Exclusive: President Obama and the State Department’s “anti-diplomats” are fanning flames of anger against Russia after the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine. But some U.S. intelligence analysts doubt the popular “blame-the-Russians” scenario, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Despite doubts within the U.S. intelligence community, the Obama administration and the mainstream U.S. news media are charging off toward another rush to judgment blaming Ukrainian rebels and the Russian government for the shoot-down of a Malaysia Airlines plane, much as occurred last summer regarding a still-mysterious sarin gas attack in Syria.
In both cases, rather than let independent investigators sort out the facts, President Barack Obama’s ever-aggressive State Department and the major U.S. media simply accepted that the designated villains of those two crises Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine were the guilty parties. Yet, some U.S. intelligence analysts dissented from both snap conventional wisdoms.
President Barack Obama talks with Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, following a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Sept. 12, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Regarding the shoot-down of the Malaysian jetliner on Thursday, I’m told that some CIA analysts cite U.S. satellite reconnaissance photos suggesting that the anti-aircraft missile that brought down Flight 17 was fired by Ukrainian troops from a government battery, not by ethnic Russian rebels who have been resisting the regime in Kiev since elected President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown on Feb. 22.
According to a source briefed on the tentative findings, the soldiers manning the battery appeared to be wearing Ukrainian uniforms and may have been drinking, since what looked like beer bottles were scattered around the site. But the source added that the information was still incomplete and the analysts did not rule out the possibility of rebel responsibility.
A contrary emphasis has been given to the Washington Post and other mainstream U.S. outlets. On Saturday, the Post reported that “on Friday, U.S. officials said a preliminary intelligence assessment indicated the airliner was blown up by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile fired by the separatists.” But the objectivity of the Obama administration, which has staunchly supported the coup regime, is in question as are the precise reasons for its judgments.
Even before the Feb. 22 coup, senior administration officials, including Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, were openly encouraging protesters seeking the overthrow of Yanukovych. Nuland went so far as to pass out cookies to the demonstrators and discuss with Pyatt who should be appointed once Yanukovych was removed.
After Yanukovych and his officials were forced to flee in the face of mass protests and violent attacks by neo-Nazi militias, the State Department was quick to declare the new government “legitimate” and welcomed Nuland’s favorite, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as the new prime minister.
As events have unfolded since then, including Crimea’s secession to join Russia and bloody attacks directed at ethnic Russians in Odessa and elsewhere, the Obama administration has consistently taken the side of the Kiev regime and bashed Moscow.
And, since Thursday, when the Malaysian plane was shot down killing 298 people, the Ukrainian government and the Obama administration have pointed the finger of blame at the rebels and the Russian government, albeit without the benefit of a serious investigation that is only now beginning.
One of the administration’s points has been that the Buk anti-aircraft missile system, which was apparently used to shoot down the plane, was “Russian made.” But the point is rather silly since nearly all Ukrainian military weaponry is “Russian made.” Ukraine, after all, was part of the Soviet Union until 1991 and has continued to use mostly Russian military equipment.
It’s also not clear how the U.S. government ascertained that the missile was an SA-11 as opposed to other versions of the Buk missile system.
Slanting the Case
Virtually everything that U.S. officials have said appears designed to tilt suspicions toward the Russians and the rebels and away from government forces. Referring ominously to the sophistication of the SA-11, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power declared, “We cannot rule out Russian technical assistance.” But that phrasing supposedly means that the administration can’t rule it in either.
Still, in reading between the lines of the mainstream U.S. press accounts, it’s possible to see where some of the gaps are regarding the supposed Russian hand in Thursday’s tragedy. For instance, the Post’s Craig Whitlock reported that Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, U.S. commander of NATO forces in Europe, said last month that “We have not seen any of the [Russian] air-defense vehicles across the border yet.”
Since these Buk missile systems are large and must be transported on trucks, it would be difficult to conceal their presence from U.S. aerial surveillance which has been concentrating intensely on the Ukraine-Russia border in recent months.
The Post also reported that “Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said defense officials could not point to specific evidence that an SA-11 surface-to-air missile system had been transported from Russia into eastern Ukraine.”
In other words, the mystery is still not solved. It may be that the rebels facing heavy bombardment from the Ukrainian air force convinced the Russians to provide more advanced anti-aircraft weapons than the shoulder-fired missiles that the rebels have used to bring down some Ukrainian military planes.
It’s possible, too, that a rebel detachment mistook the civilian airliner for a military plane or even that someone in the Russian military launched the fateful rocket at the plane heading toward Russian airspace.
But both the Russian government and the rebels dispute those scenarios. The rebels say they don’t have missiles that can reach the 33,000-foot altitude of the Malaysian airliner. Besides denying a hand in the tragedy, the Russians claim that the Ukrainian military did have Buk anti-aircraft systems in eastern Ukraine and that the radar of one battery was active on the day of the crash.
The Russian Defense Ministry stated that “The Russian equipment detected throughout July 17 the activity of a Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla [a village some 30 kilometers south of Donetsk],” according to an RT report.
So, the other alternative remains in play, that a Ukrainian military unit possibly a poorly supervised bunch fired the missile intentionally or by accident. Why the Ukrainian military would intentionally have aimed at a plane flying eastward toward Russia is hard to comprehend, however.
A Propaganda Replay?
But perhaps the larger point is that both the Obama administration and the U.S. press corps should stop this pattern of rushing to judgments. It’s as if they’re obsessed with waging “information warfare” i.e., justifying hostilities toward some adversarial nation rather than responsibly informing the American people.
We saw this phenomenon in 2002-03 as nearly the entire Washington press corps clambered onboard President George W. Bush’s propaganda bandwagon into an aggressive war against Iraq. That pattern almost repeated itself last summer when a similar rush to judgment occurred around a sarin gas attack outside Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 21.
Though the evidence was murky, there was a stampede to assume that the Assad government was behind the attack. While blaming the Syrian army, the U.S. press ignored the possibility that the attack was a provocation committed by radical jihadist rebels who were hoping that U.S. air power could turn the tide of the war in their favor.
Rather than carefully weigh the complex evidence, the State Department and Secretary of State John Kerry tried to spur President Obama into a quick decision to bomb Syrian government targets. Kerry delivered a belligerent speech on Aug. 30 and the administration released what it called a “Government Assessment” supposedly proving the case.
But this four-page white paper contained no verifiable evidence supporting its accusations and it soon became clear that the report had excluded dissents that some U.S. intelligence analysts would have attached to a more formal paper prepared by the intelligence community.
Despite the war hysteria then gripping Official Washington, President Obama rejected war at the last moment and with the help of Russian President Putin was able to negotiate a resolution of the crisis in which Assad surrendered Syria’s chemical weapons while still denying a hand in the sarin gas attack.
The mainstream U.S. press, especially the New York Times, and some non-governmental organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, continued pushing the theme of the Syrian government’s guilt. HRW and the Times teamed up for a major story that purported to show the flight paths of two sarin-laden missiles vectoring back to a Syrian military base 9.5 kilometers away.
For a time, this report was treated as the slam-dunk evidence proving the case against Assad, until it turned out that only one of the rockets carried sarin and the maximum range of the one that did have sarin was only about two kilometers.
Despite knowing these weaknesses in the case, President Obama stood by his State Department hawks by reading a speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24 in which he declared: “It’s an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack.”
In watching Obama’s address, I was struck by how casually he lied. He knew better than almost anyone that some of his senior intelligence analysts were among those doubting the Syrian government’s guilt. Yet, he suggested that anyone who wasn’t onboard the propaganda train was crazy.
Since then, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed other evidence indicating that the sarin attack may indeed have been a rebel provocation meant to push Obama over the “red line” that he had drawn about not tolerating chemical weapons use.
Now, we are seeing a repeat performance in which Obama understands the doubts about the identity of who fired the missile that brought down the Malaysian airliner but is pushing the suspicions in a way designed to whip up animosity toward Russia and President Putin.
Obama may think this is a smart play because he can posture as tough when many of his political enemies portray him as weak. He also buys himself some P.R. protection in case it turns out that the ethnic Russian rebels and/or the Russian military do share the blame for the tragedy. He can claim to have been out front in making the accusations.
But there is a dangerous downside to creating a public hysteria about nuclear-armed Russia. As we have seen already in Ukraine, events can spiral out of control in unpredictable ways.
Assistant Secretary Nuland and other State Department hawks probably thought they were building their careers when they encouraged the Feb. 22 coup and they may well be right about advancing their status in Official Washington at least. But they also thawed out long-frozen animosities between the “ethnically pure” Ukrainians in the west and the ethnic Russians in the east.
Those tensions many dating back to World War II and before have now become searing hatreds with hundreds of dead on both sides. The nasty, little Ukrainian civil war also made Thursday’s horror possible.
But even greater calamities could lie ahead if the State Department’s “anti-diplomats” succeed in reigniting the Cold War. The crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 should be a warning about the dangers of international brinkmanship.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, 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.
Thank your for your articles – https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/19/airline-horror-spurs-new-rush-to-judgment/, https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/20/what-did-us-spy-satellites-see-in-ukraine/ !
May be you have already this data, but I’m ready to share it with you.
It really seems that USA or other UN countries do not have not-fake satellite images or other clues about ‪#‎MH17‬ crash. But there is an official Russian version ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSpeo5RcQQo ), and Canadian review ( http://www.globalresearch.ca/mh17-verdict-real-evidence-points-to-us-kiev-cover-up-of-failed-false-flag/5393317 ).
Thank you!
Ukraine should be required to subject all kt BUK missile systems to an Independent International Forensic Audit to determine if any Missiles were fired or missing. The firing of a missile would leave behind tell tale evidence left behind on the weapon and the site where it was photographed. Find the smoking gun and you have the guilty party. The longer the delay the harder to test.
It is clearly inadvisable to rush to judgment in any journalistic endeavor, and US media is admittedly not stellar in that regard. That said, this is pretty weak stuff. Can the Russian government and its supporters plant just enough seeds of doubt to force people to concede that maybe – MAYBE – the MH17 plane was not downed by Russian-backed rebels. Yes, of course. This is not a court of law, but even if it were, the standards for proof of guilt or liability are not “certainty.” They are standards like “a preponderance of the evidence,” and “beyond a reasonable doubt.” So, since the standard of “certainty” is not met here, of course the Russians and Putin can obfuscate and concoct conspiracy theories for the appetites of people like Oliver Stone. But this does not negate the most likely explanation for the tragedy, and in the absence of proof to the contrary, responsible people should adhere to such an explanation first.
The two theories advanced by the Russian regime and media to explain the disaster are: (1) that the plane was hit by an air-to-air missile launched from a Ukrainian fighter jet; and/or (2) the plane was downed by Ukrainian forces on the ground firing a surface-to-air missile. Both of these theories can be dispensed with relatively quickly.
If we assume that the fighter plane is question could fly at the altitude of the Boeing (it cannot), a Ukrainian fighter pilot would have been clearly able to see that this was not a military plane. To assume that he would shoot it down anyway is to assume that the Ukrainian forces are commanded and staffed by lunatics. This is what Russian media and authorities want the rest of the world to believe, but it is not credible, obviously. If the fighter pilot somehow thought that the plane was a Russian military aircraft, he would have been knowingly committing an act of war sufficient to justify a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, which is something the Ukrainian government in Kiev clearly wants to avoid.
As to the other theory, that Ukrainians operating a ground-to-air missile system hit the plane, this also does not make sense. The rebels have no aircraft, and the Ukrainian aircraft involved in the anti-terrorist operation are concerned with air strikes against ground targets to destroy rebel strongholds. Why would Ukrainian artillery be firing at planes? Again, the conspiracy theory element enters the equation, and we have a situation in which we are expected to believe – according to Russian propaganda – that the Ukrainian government forces are insane, and therefore shot down a commercial airliner to make it look as if the rebels did it. This is more obfuscation and attempted mind-bending, and sensible people should reject it.
One sees mention nowadays of the sarin gas attack in Damascus that almost prompted US air strikes on the Syrian regime. The Russian regime and its foreign friends want everyone to believe it was the anti-Assad rebels who were to blame. But however many atrocities have been committed by the Islamists fighting Assad, it does not mean that they used the chemical weapons in this case. For one thing, again very obvious, the rockets (after the attack) were found in an area controlled by the rebels. In other words, they were fired at an anti-Assad district of Damascus. This means that the rebels must have fired on their comrades to “make it look like Assad did it.” More lies and attempt to divert attention from the obvious.
That the Russians have succeeded in planting the seeds of doubt concerning the downing of the Malaysian airliner is no surprise, since so much dust was kicked up around the incident after it occurred. But subscribing to the conspiracy theories of Oliver Stone and “unidentified” intelligence analysts is not the answer.
In 2012 Malaysia summoned a judicial hearing allowing world experts to testify that Sept 11 2001 attacks were self inflicted to blame Iraq. Verdict by the committee –USA guilty of war crimes. Check it out on you Tube..
USA punished Malaysia by bribing Ukraine government to do it’s dirty get even work. Two Malaysia planes destroyed and no one has connected USA to the mass killings. I’ll bet $100, Israel has the goods on USA and has invaded Gaza knowing that USA will go along. Why has no one connected the dots :^(
Mentioned in LA Times
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80870402/
The question to ask is why was the Malaysian airliner redirected over a civil war zone? They usually fly over the Crimea area. Something smells, yet again, in washington and in the eu.
Great article Robert Parry
ymouszanon
american
Bravo Robert!!!!!!!!!
I was glad to see this sentence: “In watching Obama’s address, I was struck by how casually he lied.” Too often I think Parry has tried to protect Obama. This is understandable in light of the incredible things Obama is accused of. Obama has, for instance, been accused of being a crypto-Muslim; but I cannot imagine any Muslim mistaking him for that. Likewise, he’s been accused of being a socialist; but I think Eugene Debs would turn over in his grave to hear the name of socialism sullied by association with an opportunist like Obama. Therefore, it makes me happy to see Parry call this very slick operator on the ease with which he lies about very important matters.
The Russian Ministry of Air Defense held a briefing today regarding Malaysian airplane crush:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSpeo5RcQQo#t=1022
Could this latest downing be a traced back to a similar plane crash in 2010 that killed the Polish President and his military advisers ? It’s difficult for me to believe that Putin would make such a miscalculation by deliberately killing the Polish leadership, as was suggested by The Daily Beast and The Mail web news outlets. Today’s Polish leadership, despite the inflammatory rhetoric about subservience to the U.S. , is certainly more militantly opposed to the Russians, to wit, the new installation of ABM bases (aimed at Russia of course). So this brings us to the question, Qui Bono? who benefited the most from the 2010 downing? and who radioed flight 17 to alter their planned course and fly directly over rebel territory? Was it a narrowly beamed electronic interference, a bogus message to the captain of flight 17? In any case , this suggests black flag op’s performed by western Occident Intel agencies and not by the east. No doubt Putin has his eye on those flight recorders again and I believe, he’s going to assume personal responsibility (again) for retrieving them.
“It’s difficult for me to believe that Putin would make such a miscalculation by deliberately killing the Polish leadership”
It´s impossible for me. Why would the Russian regime had killed the Polish leadership ? They were blamed for it anyway, I now remember. Probably to cover up for someone.
Mysteriously, a chart at flightradar24.com (Google search for flightradar24,mh17), shows that flight MH17 was canceled. Also, how is it possible that so many of the passengers’ passports and other personal possessions, as shown in photographs at the wreckage area, are in perfect condition following such a violent event? Does each passenger keep his/her passport in possession, or do airlines require all passengers to relinquish their passports to be kept in one place during flight, such as the airplane’s safe? If each passenger had the passport in possession, then how could so many passports be in perfect condition following the explosion and crash? However, if the passports were all kept in one secure place in the plane, then the container might have protected the passports from damage. Also, there is said to be a Boeing Honeywell Uninterruptible Autopilot (BUAP) installed on (all/many?) Boeing airliners since 2009 which automatically takes over the plane’s controls in the event of a hijacking, and this system enables the military to take over and guide the plane to a safe area; however, a Wikipedia article says this system isn’t secure, so it seems that a person who understands the system could disable it. There is also supposed to be an ACARS that automatically sends engine signals (and possibly location information?) to the engine maker Rolls Royce every 30 minutes. These systems supposedly were installed on both Boeing planes, flights MH370 and MH17.
It was to be expected that the unfortunate event would be used for propaganda purposes. We know that the U.S. government had “incontrovertible” evidence that Iraq had chemical weapons. It will not come as a surprise that they will have equally “incontrovertible” evidence that the separatists did it. What is surprising is that the U.S. public believes the disinformation again and again.
Even if the separatists shot down the airplane then it was because they mistook it for a military one. In 1988 the U.S. also shot down a civilian airliner in Iranian airspace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
I have seen other comments that say Putin had flown over the area a short time earlier and that the Ukrainian army may have thought it was him.
On another issue, Rand Paul has joined the Zionists with “support Israel” legislation. Too bad….I had hopes he would be a viable candidate that is not owned by Zion warmongers. Now that hope is gone, he is turning into another warmonger and is clearly unworthy of any reasonable persons trust.
Still on the no fly zone. Apparently there was already a complete no fly zone in place above The Crimea. Where recently no planes were shot down, while this was even before MH17 not the case in Eastern Ukraine. This discrepancy is odd.
If you check the flight aware web site (the history will roll off day by day), you can see as far back as the 6th that MH17 flights flew south of the conflict zone, not through the conflict zone as it did on the 17th. Early press reports said it had been directed North (through the middle of a war zone with planes being shot down) due to bad weather. Later that was denied.
12 hours earlier Russia had declared its side of the conflict zone a no fly zone, meaning there was no continuation route on the Russian side, effectively making the whole conflict zone an official no fly zone. (you can see that last piece of information on the professional pilot’s site www pprune org. See MH17 thread pg 15, user alpha83 post, other pages later in that long thread cover it too). Pprune thread also mentions that airlines regularly don’t realise there is a no fly zone, or ignore it. But clearly MH17 had been avoiding war zone on previous flights.
Note that after this disaster, rebels claim their one plane took out four tanks. (apparently they did have one, and other reports mentioned their original claim of capturing one) So intelligence intercepts could have had the Ukranians on hair trigger alert to stop that coming.
That said, there is another wild card in this mix. The official video of the mid air explosion shows flares and chaff present. Neither side’s media will admit the very obvious. Flares and chaff indicate the presence of a military jet(s) shadowing MH17. One month prior to this latest tragedy, the Militia posted a video saying a Ukranian fighter jet had shadowed an airliner, dropped altitude to do a bombing raid, then going back to shadowing. They pointed out that was tempting the militia to shoot near a commercial jet. If the Ukraine Air Force did that again, and if the Militia took the bait, then neither side will want to mention the obvious chaff / flares present. Reports through last night said the Ukraine Army was shelling inside the “no conflict zone” around the wreck. That would tend to make finding remnants of chaff harder. Also, the international experts going to the crash site are said to be taking three days to get there. Chaff of course will blow away in the wind. Three days does seem a long time given the bodies present.
Post this disaster, the US in the media (in contradiction of their expert claims referenced in the very interesting article above) has claimed the Militia have had SAMs capable of hitting a commercial jet for some time. It beggars belief that there was not a clearer ban on Commercial jets flying over a war zone with both parties having SAMs, both apparently having jets, and massive casualties on both sides. Why keep the air space open?
Of course, if a Malaysian airliner were to happen to get hit, that would draw more attention and more public sympathy and outrage than just any old plane getting hit. A real PR coup. What a coincidence a Malaysian airliner did indeed get hit after being directed into the middle of a hot war zone surrounded by SAMs and accompanied buy at least one jet fighter. Of course, it was flight control in Kiev that would have been directing MH17 to “avoid bad weather”. Every other day from at least the 6th onwards it flew around the war zone.
Is it really a coincidence that the most heart wrenching airline that could be hit, Malaysian airlines, was the one that happened to get directed through the combat zone to “avoid bad weather”? The Kiev flight controllers might be able to enlighten us on that one!
“official video of the mid air explosion shows”
There is no such thing as an ‘official video”.
Can’t say much more as I stopped reading with that crap.
Here is something to note. Earlier in the week, prior to MH17 being shot down, the Ukrainian Army was losing. The Ukraine troops were cut off, and were trapped between the pro-Russian rebels and the Russian border. The Ukraine army for some odd reason had their Buk missile launchers there with them. Interestingly, the Pro-Russian Rebels doesn’t have any Air Force. Why the Buk launch pads?
Solution to get out of being trapped; shoot down a civilian plane. With the eyes of the world on that area it would allow a chance to get unpinned.
One other item to make a note of; is this a statement being made against the BRIC countries signing into their break away plan from the US$?
Mr. Parry, right on!
It is also significant to observe how the political and media reaction to events quickly takes on an unmistakably scripted pre-ordained formula. In this case, there is more than a pungent whiff of premeditated action-reaction dialectic going on, notes political analyst Finian Cunningham:
When assessing culpability, it is not only significant to ask the criminologist’s question: who benefits? American geopolitical interests are best served by this atrocity, by shocking a laggardly Europe into adopting its aggressive sanctions towards Russia, even though that militates against European economic concerns. Shooting down a civilian airliner would ensure blowing a decisive rift between Europe and Russia.
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/07/18/508766-us-aims-at-blowing-eu-russia-rift-with-downed-airliner/
What is any civilian airliner, not bound for the Ukraine doing flying over a war zone. Maylasian Airlines has now lost two planes within six months under extremely suspicious circumstances. That in itself begs a lot of questions. A look at the flight patterns of that particular flight, for each week, normally take it over the Ukraine. This time it went two hundred miles further North over the hottest areas.
This Spring I flew from Tbilisi, Georgia to Munich on Lufthansa. We normally-before the civil war- go along the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea; this time we hugged the Turkish coast then headed North near Istanbul. Now that is responsible routing.
Parry, Seymour Hersh did not prove anything. For those who want to see him dismantled on Ghouta, read this:
http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/dangerous-method-syria-sy-hersh-art-mass-crime-revisionism
Louie, Louie, Louie, what did I tell you about that conscious moral decision? And, by the way, it smells like you forgot to put the thyme in that bouillabaisse. Sacre Bleu! Maybe that’s actually Vichy(?)ssoise!
Also, the Administration was full of crap:
Given the track record over the past several years (if not longer), why would anyone trust the accusations made by Washington, especially when no “evidence” is presented?
Cui bono? Both Syria and this incident offer no gain for Putin. He’s shown himself to be a shrewd tactician, while President Pimp (see ‘dreamer’ invasion with thousands of rapes and sexual assaults) has proven himself facile, flaccid, and felonious. President Pimp has repeatedly shown his bitter contempt for large segments of the population, which he has done his best to rend asunder. Russia, aside from conflict generated by US NGOs, is united behind their leader.
This article is excellent, aside from the author’s admission that he found it hard to believe how easily President Pimp lied about Syria, a sign of some naivety.
The answer to LARB’s piece is that Hersh’s purpose was to whitewash the American involvement in this nuremberg war crime and to blame Turkey. Note that his sources are all within the US intel ‘community’.
there is however good evidence that a certain US intel op, name MacDonald was AT THE SITE and directing operations. To be speciofic, US INTEL PARTICIPATED.
nsnbc has the other end; the Ghouta op was planned in NATO support bases since July, in response to their debacle in al-Qusair. Keep learning,
I respectfully disagree. In his two articls, Hersh demonstrates that the administration committed “crimes against peace” – Nuremberg Principle VI
“(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under.”
Also, it is important to realize that the Turkish PM Erdogan is an admitted criminal of major proportions. Erdogan has been right there for the jihadists, when he and Obama were “pals” and after their faling out.
Hersh and Parry are heroes just as Manning and Snowden are. If Parry had the photographs he’s referencing, he’d have to flee also.
Thank you Robert Parry!!!
Robert – can you please elaborate on this statement: “I’m told that some CIA analysts cite U.S. satellite reconnaissance photos suggesting that the anti-aircraft missile that brought down Flight 17 was fired by Ukrainian troops from a government battery.â€
This is the first time I have read this and it would be nice to see a source. If the source is anonymous then it would be nice to have more information, with more detail.
I find there is one more important question what begs more attention:
Why did Ukrainian air controllers direct civilian airliners over the hotly contested Donetsk warzone?
From what I see, this question maybe a real challenge. The Ukrainians – and their western backers – now claim, they know the pro-russian insurgents – labeled as terrorists by the Ukrainian government – have high-reaching BUK-systems. But if they knew that “terrorists” had high-reaching BUK-systems, why did the Ukrainians direct civilian airliners over that region?
A month ago an insurgent girl claimed Ukrainian military aircraft use civilian airliners as cover for aerial operation against insurgents:
youtu.be/jKyuNnwbuUc
She also claimed the Ukrainians intentionally directed civilian airliners over the war zone to provoke a shoot down. Given that the Ukrainians and their western backers now claim they are sure that the insurgents have BUK systems I find that claim hard to refute.
An alternative route for civilian airliners about 100km south of the Donezk war zone was sometimes used, and it isn’t much longer than the route over the Donetsk/Lugansk warzone. Using the route over the Donetsk/Lugansk warzone only seems to be plausible if there are second thoughts like a need to give military aircraft cover with civilian airliners.
Malaysian Airlines MH370 and MH17. A Criminologist Questions: What are the Probabilities? Is it a Mere Coincidence?
Vladimir Putin is to Blame, according to the Mainstream Media
By Jason Kissner
http://www.globalresearch.ca/malaysian-airlines-mh370-and-mh17-a-criminologist-questions-what-are-the-probabilities-is-it-a-mere-coincidence/5392265
Am I the only guy old enough to remember the “Applause-O-Meter”? Apparently, that ancient technology has been resurrected complete with integrated circuitry and a modern software interface. It is now the mainstay of American Foreign Policy. Back in the ‘black & white’ TV days, the Applause-O-Meter determined which contestant on those unsophisticated game shows had the right answer. Our State Department homogenizes the data, feeds to the press who then bark like trained seals, and the results produce a remarkably predictable audience response: the “right answer”.
In order to understand exactly what happened to MH-17, regardless of the Applause-O-Meter, the first thing to keep in mind is that Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and Interior Ministry are both run by Pravy Sektor and Svoboda. This is key, folks: they’re NAZIS! They’re not neo-Nazis, they’re actual, real thing, never dismantled after WWII genuine NAZIS, and our government is supporting them.
We could spend a lot of time on details. MH-17 was 200 kM off course inside Ukraine, Spanish speaking air traffic controller tweeted the entire scenario in real time from the ATC tower, including the two Ukrainian jets shadowing the plane, the 27 Buk Rocket launchers staged by the Ukrainians inside anti-fascist Eastern Ukraine, the data sheet on the supposedly recorded conversation between “Russian Intelligence” and “terrorist field commander” created the day before the shoot-down, Ukrainian SBU (Intelligence Service) confiscation of the voice recordings of communications between ATC tower and the pilot of MH-17, and on and on and on.
But really, all you have to keep in mind is a conscious moral choice. You can believe the evidence, or you can believe a bunch of Nazis. They were losing against the anti-fascist forces in Eastern Ukraine. The IMF, ECB and American oil companies were going to lose their shirts. Neocons in the corridors of power would lose face. Israel was mobilizing against Palestinian civilians. Russia and the BRICS had just cemented a game-changing monetary agreement. Russia and the Eastern Ukrainians had nothing to gain.
Call it Sanford’s Paradigm: The truth will be determined by a 51% margin on the Applause-O-Meter. The ‘facts’ won’t matter at all. But regardless of all that, none of this would have happened without Victoria Nuland and her cookies. She makes Gavrilo Princip look like a piker.
How anyone can’t finger the US as the instigator of this whole disaster is incredible.Ultimately the buck stops at Obama bin lying.
If you have full documentary proof of US or US puppet culpability, you’d be ignored and called a Conspiracy Buff or something along those lines. Or usually ignored. Or people will snidely ask you if maybe UFO aliens did it.
Hats off to you, Mr. Sanford.
How do you figure that Avakov and Heletey are Nazis? They are not members of the political movements you mention. This is information that is very easy to check. If it was not sloppiness on your part, I can only imagine that it was deliberate misinformation.
Testing.
Robert – can you please elaborate on this statement: “I’m told that some CIA analysts cite U.S. satellite reconnaissance photos suggesting that the anti-aircraft missile that brought down Flight 17 was fired by Ukrainian troops from a government battery.”
This is the first time I have read this and it would be nice to see a source. If the source is anonymous then it would be nice to have more information, with more detail.
This might help you see the bigger picture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPJ3uu2WGJY
Yeah, and make sure to watch the other YT videos of that dude too, where he explains that the Aurora shooting, the Giffords shooting and about three dozen other events are all fake, human spaceflight is a hoax and Walt Disney was Adolf Hitler. I kid you not.
So, it looks like Mr. Parry doesn’t want say what his sources are, or explain why we can’t tell us, and doesn’t have too much of a problem with all kinds of hilarious conspiracy bullshit filling up the comment section of this article. I guess that makes ME see a “bigger picture”.
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Your comment is completely without merit. Its a well known fact that human can hold numerous conflicting beliefs without any problem whatsoever. Holding what might appear to be conflicting beliefs has no bearing on the beliefs validity.
A few examples:
Einstein was a socialist and a Zionist, a Agnostic, and a member of the Naacp. Does the fact that Einstein believed in socialism mean that his research in physics was wrong?
Another… Isaac newton is considered one of the greatest minds to ever live. He formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, but he also spent most of his time studying biblical chronology and alchemy. He believed in Alchemy and that if we applied math to the bible he could understand the mind of god. Does this outlandish idea make his scientific discoveries wrong. More….Gandhi that great Hindu nationalist spiritual leader was a racist. I could go on forever. The point is pretty clear.!
Whether a idea is true or not should be determined by examining the content of the idea itself….NOT the other ideas held by the messenger!