law in rebel districts, in a provocative move likely to further inflame relations with Moscow.karl1haushofer , July 27, 2014 at 3:30 am
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/27/eu-ukraine-security-advisers-rebel-areasRecent posts in militaryphotos.net say that seps are surrounded in Donetsk. I guess this time they cannot break the siege but have to fight to the last man.
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cycyron.livejournal.com
The administration of the United States in their own foreign policy relies on an outright lie and bears responsibility for the conflict on Ukraine and its serious consequences, said the press service of the foreign Ministry of Russia.
"Judging by unrelenting campaign of slander in the address of Russia, organized by the American administration, there are increasingly relying on an outright lie in the conduct of its foreign policy. Take the new statement of the spokesman of the U.S. President George Bush. Ernest, directly accused our country in the deaths due to shooing down over Ukraine of Malaysian airliner", - said in a statement on the website of the Russian foreign Ministry.
Nevertheless, the Ministry drew attention to the fact that in support of his position Washington failed "not just to provide the evidence, and even just links to facts that could be considered and annotated. "Everyone in the White house is limited to mentioning of some "intelligence information", to show that nothing is impossible, and that it is absolutely ridiculous, especially reling on "information in social networks", - noted the Minister.
The office added that "the Washington regime in its statements rely on invalid assumptions or outright lies based on the anti-Russian opinions collected on the Internet", while noting that "the spamming of the Internet with this anti-Russian junk" is conducted and financed by the same Washington, and, perhaps, Kiev".
"However, a number of questions to the American side, which is increasingly isolating itself from the ability to adequately perceive anything other than her own schemes and hallusinations. Before assigning blame to any party, the US should answer 10 questions of the Defense Ministry of Russia and 22 questions formulated by the Federal Air Transport Agency. Why in Washington are silent? Apparently, because it can't answer those questions. Or because the only answer they give to any question is the word - "sanctions", - said in Moscow."We will survive them, but it is regrettable that simultanioulsy the U.S. continues to push Kyiv to use brute force to suppress discontent of the Russian-speaking population. There can be the only one conclution: the Obama administration bears responsibility for the internal conflict in Ukraine and its serious consequences", - concluded in the Ministry.
Earlier on Saturday, the official representative of the White house Josh Ernest said that the President of Russia Vladimir Putin is responsible for the collapse of the Malaysian Boeing in the East of Ukraine.
According to him, "Russia conducted for militia training on the use of the system "Buk". "So now we can conclude that Vladimir Putin and the Russians are guilty in this tragedy," he said.
At the same time, Ernest said that information on training in Russia the Ukrainian militia use of anti-aircraft missile systems "Buk", the US administration has gathered from social networking.
Earlier, American intelligence said that the US does not have evidence of involvement of Russia to the shooting down of the Malaysian Boeing 777 in the East of Ukraine.
In turn the Ministry of Defense of Russia presented data from radars and other telemetric about shooting down of Malaysian Boeing 777, according to which the final position of the airliner at the time of shooting it down gets in a zone of of fire of the Buk system deployed in the region by the armed forces of Ukraine. Moreover next to the passenger plane was spotted Ukrainian SU-25 attack aircraft.
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general-ivanov.livejournal.com
From: SBUTo: President of Ukraine, Peter Porosheko
TOP SECRET
1 COPYReport.
In the period from 14 to 19 July 2014 we should note the disastrous rise (3473 man, 47%) of the number of deserters from the Armed Forces and the National guard of Ukraine in comparison with similar indicators for the previous week (1847 people, 25%).
In addition, for this period has increased the number of missing people (1344 people, 47%; last week - 344 people, 10%).
This phenomenon is related to the increased activity of the enemy in Donetsk and Lugansk regions and the increase in the number of our casualties in units of the law enforcement agencies. This fact affects the combat readiness of the personnel and makes the continuation of ATO impossible. If the negative dynamics will remain at the same level, through 4-5 days 2/3 combat-ready units involved in ATO, will cease to exist.
In order to maintain the combat potential of the ATO law enforcement units I propose the withdrawal of the units to the area of Dobropillya, and Smolyaninovo respectively. After replenishing ammunition, regrouping and conducting rotation 60% of personnel the offensive will be continued.
Head of SBU V.Nalivaychenko
July 19, 2014
-----------------------------------------------
A resolution.
Continue until victory!
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