MH-17 Case Slips into Propaganda Fog

Exclusive: Almost a year ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine killing 298 people. Yet, instead of a transparent investigation seeking justice, the case became a propaganda game of finger-pointing, with the CIA withholding key evidence all the better to blame Russia, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The Dutch investigation into the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine last July has failed to uncover conclusive proof of precisely who was responsible for the deaths of the 298 passengers and crew but is expected to point suspicions toward the ethnic Russian rebels, fitting with the West’s long-running anti-Russian propaganda campaign.

A source who has been briefed on the outlines of the investigation said some U.S. intelligence analysts have reached a contrary conclusion and place the blame on “rogue” elements of the Ukrainian government operating out of a circle of hard-liners around one of Ukraine’s oligarchs. Yet, according to this source, the U.S. analysts will demur on the Dutch findings, letting them stand without public challenge.

A Malaysia Airways' Boeing 777 like the one that crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. (Photo credit: Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland)

A Malaysia Airways’ Boeing 777 like the one that crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. (Photo credit: Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland)

Throughout the Ukraine crisis, propaganda and “information warfare” have overridden any honest presentation of reality and the mystery around the MH-17 disaster has now slipped into that haze of charge and counter-charge. Many investigative journalists, including myself, have been rebuffed in repeated efforts to get verifiable proof about the case or even informational briefings.

In that sense, the MH-17 case stands as an outlier to the usual openness that surrounds inquiries into airline disasters. The Obama administration’s behavior has been particularly curious, with its rush to judgment five days after the July 17, 2014 shoot-down, citing sketchy social media posts to implicate the ethnic Russian rebels and indirectly the Russian government but then refusing requests for updates.

But why the later secrecy? If Director of National Intelligence James Clapper decided that unverified information about the shoot-down could be released five days after the event, why would his office then decide to keep the U.S. public in the dark as more definitive data became available?

Over the past 11 months, the DNI’s office has offered no updates on the initial assessment, with a DNI spokeswoman even making the absurd claim that U.S. intelligence had made no refinements of its understanding about the tragedy since July 22, 2014.

I’m told that the reason for the DNI’s reversal from openness to secrecy was that U.S. intelligence analysts found no evidence that the Russian government had given the rebels sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles capable of downing an aircraft at 33,000 feet, the altitude of MH-17, and that an examination of U.S. satellite and electronic intelligence instead implicated extremists linked to Ukraine’s U.S.-backed regime, although not to Kiev’s political leadership.

At that point, admitting to an erroneous rush to judgment would have embarrassed the administration and undermined the “public diplomacy” campaign around the MH-17 case. By blaming Russia and its President Vladimir Putin last summer, the Obama administration whipped Europe into an anti-Russian frenzy and helped win the European Union’s support for economic sanctions against Russia. Keeping Putin on the defensive is a top U.S. priority.

As one senior U.S. government official explained to me, information warfare was the only area in the Ukraine crisis where Washington felt it had an edge over Moscow, which benefited from a host of other advantages, such as geography, economic and cultural ties, and military pressure.

‘False Flags’

It also appears that right-wing Ukrainian political forces, which seized power in the Feb. 22, 2014 coup, have understood the value of propaganda, including “false flag” operations that pin the blame for atrocities on their opponents. One of the most successful may have been the mysterious sniper attacks on Feb. 20, 2014, that slaughtered both police and protesters in Kiev’s Maidan square, with the violence immediately blamed on President Viktor Yanukovych and used to justify his overthrow two days later.

Later independent investigations indicated that extreme right-wing elements seeking Yanukovych’s ouster were more likely responsible. Two European Union officials, Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, were revealed discussing in a phone call their suspicions that elements of the protesters were responsible for the shootings.

“So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition,” Paet told Ashton, as reported by the UK Guardian. [A worthwhile documentary on this mystery is “Maidan Massacre.”]

Even U.S. officials have faulted the new regime for failing to conduct a diligent investigation to determine who was to blame for the sniper attack. During a rousing anti-Russian speech in Kiev last month, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power inserted one criticism of the post-coup regime that “investigations into serious crimes such as the violence in the Maidan and in Odessa [where scores of ethnic Russians were burned alive] have been sluggish, opaque, and marred by serious errors suggesting not only a lack of competence, but also a lack of will to hold the perpetrators accountable.”

In other words, regarding the Maidan sniper massacre, the Kiev regime wasn’t willing to reveal evidence that might undermine the incident’s use as a valuable propaganda ploy. That attitude has been shared by the mainstream Western media which has sought to glue white hats on the post-coup regime and black hats on the ethnic Russian rebels who supported Yanukovych and have resisted the new power structure.

For instance, since Yanukovych’s ouster nearly 1½ years ago, The New York Times and other mainstream outlets have treated reports about the key role played in the coup regime by neo-Nazis and other far-right nationalists as “Russian propaganda.” However, this week, the Times finally acknowledged the importance of these extremists in Kiev’s military operations. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists.”]

A similar propaganda fog has enveloped the MH-17 investigation, with the lead investigators the Dutch, British, Australians and Ukrainians all firmly in the pro-Kiev and anti-Moscow camp. (Specialists from the United States, Russia and Malaysia have also been involved in the inquiry.)

Not surprisingly, leaders in Ukraine and Australia, as well, didn’t wait for the investigation to reach a conclusion before placing the blame on Putin. Last October, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott used an Australian football term in vowing to “shirtfront” Putin about his supposed guilt in the MH-17 case.

Media Fakery

Keeping the later U.S. intelligence analysis secret also allows for the Putin-did-it propaganda campaigns to go forward in mainstream media outlets and various propaganda fronts. A good example was the Australian “60 Minutes” report in May presenting bogus video evidence supposedly corroborating “Russia-did-it” claims made by British blogger Eliot Higgins.

While the segment appeared to be authoritative supposedly proving that Putin was responsible for mass murder a closer examination showed that the program had relied on video fakery to mislead its viewers. The key scene supposedly matching up a video of a getaway Buk anti-aircraft missile battery with landmarks in the rebel-controlled city of Luhansk didn’t match up at all. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “You Be the Judge.”]

After I revealed the fraud by showing how the two scenes were almost entirely different, the Australian show fell back on a claim that one utility pole in the getaway video looked like a utility pole that its reporting team had found in Luhansk. It is perhaps a sign of how crazy the anti-Russian propaganda has gotten that a major news program could feel that it can make such an absurd argument and get away with it.

In a rational world, matching up the two scenes would require all the landmarks to fit, when in this case none of them did. Further, to cite similarities between two utility poles as evidence ignored the fact that most utility poles look alike and there was the additional fact that none of the area around the two utility poles matched at all, including a house behind one that didn’t appear in the scene of the other. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Reckless Stand-upper on MH-17.”]

However, as long as the U.S. government’s comprehensive intelligence information on MH-17 is kept secret, such sleights of hand can continue to work. I’m told that the Dutch report is likely to contain similar circumstantial claims, citing such things as the possible angle of the fired missile, to suggest that the ethnic Russian rebels were at fault.

Last October, the Dutch Safety Board’s initial report answered very few questions, beyond confirming that MH-17 apparently was destroyed by “high-velocity objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.” Other key questions went begging, such as what to make of the Russian military radar purporting to show a Ukrainian SU-25 jetfighter in the area, a claim that the Kiev government denied.

Either the Russian radar showed the presence of a jetfighter “gaining height” as it closed to within three to five kilometers of the passenger plane as the Russians claimed in a July 21 press conference or it didn’t. The Kiev authorities insisted that they had no military aircraft in the area at the time.

But the 34-page Dutch report was silent on the jetfighter question, although noting that the investigators had received Air Traffic Control “surveillance data from the Russian Federation.” The report also was silent on the “dog-not-barking” issue of whether the U.S. government had satellite surveillance that revealed exactly where the supposed ground-to-air missile was launched and who may have fired it.

The Obama administration has asserted knowledge about those facts, but the U.S. government has withheld satellite photos and other intelligence information that could presumably corroborate the charge. Curiously, too, the Dutch report said the investigation received “satellite imagery taken in the days after the occurrence.” Obviously, the more relevant images in assessing blame would be aerial photography in the days and hours before the crash.

The Dutch report’s reference to only post-crash satellite photos was also odd because the Russian military released a number of satellite images purporting to show Ukrainian government Buk missile systems north of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk before the attack, including two batteries that purportedly were shifted 50 kilometers south of Donetsk on July 17, the day of the crash, and then removed by July 18.

Russian Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov called on the Ukrainian government to explain the movements of its Buk systems and why Kiev’s Kupol-M19S18 radars, which coordinate the flight of Buk missiles, showed increased activity leading up to the July 17 shoot-down.

The Ukrainian government countered these questions by asserting that it had “evidence that the missile which struck the plane was fired by terrorists, who received arms and specialists from the Russian Federation,” according to Andrey Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s Security Council, using Kiev’s preferred term for the rebels.

Lysenko added: “To disown this tragedy, [Russian officials] are drawing a lot of pictures and maps. We will explore any photos and other plans produced by the Russian side.” But Ukrainian authorities have failed to address the Russian evidence except through broad denials.

Where’s the Intelligence?

On July 29, 2014, amid escalating rhetoric against Russia from U.S. government officials and the Western news media, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity called on President Obama to release what evidence the U.S. government had on the shoot-down, including satellite imagery.

“As intelligence professionals we are embarrassed by the unprofessional use of partial intelligence information,” the group wrote. “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.’”

However, the Obama administration has failed to make public any intelligence information that would back up its earlier suppositions or any new evidence at all. One source told me that U.S. intelligence analysts are afraid to speak out about the information that contradicts the original rush to judgment because of Obama’s aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers.

If the Dutch final report emerges with carefully circumscribed circumstantial evidence implicating the pro-Russian rebels, the nuances will surely be carved away when the report is fed into the existing propaganda machinery. The conventional wisdom about “Russian guilt” will be firmed up.

A sense of how that will go can be seen in a recent New York Times article by David Herszenhorn on June 29: “Pro-Russian separatist leaders in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk have blocked access to Dutch law enforcement officials pursuing an investigation into the downing of a Malaysian jetliner nearly a year ago, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Office said.

“The obstruction by separatist officials prompted the investigators, from the Dutch National Police and Ministry of Defense, to cut short their field work in Ukraine without conducting research into cellphone towers and cellular networks in the region, the public prosecution office said.

“Based on preliminary analysis and intelligence, including from the United States government, the aircraft was widely believed to have been destroyed by a surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces.”

While the thrust of Herszenhorn’s article made the ethnic Russian rebels look bad and foreshadows some of the points likely to be featured in the Dutch investigative report perhaps the most significant word in the story is “preliminary.” While it’s true that the U.S. government’s “preliminary” report on July 22, 2014, implicated the rebels, the more pertinent question not asked by the Times is why there has been no refinement of that “preliminary” report.

The Dutch Safety Board issued a brief progress report on July 1 noting that it had submitted a draft of its final report to “accredited representatives of the participating States on June 2,” giving them 60 days to submit comments before a “definitive final” report is published in October.

Meanwhile, Dutch prosecutors handling the criminal investigation say they have no specific suspects, but lead investigator Fred Westerbeke claims the probe has a number of “persons of interest.” Westerbeke said the criminal probe will likely run through the end of the year or later.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

121 comments for “MH-17 Case Slips into Propaganda Fog

  1. MrSpiritus001
    July 14, 2015 at 17:15

    What did happen: (in short)

    The signing of the BRIC agreement two days before the shooting; the cold war; 12 of the 14 ex-sovjet-countries became NATO member with Ukraine in the planning since 1995, etc.

    The coming of the euro, since 2000 reduced the value of the dollar in respect to the euro; the petrodollar (Ghadafy), etc.

    American nationals naturalised to Ukrainier placed in puppet regime, the Maidan shooting, etc.

    I start one day before shooting down the MH17;

    In weatherforecast was to predict to change the flight from its Original flight plan.
    Ukraine army placed a BUK-system with radar, waiting for the plane ! This is the BUK; a video of the Ukraine army itselfs, here is a copy of it; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgfa_kWm4_k&feature=player_embedded

    A SU-25 was folowing, on lower hight to signal to the waiting BUK !

    Why ? Radar activity of the BUK, will be noticed ! The SU-25 is standart equiped with multiple radio, was flying in militairy forbidden airspace, (so it had an objective).

    Resulting in a short radar activity of the BUK, (this is seen).

    Ukraine militairy were waiting to silence the flight planners of Ukraine airspace, (and to take what they wanted), inside the building of the flightplanners.

    The Ukraine army denied having BUKs and a plane following. Only after witnesses on the ground of the lower flying SU-25 and Russian radar explination; it came clear that there was a folowing plane.

    Why they, (CIA/puppetregime), choose the MH17; because there were no Americans on board !

  2. MrSpiritus001
    July 14, 2015 at 11:37

    I just pointed a CIA involvement, in the planning, of shooting down the MH17. But was cencored at http://www.powned.tv/nieuws/politiek/2015/07/wij_willen_vntribunaal_voor_mh.html

    In short; Less than two hours a complete Wikipedia pagina was created, also in it a link to a Dutch journal as source. But in fact the source was the American Ambassade in Kief.

    Within minutes after shooting down the American Ambassade published two unclear satalite pictures, pointing towards the seperatists/Russia as quilty of the murder.
    Why publish this on a remote Ambassade ? (Because this would be world news.)

    ”Within minutes” ! As it were that the pictures were already there before the shooting ! {This proves CIA involvment.}

    The video that was made before the shooting, and publised by the Oekraine puppet-regime; i shall leave for what it . Because i will prove the CIA involvement !

    What did the Wikipedia do ?
    They removed all tekst, that refered to the early publising, (in there history of the consultation page) !

    By this Wikipedia removed the public prove; that the pictures were already waiting before the shooting.

    Keep your eyes open people !

  3. MrK
    July 12, 2015 at 13:57

    But the 34-page Dutch report was silent on the jetfighter question, although noting that the investigators had received Air Traffic Control “surveillance data from the Russian Federation.” The report also was silent on the “dog-not-barking” issue of whether the U.S. government had satellite surveillance that revealed exactly where the supposed ground-to-air missile was launched and who may have fired it.

    Here is another point – why did #MH17 crash over the Russian-Ukrainian border? It was diverted from the normal flight paths, which are over the Sea of Azov.

    There are only 2 parties that could have diverted the flight – the pilot, and the groundcontrol in Kiev.

    This is why it is so important to have the tapes, and Kiev is not cooperating.

    • Chuk
      July 12, 2015 at 15:06

      Good point MrK. Hence why I brought up Igor Kolomoisky who was the governor of the region where this regional ATC was located. This ATC tower was allegedly visited by police and all communications were seized by Kiev. Now , this could be tin foil stuff but it is odd if its true. I really have a suspicion that it was a failed assassination attempt on Putin’s plane by radicals. His state plane looks very similar in its markings and it was returning from Brazil after the world cup on that exact date.

  4. Chuck
    July 12, 2015 at 10:16

    Igor Kolomoisky is a fervent nationalist governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region which was the region responsible for regional traffic control during the crash. I wonder if the conflict he had with Kiev in March had anything to do with the fallout from MH-17. He is allegedly a fervent nationalist and former ally of Poroshenko. Just speculation on my part.

  5. igor
    July 11, 2015 at 17:19

    There is no proof that the separatists/russians shot down MH17. In fact, if anything, american satellite imagery shows that ukrainian forces were operating the missile launcher that downed mh17. Those images will never see the day light. Larry Johnson, former CIA analist, backed up the same version. https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/22/the-mystery-of-a-ukrainian-army-defector/

    Since Ukraine is part of the investigation team into the crash and has a non disclosure agreement with the other members you can´t expect much transparency in final report and of course they won´t blame themselves. It´s like asking O.J. Simpson to be te judge of his own trial. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=022_1417006401

    So in the end a case against the pro-russians based on circumnstancial evidence will be put forward. I suspected that they will say a SAM downed mh17, and that the area where the missile was fired was most likely under separatist control. They will resort to witnesses,twitter, videos, intercepts, experts opinions to give credibility to their investigation but no hardcore evidence will be presented. That will do to ensure the crowds ” know” what happened to mh17.

  6. Paul McG.
    July 11, 2015 at 04:57

    See Novayagazeta.ru 13 May 2015 for a report by the manufacturer of the BUK missiles.
    Novayagazeta is a paper half owned by its staff and half(slightly less) owned by Gorbachev. It is definitely not Putin friendly, in fact Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006 wrote for them.

    Anyway the manufacturer did a detailed analysis of the damage to the airliner determining the angles of attack of the shrapnel. Using their knowledge of the flight and explosive characteristics of the missile, they identified the exact model and exact explosive payload and its course. Combining this with the flight course of the MH 17, they then identified the rough location of its launch point. The conclusion was that it came from an area controlled by the Kiev military. Had it come from a rebel area the strike angles would have been dramatically different.

    So it seems the Russians and the CIA analysts-the honest and leaky ones-agree. Elements of Kiev military did the deed. Interesting the BUK builder analysis rules out a fighter jet attack.

    • Abe
      July 11, 2015 at 22:01

      Novaya Gazeta is an anti-Putin propaganda factory.

      Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev owns only 10% of Novaya Gazeta, and the paper’s staff controls 51% of shares.

      Novaya Gazeta is 39% owned by Russian oligarch Alexander Yevgenievich Lebedev. Since 2013, Lebedev is also the head of the “investigative department” of the newspaper.

      Lebedev also is owner of four UK newspapers with son Evgeny Lebedev: the London Evening Standard, The Independent, The Independent on Sunday, and the i Newspaper, plus the London Live TV channel.

      An example of Novaya Gazeta propaganda on Ukraine is a September 1, 2014 article alleging that Russian soldiers had invaded Ukraine and suffered serious casualties.

      The Novaya Gazeta article was immediately translated into English and appeared online on 02 September in the Kyiv Post, a staunchly anti-Russian and pro-Western English language newspaper.

      The article claimed that on August 13, 2014 a “column” of 1,200 Russian soldiers was attacked with Grad rockets in Snizhne, resulting in 120 Russian dead and 450 wounded.

      Such a military exploit surely would have been celebrated by the Ukrainian forces, and the bodies of dead Russian soldiers would have been photographed and placed on display before the eyes of the world.

      Alas, as has happened so frequently in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, Russian invasions “seen” by the Ukrainians never quite manage to physically materialize.

      In fact, the Ukrainian military Anti-Terrorist Operation reports merely noted that Ukrainian aircraft attacked a “convoy” of over 100 units of “Russian military equipment” in Snizhne on 13 August, destroying one armored personnel carrier and two trucks. No Russian or Donetsk militia casualties were reported and no Ukrainian Grad rockets were mentioned in the account.

      There is no question that there have been casualties among the Russian volunteers fighting together with the Donetsk and Luhansk defense forces. However, despite the numerous instances of the Ukrainians “crying wolf,” thus far there has been no conclusive evidence a significant Russian invasion force.

      Nevertheless, Novaya Gazeta is the most frequently cited source in the anti-Russia propaganda report produced by the Atlantic Council.

      Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat dis-information site fame frequently Tweets about how the awesomeness of Novaya Gazeta reporting.

      Higgins, a co-author of the Atlantic Council propaganda report, is only the second most frequently cited source in the Atlantic Council report. But Higgins thinks he’s pretty awesome too.

  7. rexw
    July 10, 2015 at 23:07

    One can be safe in assuming that this is as far as it will ever get to the truth in this particular matter. MH 17, dead and buried.

    Well covered by Consortiumnews with a first class job of exploring the real story. No other stones to look under any more.

    When we see national events like the assassination of JFK, the 9/11 whitewash, the USS Liberty cover-up and any number of other excursions into the truth as the US wants it to be seen, then true facts are never likely to emerge again with the exception of the versions selected to be “the truth” and published in all the compliant media, government-approved, Zionist-controllled.

    This has been the case for a decade so why will it ever change. The world according to the US media, edited by Hans Christian Andersen.

    Sadly the once-respected US of A now faces a long period of readjustment before it can hopefully emerge from the other end on their self-degeneration tunnel. This can only be done by the people eventually shunning the type of candidates we see emerging as the next feckless President, from whatever side (they are all of the same cloth) and enduring the civil unrest which could soon be the daily norm across the country. Then it has to remove, permanently, the unpatriotic Zionist influence engaging in professional graft and corruption across the whole country by giving Israel the heave-ho and then prepare for the next war against the new nominated US-style axis of evil…. China, Russia, North Korea and anyone else that displays one ounce of independence from the dictates of the world’s #1 morally bankrupt country, America.
    “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us” What a philosophy.

    It is very close now but as we all now know has been in the planning and execution stages by Israel for half a century. Nearly there. They studied well what was required to own America and have not put a foot wrong. The USS Liberty in 1967 was the trigger and it showed them, in no uncertain terms, what they could get away with, Thank you, Lyndon B.(for “blindsided”) Johnson. His naivety has made it so easy for israel. “We own America”, said Netanyahu, and he does.

    No one learns from history any more, even from the mistakes made by Greeks, Romans, Ottomans and British.

    America now well on the way.The MH 17 matter has just been another step along the way.

  8. July 10, 2015 at 21:40

    i would like to ask this forum a question. i have not been able to determine(myself) who actually ok’d the shootdown of Putin’s aircraft, the ukrainian government or the USA? And who do you suppose Putin thinks called the mission?

    regards
    derek

    • Abe
      July 10, 2015 at 22:18

      The Russian presidential aircraft, a modified four-engined, widebody Ilyushin Il-96, was not flying over Ukraine during that period.

      An aircraft flight path intersection near Warsaw was alleged.

      The Russian media story suggested that Ukrainian Air Force Buk missile system operators acted incompetently and/or were politically manipulated.

      In any case, a Putin assassination scenario has not been supported by the facts.

      • July 12, 2015 at 22:19

        The Ukranians obviously thought they were attackling a different comm. aircraft than the one they shot down…the flight mechanic and the air traffic controller, both confirm this. The fact that they(Ukranian military) may have gotten it worng is not surprising. there are facts connected to an assassination attempt.

  9. Abe
    July 10, 2015 at 17:38

    Eliot Higgins is pimping 3 new Bellingcat reports on MH-17.
    https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/617417375269421056

    Higgins’ analysis of satellite imagery has been already laughed out of the house, but he continues to brag about it
    https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/617417750923870208

    Pushing the US/NATO propaganda on radio, TV and print before July 17
    https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/617416913120047105

    • Steven Hansen
      July 11, 2015 at 03:49

      So now that Almaz Antey have discredited the Snizhne launch site Bellingcat are going to try to claim Zaroshenskye as rebel held? :)
      Problem for Bellingcat is that they have already committed themselves to their buk trail timeline.
      More likely it will be just noise from Bellingcat where they never address the contradictions in their stories

      • Hector Reban
        July 12, 2015 at 03:15

        Yep, that´s exactly the plan. They tried with their 5/31 report but their complete methodology has been debunked.

        Its very interesting to watch what proof they will come up with as there is a very strong case to be made in favour of Ukrainian control of the ¨Zaroshchenskoye pocket¨ on the 17th of July, 2014.

        Wait and see how this infowar is developping :-)

      • Brendan
        July 12, 2015 at 05:47

        Almaz Antey’s conclusions are based on their description of the fragment distribution of an exploding BUK warhead, which is something that can be easily tested with other BUK missiles. There are still plenty of BUKs around to do those tests on. Ukraine has a lot of them and so do other countries, such as Finland, which got them from the Soviet Union.

        Whether Almaz Antey’s presentation turns out to be accurate or not, it does highlight something that is very useful in locating the missile launch site. It shows the way that the positions and shapes of the damage to MH17 can be used to determine the accurate position and the possible direction of the missile when it detonated.

        Having looked at photos of the damage to various parts of the MH17, I’m convinced that a launch site anywhere near Snizhne is physically impossible for a BUK or any other conventional surface-to-air missile, unless it follows an extremely curved trajectory. Other people have been commenting on that too on the internet. More will come out about that in the next couple of months before the Dutch report is released.

  10. Bill Jones
    July 10, 2015 at 14:48

    Here’s a Dutch journalist’s perceptive view on this.

    http://www.unz.com/article/the-ukraine-corrupted-journalism-and-the-atlanticist-faith/

  11. Anonymous
    July 10, 2015 at 12:58

    The overwhelming reader consensus here is that the Empire cannot be trusted. And because of their subversive history combined with a rush to pin this tragedy on Putin and Russia, with nothing but flimsy conjecture for evidence — this fact makes the empire suspect while providing concrete evidence they once again don’t care in the least about the truth and justice as they have no evidence in this case.

    This is a sign of several possible realities:

    With desperation “to win”, whatever it is they honestly perceive is at stake, being at the top of their list.

    If not desperate then this indicates a complete disregard for law — as we know they were behind the coup and it would not have taken place as it did without their backing and urging ahead of the fact — this lying and killing while lacking concern or empathy for anything or anyone outside their interests — defines them, as individuals and a collective, as psychopathic in nature.

    And yes we know all of that already. The question is how to get the US public to see the truth’s that are obvious by looking at this one event.

    This is all fine and dandy to discuss this here amongst ourselves while knowing the truth, but there must be a way to draw the public’s attention and plant these seeds of reality in their distracted and propagandized minds.

    We’ve seen it before with the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960’s and early 70’s.

    People at home and around the globe are litterally being trampled to death and worse by the empire and their agents.

    Ladies and gentlemen, spectators and activists alike, this thing will be coming like a runaway freight train, going down the side of a mountain, that will simply refuse to fall off the tracks — “they” have already run over too many people — and the momentum against them is building by the day — the day is coming when this thing is going to squash them like the tiny bugs they are…

    You can take THAT to the bankers and all those who had a hand in bringing the world this Orwellian nightmare. Tell them we’re getting ready to show them the final door!

    • Uncle Sam's Grand Daddy
      July 10, 2015 at 13:10

      I had meant to sign that but got carried away there thinking about the coming days and why they’re coming in the manner they are.

    • Abe
      July 10, 2015 at 13:39

      The Empire is prepared for Active Denial:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmuyLIrSjxI

  12. william beeby
    July 10, 2015 at 04:21

    All I can say is thank god for the internet without which if we just had MSM to rely on we would all , in the West anyway , be convinced that Russia had supplied a buk and the ” pro Russian Rebels ” , fired it at Mh17. Why do the MSM insist on calling them ” Pro Russian Rebels ” when surely their correct description would be more like ” Anti-Kiev Rebels “. They want autonomy but NOT to be part of Russia is the way I see it.
    Almost a year later and we still do not know the truth ? As always we only know what “they” want us to know. Scarily this is just how major wars always start . The “West`s ” lies about a ” free press ” are surely now finally exposed to one and all ?

    • F. G. Sanford
      July 10, 2015 at 11:01

      I quite agree with your observation. But from an etymologically precise point of view, perhaps the term, “Anti-Nazi Separatists” hits closer to the mark. There is no doubt that the regime running Kiev are direct ideological descendants of Nazis beginning with Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko. OUN-B, UCCA and UPA operatives were actively recruited by the US, and many were also resettled in Canada after WWII. Harper is onboard because Ukrainian Canadians are a big voting block. Ronald Reagan put Ykaterina Chumachenko on his staff. I mentioned this in a comment under Consortium News’ June 26 article, “Forgetting Reagan’s Worst Scandal”. That page seems to have been deleted from the archive: I note that page 3 and page 5 of the June archive contain duplicates, but the Reagan article is missing. The Kiev regime is full of people who shook the hand of someone who shook Hitler’s hand. “Neo-Nazi” in the present context is a misleading euphemism. And I, like several other commenters, am aghast that there are Jewish Americans going along with this travesty as though it can somehow be rationalized.

    • Abe
      July 10, 2015 at 11:32

      Searching for a rationale for the Ukraine clusterfuck?

      How about the opportunity to nuke the old Pale of Settlement, with a few million Belarusians Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Poles thrown in for good measure.

      Chernyobyl got the ball rolling.

      Simply add a couple of Georgians and hefty seasoning of Chechens, shake (do not stir) and voilà, “Vengeance is mine…”

      • Joe L.
        July 10, 2015 at 12:12

        Well I wonder if the coup in Ukraine is not really just a geopolitical chess piece as we see a rising China and the US trying to pass the TTIP to try and hold onto global hegemony. Being that Russia is a part of the BRICS and the BRICS nations are creating their own economic vehicles (BRICS Development Bank, AIIB, SCO etc.) which will compete and challenge western dominated institutions such as the IMF and World Bank – couldn’t the Ukraine tragedy be larger then Ukraine itself? It would make sense to me that if the US wants to pass TTIP then it needs to drum out its’ competitors, such as driving a wedge between Europe and its’ neighbour, and trading partner, Russia. I believe that the US would love nothing more then to crush the BRICS and that is why John Kerry, and Obama, were doing the rounds to BRICS nations to try and get them to sanction Russia over Ukraine. I think that if fellow BRICS members had done this then it might have caused the BRICS to collapse. It seems to me that Russia is kind of a bridge between India and China. Anyway, I think that Ukraine might very well be a chess piece to pass TTIP and expand NATO to hold Russia, China etc. down and maintain US hegemony, and western hegemony, over the rest of the world.

        • Abe
          July 10, 2015 at 13:31

          As you observe, JT, it’s three-dimensional geo-strategic chess with multiple players, all striving to “secure the realm”.

          But one of the players is curiously obsessed with preventing a second Holocaust and blotting out the name of Amalek.

          Niemals vergessen, was gesagt werden muss.

      • dahoit
        July 10, 2015 at 14:33

        The vengeance of the God of Israel?(mammon)Yes,they do have an enemies list don’t they.Take that tricky dick!

        • dahoit
          July 10, 2015 at 14:35

          Dick,as in Nixon.sheesh.

    • Joe Tedesky
      July 10, 2015 at 11:46

      william beeby you are making me think, and that could be dangerous (just kidding). I have called the Ukraine Easterners ‘Pro Russian Rebels’ only for the lack of a better word. I see where you are going though, and maybe you are right. We should call then ‘Anti-Kiev’. Would a better description be to identify them as the ‘Eastern Ukraine Freedom Fighters’? This maybe a good time to ask anyone from Ukraine what would be an appropriate title for these Anti-Kiev Fighters. Anti-Nazi would never get a mention in the Western press, but it sure would title it for what it really is, and there is everything right about calling them that. Regardless, I hope the Anti-Kiev Freedom Patriots win their war.

      • william beeby
        July 12, 2015 at 04:01

        Me too Joe and thanks for taking my point on board. It all adds up to propaganda and the people just have to keep hearing ” pro – Russian Rebels ” and it sinks in mindlessly to their views on the subject . Orwellian mind- speak is the current term and the West excel at it.

    • Abe
      July 10, 2015 at 12:45

      Political discourse has complex aims, including influencing public opinion, instigating legal action, and supporting military conflict.

      Communication shapes perception, and may determine what social and political facts are accepted. Language becomes a means of political action.

      Psychologically sophisticated, Propaganda 3.0 uses mainstream, alternative and social media to insinuate semantic definitions and interpretations of reality.

      The semantic environment is shaped using collocations, sequences of political terms like “rebel,” “separatist,” “federalist,” “government,” “regime,” “pro-” and “anti-“.

      This semantic environment is cultivated well in advance of the

  13. Johan
    July 10, 2015 at 03:40

    If the separatist so called Russian side had BUK missile why was the first plane and last also they shoot down an airliner?? why did they not used it before instead of the other handheld missile!! Why is nobody mentioned the defector from Ukraine air force that passed lie detector test and claimed they launched a SU25 with air to air missile that day and the SU25 landed without the missile. Also no sign that a BUK missile was fired that day no smoke nothing. Why has nobody taken any picture of a Russian vehicle USA military or spokes person claim they are there in thousand why is a suspect in the crime of shooting down the airliner taking part in the investigation (Ukraine) that is a crazy thing.
    Why is Snowden and Assange in main stream when there are other whistle blower that is not. Susan Landauer, Sibel Edmonds,William Binney.

  14. Abe
    July 10, 2015 at 02:47

    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in June 2015 interview with the Kiev-based Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (Ukrayins’ke Nezalezhne Informatsiyne Ahentstvo) or UNIAN, said:

    “evidence published by the media, NGOs and from Russian soldiers themselves that Russia is supporting the separatists” in eastern Ukraine. Think tanks have also published reports, most recently the Atlantic Council, which gathered proof from various open sources, including satellite imagery.”

    Stoltenberg referred to a report by the Atlantic Council, a regime change think tank, co-authored by faux “citizen journalist” Higgins and his crew of faux “independent investigators” at Bellingcat.

    The Atlantic Council is managed by Western “policy makers”, military leaders, and senior intelligence officials, including four heads of the Central Intelligence Agency.

    The Atlantic Council uses video of Higgins and Michael Usher from the Australian “60 Minutes” program “MH-17: An Investigation”(see video minutes 36:00-36:55) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU0kuHI6lNg to promote the report.

    It praises Higgins and Bellingcat for providing “undeniable proof” in support of US and EU governments accusations against Russia.

    Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President of Programs and Strategy at the Atlantic Council, is a co-author with Higgins of the Atlantic Council report, “Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine”

    Wilson highlights Higgins’ effort to bolster Western accusations against Russia:

    “We make this case using only open source, all unclassified material. And none of it provided by government sources.

    “And it’s thanks to works, the work that’s been pioneered by human rights defenders and our partner Eliot Higgins, uh, we’ve been able to use social media forensics and geolocation to back this up.” (see video minutes 35:10-36:30)

    However, the Atlantic Council claim that “none” of Higgins’ material was provided by government sources is an obvious lie.

    Higgins’ primary “pieces of evidence” — a video depicting a Buk missile launcher and a set of geolocation coordinates — were supplied by the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) and the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior via the Facebook page of senior-level Ukrainian government official Arsen Avakov, the Minister of Internal Affairs.

    Other Bellingcat “open source” information is equally dubious, and Higgins’ vaunted “forensic analysis” of satellite imagery has been discredited.

    Higgins and the Atlantic Council are working in support of the US/NATO “hybrid war” against Russia.

  15. Joe Lauria
    July 10, 2015 at 02:39

    Reuters reports: “”Malaysia has asked the UN Security Council to set up an international tribunal to prosecute those suspected of downing a passenger airliner last year in eastern Ukraine…” I have one question about this incident that has been bothering me. It was just the 27th anniversary last week of the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf. The US said it was an accident and paid compensation. How come no one is talking about MH17 having been possibly an accident? Rebels were shooting down Ukrainian transport planes before the incident. Could they not have mistaken MH17 for one? What possible motive could they have had to shoot down a commercial airliner from a non-combatant country that happened to be flying over Ukraine’s air space? Without conclusive evidence I can’t say it was a false flag, to what, drag the US into the war, or to arm them? It just doesn’t make any sense to me that the only line being pursued by the West here is a prosecution, and that Western diplomats from day one, before any investigation, have been calling this a crime, and not possibly an accident, or at most negligence.

    • Joe Lauria
      July 10, 2015 at 02:41

      I should add it makes sense from the West’s propaganda point of view, which is probably why any talk of an accident has been buried.

    • Joe L.
      July 10, 2015 at 11:22

      You know I was thinking about that Iranian passenger jet as well that the US shot down and wonder if Americans had the same hysteria when they were responsible – I think not! One thing that continues to baffle me though is why was a passenger plane flying over a war zone to begin with? Surely the people that allowed a passenger plane to fly over the war zone in Ukraine to begin with deserve much of the blame for what ensued.

      • Joe Tedesky
        July 10, 2015 at 11:58

        Joe L. you make a good point. If all the light bulbs on your car were burnt out, would you change all the bulbs, or would you first check the battery? It makes sense to start investigating things by looking for the source of the problem. Chris H. provided some links which if I recall correctly includes something about the Spanish traffic controller (Carlos) who has disappeared from this story, the best I can tell. Although, I agree, why was that plane even allowed to fly that route that day?

  16. Abe
    July 10, 2015 at 02:11

    But just how durable is the anti-Semite-Zionist political alliance which has taken shape in Ukraine? It is hard to believe that each side is not waiting for a propitious moment to get rid of the other. It seems that the “unique crook” I. Kolomoisky (to use Putin’s expression) is as of yet a step ahead. The Right Sector is no longer demanding the continuation of the “anti-oligarch revolution” and has dispersed throughout the country as punitive “special units” to suppress the people’s protests in the Southeast. However, events are developing such that very soon the dark Banderovite forces will most likely declare that they have been «betrayed», and then they will make their erstwhile ally one of those to blame for their inevitable defeat.

    Zionists and Anti-Semites in Ukraine: A Strange Union
    Dmitry Minin
    http://m.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/04/17/zionists-and-anti-semites-in-ukraine-a-strange-union.html

    • dahoit
      July 10, 2015 at 14:28

      And Islamists;Ny Times 7/7?/15

  17. Element
    July 9, 2015 at 23:21

    Abe…”Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Ukraine’s largest employer of Nazi thugs, is a prominent supporter of Ukraine’s Jewish community and the president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine.”
    From what I understand of Kiev’s 3 Nazi groups and Stepan Banderas adulation…a Jewish person would not be safe under the duress of the new Ukrainian SS order….which currently is the Kiev administration… look what the Nationalists did in Odessa.
    German police at 1941 reported that “fanatic” Bandera followers, organised in small groups were “extraordinarily active” against Jews and communists. Responsible for genocide of Jewish, Polish and Russians…ethnic cleansing on steroids.

    • Chris H.
      July 10, 2015 at 00:32

      Element…. here is proof from (AFP) Agence Presse France that Igor Kolomoisky funds the Ukrainian Nazi battalions. http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-soldiers-government-were-coming-next-155843129.html

      Excerpt:

      Dnipro-1’s headquarters are on the ground floor of the Dnipropetrovsk administration building. Upstairs sits the regional governor, Igor Kolomoisky.

      The arrangement is no accident: Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s most controversial billionaires, funds the paramilitary, which returns the favour in these troubled times by boosting the banking and industrial tycoon’s personal security and political clout.

      All the signs are of a flourishing military enterprise.

      Young men with Kalashnikovs and pistols and several well dressed women working on laptops fill the anteroom to Bereza’s office.

      Dnipro-1 has 700 men — “officially,” Bereza says with an enigmatic smile.

      “Unofficially, it’s 7,000.”

      – DARK SIDE –

      Questions over the far right leanings of some volunteer groups and allegations of involvement in the murder of civilians cast a long shadow.

      One of the most controversial is the Azov Battalion, which uses the Wolfsangel insignia — an ancient design that was resurrected in Hitler’s Germany. The Azov has been linked to Oleg Lyashko, a politician accused of neo-Nazi sympathies.

      Right Sector, an ultra-nationalist party, also has its own battalion of several hundred men on the frontlines, even if the government refuses to register or pay them.

      Dasha Slutskovska, a 29-year-old volunteer from the battalion in Dnipropetrovsk, conceded that Right Sector has an image problem — they are relentlessly portrayed in Russia’s state-controlled media as fascists. But she insisted her comrades only want the Maidan goals of ending corruption and steering Ukraine into Europe.

  18. Joe Tedesky
    July 9, 2015 at 23:14

    Attached is an article by Eric Zuesse where he explains how we should beware of Wikipedia references in regard to the reporting on MH17. Mr. Zuesse points out such things as, how Ukraine Kiev government had final say over the Dutch investigation. He also mentions how no autopsy results of flight MH17’s pilot were ever released. Mostly Eric Zuesse, much like Robert Parry, cautions us to be on guard for the propaganda that is being spewed from every corner of the Vast MSM press. There is some mention of the CIA involvement as well…read on!

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/07/wikipedia-as-propaganda-not-history-mh17-as-an-example.html

  19. Tony Smith
    July 9, 2015 at 22:21

    There was a buk video shot in Luhansk it seems. But it was filmed before the plane came down. This earlier video was then claimed to have been shot on the 18th July. But we have a video of the Ukrainians telling us about an earlier video.
    If there are not two videos then the Ukrainians must be lying about the claim that Bellingcat relies on.
    http://www.whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/re-examining-the-luhansk-video/

  20. Dwight
    July 9, 2015 at 22:15

    Governments that rush to judgment on the perpetrators of mass death events, use the events for propaganda, and then block investigations, are complicit in these mass deaths and encourage others to commit such events in the future. I consider this a form of terrorism. Racak prior to the Kosovo war is one example, the Syrian chemical attacks another.

  21. Abe
    July 9, 2015 at 20:25

    Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Ukraine’s largest employer of Nazi thugs, is a prominent supporter of Ukraine’s Jewish community and the president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine.

    In 2010 he was appointed as the president of the European Council of Jewish Communities after promising the outgoing president he would donate $14 million, with his appointment being described as a “putsch” and a “Soviet-style takeover” by other EJCJ board members.

    But after members of the ECJC resigned in protest over his unilateral appointment, Kolomoisky withdrew his bid. Fellow Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Rabinovitch, already an ECJC vice president, quit his post to follow Kolomoisky.

    In the Spring of 2011, Kolomoisky and Rabinovitch created a new group with a grand-sounding name, the European Jewish Union.

    Based in Brussels, the EJU’s stated aim is to be “a uniting structure for all Jewish communities and organizations throughout Western, Eastern and Central Europe.” It sought to establish a European Jewish Parliament, comprising 120 members modeled on the Israeli Knesset.

    The EJU was criticized for its choice of candidates to the Parliament, including comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, international football star David Beckham, Pee Wee Herman, Andrew Grove, fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg, film director Roman Polanski and others, many of whom never sought nomination nor even knew they had been nominated. Several candidates, including Viviane Teitelbaum, a member of Brussels’ regional parliament and former head of the Belgian Jewish community, upon learning of their nominations, immediately asked to have their names removed from nomination. French controversial entertainer Dieudonné M’bala M’bala and other names have been dropped from the list.

    The European Jewish Congress distanced themselves from the EJU, circulating a memo that they were “not connected in any way to this initiative and do not support it.”

    The elections process itself was also criticized. Elections were being conducted over the internet, on the EJU’s own website. Although the election rules limited elections to residents of European countries, with voters restricted to voting for representatives from their own country, the website provided no resources to verify the voter’s nationality other than a bulk eraser provided free by NATO. In at least one case, a North African based journalist was able to register on the site as a Canadian citizen and cast a vote.

    The European Jewish Parliament hailed its inauguration on February, 16th 2012 as a “great day for Jews in Europe”.

    The EJP logo is modeled on the European Union flag of 12 golden stars on a blue background. Instead the EJP logo uses 11 golden stars with a 12th star being a white Star of David, stylized as on the flag of Israel, on a blue background.

    Rabinowitz and Joel Rubinfeld, former Secretary General of the Belgian-Israeli Friendship, were elected co-presidents of the EJP.

    In January 2014, Rubinfeld co-founded the Belgian League against Anti-Semitism (LBCA). He assumed the office of President of the LBCA. Rubinfeld wrote a chapter on Belgium for the collective work “The new clothes of anti-Semitism in Europe”.

    • Abe
      July 9, 2015 at 20:29

      Kolomoyskyi is believed to have spent $10 million to create the Dnipro Battalion. He also funded the Aidar, Azov, Dnepr 1, Dnepr 2, and Donbas battalions.

      Russia asked for Kolomoyskyi to be put on Interpol’s wanted list.

      Two weeks before MH-17 crashed, a Russian District Court authorized Kolomoyskyi’s arrest in absentia for “organizing the killing of civilians”.

  22. natoistan
    July 9, 2015 at 20:15

    Follow the money..follow kolomoisky (ukrainian oligarch who owns 4 nationalities).
    He lives mainly in Zurich now.

  23. incontinent reader
    July 9, 2015 at 19:17

    Apart from failing properly to investigate a terrorist crime that killed 298 people, and instead facilitating a cover-up, the Dutch authorities have shown that they will not protect the lives or interests of their own people- and if that is not a national security issue, what is? One wonders when the ordinary citizens of Holland will get finally the message and get rid of their government.

    • Hector Reban
      July 11, 2015 at 16:14

      Totally agree with you. I ve written about this in my home country, the Netherlands, but overhere the dissident media are virtually absent. The official narrative has been swallowed and nobody – except a very few – is asking questions.

  24. Brendan
    July 9, 2015 at 19:09

    I have no doubt that the Luhansk video really was shot in Luhansk, even though the Australian “60 Minutes” program did a pathetic job of presenting the evidence for that location.

    What is extremely doubtful, however, is the claim that it shows the killer BUK missile on the morning after it shot down MH17.

    To believe that, you would have to believe in some inexplicable behaviour by the Russians or pro-Russians. To summarise, they would have had to drive a very indirect escape route from the missile launch site near Snizhne to the eastern border with Russia, displaying the remaining missiles, uncovered and in daylight, in a part of a city that was at least partly controlled by the Ukrainian army.

    Since there is absolutely no evidence for that story, you would also have to believe the Ukrainian authorities who originally said the video was shot near Krasnodon, which is close to the Russian border ( https://www.facebook.com/anton.gerashchenko.7/posts/695215020565348). They didn’t mention Luhansk until the next day.

    You would also have to believe that it was a pure coincidence that just one hour after the shoot-down, the Ukrainian spokesman Lysenko said that a video of a BUK missile had been recorded in Luhansk:
    “We’ve got information that some rockets complexes have passed into Ukraine territory, which can hit planes from high altitude. There was even a video how these BUK rockets drove through Luhansk. We know this.”
    http://www.whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/re-examining-the-luhansk-video/

    That other Luhansk BUK video has never been released by Kiev, if it really is different to the famous one that was allegedly recordeded the following morning.

  25. inshort
    July 9, 2015 at 19:00

    The US and its allies are guilty as hell in this mess. I arrived in Mandalay the afternoon of the MH17 tragedy and the evening papers in that city as well as TV coverage were all yelling “Putin Did It.” This is how dumbed down our diplomatic corps and other press agents are…, but also a reminder of their malignant reach. Remembering how 9/11 was marketed to us, I suspected immediately that something phony was being hatched.

    The judicial system in the land of the free and the home of the brave that promises “innocent until proven guilty” had been completely overturned. When? With such a rush to judgement, how could it be reasonable-thinking persons would not adduce immediately that something sinister and probably criminal was in the works.

    I returned to the US, bought a subscription to Foreign Affairs and all the same asininity was there on display. As if all creative juice had run into the sewer, every headline mimicked every other headline, an alternating chorus of “Putin Did It,” “Putin Has Blood on His Hands.” It’s somewhat shocking to see that the people who represent you diplomatically are as clumsy and dumbed down as the general population is reputed to be. But to see also that straightforward lying does not turn a feather on any of these “persons” is a real eye-opener.

    As for the Buk missile, it is reported to leave an unmistakable huge white smoke trail that would have been seen for ten minutes after the event. No such trail was ever reported. The skies over East Ukraine at the site of the tragedy were clear and blue. And, then, what about the fuselage that was pockmarked with holes on either side of the pilot compartment suggesting the plane had been attacked (from both sides) with short range missiles.

    This is not just a tragedy for all those who were murdered that day, nor is it a tragedy for the Russians who have been smeared via an absurd propaganda campaign that only people who never read a word could believe; it’s a tragedy for every American to be reminded one more time that justice has completely disappeared from our world.

    • Joe L.
      July 9, 2015 at 19:30

      I truly believe that the worst thing is that we forget or ignore history otherwise I think it would be impossible for our government’s to sell us wars or just outright lies. How soon have people forgotten the lies to go to war with Iraq! It seems that much of the condemnation of Russia is based more on emotions, and old Cold War thinking, then on actual hard facts. It’s not new that the US Government, and western government’s in general, are lying. I just watched a documentary today which showed how the US Government tried to cover-up radiation poisoning after dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US Government even went as far as to confiscate Japanese video of patients in a hospital suffering from radiation poisoning and classified the video for 20 or 30 years. The New York Times of that era wrote that no radiation poisoning existed and I am sure that anyone who said otherwise would have been demonized as a “propagandist”. There are just too many examples. I always hear the US, and allies, speaking about “freedom” and “democracy” yet the US trained 11 Latin American Dictators and their death squads at the School of the Americas in Georgia (subsequently overthrowing democracies throughout Latin America to install dictators). Obama even apologized to Iran for the US backed coup in 1953 of their democratically elected leader where the US and Britain installed a dictator friendly to US/British interests. Chagos Islands. Gulf of Tonkin. My Lai Massacre. Iraq War. There are just too many lies to list yet all of this history is either sanitized by a “red scare” or some convoluted reasoning and then it is forgotten.

      I have to say though that I am glad that there are people like Robert Parry, Seymour Hersh, Chris Hedges, John Pilger etc. that don’t forget the history and remind us of it when our foreign policy is leading us in a dangerous direction – more people need to listen to these award winning journalists, who haven’t sold out, instead of the MSM pundits that spin propaganda on a daily basis.

      • Chris H.
        July 9, 2015 at 21:30

        Ukraine is not the first time the US has financed Nazis. To know truly how bad the US lies to the citizenry watch this video of Professor Anthony Sutton, who taught economics at California State University, and was a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

        In this talk, Prof. Sutton goes into his impeccable research on how a close-knit group of Western financiers and industrialists (centered around Morgan and Rockefeller in the US, and around Milner and the City financiers, in the UK) created and sustained Nazi Germany through IG Farben. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7dLTAL3v5E
        It is truly an opener as he describes all the US companies that financed Hitler and transferred technology and material assistance, including Standard Oils aid to the German war machine.

        • Joe L.
          July 10, 2015 at 11:04

          The deception is frightening isn’t it? I am just about to click on your link but I would also suggest you watching the documentary by award winning journalist, John Pilger, who is a contributor to Consortium News called “War on Democracy”. The most chilling thing is hearing from Duane Clarridge, the Senior CIA Official, talking about how coups against democracies are O.K. when US interests are concerned.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeHzc1h8k7o

          • Joe Tedesky
            July 10, 2015 at 13:34

            Joe L. I watched your link to John Pilger’s documentary, and learned a lot from my viewing of it. If you are interested, and possibly if you have never heard of him, watch John Perkins ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’.

          • Joe L.
            July 10, 2015 at 17:02

            Joe Tedesky, yes I have heard of John Perkins and I actually just watched an interview with him on YouTube on Al Jazeera or Al Jazeera America where he speaks about his role in trying to subvert countries to US economic interests. As for John Pilger, he has a YouTube channel where he has documentaries going back to the 1970’s in Vietnam, Cambodia, Latin America, Burma, Chagos Islands etc. Learning about these incidents is really an eye opener and makes you wonder how our politicians can ever claim to do anything for “democracy” and “freedom” when they are guilty of the exact opposite. If you are also curious you can also find the Academy Award Winning documentary called “The Panama Deception” or even Jeremy Scahill’s “Dirty Wars”.

            John Pilger:
            https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcyN-xAU_VN–KWA5ZCZjoQ

            Panama Deception:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo6yVNWcGCo

            Dirty Wars:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7UCFSbduuY

    • Abe
      July 9, 2015 at 20:19

      “The skies over East Ukraine at the site of the tragedy were clear and blue.”

      In fact, on July 17, the area had 70 to 80% cloud coverage and cloud base height of 2,500m.

      In short, commenter “inshort” is incorrect.

      Beware of “friendly” disinformation designed to smear Consortium News for daring to report honestly about MH-17.

      • Element
        July 9, 2015 at 22:57

        Abe…if cloud base height was 2500m, then under that, the skies were clear. A missile plume upwards would have been clearly visible.

    • Tony Smith
      July 9, 2015 at 23:02

      There was an apparently fake photo of a smoke trail that was debunked by Dr Neal Krawetz himself!
      http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150605/1022977007.html
      http://www.hackerfactor.com/about.php

    • Abe
      July 10, 2015 at 13:52

      Dr. Neal Krawetz, founder of FotoForensics, called Eliot Higgins’ “Forensic Analysis of Satellite Images” Bellingcat report a “how to not do image analysis”.

      Krawetz emphasizes Bellingcat’s “faulty analysis”
      https://twitter.com/hackerfactor/status/605723114857586689

      In addition, there are serious questions about Bellingcat’s image sources: Digital Globe and Google Earth.

      Google Earth maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and geographic information system (GIS) 3D globe, all three of which are vulnerable to manipulation by official US government intelligence agencies eager to spread dis-information.

      Google’s partnerships with military contractors like SAIC, Northrop Grumman and Blackbird is just more more evidence of how snugly the company is in bed with the US military-surveillance complex.
      http://pando.com/2014/03/26/google-distances-itself-from-the-pentagon-stays-in-bed-with-mercenaries-and-intelligence-contractors/

      Google also is a joint venture partner with the CIA. In 2009, Google Ventures and In-Q-Tel each invested “under $10 million each” into Recorded Future shortly after the company was founded. Recorded Future is described as “a company that strips out from web pages the sort of who, what, when, where, why — sort of who’s involved,[…] where are they going, what kind of events are they going to,” even monitors blogs and Twitter accounts.

      Google Earth uses satellite images supplied by Digital Globe, a company with direct connections to US defense and intelligence communities.

      For example, Martin C. Faga joined the Board of Directors in 2013 pursuant to the Merger Agreement with GeoEye. Since 2004, Faga has served as a director for the Association for Intelligence Officers. He had served as the tenth Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (DNRO), where he appointed a Deputy Director for Military Support. Faga initiated the transition from separate Central Intelligence Agency, Air Force, and Navy programs into functional directorates of signals, imagery, and communications.

      In reality, Google Earth images represent official US government information channeled through a corporate intermediary.

    • dahoit
      July 10, 2015 at 14:22

      It’s absurd that the Russians would have wanted this incident to happen in the first place,no matter who the perps are.That’s the worst of the propaganda.
      Did we want to blow up the Vincennes?(don’t answer that!)

  26. Roger Annis
    July 9, 2015 at 18:20

    There appears to be an important item overlooked in Robert’s latest article. Last year, the Dutch journal Elsevier reported on the secret agreement among the countries of the official investigation (then four, Malaysia since added) by which any one of them may veto the release of information in the final report. The five-country investigation team consists of Ukraine, Holland, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia. Report from RT.com here: http://newcoldwar.org/dutch-government-refuses-reveal-secret-deal-mh17-crash-probe/.

  27. Tom Welsh
    July 9, 2015 at 18:05

    At first I was surprised and horrified that the Western mainstream media seemed willing to accept absolutely anything the regime in Kiev told them. It is evident that the Kiev people are of that type that can’t open their mouths without lying; they probably do it even when not necessary, to keep in practice or just because they enjoy lying. So why would supposedly reputable Western media give Kiev the same stenographic service they give the US government?

    Of course to ask that question is to see the answer. The Kiev regime and the US government are one and the same; that is, Kiev does nothing unless ordered to do so by Washington.

  28. Brendan
    July 9, 2015 at 17:51

    It’s already clear that the the final report from the Dutch-led JIT (Joint Investigation Team) will follow the official Kiev version of how MH17 shot down. The “call for witnesses” on their web site focuses on the disputed ‘BUK’ images from the Luhansk video and the Paris Match photo:
    http://www.jitmh17.com/ (the English version is about half-way down the page)

    As well as that, a video from the Dutch police reports the Kiev narrative as if it were simply the truth:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olQNpTxSnTo

  29. Abe
    July 9, 2015 at 17:16

    Mainstream media continue to flog Bellingcat’s fake “investigation” reports. Newsweek refers to Higgins as “Putin’s MH17 nemesis” http://www.newsweek.com/meet-eliot-higgins-putins-mh17-nemesis-345485

    • Abe
      July 9, 2015 at 18:02

      Higgins Tweeted that Consortium News is “still pushing their debunked claims” about Australian “60 Minutes”
      https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/619218783132123137

      • Chris H.
        July 9, 2015 at 19:18

        It’s worth noting that Bellingcat and Dr. Igor Sutyagin of the British RUSI worked together previously on the ‘investigation’/propaganda campaign related to the Syrian false flag chemical weapons attack in 2013. Here’s the link that connects the dots.

        MH-17 Mystery- Dr. Igor Sutyagin – Mi5/Russian Double Agent Who Gave Out Misleading Information On MH-17
        http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9af_1432256107#pdp3b9wsh3byY7RL.99

        • Joe L.
          July 9, 2015 at 19:51

          Yeah, I heard that “blogger”, Elliot Higgins, was trying to discredit Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Seymour Hersh for his findings on Syria. All in all it seems that Elliot Higgins works very closely with the government story in any given situation which makes me wonder if there isn’t any back door, hidden government affiliations?

          I also did a search for “Bellingcat discredited” and a few Der Spiegel articles pop up which questions Bellingcat’s credibility (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/expert-criticizes-allegations-of-russian-mh17-manipulation-a-1037125.html).

        • Joe L.
          July 9, 2015 at 19:57

          Maybe Elliot Higgins is connected to the government:

          http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=16d_1432796866&comments=1

          • Consortiumnews.com
            July 9, 2015 at 20:36

            USAID has estimated its budget for “media strengthening programs in over 30 countries” at $40 million annually, including aiding “independent media organizations and bloggers in over a dozen countries.” USAID, working with billionaire George Soros’s Open Society, also funds the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which engages in “investigative journalism” that usually goes after governments that have fallen into disfavor with the United States and then are singled out for accusations of corruption. The USAID-funded OCCRP also collaborates with Bellingcat, an online investigative website founded by blogger Eliot Higgins.

          • Chris H.
            July 9, 2015 at 20:43

            This is the video that connects the Dr. Igor Sutyagin of the British RUSI with Elliot Higgins AKA “Brown Moses” and shows how they were working together to frame Russia for the false flag chemical weapons attack in Syria. Keep in mind that Bellingcat (Higgins) was providing all the direction of fire maps and layouts for the media, while at the same time Sutyagin was framing the Russians as this video very clearly shows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmwjXp45syI They weren’t just going after the Assad regime in September 2013, the real goal back then was a frame up of Russia along with setting the course for the defeat of the Assad regime, thereby also depriving Russia of another port. You have to read the post I put up above on MH-17 in order to understand why Sutyagin holds such contempt for Russia. He was a Russian defector who sold secrets to the west and was eventually traded for 10 Russian says after being sentenced to 15 years for espionage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sutyagin

            Wikispooks also covered the roles of Elliot Higgins and Igor Sutyagin in the propaganda campaign of the Syrian false flag chemical weapons attack. This is the best summation online of the misinformation campaign about the Assad regime and how the Higgins and Sutyagin framed it up for public consumption. https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Serious_Questions_about_the_Integrity_of_the_UN_Report_on_Syria

            Here is also an example of Sutyagin working in collaboration with Vice News to spread false anti-Russia propaganda regarding the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. https://news.vice.com/article/russias-reaction-to-the-charlie-hebdo-attacks-and-what-it-says-about-putin

          • Joe L.
            July 10, 2015 at 10:21

            Thank you Mr. Parry and Consortium News for the reply. We truly live in sad times when our collective government’s have nothing better to do then find new ways to lie and manipulate us – such as employing supposed “citizen journalists” (better known as bloggers) to lead us astray. It really makes you wonder what is conspiracy theory and what is really the truth. The lessons of the past show us that many things that were purported as “conspiracy theory” of the time turned out to be true – such as government cover-ups of radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Well like it is said, “if we ignore history then we are doomed to repeat it” – sadly, we have not learned the lessons of the past yet. So thank you again for your work, and integrity, Mr. Parry and Consortium News.

          • Jim Dobbin
            July 13, 2015 at 09:10

            Higgins serves one purpose and that’s to be a useful idiot to the NATO/Soros sphere of influence. The man hasn’t a single qualification in any of the areas he writes about. Nor has any expert in these same areas leant their support to any of his work. He’s never visited a single war zone he’s written about nor has he any expertise in any subject matter he writes about.

            For that matter not a single contributor of Bellingcat has any relevant experience in the subjects they wrote about. This is all fact.

            Expert upon expert has come out and debunked, discredited and warned against trusting Higgins’ “skills” and “techniques”. Real experts with real experience using science and trusted sources that is. The result was that this uneducated, inexperienced, useful idiot decided he would name call and insult. The first sign of a defeated person is when they personally attack.

    • Abe
      July 9, 2015 at 18:22

      VICE News, Rupert Murdoch’s 70 million dollar Gen Y-targeted sock puppets, jus’ loves them some terrorists, so long as they are opposed to the governments of Syria and Russia.

      The lurid propagandists at VICE have been happily embedded with anti-Syrian forces (including ISIS) and anti-Russian forces (including the Azov Battalion) in Ukraine.

      And it’s funny how three days before the MH-17 crash, Vice crowed about how “Citizen Journalists Are Banding Together to Fact-Check Online News”

      http://motherboard.vice.com/read/brown-moses-citizen-journalism-site-offers-an-antidote-to-internet-fakes

      In the article, Higgins announced the arrival of Bellingcat.

      Then BOOM, MH-17 was all over the News and Higgins was at the ready with his laptop in Leicester. Higgins and Bellingcat have been pumping out faux “investigation” reports about MH-17 ever since.

    • Abe
      July 9, 2015 at 18:33

      VICE News “correspondent” Simon Ostrovsky performed his own “stand-upper” for Higgins and the CIA-managed Atlantic Council.

      Ostrovsky bagpiped “renowned citizen journalist” Higgins in this VICE News infomercial for the Atlantic Council report
      (see minutes 2:45 – 4:25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zssIFN2mso

  30. Joe Tedesky
    July 9, 2015 at 16:38

    It is a good thing that Robert Parry is continuing to report on this tragic MH17 plane shoot down story. If it were not for Mr. Parry and some others who are reporting about this on the internet, we would only have the MSM side of the story to go with, and we all know what that means.

    Time is a killer when it comes to the truth being acted upon. The more time that goes by, the more various accounts of what happened will flow into the curious public domain. There will be all the pro’s and the con’s, along with all sorts of bias, which will so muddy the water that no one will be able to separate the truth from the lies. It won’t come down to us handling the truth, as much it will come down to us reaching a conclusion to what the truth really is. Then we can file this away on the shelf next to; the JFK, MLK, RFK assassinations, the Syrian gas attacks, 9/11, and so many other unresolved incidents that I can’t recall them all at this time while writing this comment. Maybe even somewhere amongst all the versions we will hear, one maybe able to decipher what the truth really is/was. This is when the truth is hiding in plain sight. Of course this is unfortunate for a number of reasons, especially since serious decisions will be made from what ever comes to be known as the ‘Official Real Story’. With the kind of leadership we have in Washington it would be smart to put your money on the ‘Official Real Story’ that would give cause to go to war. Why, would it be any other way?

  31. Chris H.
    July 9, 2015 at 16:30

    Shortly after the crash of Malaysian Flight MH17, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) released a video on YouTube, claiming it had intercepted calls between Eastern rebels discussing how the plane was shot down. SBU said this proved that the rebels were behind the downing of the plane. However, a technical analysis of the sound in the video proves the recording is manufactured in a studio. The conversation is faked and is a mesh of various conversations cut and pasted together.

    The analysis is made in Adobe Audition and shows multiple flaws such as merges, background noise coming and going, the endings of the words being cut off and many other anomalies.
    To easily verify this, simply use a You tube video/audio extractor to extract the audio from the video uploaded by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on their YouTube channel. Here’s the link to the original SBU upload. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5E8kDo2n6g

    Now here’s the audio analysis of the faked Kiev upload.
    The video has english subs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T34AB6CImTE
    Press the (settings) on the video, press texts and select English text. The audio analysis id very straightforward and the anomalies and errors are pointed out in detail.

    The audio analysis proves that the level of manipulation (cutting/pasting/merging audio) required the use of a studio and advance preparation, therefore the people that created the fake audio must have had prior knowledge that the event was to take place. This was not an accident. This was the intentional murder of 293 people in order to frame Russia.

    • Joe Tedesky
      July 9, 2015 at 17:11

      Chris H I think you are on to something. Since you seem to be on top of things let me ask you this, whatever happened to the Spanish traffic controller. If you recall that Spanish guy had a lot to say, and then he disappeared. In any case, thanks for bringing up that intercepted taping occurrence.

      • Chris H.
        July 9, 2015 at 20:00

        Joe, I was an admin at the IOUC (International Observatory of The Ukrainian Conflict) Facebook page and saw the initial info on Carlos as it went online. The posts did specifically mention fighter jets and that there were Ukrainian military people taking control in the tower at Dnipro Control. This is the best official link directly to the tweets. Like the Russian Civilian Radar information, they seem way too detailed and accurate to be dismissed as simply contrived out of thin air. The detail, significance and amount of content for both is quite impressive. http://slavyangrad.org/2014/07/18/spanish-air-controller-kiev-borispol-airport-ukraine-military-shot-down-boeing-mh17/

        As a citizen online activist I have also come across some other interesting revelations that have received very little attention in the western media, although the Russian government are well aware of their existence and are conducting their own in depth investigations into all the false flags attacks of the Kiev regime.

        The first is this link to Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoiskys assistant Svyatoslav Oleynik
        Facebook page which was hacked into and screen saved by Russian hackers. http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Crash_of_Malaysia_Airlines_flight_MH17/Cyber_Berkut_leak

        Kolomoisky, is of course, the oligarch that financed the Aidar Battalion as well as others and also has controlling ownership of Burisma Holdings which employed Joe Bidens son. (Naked Capitalism did an expose’ on that connection last year). Russia also believes that it is Kolomoisky that orchestrated the Right Sector attacks via Andriy Paruby in Odessa with the orchestrated intent to murder the victims in order to send a message. Russia has evidence to back all this up. It hasn’t released it all as of yet, but the investigations are ongoing. Here’s another link that proves the western media lied about what really took place in Odessa and intentionally aided in the coverup.

        The Truth Of The Odessa Massacre Revealed- The BBC And US Media Lied About Who The Victims Were
        http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1bc_1430502018#2BPpbC5LRHXZFFMY.99

        As a citizen researcher on the Ukrainian Conflict I have gather a massive trove of information and compiled a large part of it at the above Live Leak “In Between Days” account. Anyone can access it all via that link. I encourage people to use it in comment sections to bolster their arguments. There are over 160 videos in the archive which all point out quite clearly that the Kiev regime are the conductors of numerous false flags in Ukraine, and are also the killers of almost the entirety of the 7,000 or more victims of the Ukrainian civil war, and are also the primary reason why 1.2 million refugees have fled TO RUSSIA for safety. This is the first war where the US media never showed up…..at all. Instead we have 25 fake Russian invasions and massive US media propaganda quoted straight from the spokesperson of the incessantly lying Kiev regime. It is an absolute American travesty.

        I also saved a large journal of all the major events that occurred in Ukraine this past year which can be found here: http://www.discussionist.com/?com=journals&uid=102027&page=20 It is includes over 80 important key events related to Ukraine and has discussion from both sides, although some of the posts do get swarmed by what appears to be paid Centcom subcontractors/personnel. Many of the videos are highly graphic and represent what really happened in Ukraine. Once again, all the video evidence points at the Kiev regime as the killers of innocent people in all the false flags and bombing attacks. Everything the US has reported has simply come from the mouth of the spokesperson of that murderous regime.

        • Joe Tedesky
          July 9, 2015 at 22:35

          Chris H. thanks for the response. Below is a link to an essay written by a Russian. Every American would do themselves well to read what this Russian has to say. We all should pause and contemplate of what we are doing. Fighting for corporate dominance needs to end.

          http://slavyangrad.org/2014/09/24/the-russia-they-lost/

          • Brad Owen
            July 10, 2015 at 05:56

            I read your article “the Russia they lost”. Quite sad. What they don’t understand, and most Americans too, is that we are a schizoid Nation. We’ve ALWAYS been Patriots and Tories over here, even before those terms came into existence to describe the Revolutionary era. Before that, we’ve been Parliamentarian Commoners and Royalist Oligarchs, with a Loyalist following among the Commoners. It has ALWAYS been a wrestling match between our two Factions over WHICH Faction mainly controls our Government. The schism even broke out in massive Civil War in the 1860’s, and only ONE PART of the Loyalist/Royalist/Oligarch Faction was crushed (the Barons of the Southern Plantations, with their overt slavery), the allied Oligarchical Money/Power Faction in the North lives on, with an undying VENGEANCE, upon The People. They are tasting the “Jekyll and Hyde” nature of our spirit, our True Nature.

        • dahoit
          July 10, 2015 at 14:08

          And over at the Graun we have Shaun Walker digging up cans of worms with quoting Ukrainian officials.This guy should be arrested.
          And I don’t think Russian evidence(which I.m not doubting)will work on the world politic,its too close,just as Ukrainian propaganda doesn’t work.
          NY lying Times says that the NSA won’t release tapes relating to the death of Dag Hammerskold,UN SG.in 1961.Another death coverup.
          Yes,why would the separatists give up the box?

    • Joe L.
      July 9, 2015 at 17:13

      Well wasn’t even the whole “I am Ukrainian” video which drummed up support for the people on the Maidan, and the coup in general, created by Larry Diamond of the US State Department? I swear I read or heard that somewhere. For me, it is very clear that the US has had its’ hands in all of this from the very beginning. Also appointing an “American” as Ukraine’s new Finance Minister, who used to work for USAID in Ukraine, screams of US involvement among other things (Hunter Biden etc.).

    • Tony Smith
      July 9, 2015 at 22:40

      Good point, because if that audio is genuine, then we don’t really need more evidence. We conveniently have a confession.

  32. D5-5
    July 9, 2015 at 16:17

    Within about the last month this news adds to the argument the airliner was shot down from the air:

    http://rt.com/news/264545-mh17-investigators-key-witness/

    • Abbybwood
      July 10, 2015 at 21:45

      “Wrong plane at the wrong place.”

      Are we to deduce from this that the pilot intended to bring down Putin’s plane that was flying the same airspace at that time??!

      It is bad enough to think that the Ukrainian government with the assistance of the United States would want to bring down a civilian airliner in order to blame it on Russia in a false flag.

      Bring it to the level of Ukraine with the assistance of the United States attempting to murder Putin….

      Wow. Just wow…..

      • D5-5
        July 11, 2015 at 11:56

        This possibility MH17 was confused with Putin’s plane is mentioned in the comments following the article referenced on this witness, from the Ukraine side, who came forward and sought asylum with Russia. The allegation re targeting Putin’s plane was also available a year ago after the incident happened–that the colors of Putin’s jet and the airliner were similar. Then comes this witness (this article is about a month old) who overheard the pilot talking about the shootdown as a mistake. Who authorized this intent, if the pilot is talking about Putin’s plane? Good question.

        http://rt.com/news/264545-mh17-investigators-key-witness/

  33. Joe L.
    July 9, 2015 at 16:16

    What a brainwashed, upside down world we live in! The worst part of our world today is how devoid of history it is. If anyone truly looked at history and US government lies/cover-ups then it would be impossible for the American people or even other cultures to believe a single thing that the US Government says. I watched a documentary by John Pilger today which pointed out how the US Government, and western governments, tried to cover up the fact that the dropping of the atomic bombs caused radiation sickness. The US Government even went as far as to confiscate Japanese videos of people suffering from radiation sickness and classified that video for something over 20 or 30 years. At the time even the New York Times wrote stories claiming that there was no radiation from the dropping of the atomic bombs. I am also guessing that people of the time who even questioned the fact of radiation were considered “propagandists”. Over and over and over again the US Government has lied and covered up its’ actions throughout the world (coup in Iran 1953, Gulf of Tonkin, My Lai Massacre, STD’s in Guatemala, Chagos Islands, Iraq War etc.) – why does anyone believe a single thing the US Government says anymore? I just don’t understand this, especially in the age of the internet – maybe that is why the US is trying to control information and the internet itself?

    When it comes to MH-17, and Ukraine in general, there are just too many things that make me wonder.

    1) Rushing to judgement even before an investigation even occurred and then only showing “social media” as evidence

    2) US and Ukrainian Governments using 2008 or Moscow Air Show photos etc. to show of Russian involvement or invasions in Ukraine TODAY!

    3) The total disregard of Victoria Nuland and Ashton discussions instead focusing on “F the EU” instead of “mid-wifing this thing”, “Yats is our guy”, or that more and more evidence show that it was the “opposition” responsible for the shootings on the Maidan.

    4) An American, who basically worked for USAID, becoming Ukraine’s new Finance Minister.

    5) Victoria Nuland saying, in March 2015, that Crimeans were suffering under a reign of terror meanwhile Gallup, GFK, and Pew Research polls show the exact opposite.

    6) US Senator Inhofe caught with 2008 photos from Georgia, provided by the Ukrainian Government, to prove of a Russian invasion in Ukraine in order to provide weapons to Ukraine.

    7) The German BND saying that photos provided by the Ukrainian Government of MH-17 “have been manipulated”.

    8) The utter denial that there were or are any Neo-Nazis in Ukraine and anyone that says different is “Kremlin Propaganda”. Meanwhile we know of the Azov Battalion and now there are stories from BBC Newsnight, Salon, Consortium News etc. which all point to the Neo-Nazis. Even the EU in December 2012 warned of the dangers of the Svoboda party for things like anti-semitism and nationalism.

    I don’t know exactly what is happening in Ukraine but for anyone that is actually looking it is painfully apparent that our western governments are hiding something or perpetuating a story – all that we would need now is Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro to have a true “Wag the Dog” experience.

    There are just so many question

    • Joe L.
      July 9, 2015 at 16:20

      There are just so many “questions”?

    • Joe Tedesky
      July 9, 2015 at 16:49

      Joe L nice comment. I would also like to point out one thing. Remember how exited John Kerry was on the Sunday talk shows when this first happened. Recall how Kerry pointed his finger, and proclaimed how this shoot down was a result of Russia’s involvement with the Ukrainian Freedom Fighters, and he said all this when there was no evidence to speak of. So, why would John Kerry clam up if the U.S. did have satellite imagery that proved it were the Russians. Does anyone truly believe that the U.S. would not place the blame on the guilty if the U.S. had hard evidence to submit? That is, unless the evidence were to prove otherwise.

      • Joe L.
        July 9, 2015 at 17:08

        Overall, I mean how can we trust anything that comes out of the mouths of our politicians. In February 2015, the king of Saudi Arabia (a true dictator in every sense of the word) died, and basically all western leaders said that it was a great loss and that he was a “man of peace” – that is unreal! This clearly shows that where our economic interests are involved that our allies, even dictatorships, can do no wrong meanwhile our enemies, even if they are democracies are the greatest threats to the world (such as Venezuela etc.).

        As for MH-17, I found it insulting that the US with the largest surveillance apparatus on the planet, and I believe a spy satellite directly overhead when MH-17 was downed, pointed to “social media” as evidence of Russia’s and the rebels guilt in this atrocity. It was rather entertaining to hear Matt Lee of the Associated Press question Marie Harf of the US State Department and ask if she could point him to a “YouTube” video for evidence – obvious sarcasm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQRvINebeok).

        At least for me, especially with the continued use of photos from 2008 or Moscow Air Shows, the US Government and Ukrainian Government are creating a narrative. That is particularly frightening when you consider that Russia is nuclear power and if a war ever broke out that it could mean the end of life on this planet. I truly do believe, with the help of US NGO’s, that the US foolishly pulled off a coup in Ukraine and Russia acted defensively by annexing Crimea to protect its’ military base.

        • Abbybwood
          July 10, 2015 at 21:09

          Here is the ultimate question we must all be asking:

          What if hard evidence were to be disclosed that proved it was the Ukrainian government with U.S. complicity that shot down this airliner in order to paint Putin and Russia as the perpetrators so the U.S. could bring crippling sanctions to bear against Russia??!

          Suddenly the U.S. would be unmasked as the “evil-doer”.

          I believe THIS is where the TRUTH will eventually reveal itself.

          We need some “whistle-blowers” to come forward and quickly.

          Even today we had the new appointee to head the Joint Chief of Staff stating that “Russia is the number one existential threat to the U.S.”, and Josh Earnest tried to back away from his statements saying, “That is merely HIS opinion.”

          Taking into consideration that Victoria Nuland is Hillary’s hand-picked assistant ( and that Nuland’s husband is a rapid Neo-Con) whose prime objective is a military confrontation with Russia, we must be EXTREMELY cognizant of the danger of Hillary Clinton ever becoming POTUS.

      • Joe L.
        July 9, 2015 at 17:17

        One other thing I would like to point out is if the rebels in Eastern Ukraine are guilty of shooting down MH-17 then why would they ever hand over the black box to investigators? That would be like murdering someone, claiming you are innocent, and then handing over the murder weapon instead of destroying it – doesn’t make sense to me! Fact is, I think that they could have easily covered up destroying the black box and claiming that it was destroyed in battle but they didn’t…

    • yuri_nahl
      July 10, 2015 at 00:57

      The West is filled with people who think “an underinflated football” is news. The whole world could be on fire and grocery store magazine racks are filled with news of who is banging who in Hollywood, or someone’s sex change operation. If a football team had been shot down, the whole of the West would be up in arms. The leaders of the West have never had bombs falling on their cities. This explains why they are still rattling the saber. Also the apparent lack of understanding by the populous regarding the submarines encircling all continents and the fact that the world will be back in the Stone Age if a lunatic like John McCain were to be elected president.

      • Joe Tedesky
        July 10, 2015 at 10:06

        You nailed it yuri_nahl. It appears to me that you have noticed how our American culture is swayed away from the real worldly events, that should matter most. I can’t speak for the whole U.S. nation, but because of what you pointed out this is what brings many of us to internet sites such as this one. What is always an added bonus, is when people who live outside the U.S. visit this site, and leave comments for people like me to ponder over what you may state on this posting board. So, keep talking to us. You may make a difference.

        • dahoit
          July 10, 2015 at 14:00

          Europeans at least,are under the same Zionist spell with the MSM as we are,to varying degrees,Britain being the most catatonic.
          And furriners aint gonna change US policy,no way no how,its up to US!:)

          • Abbybwood
            July 10, 2015 at 21:29

            And please make note that there is not ONE person who is currently running for president who will DARE question the war crimes of Israel!

            Not sure what Donald Trump’s positions are on Israel. Do not know if he has taken the demanded trip to Israel yet with the Wailing Wall visit and the kissing of Bibi’s ring.

            If he has NOT yet kissed “the ring” and will stand up to Israel, then the Republican and Democrat sycophants to Zionism will be facing a HUGE defeat next November!

            The American people have HAD it with Israel, especially remembering the bombing of the USS Liberty during the 1967 Six Day War.

            If the American people cannot get justice through Congress then maybe we can get justice by electing a president who will have the GUTS to stand up to the war criminal/apartheid State of Israel!!!

  34. ignasi orobitg gene
    July 9, 2015 at 16:09

    The murder of the passengers MH17
    it is for the Ukrainian military in Kiev.
    Falsifying records and everything else is the work of the culprits.

  35. Mike H
    July 9, 2015 at 15:49

    You deference to the Russians on this issue is remarkable considering a pro Russian separatist commander (Alexander Khodakovsky) admitted to a Reuters correspondent they possessed the BUK and sent it back to Russia after the shootdown: “That Buk I know about. I heard about it. I think they sent it back. Because I found out about it at exactly the moment that I found out that this tragedy had taken place. They probably sent it back in order to remove proof of its presence,”

    • Joe L.
      July 9, 2015 at 16:31

      What’s interesting if the rebels and Russia are to blame for MH-17 then why would the rebels hand over the black box to begin with? If I stabbed someone with a knife, I am not going to hand it over to the authorities knowing that I am guilty. I would say that if the rebels did shoot down MH-17 then I simply would have made sure that the black box “exploded” in all of the fighting or any evidence of my wrongdoing.

      Did you ever read the article by Der Spiegel which Robert Parry points to that the German Intelligence actually do believe that it was the rebels that shot down MH-17 but that the BUK Missile System was “captured” from a Ukrainian Military Base where the missile was fired from and that photos of MH-17 provided by the Ukrainian Government “have been manipulated” (https://consortiumnews.com/2014/10/20/germans-clear-russia-in-mh-17-case/)?

      One other thing that I find really questionable is why does the US and Ukrainian Governments continually use “evidence” from the 2008 Georgian conflict with Russia as evidence of a Russian invasion into Ukraine TODAY? US Senator Inhofe provided these 2008 photos, provided by the Ukrainian Government, to the US Congress in, I believe, February 2015. If Russia is so guilty of invading Ukraine then why does the Ukrainian Government and a US Senator use photos from 2008, shouldn’t there be lots of photos from today?

      • Bill Jones
        July 10, 2015 at 16:11

        There’s always a plentiful supply of treasonous filth willing to betray their country for money.

        The Aipac lobby springs to mind.

    • Joe L.
      July 9, 2015 at 16:40

      See I kind of find the argument that rebels in Eastern Ukraine would provide the black box to investigators with full knowledge that they shot down MH-17 – very questionable. It reminds me of the argument that it must have been Assad that used chemical weapons in Syria meanwhile the Syrian Government had just invited the UN investigators into the country, and were on the ground, when chemical weapons were used. For me, both situations insult anyone with any thread of intelligence. Both situations are very questionable and wreaks of “Iraq WMD’s” and Colin Powell’s performance in-front of the UN General Assembly.

    • Anonymous
      July 9, 2015 at 17:37

      Have a very simple thesis. If Barak Obama said that the rebels shot the plane down then it must not be so. Since he was elected president not one thing he has said has turned out to be the truth.
      Ukrainian sub contractor of mine; who absolutely refuses to speak Russian, though he is fluent, and loathes Russians in general, says exactly what Parry concludes. His family in western Ukraine has heard it said by many returning vetrans.
      Therefore, all the hiding of proof by Dutch, USA etc indicates that the truth is the opposite what the west says.

    • D5-5
      July 9, 2015 at 18:20

      @Mike:

      This “deference to the Russians” phrase maybe needs another look, as well as this reference (and your deference) to Khodakovsky. Here’s a source on what you’re quoting:

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/23/us-ukraine-crisis-commander-exclusive-idUSKBN0FS1V920140723

      Interesting too that Khodakovsky is blaming the Kiev people, which is not in your comment, for provoking what may have been a BUKS system (he says) gotten hold of by the rebels. But the problem is that “may have been.” Notice how conditional and full of uncertainties Khodokovsky is on what he REALLY knows. Another problem is how old this particular report is, from right after the event. Subsequent investigation cast a lot of doubt on whether a rebel crew could even handle such a sophisticated BUKS system. They had been downing Kiev planes with shoulder=held rocket missiles. So what you’re pointing to is mostly the now long discredited “social media evidence” with people running their mouths versus an actual, systematic, clear, evidence-based investigation. But that’s why we have “the propaganda fog.”

      • Kiza
        July 10, 2015 at 00:42

        There is anecdotal evidence that it was Khodakovsky who paid for the shoot down of MH-17, unfortunately not strong enough to establish the truth.

        But the most shameful was the behavior of the Australian government. Both parties in Australia are falling over each other to serve the US masters, but the mentioned Liberal Party Prime Minister Tony About was screaming his head off on the Australian National radio against Russia, only 7 hours after the shoot-down. Someone must have told him who was to be guilty.

    • Jay
      July 9, 2015 at 18:21

      Mike H:

      Did this separatist provide any proof that the ethnic Russian rebels had the system and had fired it that day?

      I can say I heard X had Y, but without evidence that can be checked, what’s the point of posting the claim? Oh wait.

    • Nigel
      July 9, 2015 at 22:09

      You apparently forget…it was the Kiev forces which denied all the inspectors access to the crash site. The ‘freedom fighters’ from Eastern Ukraine co-operated fully with access, such as they could. There are also the early photos which German investigators earlier corroborated, that the holes in the fuselage of the cockpit were unmistakeably cannon fire, 30 or 50mm. Perfectly round holes. This cannot happen from a mid air shrapnel explosion. Although the US has imagery which can see a mouse fart anywhere on the planet, there has been a curious silence of evidence from them. Radar images show a Ukraine jet approaching MH 17 within 1km. Kiev was on alert that Putin was flying back into Russia at that time aboard a jet with similar Red markings. Ukraine might have shot down the wrong plane. The photos clearly show the small round holes of cannon fire on the plane.

    • Tony Smith
      July 9, 2015 at 22:36

      I think we can accept that the rebels did capture a buk. On July 17 the Ukrainians told us it was in Luhansk and was filmed there at some earlier time.. The Ukrainians then used this earlier film to claim that the buk was there on the morning of the 18th July 2014 when they claimed it was escaping back to Russia.
      Naturally if the rebels captured a broken buk they would send it back to Russia to be repaired. After all what good is a buk that doesn’t work?
      http://www.whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/re-examining-the-luhansk-video/

      Bellingcat and those who follow them such as Australia’s 60 minutes, unquestioningly accepted the date of July 18

      • Chris H.
        July 10, 2015 at 11:30

        It’s also interesting that the US media has made no mention whatsoever of the BUK missile systems that the Ukrainian side possessed and were active in the shoot down zone. John McCain even went so far as to state (in a television interview) that Ukraine didn’t possess missiles capable of hitting MH-17, which of course was a blatant untruth. Here’s a link that shows numerous video of Kievs Buk missile systems (they had at least 6 active), including an AP story and photographs that shows Kievs Buks being moved near Slavyansk on July 4th, 2014.

        BUK Missile System #312 Fully Proven To Be In Possession Of Ukrainian Armed Forces
        http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c86_1429077279#wQuFeVhMQvlbGaJp.99

        The link also shows Buk #312 on video in possession of the Ukrainian armed forces. Buck #312 is the Buk system that Bellingcat originally cited as the one that brought down MH-17. They adjusted their story after they found the picture of the other Buk they now state brought down Mh-17. It is worth noting that Bellingcat also intentionally never, ever mentions the fact that the Ukrainian military had Buk systems or the capability to bring down MH-17. Bellingcat has never made any attempt to geo-locate Ukraines Buks even though they are easily findable as shown by Associated Press links. It begs the question, why is Ukraine given a free pass? Why are they included in the investigation? And why have they been allowed to veto the investigation results if the finding do not suit them?

        http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ukrainian-government-forces-maneuver-antiaircraft-missile-launchers-buk-photo-183322225.html

        Finally here is the video of John McCain outright lying on TV at the 29 second mark.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V53xoum3AM

      • Hector Reban
        July 11, 2015 at 16:02

        This fits an alternative trail to the bellingcat/JIT trail, with another BUK on another day

        https://hectorreban.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/an-alternative-track-trail-another-buk-on-another-day/

        More clues the Ukrainians could have been the culprits:

        https://hectorreban.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/did-the-ukrainians-shoot-down-flight-mh17/

    • dahoit
      July 10, 2015 at 13:09

      Our satellites would pick up that movement,and you can bet the house that if true they would have been published.

      • Anonymous
        July 10, 2015 at 20:51

        Why don’t we raise a million dollars for the whistle-blower who comes forward with information leading to the truth?

    • Bob In Portland
      July 11, 2015 at 11:50

      A link would help. Also, a link to Khodakovsky’s proof would be helpful. That is, until the US releases all of its satellite photos.

    • Bob In Portland
      July 11, 2015 at 11:57

      Also, since Khodakovsky denied ever saying that in July 2014, you must have very good evidence to prove that he both initially said that the rebels had BUKs and that they in fact did have them. Who is your source that Khodakovsky said that? Links would be helpful.

      Khodakovsky denied this a year ago. Did you even know that? Who is your source of information?

    • Nick
      July 11, 2015 at 18:00

      Hey “Mike”, I guess the World should send you Zionists to work in that Texas chain-gangs, because you have too much time to f* the time in Internet and spread your Zionist crap in all publications. How much does Avigdor Lieberman pay you? ;-)… Just get lost “Mike”, MH17 was shot down by your bandits around that 2 Jewish punks Porosenko & Yats.

    • Baldie McEagle
      July 12, 2015 at 22:50

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