Exclusive: In 1964, the Tonkin Gulf incident was used to justify the Vietnam War although U.S. intelligence quickly knew the facts were not what the U.S. government claimed. Now, the MH-17 case is being exploited to justify a new Cold War as U.S. intelligence again is silent about what it knows, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
One year ago, the world experienced what could become the Tonkin Gulf incident of World War III, the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. As with the dubious naval clash off the coast of North Vietnam in 1964, which helped launch the Vietnam War, U.S. officials quickly seized on the MH-17 crash for its emotional and propaganda appeal and used it to ratchet up tensions against Russia.
Shocked at the thought of 298 innocent people plunging to their deaths from 33,000 feet last July 17, the world recoiled in horror, a fury that was then focused on Russian President Vladimir Putin. With Putin’s face emblazoned on magazine covers, the European Union got in line behind the U.S.-backed coup regime in Ukraine and endorsed economic sanctions to punish Russia.
Russian-made Buk anti-missile battery.
In the year that has followed, the U.S. government has continued to escalate tensions with Russia, supporting the Ukrainian regime in its brutal “anti-terrorism operation” that has slaughtered thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. The authorities in Kiev have even dispatched neo-Nazi and ultranationalist militias, supported by jihadists called “brothers” of the Islamic State, to act as the tip of the spear. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists.”]
Raising world tensions even further, the Russians have made clear that they will not allow the ethnic Russian resistance to be annihilated, setting the stage for a potential escalation of hostilities and even a possible nuclear showdown between the United States and Russia.
But the propaganda linchpin to the West’s extreme anger toward Russia remains the MH-17 shoot-down, which the United States and the West continue to pin on the Russian rebels and by extension Russia and Putin. The latest examples are media reports about the Dutch crash investigation suggesting that an anti-aircraft missile, allegedly involved in destroying MH-17, was fired from rebel-controlled territory.
Yet, the U.S. mainstream media remains stunningly disinterested in the “dog-not-barking” question of why the U.S. intelligence community has been so quiet about its MH-17 analysis since it released a sketchy report relying mostly on “social media” on July 22, 2014, just five days after the shoot-down. A source briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me that the reason for the intelligence community’s silence is that more definitive analysis pointed to a rogue Ukrainian operation implicating one of the pro-regime oligarchs.
The source said that if this U.S. analysis were to see the light of day, the Ukrainian “narrative” that has supplied the international pressure on Russia would collapse. In other words, the Obama administration is giving a higher priority to keeping Putin on the defensive than to bringing the MH-17 killers to justice.
Like the Tonkin Gulf case, the evidence on the MH-17 case was shaky and contradictory from the start. But, in both cases, U.S. officials confidently pointed fingers at the “enemy.” President Lyndon Johnson blamed North Vietnam in 1964 and Secretary of State John Kerry implicated ethnic Russian rebels and their backers in Moscow in 2014. In both cases, analysts in the U.S. intelligence community were less certain and even reached contrary conclusions once more evidence was available.
In both cases, those divergent assessments appear to have been suppressed so as not to interfere with what was regarded as a national security priority confronting “North Vietnamese aggression” in 1964 and “Russian aggression” in 2014. To put out the contrary information would have undermined the government’s policy and damaged “credibility.” So the facts or at least the conflicting judgments were hidden.
The Price of Silence
In the case of the Tonkin Gulf, it took years for the truth to finally emerge and in the meantime tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers and millions of Vietnamese had lost their lives. Yet, much of the reality was known soon after the Tonkin Gulf incident on Aug. 4, 1964.
Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1964 was a young Defense Department official, recounts in his 2002 book Secrets how the Tonkin Gulf falsehoods took shape, first with the panicked cables from a U.S. Navy captain relaying confused sonar readings and then with that false storyline presented to the American people.
As Ellsberg describes, President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced retaliatory airstrikes on Aug. 4, 1964, telling “the American public that the North Vietnamese, for the second time in two days, had attacked U.S. warships on ‘routine patrol in international waters’; that this was clearly a ‘deliberate’ pattern of ‘naked aggression’; that the evidence for the second attack, like the first, was ‘unequivocal’; that the attack had been ‘unprovoked’; and that the United States, by responding in order to deter any repetition, intended no wider war.”
Ellsberg wrote: “By midnight on the fourth, or within a day or two, I knew that each one of those assurances was false.” Yet, the White House made no effort to clarify the false or misleading statements. The falsehoods were left standing for several years while Johnson sharply escalated the war by dispatching a half million soldiers to Vietnam.
In the MH-17 case, we saw something similar. Within three days of the July 17, 2014 crash, Secretary Kerry rushed onto all five Sunday talk shows with his rush to judgment, citing evidence provided by the Ukrainian government through social media. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” David Gregory asked, “Are you bottom-lining here that Russia provided the weapon?”
Kerry: “There’s a story today confirming that, but we have not within the Administration made a determination. But it’s pretty clear when there’s a build-up of extraordinary circumstantial evidence. I’m a former prosecutor. I’ve tried cases on circumstantial evidence; it’s powerful here.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Kerry’s Latest Reckless Rush to Judgment.”]
Two days later, on July 22, the Director of National Intelligence authorized the release of a brief report essentially repeating Kerry’s allegations. The DNI’s report also cited “social media” as implicating the ethnic Russian rebels, but the report stopped short of claiming that the Russians gave the rebels the sophisticated Buk (or SA-11) surface-to-air missile that the report indicated was used to bring down the plane.
Instead, the report cited “an increasing amount of heavy weaponry crossing the border from Russia to separatist fighters in Ukraine”; it claimed that Russia “continues to provide training including on air defense systems to separatist fighters at a facility in southwest Russia”; and its noted the rebels “have demonstrated proficiency with surface-to-air missile systems, downing more than a dozen aircraft in the months prior to the MH17 tragedy, including two large transport aircraft.”
Yet, despite the insinuation of Russian guilt, what the public report didn’t say which is often more significant than what is said in these white papers was that the rebels had previously only used short-range shoulder-fired missiles to bring down low-flying military planes, whereas MH-17 was flying at around 33,000 feet, far beyond the range of those weapons.
The assessment also didn’t say that U.S. intelligence, which had been concentrating its attention on eastern Ukraine during those months, detected the delivery of a Buk missile battery from Russia, despite the fact that a battery consists of four 16-foot-long missiles that are hauled around by trucks or other large vehicles.
Rising Doubts
I was told that the absence of evidence of such a delivery injected the first doubts among U.S. analysts who also couldn’t say for certain that the missile battery that was suspected of firing the fateful missile was manned by rebels. An early glimpse of that doubt was revealed in the DNI briefing for several mainstream news organizations when the July 22 assessment was released.
The Los Angeles Times reported, “U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mystery of a Ukrainian ‘Defector.’”]
The Russians also challenged the rush to judgment against them, although the U.S. mainstream media largely ignored or ridiculed their presentation. But the Russians at least provided what appeared to be substantive data, including alleged radar readings showing the presence of a Ukrainian jetfighter “gaining height” as it closed to within three to five kilometers of MH-17.
Russian Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov also called on the Ukrainian government to explain the movements of its Buk systems to sites in eastern Ukraine 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 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.
On July 29, amid this escalating rhetoric, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of mostly retired U.S. intelligence officials, called on President Barack Obama to release what evidence the U.S. government had, 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.”
But the Obama administration failed to make public any intelligence information that would back up its earlier suppositions.
Then, in early August, I was told that some U.S. intelligence analysts had begun shifting away from the original scenario blaming the rebels and Russia to one focused more on the possibility that extremist elements of the Ukrainian government were responsible, funded by one of Ukraine’s rabidly anti-Russian oligarchs. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Flight 17 Shoot-down Scenario Shifts”and “Was Putin Targeted for Mid-air Assassination?”]
Last October, Der Spiegel reported that the German intelligence service, the BND, also had concluded that Russia was not the source of the missile battery that it had been captured from a Ukrainian military base but the BND still blamed the rebels for firing it. The BND also concluded that photos supplied by the Ukrainian government about the MH-17 tragedy “have been manipulated,” Der Spiegel reported.
And, the BND disputed Russian government claims that a Ukrainian fighter jet had been flying close to MH-17, the magazine said, reporting on the BND’s briefing to a parliamentary committee on Oct. 8, 2014. But none of the BND’s evidence was made public, and I was subsequently told by a European official that the evidence was not as conclusive as the magazine article depicted. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case.”]
Dog Still Doesn’t Bark
When the Dutch Safety Board investigating the crash issued an interim report in mid-October, it answered few questions, beyond confirming that MH-17 apparently was destroyed by “high-velocity objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.” The 34-page Dutch report 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 fired it.
In January, when I re-contacted the source who had been briefed by the U.S. analysts, the source said their thinking had not changed, except that they believed the missile may have been less sophisticated than a Buk, possibly an SA-6, and that the attack may have also involved a Ukrainian jetfighter firing on MH-17.
Since then there have been occasional news accounts about witnesses reporting that they did see a Ukrainian fighter plane in the sky and others saying they saw a missile possibly fired from territory then supposedly controlled by the rebels (although the borders of the conflict zone at that time were very fluid and the Ukrainian military was known to have mobile anti-aircraft missile batteries only a few miles away).
But the larger dog-not-barking question is why the U.S. intelligence community has clammed up for nearly one year, even after I reported that I was being told that U.S. analysts had veered off in a different direction from the initial blame-the-Russians approach toward one focusing on a rogue Ukrainian attack.
For its part, the DNI’s office has cited the need for secrecy even as it continues to refer to its July 22 report. But didn’t DNI James Clapper waive any secrecy privilege when he rushed out a report five days after the MH-17 shoot-down? Why was secrecy asserted only after the U.S. intelligence community had time to thoroughly review its photographic and electronic intelligence?
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 has made no refinements of its understanding about the tragedy since July 22, 2014.
If what I’ve been told is true, the reason for this silence would likely be that a reversal of the initial rush to judgment would be both embarrassing for the Obama administration and detrimental to an “information warfare” strategy designed to keep the Russians on the defensive.
But if that’s the case, President Barack Obama may be acting even more recklessly than President Johnson did in 1964. As horrific as the Vietnam War was, a nuclear showdown with Russia could be even worse.
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.
What lessons can the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the US army possibly learn from the Right Sektor Nazis? How to lose a conflict against a united people who are determined to win on their own territory? The U. S. Army already knows defeat under these circumstances.
If the same tactics are employed against the civilian population of the US then the outcome will be the same. Much blood will be spilled as the lessons of history are re-learned.
Fear is the primary weapon of all radicals. It matters not whether they are nazi, takfiri or neocon. Fear cannot be used without the consent of victim. Fear is unstable, and it has a nasty habit of mutating into rage.
Learning from Ukrainian Nazis?
“Operation Jade Helm†is the US military attempting to tune up on tactics of repression, in order to better contain the rising anger of the domestic US population. The CIA analysts who have studied “counterinsurgency situations†for generations around the world, and managed the use of brutal force to defeat armed uprisings in places like Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, or Indonesia, are reluctantly recognizing that their own homeland could soon be the next battlefield. The textbook conditions for a rise in left-adventurism, rightist putschism, armed messianic religious movements, and other forms of violent political unrest are ripening.
The military drills taking place in the southwest are even more interesting when taking into account recent statements from US military advisors in Ukraine.
The US military is currently training and advising the Ukrainian national guard as it battles resistance forces in East Ukraine. The chief of the army training staff in Ukraine, General Ray Odierno, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying, “This training is shared training… It is American forces training Ukrainian forces, and its Ukrainian forces training American forces.†According to General Odierno, the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the US army, a division of the biggest and most well-funded military in the world, is actually getting lessons and taking notes from the Ukrainian National Guard.
Let’s examine the frightening implications of this statement. The Ukrainian National Guard is not a normal military organization. Since the US-backed overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government in 2014, the new Kiev government has been engaging in what it calls an “anti-terror operation†against the eastern-region Ukrainians who have rejected it. In Eastern Ukraine, armed resistance forces led by communists and Slavic nationalists have formed the People’s Republic of Donetsk, the People’s Republic of Luhansk, and other local governments federated into “Novorossiya.†These self-declared independent states are protected by armed groups against the new, explicitly anti-Russian regime in Kiev.
Since the fighting in the east began, many Ukrainians are simply not excited about the prospect of killing their Russian-speaking countryfolk in the east. In the context of mass defections from the Ukrainian army, the Kiev junta has become dependent on highly political elements to carry out its “Anti-Terror Operation†and crush the resistance in Novorossiya.
The Right Sector and other fascist organizations have become very prevalent since the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government. These self-proclaimed Nazi groups carried out the horrendous Odessa Massacre on May 2, 2014. Forty-two people were killed as they not only lit a trade union house on fire, but used baseball bats to attack all who attempted to flee the burning building.
Dmytro Yarosh, an open admirer of Nazi Stepan Bandera, is now an official advisor to the Ukrainian military. The Right Sector, a coalition of neo-Nazi organizations, has been integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard as an independent fighting force.
No one can deny that the Ukrainian National Guard is full of Nazis. An all-Nazi unit called the “Azov Battalion†has been formed. The Azov Battalion uses the Wolfsangel, a Nazi symbol used by Hitler’s troops as their official insignia. The leader of the Azov Battalion is Andriy Biletsky, who describes himself as a “white nationalist.â€
Nazis To Enforce Neoliberalism: “Operation Jade Helm†and the Ukrainian National Guard
By Caleb Maupin
http://journal-neo.org/2015/07/20/nazis-to-enforce-neoliberalism-operation-jade-helm-and-the-ukrainian-national-guard/
The Russian Ministry of Defense presentation on 7/21/14 showed a satellite photo of a Buk battery (3 vehicles) a short walk south of the village of Zaroshchenskoe. The coordinates are noted on the photo. It can be verified with Google maps.
https://www.google.com:443/maps/place/47°59'00.0%22N+38°27'05.0%22E/@47.9833333,38.4513889,17z
The coordinates given by the Russian MOD lie within the area identified by Almaz Antey as a possible launch location. Per Almaz Antey the missile’s vertical angle of approach to MH17 would have been shallow, about 20-22°. Given the location where MH17 was struck, the Buk missile would have flown directly over Zaroshchenskoe and the city of Shakhtarsk. Nobody in the area reported hearing a missile, seeing a missile, or seeing its smoke trail.
Witnesses of the crash did not see or hear a missile or see a vapor trail. A Buk launched from Zaroshchenskoe would have exhausted its fuel several kilometers before reaching the Boeing 777. At 33,000 feet the missile would have been very hard to see. The sound of the warhead explosion traveled at about 1,200 feet per second. Witnesses on the ground did not hear the explosion until almost half a minute later. Looking up, all they could see would be the doomed airliner and any fighters flying nearby. That is what they reported.
Maybe there was a Buk attack, maybe there wasn’t. An air-to-air attack does not exclude the possibility of a ground-to-air attack. The launch of a Buk missile is spectacular. An unseen and unheard launch is comparable to the finale of a professional fireworks display that nobody saw or heard. Can we believe that a Buk missile was fired from any location within range of the flight and not even a dog barked?
The Ukrainians laughably claim that they couldn’t have fired a Buk because they had already sold all of their Buks to Georgia. They didn’t make this claim soon after the downing of MH17. They said it a few days after the Almaz Antey presentation. Something about the Almaz Antey presentation rattled their nerves.
http://sputniknews.com/military/20150605/1022990618.html
“Then, in early August, I was told that some U.S. intelligence analysts had begun shifting away from the original scenario blaming the rebels and Russia to one focused more on the possibility that extremist elements of the Ukrainian government were responsible…”
“Extremist elements of the Ukrainian government”??? Isn’t that like “wet elements of the Atlantic Ocean”?
The AP put out this shameful piece of propaganda on 7/16/15 citing an anonymous (of course) US government official.
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/07/16/russia-lashes-out-at-leaks-of-mh17-draft-report/21210102/
“A U.S. official, who was not authorized to speaking publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press Wednesday that it showed the plane was brought down by a BUK surface-to-air missile launched from a village under separatist control.”
This was on AOL’s “front page”.
Recycled (news cycled) Higgins and Bellingcat.
https://hateandanger.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/you-write-what-youre-told-thanks-corporate-news-we-couldnt-control-the-people-without-you-a-message-from-the-ministry-of-homeland-security.jpg
Either Eliot Higgins is just copying a reporting error from Censor.net, or else there’s a major shift in the alleged BUK’s launch site.
“Torez residents who photographed Russian Buk after missile launch at MH 17 deserve an award” (note the word ‘after’)
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/622827928208973824
http://en.censor.net.ua/photo_news/344472/torez_residents_who_photographed_russian_buk_after_missile_launch_at_mh_17_deserve_an_award_butusov
For the past year, the Torez photo has been widely presented as evidence of the BUK on its way to the launch site. Now the same photo is supposed to show it AFTER the launch, if the new report is not a misprint.
As soon as I read about the disappearance of the first Malaysian airline (MH370) I thought that it might be payback for Kuala Lumpur holding war crimes tribunals. After this second one, I’m sure there was a connection. The neoconservatives don’t like anyone messing with their agenda.
Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal. Bush Convicted in Absentia: IT’S OFFICIAL – George W Bush is a war criminal.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/kuala-lumpur-war-crimes-tribunal-bush-convicted-in-absentia-it-s-official-george-w-bush-is-a-war-criminal/30839
State of Israel Charged for “Crime of Genocide and War Crimesâ€, Kuala Lumpur Tribunal
http://www.globalresearch.ca/state-of-israel-charged-for-crime-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-kuala-lumpur-tribunal/5346375
The only thing we know for sure is that ultimately Victoria Nuland is responsible because she started this mess by fomenting a coup. She has blood on her hands just like her husband Robert Kagan has much blood on his hands for Iraq. Neo-Cons and Neo-Nazis, not much difference and now partners in crime.
Great article. From the get go, I could see there were problems with the scenario presented publicly. The first inkling was the near instant blaming of the ‘terrorists’, which told me that the first line of attack would be propaganda. Then there was the ‘proof’ of the phone recordings of ‘terrorists’ claiming to have shot down the plane…which was quickly shown to be a lie. Next up, and most damaging to the western line, was the images of the cockpit. The damage shown was not from a BUK missile, the destructors (fragmentations) from a BUK are not round. Also, BUKs attack trajectory is from the top of the target, not from below and to the side…the images of the cockpit show no similarity to an actual BUK impact. The fact that the western media, with all it’s ‘experts’, did not address these facts and moreover blatantly ignored the cockpit altogether was not a good sign. Then came personal observations of other aircraft in the air, radar images and observations of attack aircraft taking off in the same time frame, all of which was ignored by the western press. The fact that the black box was turned over quickly, the fact that the data could be interpreted in hours, if need be, but has yet to be released is beyond troubling. The data now can be considered suspect, as there has been more than enough time to modify the data. But, the biggie, to me is the lack of US spy sat intel. If there were any images whatsoever that this was a ‘terrorist’ attack on this plane, it would have been shown very quickly to bolster the call for sanctions against Russia. What images, after a year, have we seen? There is, of course, more questionable claims that are highly suspect, mostly relating to Russian involvement and ownership of BUK platforms, locations of same, etc., which are propaganda without any demonstrable proof of any kind. I fear the Dutch investigation will be as suspect as the report by western powers on the sinking of the Cheonan. If you want a real head scratcher, read the report on that. Then ask yourself how they came to the conclusion that the NK military was responsible. There are many similarities between these two events.
Hardly anyone in the world knows more about BUK missiles than Almaz-Antey, Russia’s top manufacturer of air defense systems. Ukraine contacted them to perform maintenance on its BUKs in 2005 when, according to Almaz-Antey there were 991 Ukrainian BUK missiles.
In a press conference on 2 June 2015, Almaz-Antey described how the BUK missile and warhead operate and how it might possibly have been used in the shooting down of MH17. That presentation contained some inaccuracies and they came to a questionable conclusion that the crash was caused by a BUK missile launched from near Zaroshenskoye, approximately 17 km south of the crash site.
Despite that, they did point out clearly that there was a definite pattern to the damage to the MH17 aircraft. They showed how this can be used to accurately determine the location of the detonation and to give some indication of the direction the missile came from.
The evidence they present makes it clear that the damage to MH17 could not have been caused, as many claim, by a BUK launched from south of Snizhne, approximately 25 km south east of the crash site. That’s the location that the US pointed to as the launch site only a few days after 17 July 2014. State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf supported this assessment again on 2 June this year when asked about Almaz-Antey’s analysis. The western media now almost unanimously agrees with that conclusion too.
On the anniversary of the 17th July tragedy, Almaz-Antey repeated the offer they made at their press conference to carry out a experiment prove their findings. This would involve detonating a warhead from a BUK missile near a decommissioned plane similar to MH17.
http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?pg=2&id=606502
http://tass.ru/en/russia/809377
However accurate such an experiment would be in replicating the effect a BUK from near Snizhne, it should provide more than enough data to either support or disprove that scenario.
An air-to-air attack does not exclude the possibility of a simultaneous ground-to-air attack.
The Russian Ministry of Defense presentation showed a satellite photo of a Buk battery (3 vehicles) a short walk south of the village of Zaroshchenskoe. The exact coordinates are noted on the photo. It can be verified with Google maps.
https://www.google.com:443/maps/place/47°59'00.0%22N+38°27'05.0%22E/@47.9833333,38.4513889,17z
The coordinates given by the Russian MOD matches the area identified by Almaz Antey as a possible location. Per Almaz Antey the missile’s vertical angle of approach to MH17 would have been shallow, about 20-22°. Given the location where MH17 was struck, the Buk missile would have flown directly over Zaroshchenskoe and the larger city of Shakhtarsk. Even so, nobody saw or heard the missile or a vapor trail.
So while it is possible the missile was launched from that location or a nearby location I find it impossible to believe that nobody saw or heard it.
I can believe that if in fact a missile was launched from near Zaroshchenskoe then witnesses living in the strike zone did not see or hear a missile or see a vapor trail. A Buk launched from Zaroshchenskoe would have exhausted its fuel several kilometers before reaching the Boeing 777.
The Ukrainians laughably claim that they couldn’t have fired a Buk because they had already sold all of their inventory to Georgia. Yeah, right.
http://sputniknews.com/military/20150605/1022990618.html
Here in Germany there are a lot of east German air defense veterans from the former East German Peoples Army (NVA). The NVA used the KUB SAM missile system (NATO: SA-6 Gainful) which was the predecessor of the BUK (SA-11 Gadfly). And all these veterans do not believe the ‘BUK shot MH17 story’ because:
+ launching a missile is incredibly loud and can be heared 7 to 10 km around the launch site
+ the missile leaves a smoke trail which can be seen for kilometers and may be around for minutes under good weather conditions (like on 17.07.2014)
+ the missile’s warhead contains thousands pieces of shrapnell which should cause hundreds of equally shaped and equally distributes holes where it explodes near to the target
+ if shrapnell hits the tanks the plane will be set on fire with high probability
So far there are no eye witnesses which have heard or seen a BUK and there is only one picture of a BUK smoke trail which has been identified as a fake in the mean time. If there would have been a BUK launch, there must be a lot of eye witnesses and dozens or hundreds of pictures from the smoke trail. So obviously there never has been a BUK launch which means that the whole story is a lie!
Some references (you may need ‘google translate’ for a translation):
Veteran Oberst a.D. Bernd Biedermann on MH17 (in German):
http://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/940136.reibungshitze-haette-alles-entflammt.html
http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2015/mh-17-und-kein-ende/
Professor Gunnar Jeschke from ETH Zurich on MH17 (in German):
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/gunnar-jeschke/correct-v-korrigiert
Dutch Journalist Max van der Werff on fake smoke trail pictures …
http://7mei.nl/2015/05/18/mh17-buk-launch-photos-are-cheats/
… and an interview with an eye witnesses which saw MH17 shot down by an fighter jet:
http://7mei.nl/2015/05/30/lev/
Military satellites likely saw the missile strike on Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17
http://www.space.com/26571-military-satellites-malaysia-airlines-missile-mh17.html
An unofficial Russian report has identified the Python air-to-air missile, manufactured in Israel and used by Israeli pilots flying Su-25 aircraft, as a suspected weapon suspected in the downing of MH-17.
A beyond-visual-range missile, the Python is capable of “lock-on after launch” (LOAL), and has all-aspect/all-direction (including rearward) attack ability.
The Israeli missile has an 11kg warhead and features an advanced electro-optical infrared homing seeker which scans the target area for aircraft, then locks-on for terminal chase.
Satellite, radar and flight communications data, as well as detailed analysis of physical evidence from the aircraft wreckage, are critical in determining what actually happened to MH-17.
The US/NATO “open source” charade perpetrated by deception operatives Higgins and Bellingcat will collapse like the house of cards it is once the physical evidence and analysis is made available for scrutiny.
That is why the “open source” bowel movements of Higgins and company are being peddled so feverishly by the Atlantic Council, MSM and Western politicians.
This detailed article is over at Veteran’s Today:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/07/17/was-there-an-2nd-israeli-plane-new-footage-shows-mh17-crash-site-minutes-after-boeing-downing/
Things just keep getting curiouser and curiouser.
Yeah, well, how do you ask a billion children to be The First TO DIE For Your mistake?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yixdveuf0GQ
Robert Parry,
I appreciate your work here. I understand you are deeply suspicious about the US effort to blame Russia for the MH17 shoot down. I think you’ve informed your readers well here about US deceit and neocon involvement in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, you have not provided any solid evidence that a rogue Ukrainian element took the airliner down.
On the other hand, this July 17, 2015, article in The Daily Beast by
James Miller and Michael Weiss appears to make a pretty well documented and well argued case for Russian involvement. I would appreciate very much if you would specifically address this article, refute, rebut, or accede, with evidence. Otherwise, this is one of the most convincing things I’ve read about the incident.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/17/how-we-know-russia-shot-down-mh17.html
Thanks.
Michael Weiss, Pro Israeli Neocon, Authors Blueprint For Western Military Intervention In Syria Approved By Syrian Ex-Pats
One of your authors is a professional liar. Presumably the other serves to keep the punctuation in order.
Anyhow, I wasted a few minutes with the piece. Standard cut/paste baloney, in my opinion.
Which is what a person would expect from an Israeli hack.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/europe/2615-just-journalism-or-just-zionism
Okay, thanks. Weiss a neocon, I didn’t know that. There are so many of them, and they are so relentless, it’s hard to keep up. I agree, nothing they say can be trusted. Too bad it’s so difficult to find credible, trustworthy info on so many events and issues, and wing nuts are eagerly lying and distorting, with MSM support, about nearly everything.
It did seem as though the Daily Beast article had a few more witnesses, sources and investigators other than Bellingcat, so it remains unclear to me.
Can you clarify a bit why Bellingcat is problematic? I understand the guy is an amateur, uses video and photos to develop explanations, etc.
Believe it or not, modern satellite reconnaissance is not appreciably better than aerial photo reconnaissance was during WWII. Large film size negatives contain more halide crystals than digital units contain pixels – individual molecules become the limit to image resolution. The allies didn’t have satellites, but they did have Spitfires stripped of armor, armaments and excess equipment. They were painted ‘baby blue’ with no markings, and they were fast. Flying at 45,000 feet, they were too high to chase and too fast to catch. If the weather was clear, absolutely NOTHING escaped their detection. Bottom line: no army in the world is STUPID enough to move large tactical armaments during daylight if they want to keep it secret. Higgins and Bellingcat claim to show daylight images from “social media” of Buk Missile batteries on open roads traveling during daylight. I would hope that any Sergeant in the U.S. Army would be able to tell you, with absolutely no doubt, that such photos are staged fakes. There is NO EVIDENCE that a Buk missile shot down the plane. But this is the only “story” that can plausibly disguise the fact that a Ukrainian fighter jet shot down MH-17.
I haven’t paid any attention to “bellingcat” – it’s just been a name I see every now and then. But on a whim I typed in a search, and included the term “neocon”. Quite a lot of ‘stuff’ turned up. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of any of it, but the claims are surely interesting.
http://ballingcat-moses.blogspot.com/2015/06/elliot-higgins-aka-bellingcat-is-being.html
hxxp://www.liveleak.com/view?i=16d_1432796866#JldcQrCqq6bWwLzF.99
The Miller and Weiss article in the Daily Beast nothing more than recycled Higgins and Bellingcat.
Nearly all of the MSM coverage of MH-17 is recycled Higgins and Bellingcat.
Eliot Higgins has been refuted and rebutted, again and again, while Bellingcat blithely churns out the faux “investigation” reports for MSM hacks like Miller and Weiss to cite as “evidence”.
And the Mighty Wurlitzer plays on.
The article – How We Know Russia Shot Down MH17 – originates with Khodorkovsky’s Institute of Modern Russia and its publication The Interpreter. Here is the article’s review of events last year: “After Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in March 2014, bands of pro-Russian fighters began to seize police stations, government buildings, and other strategic areas across eastern Ukraine…Initially, the Ukrainian military…was hesitant to respond to this threat.”
The “proof” offered by the article which “we know” establishes Russian guilt consists almost entirely of the same social media sources trotted out last summer – tweets and “geo-spatially aligned” YouTube videos – tied together by speculative rumination. Whatever it is, it is not journalism.
Utterly infuriating but so predictable the way Elliot Higgins, research fellow with the Imperail war College is presented so uncritically by our media while alternative hypotheses on just about everything he cliams a slam dunk on are dismissed as propaganda or more often just completely ignored. No point in documenting this propaganda strategy as noone will be alive to ponder it after WW3.
In July 17th social media posts on Twittter and Facebook, Ukrainian President Petro Poroschenko claimed:
“The Netherlands finished its investigation into #MH17 disaster. The plane was shot down by a Russian missile launched by a Russian crew“.
http://www.whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/ukraine-president-poroshenko-suggests-dsb-report-will-report-mh17-was-shot-down-by-russia-supplied-missile-and-crew/
In fact,The Dutch Safety Board published a preliminary report containing its first findings regarding the crash of flight MH17 on Tuesday, 9 September 2014. The preliminary report contained the initial data from the investigation into the cause of the crash based on the sources that were available to the Dutch Safety Board.
The draft final reports on the investigation into the crash and the investigation pertaining to flight routes were made available to the accredited representatives of the participating States on Tuesday, 2 June. In accordance with ICAO Annex 13, they have sixty days to submit comments on the reports.
The Dutch Safety Board will then assess the submitted comments and draw up the definitive final reports. The consultation period the investigation into the availability of passenger information has ended.
The Board expects to publish the final reports in the first half of October 2015.
The Dutch Safety Board investigation of the crash of flight MH17 is being carried out in accordance with standards and recommended practices described in Annex 13 to the convention on International Civil Aviation.
Ukraine was delegated to the investigation as the State in which the incident occurred.
The international team of investigators is composed of specialists from Malaysia, Ukraine, the United States, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands.
For the President of Ukraine to issue such statements prior to the release of the final report of the Dutch Safety Board is a blatant effort to influence world public opinion.
The Russian Federation is in fact excluded from many aspects of the investigation.
http://rt.com/news/273943-mh17-crash-missile-ukraine/
The Russian Federation was given only 30 days to comment instead of the prescribed 60 day period. http://rbth.com/news/2015/07/02/dutch_report_on_malaysian_boeing_crash_raises_many_questions_-_rosaviats_47430.html
The Dutch admit that ICAO rule provide accredited representatives 60 days to give comments.
http://news.liga.net/news/politics/6137728-niderlandy_gotovyat_dva_doklada_po_teraktu_protiv_mh17.htm (7/7/15)
http://dw.com/p/1FtXy
Even though the Russians know they’re supposed to have 60 day to comment they have already submitted their comments. http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150716/1024699993.html
The Russian mindset is hard to understand. They act as if they have no idea how information warfare is conducted. What team ever won a game by playing nothing but defense?
The Russians also have a compelling witness with strong circumstantial evidence, if the man is telling the truth. He even identifies the pilot of the Ukraine fighter jet involved in the shootdown. BBC carried an article about it. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30597555 The original interview (in Russian) is here. http://www.kp.ru/daily/26323.5/3204312 It includes a transcript that Google translate does its usual poor job in translating Russian to English, but you can get the drift of it. Somewhere I saw a version of the interview video with English subtitles but couldn’t find my way back to it just now.
The ABC just ran this. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-17/osce-spokesman-michael-bociurkiw-describes-mh17-crash-site/6629076
They have been running a number of onli pieces to mark the anniversary of mh17 and to drive home the narrative that it was a buk fired by the separatists and given to them by Putin.
I have lodged another official complaint over this, here it is
Why have you deliberately omitted the comments made by the OSCE monitor Michael Bociurkiwa? He very publicly stated that pieces of the fuselage of mh17 appeared to have been riddled with very strong machine gun fire, especially around the cockpit area.
He makes that statement in this video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7ze9BNGDyk4
The evidence on the ground suggested very strongly that the plane was brought down by machine gun fire from a military aircraft. There is no evidence to suggest that the plane was struck by a surface to air missile.
The BBC’s Russian news service ran a video article at the time containing interviews with eye witnesses to the event that all stated that they saw a military aircraft close by MH 17 at the time and that it turned away and flew off after mh17 exploded. This article was watched by millions of people but has since been removed from the bbc’s archives.
The intent of your recent article as it is with all articles you have run in regards to the shooting down of MH 17 , is to create an illusion in the minds of the Australian public that mh17 was shot down by a ground to air missile fired by Russian separatists and supplied to them by the Russian military on the direct order of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Your chosen course of action could leniently be described as criminally negligent, but it is my belief that your actions here are quite deliberate and therefore just plain criminal in nature.
There is no possible way that your running narrative of the events surrounding the downing of mh17 and theories of how it happened based on the wreckage found at the scene, could ever be described as balanced.
The buk missile theory has no support from an array of aviation and military experts, it is simply the claim made by the Ukranian government,repeated by the US state department and not at all an official finding made by the Dutch investigators.
The Americans want the inquiry to find that it was a buk fired by Russian separatists ,this suits their own geopolitical agenda,so as to have justification for their ongoing campaign of aggression directed at Russia.
The Americans are known to have detailed satellite imagery of the events that took place that day.
If it was a buk missile fired from separatist held territory, why not put these images on display for the world to see? Why not supply these images to the Dutch inquiry?
Remember US secretary of state John Kerry made a public statement at the time that these images exist and that they prove that it was a ground to air missile fired from separatist held territory.
Why is the ABC not asking the obvious question as to why the United States Government is not being held to account for withholding crucial evidence from the official inquiry ,when they have officially stated that it exists?
The ABC is fully complicit in the cultivation of general public support for war with Russia. What kind of fools are you?
If you don’t immediately run an online article making it very clear to the public the original comments made by Michael Bociurkiwa including the YouTube video of him actually making those comments, then it will stand as proof positive that the chief editor of abc news online is under the direct control of the United States Government.
I can promise you that this will not be forgotten and that a civil legal case will likely be brought against the editors of abc news online if this situation is not immediately rectified.
In short ,you had better start putting some balance into your narrative in relation to this matter or a lot of very concerned members of the Australian public are going to make a lot of trouble for you, trouble that will put the recent debate surrounding the Q&A program in the shade by comparison
http://www.globalresearch.ca/support-mh17-truth-osce-monitors-identify-shrapnel-like-holes-indicating-shelling-no-firm-evidence-of-a-missile-attack/5394324
This is the short version of the definitive article on the shoot down of MH-17
by a German expert on air craft crashes. It is a year old.
You can find the long version yourselves.
It is as close to the truth as one will ever get. The official investigation
is an obvious sham. (And an international shame.)
Note particularly, at the end are three witness statements from three people
on the ground who saw the shooting in the air, do not mention a vapour trail
from a missile which would have had to be there if any missile had been
fired, and that, visible for at least ten minutes. That is for starters…..
Last night on cbc-tv, one of the Dutch experts on the investigation
panel which is the official investigator, when asked about witness interviews,
stated that they had not even tried to interview any witnesses.
Why, ? he was asked.
He said that the team was concentrating on ‘the most likely path’
that would lead to a solution.
This, he maintained, centered on social media tapes that have been proved
to have been recorded before the crash about another aircraft that was shot down.
They are hoping, he said, that the men whose voices are heard on the recording
will come forward, so that their voices can be compared so that they can confess
to the crime – which of course will not happen. They know that that is unlikely
but until that has been exhausted they will not look elsewhere, (really) …..
The other evidence that he referred to ‘proving’ that it was a buk missile,
was mostly based on unrelated photos of the report of Buk launchers
driving around ‘somewhere’ some of which were adduced as proof
by a discredited Australian journalist (Bellingcat) who persuaded CNN or Fox
to run an amateurish TV program of an hour which was immediately
proved to be a fraud by independent experts and also by Russian TV
in a much more convincing program. (really).
In what was an obvious attempt to pre-explain away the large cannon fire hole
in the left side of the cockpit and the corresponding shrapnel and bullet holes
on the other side of the cockpit which killed the pilot at the outside of the attack,
(and which provide incontrovertible proof of the weapon) the CBC clip showed
a drawing of the missile just a few feet from the nose of the plane……
A missile never comes close to its target.
In fact, a missile explodes when its proximity fuse comes
within fifty meters or more of an airplane. This is in order
to cover as much of the target as possible. If the fuse had to be this close
to the target before exploding, it would miss all the time. In addition, the shrapnel
that hits the aircraft from the missile, is irregular and can’t make round holes
that are on both sides of the plane. The cannons that Fighters use
shoot two kinds of bullets, one which explodes after penetration, producing
shrapnel, and the other, which penetrates only, and goes through whatever.
The plane hit with missile shrapnel hits all over the airplane or at least in a
relatively large area.
This is not the case with MH-17.
This technique of misleading an investigation is called –
“Don’t look where that evidence tells you to look for a solution,
look over here……” (where you can be misled with another,
less plausible explanation)
The Americans have done this before, notably on a Pan Am flight
in the ‘eighties out of New York ,hit with a missile (with a vapour Trail)
which was explained by the CIA as an electrical spark in a gas tank.
Not interviewing the maximum number of witnesses as possible
is crucial to these fraudulent investigations. In the Pan Am case, no witness
out of some four hundred discovered by the press were interviewed except by journalists.
nor were the plane’s builders interviewed, Boeing…… They might have had
to say that there are no wires in or crossing the fuel tanks…..
There is an enormous amount of information (evidence)
in the case of MH-17, that points to the fact
that the shoot down was by a jet fighter of the Kiev air force who used
cannon fire on the plane. The Russians have the radar tracks
but not the recorded voice logs for the date and time
which do not apparently figure into the investigation.
The Kiev air traffic control have all that information, but appear to have not
supplied the investigation team with that information. It is probable
that they have not been asked for it. There are many witnesses from
air traffic control in Kiev as well as airport workers who attended the pilot
and the attacking aircraft when it landed without ammunition,
and who heard his statement that he had shot down ‘the wrong’ plane.
This pilot has now disappeared, as has one of the air traffic controllers
who texted to the outside world what had happened, moments
before the Kiev security people entered the control room
to confiscate all logs and recorded material and terrorize
all the people in the room.
And the team isn’t looking there because the missile explanation is
easier, less expensive, and most of all because any other explanation
will exonerate the Russians from blame, and that will cause at least
the Europeans to have to lift their sanctions.
If this is not criminal behavior, nothing is.
But the USA is an old hand at this stuff.
Bad people…..
M
Apologies. The flight out of New York which was most probably downed by friendly fire
was not a Pan Am flight. It was a TWA airplane and the date it was downed was July the 17th, 1996.
Over the past year, Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat have become the mainstream media’s go-to source for reports blaming Russia for the MH-17 crash.
The UK Guardian, which had promoted Higgins’ false claims about the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack in Syria, continues to promote Higgins’ claims about MH-17:
“western journalists have gathered evidence that separatists shot down MH17 with a Buk missile, with British blogger Eliot Higgins even using photographs published online to trace a suspected Buk launcher from Russia to eastern Ukraine”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/russia-fights-tribunal-downing-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17
Phil Greaves described Higgins in his article, Syria: Media Disinformation, War Propaganda and the Corporate Media’s “Independent Bloggersâ€:
“Bloggers such as Higgins promoting themselves as working from an impartial standpoint are actually nothing of the sort and work in complete unison with mainstream journalists and western NGO’s – both in a practical capacity, and an ideological one. As noted at the Land Destroyer blog and others; Higgins was initially pushed into the limelight by the Guardians’ former Middle East editor Brian Whitaker, a “journalist†with the honour of being a lead proponent of almost every smear campaign and piece of western propaganda directed at the Syrian government, while wholeheartedly promoting the Bin Ladenite “rebels†as secular feminist freedom fighters and repeatedly spouting the liberal opportunist mantra of western military “actionâ€, which realistically means Imperialist military intervention. Whitaker and Higgins played a lead role in bolstering corporate media’s fantasy narratives throughout the joint NATO-Al Qaeda insurgency in Libya during 2011, with many of the anti-Gaddafi claims they propagated subsequently proven to be speculative at best, outright propaganda at worst.â€
Now Higgins is everywhere claiming “It was Putin†— the very “digital story†the US/NATO wants everyone to hear.
The large size of the aircraft fragments and the small size of the debris field together with bodies which were relatively intact is simply not consistent with the destruction one would expect from a large – and the Buk is a VERY large – surface to air missile. Remember, 10,000 meters is six miles high. The aircraft would have been shredded, and traveling with a forward velocity of 350 knots from six miles up, there would have been debris scattered for twenty miles. That’s not the facies of this incident. I have said this before, and I know there will be many ‘armchair experts’ who will contradict, but this was an air-to-air shoot down. The Russians know it, the Dutch know it, the Australians know it, the Russians know it, and the Americans know it. What we’re watching here is a game of Intelligence Community “Chicken”. But the Ukrainian government will officially default next week. The Nazi factions are restless to both attack Donetsk and depose their feckless, half-wit government. The oligarchs continue to loot whatever isn’t nailed down. The only economy left is black market, and the people running it are all foreign nationals or dual-citizenship carpetbaggers. The administration is trying to drag this out as far as it can to find an “exit strategy” – – which doesn’t exist. If they release an honest report, the game is over. If they lie, they run the risk Russia will produce irrefutable empirical evidence to the contrary. They didn’t expect the situation to deteriorate so completely so quickly. Now, they’re stuck. All out war or exposure as frauds are the only possible outcomes right now – but they’re hoping that will all change by October. A favorite pastime of the Azov and Right Sektor forces is branding swastikas on the buttocks of their prisoners. I’m hoping Saakashvili gets one too when the whole thing falls apart. I wonder if they’ll let him bite on his necktie to ease the pain?
An investigative report was leaked to Russian media on Tuesday:
http://www.rt.com/news/310039-mh17-israeli-missile-version/
Based on analysis of the aircraft hull damage, aviation security experts determined that the type of the weapon used against Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was a short range air-to-air missile:
“The Python is equipped with a matrix-imaging IR seeker. It enables a relatively moderate power warhead to effectively engage big aircrafts. The warhead is armed with a set of ready strike elements. Even more importantly, some open military sources suggest that in early 2000s a number of Sukhoi Su-25 assault fighter jets we refurbished to use fourth and fifth generation Python missiles, which look very similar to the Su-25’s standard air-to-air R-60 missile.”
The Python-5 air-to-air missile, built by the Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense System, can lock on to targets after launch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWG2PkwKiaQ
The Python-5 is said to have full sphere launch ability, meaning it can be launched at a target regardless of the target’s location relative to the direction of the launching aircraft.
“The murderers should know that the punishment is inevitable.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQldqVXYd6o
…but this was an air-to-air shoot down
I’ve been all over the place with this on account of not having adequate information. As of this moment, I’m in agreement with you.
It all depends upon what the cockpit voice recorder has on it. If the pilots were killed instantly, it was an air-air missile homing on the cockpit, IMO.
A SU-25 modified for the job, carrying a modern missile chosen for the same job. Since the SU-25 doesn’t have much in the way of interception capability, perhaps it was guided to the airliner by (BUK?) radar information sent up from the ground. Or conceivably somebody could have installed a tiny radar unit in the SU aircraft. Just for this job.
But there I go again, speculating without nearly enough information.
There has to be a reason for the over-the-top secrecy being practiced by the West on this one.
Zachary even without nearly enough information you bring some though provoking comments to this site. Bringing up the cockpit voice recorder, and the BUK radar tracking is something worth us looking into…Abe, are you reading this?
Here is the pablum dished out in today’s Los Angeles Times:
http://www.pressreader.com/usa/los-angeles-times/20150717/281517929805462/TextView
I have to hand it to you F.G., I remember about a year ago you suspecting it was an SU25 that shot down flight MH17. I can recall how people right here on this very comment board argued with you about how the SU25 couldn’t fly that high. Then expert pilots started coming out, and they were stating what you had already said. Sorry, I’m not trying to embarrass you, but someone needs to acknowledge your claim. So, good on you.
These are very good points re: a damage assessment from a Buk. I do find it interesting, since I have read about this airliner everyday since its plunge, how the stories change. But for some reason the MSM presupposes that it was hit by a Buk.
From what I understand, learning how to process the coordinates Plus have the codes available to fire a Buk is not some random event from a ‘rebel terrorist’. The firing of a Buk is rather sophisticated.
I think an important element in the entire Buk theory has been stated by those who have used them. It leaves a contrail from the ground all the way up to its target and yet why is there no evidence of a smoke pattern? I also learned the average length of the contrail lingering in the air would be 10 minutes, which is ample time for any witnesses to confirm their stories. But no contrail was seen or witnessed. Isn’t this odd?
It was also mentioned by the Russian Defense Ministry that they don’t use nor have the Buk-1 anymore as it is obsolete, but the Ukraine military has a boatload of them.
Are these points just too hard for the journalists to research and report on?
I think another point about your air to air shoot down is the inspection of damage caused by the rapid decompression a Buk would make on a 777. It is a stretch to think those very large parts of the plane would have endured an explosion and the blast of rapid decompression. There are many engineers bringing up these facts, but our professional media-types don’t seem to think it’s important. It’s easier just to bash Putin since it makes for a more sensational selling/propaganda market for the twitter generation.
You raised many good points. Thanks.
South China Morning Post: “Families of German MH17 victims to sue Ukraine president over downed flight” (September 21, 2014):
Relatives of German victims of downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 plan to sue Ukraine and its president for criminal negligence for not closing the country’s airspace, a lawyer said on Sunday.
Elmar Giemulla, an attorney and professor of aviation law who is representing three German families, said he would file suit soon before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
“Every country bears the responsibility for the security of its airspace,†he wrote in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse.
“By keeping its airspace open for transit by aircraft from other countries, the state must ensure the safety of the flights. If this is temporarily impossible, it means that it should close its airspace.â€
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1597474/german-families-mh17-victims-sue-ukraine-president-over-downed-flight
Lots of pictures of MH-17 with bullet holes in it.
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/08/mh-17-bullet-holes-3008186.html
Could not find the pictures I saw months ago that were definately bullet holes. Can you?
When the group of German military experts studied the web-released photos, they began issuing statements that the cockpit was riddled with 30mm aircraft cannon fire, found on most fighter jets.
Google – aka ‘Skynet’, went into their Save Their Lying President mode, and immediately began actually retracting the photos that they had access to the websites.
Ostool ALSO promised “definitive proof” when the cockpit recorders would tell the world “exactly what happened”.
Sooooooo verrrrrrry interesting that this ‘definitive proof’ has never been heard – let alone even MENTIONED.
If ANYONE hasn’t yet figured it out, the TRUE ‘Axis of Evil is the US, Israel, and Great Britain, they being THE greatest terrorist threat to world peace on the planet.
Axis of Evil = Iran regime,Russia Regime. NK Regime , with a few ???-marks china leadership.So ,You got it all wrong there. These events here #silkair #TAM470 #MH370 #MH17 #QZ8501 #westjet5622 #Germanwingscrash are all caused by the same culprit (s) .The method allways goes like this: Tranquilizing of crew and pax by lack of O2 and excess N ,Cockpit door remains shut for both ways.Escape hatch is one way only. A decoy craft gets introduced for the swap/cloake and flies to the crash site. The civilian loaded aircraft is landed safely on one of 122 capable hands-off landable airports. see twitter @FLGovCand_gig
You are indeed correct about the deletion of the images of the plane on the ground. If you have a chance, there is a German commercial pilot on youtube who detailed the 30 cal holes (entry and exit points) in the cockpit as if the pilots were deliberately targeted. And this won’t show up on the cockpit recording? He was very specific and very professional in his argument.
He went on to say he was amazed at the high def images posted on line as well, which made analysis easier. He also said he had to screenshot those photos as they were deleted later.
US/NATO propaganda about MH-17 is being broadcast loudly on all channels.
Mashable, a digital media website, presented an info-mercial highlighting Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat as the “team of researchers who are uncovering the truth about MH17”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3cBVpWYi5U
Apparently the final report on the incident will be released in a few months. I predict that it will not arrive at any solid conclusions, but will highlight circumstantial evidence suggesting the rebel’s complicity. The report may name a “suspect” or two, and there will be fiery rhetoric in the media demanding the rebels and the Russians hand the suspects over to the ICC. This will not happen, enabling a new spin on the story focusing on rebel/Russian “defiance” of the international community. Sanctions will be renewed and the NATO build-up in the region will continue.
Robert Parry’s point – that someone somewhere knows full well what actually went down and there likely exists solid definitive evidence that could establish the true facts but it will not be released – is an indication of the utter indifference to any of our lives held at the higher levels of power.
One thing about the Guardians MH17 stories printed this week by Shaun Walker is that no comments have been accepted. This suggests a complete lack of confidence in the stories. They just want to print propaganda.
Australia have been predictable in their Russia bashing. It’s actually very vulgar and has the opposite effect than that intended.
Malaysia submitted a resolution to the UN to set up a tribunal – they did it this week when the Dutch report has not been released.
The UK and ukraine have supported this resolution. They want Russia to veto it; so that it looks bad publically. It will be vetoed like the Strebrenica genocide resolution. And it will only have effect in the political bubble they will feel they have scored points.
But I would argue that apart from the people who lost someone; the public move on and other tragedies get their attention. Especially when used in a crude fashion for politics. This is why I hate obama and his team they really will use anything for political gain.
Right, I think. Really open media would accept commentary on all articles. And can’t you imagine commentary on ads?
Yesterday the RT site published a fascinating new theory about what happened to the airliner. Somebody shot it down with a specialized late-model air-air missile.
Despite the article being titled “Israeli-made air-to-air missile may have downed MH17 – report the text says any of four known weapons could have pulled it off.
French Magis-2
Israeli Shafrir
American AIM-9
Israeli Python
The author focuses on the Python – perhaps because it looks very much like an existing weapon in the Ukrainian inventory.
I’d assumed that to destroy the cockpit area would have required aimed cannon fire, but if a missile designed to “home” on radar emissions from the same area was launched, the task would have been extremely easy.
http://www.rt.com/news/310039-mh17-israeli-missile-version/
BTW, this theory would explain the claims by local observers (and Russian radars) of the presence of fighter jets. Is it real or a another loopy fantasy? Perhaps time will tell.
The Guardian is even dressing the rebels in Soviet uniforms just to get us back in the Cold War spirit.
I saved a screenshot just in case they try to weasel out of this.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia has been flogging its “horror video” of the MH17 crash aftermath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K70igRdKVhA
On its YouTube channel, News Corp Australia sensationally characterized the video images as Russian-backed rebel forces “ransacking the luggage of MH17 passengers and crew”.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott wasted no time using the video to propagandize unproven Western allegations about the MH-17 crash.
Abbot said the video “highlights the fact that this was an atrocity, it was in no way an accident. They may not have known that they were shooting down a civilian passenger plane, but they were deliberately shooting out of the sky what they knew was a large aircraft.”
“We are confident that it was weaponry that came across the border from Russia, fired and then shortly thereafter — once it was realized what had happened — it went back into Russia,” Abbott said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Abbott is so despised by the population of Australia that whatever he says establishes the opposite. He may as well be working for FSB/KGB. His statements are always in favor of the Russians by being both so dumb and against them.
My own take on the way the anniversary of MH17 is being used by the corporate media appeared in Russia Insider and Off-Guardian this week. Though Guardian journalist Shaun Walker has a bit of a history of manipulating the facts to suit whatever agenda he might have, he is not alone. Nevertheless, he is probably the most pompous and arrogant hack in the pack, in the way he leads us like sheep along the trail of the official narrative without one scrap of real evidence.
The Off-Guardian link is here: http://off-guardian.org/2015/07/14/shaun-walker-renews-mh17-propaganda-offensive/
Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat serve as deception “conduits†as defined by the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Publication 1-02), a compendium of approved terminology used by the U.S. military.
Within military deception, “conduits” are information or intelligence gateways to the “deception target.”
A “deception target” is defined as the “adversary decision maker with the authority to make the decision that will achieve the deception objective.”
The primary “deception targets†of MH-17 propaganda is the civilian populations and “policy makers” of the United States and Europe Union.
The Internet offers a ubiquitous, inexpensive and anonymous “open source” method for rapid propaganda dissemination.
With no credible evidence of the Kremlin’s direct military involvement in eastern Ukraine, and faced with the prevailing distrust of the Pentagon or Western intelligence agencies, Washington advanced the Propaganda 3.0 strategy that had proven so effective in instigating the February 2014 coup d’etat in Kiev.
The Pentagon and Western intelligence agencies now disseminate propaganda by making it “publically available†via numerous channels, for example:
– Russian anti-Putin oligarch-owned mainstream and social media
– fake “reporters on the ground†in Ukraine
– Ukrainian state media and privately-owned media
– information released through US/NATO allies like Poland
– most importantly, “analysis†of satellite imagery by fake “citizen journalistsâ€
These sources are infiltrated to “deny, disrupt, degrade, deceiveâ€, taking advantage of “information overloadâ€.
A person can have difficulty understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much “publically available†information.
Information overload arises from the access to so much information, almost instantaneously, without knowing the validity of the content and the risk of misinformation.
Information overload can lead to “information anxiety,†which is the gap between the information we understand and the information that we think that we must understand.
Pentagon and Western intelligence deception operatives such as Higgins and Bellingcat position themselves as “citizen journalists†helping to organize information to facilitate clear thinking.
The actual purpose of these fake “citizen journalist†deception operatives is to provide a channel for deceptive Western intelligence information to more effectively reach the public and be perceived as truthful.
Higgins pimped strategy in his article, “Social media and conflict zones: the new evidence base for policymaking” https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/policywonkers/social-media-and-conflict-zones-the-new-evidence-base-for-policymaking/
Citing “Bellingcat’s MH17 investigationâ€, Higgins declared that “a relatively small team of analysts is able to derive a rich picture of a conflict zone†using online information and social media.
Higgins extolled the virtues of this “new evidence base†of “open source†information — side-stepping the obvious opportunities for deceptive information being planted in these media from not-so-open sources.
The “overarching point†concludes Higgins, is that “there is a real opportunity for open source intelligence analysis to provide the kind of evidence base that can underpin effective and successful foreign and security policymaking. It is an opportunity that policymakers should seize.â€
The Pentagon and Western intelligence definitely have seized the opportunity to use deception operatives like Higgins to disseminate propaganda.
The Propaganda 3.0 strategy of Higgins and Bellingcat is to keep throwing more deceptive Western intelligence information — BM (“Brown Moses†by any other name) — against the MSM and social media wall and see what sticks.
Abe, I am glad you brought up the ‘information overload’. This is how they hide in plain sight. Think of the JFK assassination, and all of the ‘information anxiety’ we have suffered from that terrible tragedies ‘information overload’. Then extend that ‘information overload’ onto 9/11, MLK & RFK’s assassination, Lockerbie, USS Liberty, and the other so many false flag events I can’t remember them all. Once, again Abe your information here is a great value. Thanks!
Thanks to both Abe and Joe Tedesky. Yes, this is “mudding the water” so as to scatter one’s thoughts. Or, similar, I think, to telling Earl Warren that a Real investigation would cause War.
When it comes to MH-17 there has definitely been a lot of he said she said fingerprinting about who brought the plane down but I am starting to wonder if most of the blame should not be for the people that allowed the plane to fly over a war zone to begin with? I think that I saw that there is actually a lawsuit against the Ukrainian Government by some of the families of MH-17 for this very reason and maybe that should be the right course in this situation. MH-17 would not have been shot down by either side if it were not for the Ukrainian Government allowing civilian aircraft to fly in that airspace where I believe a Ukrainian jet was shot down the week before.
Overall the story is twisted and I don’t get how if the rebels in Eastern Ukraine are so guilty that they ever would have just handed over the black box – that just does not make sense? The case seems to have largely been made by people on “social media” instead of actual intelligence and manipulation by the US employing people such as Elliot Higgins through American think tanks who believe that “Ukraine is the biggest prize”.
If the U.S. we’re to be found in the wrong, would we need to repay Russia the money they lost due to the sanctions that were imposed upon them?
Well when the US shot down the civilian airliner Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988, in Iranian airspace, killing 290 people – was there any big investigation involving much of the world? Were sanctions placed on the US for this action even before any investigation had concluded? Noam Chomsky pointed out that when Iran Air Flight 655 was downed by the US there was little reaction in Western media. Kind of seems like we are seeing some double standards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Overall though isn’t the Ukrainian Government really to blame for allowing a civilian aircraft to fly over a war-zone when I believe a Ukrainian jet was shot down over that region the week before? Had the Ukrainian Government closed that airspace then MH-17 would never have been shot down by either side of the conflict!
The Iranians were to be compensated $61.8 million dollars. This would be $213,103.45 per passenger. It took close to twenty years for the International Court of Justice to finally come to this verdict. No one in the U.S. Navy was to be found guilty of anything, as it was called ‘a mistake’.
Also, I too feel the ones who should share the biggest part of the blame for the shooting down of flight MH17, is the Kiev Ukraine government. I mean, what were they thinking giving that flight a go to fly over a territory under the conditions of battle? Could this be considered stupid, or conniving? You be the judge.
Didn’t they get medals for the heroic downing of a civilian airliner?
Yes very good point. I can`t see what anybody had to gain by shooting this plane down and killing those poor people on purpose so I do reckon it was accidental. But , as you point out if the airspace had been closed down to all civilian flights then it could never have happened. This fact does make the Ukrainian Govt. (such as it is ) complicit and probably the most guilty party.
I also think that the USA knows for sure exactly what happened and it is wrong they will not tell all for the sake of the bereaved families as much as anything. But , as we all know that is not how this game is played . Propaganda and double-speak are all that we get from all sides.
Really, don’t you anybody gaining advanteges in this story? Are you honest?