Malaysian airliner crashes in E. Ukraine

[armedoldhippy]

There is no need to trust someone's propaganda, just listen to what they say on TV, online and at meetings.
Do you understand in Ukrainian? I understand. And I can confirm that, unfortunately, it is true that they are really the Nazis.

By the way, do you know that Jesus was a Ukrainian?
Know also, that all other nations were descended from Ukrainians as a result of degradation, they have observed the emergence of the Roman Empire, but not crushed her only out of their generosity to the weak, so teach them the history textbooks for the past 23 years.

Here are a one of bright latest hits (in Ukrainian), have a fun
http://youtu.be/mhYyj5l9Lx0

well, just when you think the bottom of the barrel has been scraped clean, you find more dirt lodged in the dark recesses of the corners...

 

[gaiusmarius]

The evaluation of the blackboxes takes a lot of time, I thought it´s quicker to read the datas.

I´ve found a very good, neutral Report but sorry it´s in german.

http://www.austrianwings.info/2014/07/mh17-abschuss-hintergruende-zum-russischen-raktensystem-buk/

thanks for sharing this Hermanthegerman, that was really interesting, specially the detailed info about the actual operation of a buk system. there was a number of details about this system i didn't know about before reading this.

 

[gaiusmarius]

"witnesses on the ground" they have pretty good eyesight to be able to tell a military from a civilian plane over 6 1/2 miles up, even if it is a perfectly clear day...which is why those missile systems are supposed to be connected to 2 different radar systems. that is the only way that they function as intended. no radar, no picking up the civilian jets transponder.

just check the bbc report that they took down, i'm sure you'll find it on you tube. it's the bbc asking the questions on the ground, it's them doing the translation. i don't know how they saw it, but they certainly saw it once it was on the way down as they describe seeing it. but they are probably Russian agents they put there for the bbc to question, right?

 

[armedoldhippy]

just check the bbc report that they took down, i'm sure you'll find it on you tube. it's the bbc asking the questions on the ground, it's them doing the translation. i don't know how they saw it, but they certainly saw it once it was on the way down as they describe seeing it. but they are probably Russian agents they put there for the bbc to question, right?

if you say so. they are certainly a lot closer to it than I am. I don't believe anything I hear, & less than half of what I actually see. it has been proven too many times that actual eyewitness testimony is not nearly as reliable as you might think. just because you saw something does not mean that what you thought you saw actually happened in the manner that you describe. too many people were "positively identified" in court cases that were not actually at the scene of the crime. one case I read about, a man was identified in court as the shooter in a murder when he was actually in jail in another state at the time. so much for "eyewitnesses"...

 

[Elmer Bud]

There is no need to trust someone's propaganda, just listen to what they say on TV, online and at meetings.
Do you understand in Ukrainian? I understand. And I can confirm that, unfortunately, it is true that they are really the Nazis.

By the way, do you know that Jesus was a Ukrainian?
Know also, that all other nations were descended from Ukrainians as a result of degradation, they have observed the emergence of the Roman Empire, but not crushed her only out of their generosity to the weak, so teach them the history textbooks for the past 23 years.

Here are a one of bright latest hits (in Ukrainian), have a fun
http://youtu.be/mhYyj5l9Lx0

G`day Jump

And who is the supporter of this Fascist regime ?

Senator John Mc Cain !
He was onstage during the Euro Maidan in Kiev ...

WMDs ??

Ukraine’s Kiev-based regime has deployed OTR-21 Tochka ballistic missiles also known as SS-21 “Scarabs,” against the people of eastern Ukraine. The missiles measure 6.4 meters in length and carry warheads of up to 454 kg, making them without a doubt a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). Their use was revealed by a CNN report released just as US President Barack Obama announced that the US and EU would be issuing more sanctions against Russia.

CNN revealed that, “there were reports that Ukraine’s government in the past 48 hours used short-range ballistic missiles against the rebels, three U.S. officials told CNN. The weapons have a range of about 50 miles (80 kilometers) and pack up to 1,000-pound (454-kilogram) warheads.”

CNN would also claim, “another of the U.S. officials said using the missiles is “an escalation, but Ukraine has a right to defend itself.”

Thanks for sharin

EB .
.

 

[gaiusmarius]

if you say so. they are certainly a lot closer to it than I am. I don't believe anything I hear, & less than half of what I actually see. it has been proven too many times that actual eyewitness testimony is not nearly as reliable as you might think. just because you saw something does not mean that what you thought you saw actually happened in the manner that you describe. too many people were "positively identified" in court cases that were not actually at the scene of the crime. one case I read about, a man was identified in court as the shooter in a murder when he was actually in jail in another state at the time. so much for "eyewitnesses"...

this is true, but in this case it's a straw man argument, as this is not about recognizing a face, or some tinny detail. also there is more then 1 person telling a similar tale as seen from their point of view. as you know, just because a witness can get things wrong, is no reason to ignore witness statements, is it? specially when it's about something as basic as seeing 2 planes rather then 1 plane.

for your convenience my armed hippy friend:

[YOUTUBEIF]zUvK5m2vxro[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[Elmer Bud]

G`day Giaus

Some food for thought .

In fact, the Guardian would admit in its 2004 article, “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” that (emphasis added):

…while the gains of the orange-bedecked “chestnut revolution” are Ukraine’s, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.

Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.

Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.

Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.

That one failed. “There will be no Kostunica in Belarus,” the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.

But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.

The operation – engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience – is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people’s elections.

In other words, from Belarus, to Georgia, to Ukraine, and Serbia, the US has been insidiously overthrowing governments not through outright military aggression, but through covert military, political, and intelligence operations aimed at manipulating elections and overrunning regimes that refuse to accept the subsequently skewed results. Surely, then, regimes resulting from such a practice are not then “voluntarily” joining NATO – and NATO is surely expanding itself through a campaign of insidious, violent, lawless subversion of sovereign nations, one at a time with Ukraine once again in its sights.

Nazis At the Gates (Again)

The parallels between NATO and Nazi Germany are unfortunately more than merely academic. In Ukraine, the current regime in Kiev backed by NATO and the European Union are quite literally Nazis. From the “Fatherland Party” to the overtly Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and their various militant wings including the now notorious Right Sector front, ultra-right fascism is once again the leading edge of expansionism into, not out of, Russian territory.

Current attempts by the West to portray Russia’s concern over Ukraine and the Nazi menace festering on their doorstep to Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s invasion of Poland aim to stir up anti-Communist, anti-Soviet fears and hysteria long programmed into the psyches of Western audiences – but incidentally provide a valuable historical parallel. While the invasion of Poland was a violation of Polish national sovereignty and an act of war – it was done to create a barrier between the Soviet Union and the rise of Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. Such a barrier was arguably one of several factors that allowed the Soviets to mobilize a counteroffensive to Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of Russia, a counteroffensive that ultimately turned the tide against Hitler and led to the downfall of fascism in Europe.

Besides cause and effect, there are few other similarities between Stalin’s invasion of Poland and the modern day Russian Federation’s political support of eastern Ukrainians who have been fighting the regime in Kiev for months with increasing success. Besides the same variety of dubious accounts the West fabricated against nations like Iraq, Libya, and Syria as a pretext for war, little in terms of evidence has been produced by Washington, London, or Brussels to affirm accusations that Russia is “invading” eastern Ukraine. Russia has instead chosen restraint despite multiple attempts by the West to bait it into overt military intervention in Ukraine - and in this restraint, has secured a growing global consensus long driven weary by the West’s attempts to dress up its own global aggression and expansionism as “democracy promotion” and “humanitarian interventions.”

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Thanks for sharin

EB .

 

[gaiusmarius]

well, just when you think the bottom of the barrel has been scraped clean, you find more dirt lodged in the dark recesses of the corners...

i find this rather sad, i know it wasn't directed at me directly, but in actuality it's directed at everyone in this thread who's made their doubts known. to me thats really lame, why is it not possible to discuss things in a lively and spirited way without seeing the other party as the enemy some how, i mean what so hard about showing basic courtesy even if you happen to disagree on certain points? that really goes for us all, have had to delete a couple such posts up to now, that takes the fun of it out of it, for me, lol.

 

[DrFever]

why is this such a big deal lol the Black box probably will shed nothing i would pace bets USA had there dirty hands in this all the way there known for this type of tactic bomb something . do something and blame it on another party typical to get the world on there side but it isn't like that anymore .. USA is frowned upon by many nato countries now un- liked un trustworthy For previous actions they did in the past USA does not follow any laws being Geneva, or international and this is there problem today

USA is walking a thin line and being extremely cautious more or less playing checkers with russia when russia is playing chess

Its alright for a super power to invade another country in the name of terrorism but when a country like Russia goes into UK and lets be realistic here That was Russia's land not to long ago given to UK like a good gesture for killing so many of them



Russia is now the world's biggest energy supplier, surpassing Saudi Arabia in energy exports measured in barrel oil equivalent or boe (13.3 million boe per day for Russia vs 10 million boe per day for Saudi Arabia). Russia has the biggest gas reserves in the world. Iran, on the other hand, runs second in the world to Russia in gas reserves, and also ranks among the top oil producers. If and when either Russia or Iran, or both, shift away from a rapidly declining dollar in energy transactions, many oil producers will follow suit. These include Venezuela, Indonesia, Norway, Sudan, Nigeria and the Central Asian Republics.

There is a good chance that even Saudi Arabia and the other oil-exporting countries in the Middle East may follow suit. They wouldn't want to be left with fast-shrinking dollars when the shift from petro-dollar to euro-dollar occurs. Again, the herd psychology will come into play, and the US will eventually be left with a dollar that is practically worthless. Considering the strong anti-American sentiments in the world caused by American unilateralism, especially in the Middle East, a concerted effort to dump the dollar in favor of the euro becomes even more plausible.

When the dollar was removed from the gold standard in August 1971, the dollar gained its strength through its use as the currency of choice in oil transactions. Once the dollar is rejected in favor of the euro or another currency for global oil transactions, the dollar will rapidly lose its value and central banks all over the world will be racing to diversify to other currencies. The shift from petro-dollar to petro-euro will have a devastating effect on the dollar. It could cause the dollar to collapse; and the whole US economy crushing down with it - a scene reminiscent of the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. But this one will be a thousand times more devastating.

A successful assault on the US dollar will make America crawl on its knees with a minimum of movements. And this assault can come from China, Russia or Iran - or a combination of the three - if they ever decide that they have had enough of US bullying. why do you think Iran taunted US to invade us over nuclear issues and why didn't USA do it ???: Above says it all

 

[DrFever]

If you really think about it USA has got to be the stupidest county in the world instead of using hard power ( Bullying ) they should of used Soft power

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, it would have been the best time for the US to use soft power to win over Russia into the Western fold. Russia at that time was an economic basket case, with the price of oil at $9 per barrel. But the promises of economic assistance from the US and Europe proved empty, and the Russian oligarchs were the main beneficiaries of relations with the Western powers.

NATO and EU then slowly advanced eastward, absorbing many of the countries making up the former Warsaw Pact alliance. Serbia, a close ally of Russia, was subjected to 78 days of continuous air bombardment. Regime changes were instigated by US and Western-financed non-governmental organizations in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan - all former Soviet republics and considered Russia’s backyard - giving Russia a feeling of strategic encirclement by the US and its allies. There was also the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, followed by the establishment of US bases and deployment of troops in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

These aggressive geopolitical moves by the US pushed Russia into the waiting arms of China, which badly needed Russian energy resources, modern weapon systems and military technology as a consequence of the US-led arms embargo imposed after the Tienanmen incident. Furthermore, China also needed a reliable and militarily capable ally in Russia because of the perceived threat of the US.

Reinforcing this Chinese perception was the outrageously wanton bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by US-led NATO forces in 1999; the spy plane incident in 2001; the unilateral withdrawal of the US from the ABM Treaty in 2002; the enhanced military cooperation between the US and Japan; the inclusion of Taiwan in the Theater Missile Defense program.; the setting up of a military base in Kyrgyzstan which is only some 250 miles from the Chinese border near Lop Nor, China’s nuclear testing ground.

Add to that the announcement of President George W Bush that the US would come to the aid of Taiwan in the event that China uses force against it; the sending of two aircraft carrier battle groups to waters near Taiwan in 1995-1996; and the naval show of strength of seven aircraft carrier battle groups converging off the China coast in August 2004. All these aggressive moves by superpower America pushed China to embrace its former bitter rival, Russia.

Both China and Russia needed a secure and reliable rear; and both are ideally positioned to provide it. Moreover, their strengths ideally complement each other. It must be borne in mind that both are nuclear powers. The abundant energy resources of Russia ensures that China will not run out of gas in a major conflict - a strategic advantage over the US and its key allies.

Russia is also supplying China with many of the modern armaments and military technology it needs to modernize its defense sector. This effectively militates against the arms embargo imposed by the US and the EU on China. Russia in turn needs the increased trade with China, China’s financial clout and assistance, and manufactured goods.






The coming together of China and Russia was one of the most earth-shaking geopolitical events of modern times. Yet hardly anyone noticed the transition from bitter enemity to a solid geopolitical, economic, diplomatic and military alliance. The combined strengths of the two regional powers surely surpass that of the former Warsaw Pact. If we add Iran to the equation, we have a triumvirate that can pose a formidable challenge to the lone superpower. Iran is the most industrialized and the most populous nation in the Middle East. It is second only to Russia in terms of gas resources and also one of the largest oil producers in the world. It is also one of the most mountainous countries in the world, which makes it ideal for the conduct of asymmetric and guerrilla warfare against a superior adversary.

Iran borders both the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, two of the richest oil and gas regions of the world. Most importantly, it controls the gateway to the Persian Gulf - the Strait of Hormuz. Modern bottom-rising, rocket propelled sea mines and supersonic cruise missiles deployed along the long mountainous coastline of Iran, manned by "invisible" guerrillas, could indefinitely stop the flow of oil from the Gulf, from which the US gets 23% of its imported oil.

Japan also derives 90% of its oil from the Persian Gulf area, and Europe about 60%. In a major conflict, Iran can effectively deprive the US war machine and those of its key allies of much needed energy supplies.

Imagine the war machine of the superpower running out of gas. Imagine also a US economy minus 23% of its imported oil. This 23% can rise considerably once Chinese and Russian submarines start sinking US-bound oil tankers. The triumvirate of China, Russia, and Iran could bring the US to its knees with a minimum of movement.

 

[gaiusmarius]

there are definitely a lot of bad options facing world leaders and not very many good options either to choose. still with a bit of good will, at least this potential disaster can be averted. but diplomats need to practice diplomacy for that to work

anyway lets not get too far away from the plane tragedy topic otherwise it will get too complicated.

 

[DrFever]

Fury and frustration still mount over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and justly so. But before accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes or dismissing the entire episode as a tragic fluke, it's worth looking back at another doomed passenger plane — Iran Air Flight 655—shot down on July 3, 1988, by a U.S. Navy captain in command of a cruiser called the Vincennes.



A quarter-century later, the Vincennes is almost completely forgotten, but it is one of the Pentagon's most inexcusable disgraces.

In several ways, the two calamities are similar. The Malaysian Boeing 777 wandered into a messy civil war in eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border; the Iranian Airbus A300 wandered into a naval skirmish — one of many clashes in the ongoing "Tanker War" — in the Strait of Hormuz. The likely pro-Russia rebel thought that he was shooting at a Ukrainian military-transport plane; the U.S. Navy captain, Will Rogers III, mistook the Airbus for an F-14 fighter jet. The Russian SA-11 surface-to-air missile that downed the Malaysian plane killed 298 passengers, including 80 children; the American SM-2 surface-to-air missile that downed the Iranian plane killed 290 passengers, including 66 children.

After last week's incident, Russian officials told various lies to cover up their culpability and blamed the Ukrainian government; after the 1988 incident, American officials told various lies and blamed the Iranian pilot. Not until eight years later did the U.S. government compensate the victims' families, and even then expressed "deep regret," not an apology.

Here's the truly dismaying part of the story. On Aug. 19, 1988, seven weeks after the event, the Pentagon issued a 53-page report on the incident. It found that nearly all the initial details about the shoot-down — the "facts" that senior officials cited to put all the blame on Iran Air's pilot — were wrong. And yet the August report still concluded that the captain and all the other Vincennes officers had acted properly.

For example, on July 3, at the first Pentagon press conference on the incident, Adm. William Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Iranian plane had been flying at 9,000 feet and descending at a "high speed" of 450 knots, "headed directly" for the Vincennes. In fact, however, the Aug. 19 report — written by Rear Adm. William Fogarty of U.S. Central Command — concluded (from the Vincenne's computer tapes) that the plane was "ascending through 12,000 feet" at 380 knots. "At no time" did the Airbus "actually descend in altitude," the report stated.

There were other disturbing discrepancies between Crowe's July 3 comments and Fogarty's Aug. 19 report. Crowe had said the plane was flying "outside the prescribed commercial air route"; the report said it was flying "within the established air route." Crowe had said the plane's transponder was "squawking" a code over the "Mode 2" military channel; the report stated that it was squawking over the "Mode 3" civilian channel. Crowe had said the Vincennes issued several warnings; the report confirmed this, but noted, "Due to heavy pilot workload during take-off and climb-out, and the requirement to communicate with" two air traffic control centers, the pilot "probably was not monitoring" the international air-distress channel.

Adm. George B. Crist, head of U.S. Central Command, issued a "non-punitive letter of censure" to the ship's anti–air warfare officer, but Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci withdrew the letter. Two years later, Capt. Rogers was issued the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct."

In 1992, four years after the event, Adm. Crowe admitted on ABC's Nightline that the Vincennes was in Iranian waters at the time it shot down the plane. Back in 1988, he and others had said that the ship was in international waters. It also came out that some other Navy officers had regarded Rogers as "aggressive" and found it strange that he was moving his cruiser into those waters to pursue Iranian patrol boats — overkill at best, asking for trouble in any case.

Not long after the shoot-down, Iran asked the United Nations Security Council to censure the United States for its "criminal act." Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was running to succeed Ronald Reagan as president, said on the campaign trail, "I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are."

Finally, in 1996, President Bill Clinton's administration expressed "deep regret" and paid the Iranian government $131.8 million in compensation.

Many Iranians continued to believe, for many years, that the shoot-down was deliberate. They found it hard to believe that the United States Navy, with its polish and dazzle, could have committed such a ghastly deed by mistake.

• • •

Putin and whoever fired that missile should be held accountable, just as Reagan and the crew of the Vincennes should have been. But holding them accountable doesn't mean tagging them as terrorists or war criminals. First, there's a distinction between ghastly mistakes of war and monstrous acts of terrorism. Second, the West's main interest in Ukraine is to help facilitate a peaceful, prosperous Ukraine. The secessionist fever, which Putin whipped up, sowed the climate that made something like the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 tragedy possible. It may be a good moment now to change the climate. But that requires realism on all sides, not indulgent theatrics or the forgetting of history.

 

[hard rain]

Drfever, it is pretty rude not acknowledging your sources. It's passing other peoples work off as your own. It is a cut and paste from Asia Times as watts points out.

 

[gaiusmarius]

apologies, but i couldn't let this thread get so far off track. had to bin some posts as they open a whole other massive topic. some basics about the situation in Ukraine is one thing, but on the whole this thread should stick to the downing of the Malaysian flight.

 

[gaiusmarius]

Flight 17 Shoot-Down

Flight 17 Shoot-Down

feel like sharing this, it should be part of the record so to speak, so even at the risk of being accused of promoting Russian propaganda, here we go.

thanks Consortium news.

Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/03/flight-17-shoot-down-scenario-shifts/

Exclusive: From magazine covers to pronouncements by top politicians, Official Washington jumped to the conclusion that Ukrainian rebels and Russia were guilty in the shoot-down of a Malaysian passenger plane. But some U.S. intelligence analysts may see the evidence differently, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Contrary to the Obama administration’s public claims blaming eastern Ukrainian rebels and Russia for the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, some U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that the rebels and Russia were likely not at fault and that it appears Ukrainian government forces were to blame, according to a source briefed on these findings.

This judgment – at odds with what President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have expressed publicly – is based largely on the absence of U.S. government evidence that Russia supplied the rebels with a Buk anti-aircraft missile system that would be needed to hit a civilian jetliner flying at 33,000 feet, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
President Barack Obama delivers a statement on the situation in Ukraine, on the South Lawn of the White House, July 29, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

President Barack Obama delivers a statement on the situation in Ukraine, on the South Lawn of the White House, July 29, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Despite U.S. spy satellites positioned over eastern Ukraine, U.S. intelligence agencies have released no images of a Buk system being transferred by Russians to rebel control, shipped into Ukraine, deployed into firing position and then being taken back to Russia. Though the Obama administration has released other images of Ukraine taken by U.S. spy satellites, the absence of any photos of a rebel-controlled Buk missile battery has been the dog not barking in the strident case that Official Washington has made in blaming the rebels and Russia for the July 17 shoot-down that killed 298 people.

Given the size of these missile batteries – containing four 16-foot-long missiles – the absence of this evidence prompted caution among U.S. intelligence analysts even as senior U.S. officials and the U.S. mainstream media rushed to judgment blaming the rebels and Russians.

In making that case, Kerry and other senior officials relied on claims made by the Ukrainian government along with items posted on “social media.” These snippets of “evidence” included ambiguous remarks attributed to rebels who may have initially thought the shoot-down was another of their successful attacks on lower-flying Ukrainian military aircraft but who later insisted that they had not fired on the Malaysian plane and lacked the longer-range Buk missiles needed to reach above 30,000 feet.

If the U.S. intelligence analysts are correct – that the rebels and Russia are likely not responsible – the chief remaining suspect would be the Ukrainian government, which does possess Buk anti-aircraft missiles and reportedly had two fighter jets in the vicinity of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 at the time of the shoot-down.

Some independent analyses of the initial evidence from the crash site suggest the jetliner may have been destroyed by an air-to-air attack, not by an anti-aircraft missile fired from the ground. Yet, the working hypothesis of the U.S. intelligence analysts is that a Ukrainian military Buk battery and the jetfighters may have been operating in collusion as they hunted what they thought was a Russian airliner, possibly even the plane carrying President Vladimir Putin on a return trip from South America, the source said.

The source added that the U.S. intelligence analysis does not implicate top Ukrainian officials, such as President Petro Poroshenko or Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, suggesting that the attack may have been the work of more extremist factions, possibly even one of the Ukrainian oligarchs who have taken an aggressive approach toward prosecuting the war against the ethnic Russian rebels in the east.

Obviously, a successful shoot-down of a Russian plane, especially one carrying Putin, could have been a major coup for the Kiev regime, which ousted Russian ally, President Viktor Yanukovych, last February touching off the civil war. Some prominent Ukrainian politicians, such as ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, have expressed the desire to kill Putin.

“It’s about time we grab our guns and kill, go kill those damn Russians together with their leader,” Tymoshenko said in an intercepted phone call in March, according to a leak published in the Russian press and implicitly confirmed by Tymoshenko.

The Shoot-Down Mystery

The Malaysia Airlines plane, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was not expected to be over the eastern part of Ukraine on the afternoon of July 17, but was rerouted to avoid bad weather. The plane was nearing Russian airspace when it was shot down.

Some early speculation had been that the Ukrainian military might have mistaken the plane for a Russian spy plane and attacked it in a scenario similar to the Soviet shoot-down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in 1983 after misidentifying it as a U.S. spy plane.

In the two-plus weeks since the Ukrainian air disaster, there have been notable gaps between the more measured approach taken by U.S. intelligence analysts and the U.S. politicians and media personalities who quickly rushed to the judgment blaming the rebels and Russia.

Only three days after the crash, Secretary of State Kerry did the rounds of the Sunday talk shows making what he deemed an “extraordinary circumstantial” case supposedly proving that the rebels carried out the shoot-down with missiles provided by Russia. He acknowledged that the U.S. government was “not drawing the final conclusion here, but there is a lot that points at the need for Russia to be responsible.”

By then, I was already being told that the U.S. intelligence community lacked any satellite imagery supporting Kerry’s allegations and that the only Buk missile system in that part of Ukraine appeared to be under the control of the Ukrainian military. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “What Did US Spy Satellites See in Ukraine?”]

On the Tuesday after Kerry’s Sunday declarations, mainstream journalists, including for the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, were given a senior-level briefing about the U.S. intelligence information that supposedly pointed the finger of blame at the rebels and Russia. But, again, much of the “evidence” was derived from postings on “social media.”

The Los Angeles Times article on the briefing took note of the uncertainties: “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 [the Buk anti-aircraft missile] was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.”

That reference to a possible “defector” may have been an attempt to reconcile the U.S. government’s narrative with the still-unreleased satellite imagery of the missile battery controlled by soldiers appearing to wear Ukrainian uniforms. But I’m now told that U.S. intelligence analysts have largely dismissed the “defector” possibility and are concentrating on the scenario of a willful Ukrainian shoot-down of the plane, albeit possibly not knowing its actual identity.

A Hardened Conventional Wisdom

Nevertheless, even as the mystery of who shot down Flight 17 deepened, the U.S. conventional wisdom blaming Putin and the rebels hardened. The New York Times has reported Russia’s culpability in the airline disaster as flat-fact.

On July 29, Obama prefaced his announcement of tougher sanctions against Russia by implicitly blaming Putin for the tragedy, too. Reading a prepared statement, Obama said: “In the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, and countries around the world, families are still in shock over the sudden and tragic loss of nearly 300 loved ones senselessly killed when their civilian airliner was shot down over territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine. …

“Since the shoot-down, however, Russia and its proxies in Ukraine have failed to cooperate with the investigation and to take the opportunity to pursue a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine. These Russian-backed separatists have continued to interfere in the crash investigation and to tamper with the evidence. They have continued to shoot down Ukrainian aircraft in the region. And because of their actions, scores of Ukrainian civilians continue to die needlessly every day.” [Emphasis added.]

Though one could argue that Obama was rhetorically tip-toeing around a direct accusation that the rebels and Russia were responsible for the Malaysia Airlines shoot-down, his intent clearly was to leave that impression. In other words, Obama was pandering to the conventional wisdom about Russian guilt and was misleading the American people about what the latest U.S. intelligence may suggest.

It’s also grotesquely deceptive to blame the Russians and the rebels for the indiscriminate shelling by government forces that have claimed hundreds of lives in eastern Ukraine. The rebels have been resisting what they regard as an illegitimate coup regime that, with the aid of neo-Nazi militias from western Ukraine, overthrew elected President Yanukovych in February and then moved to marginalize and suppress the ethnic Russian population in the east.

By presenting the conflict in a one-sided way, Obama not only misled Americans about the origins of the Ukraine crisis but, in effect, gave the Kiev regime a green light to slaughter more ethnic Russians. By pointing the finger of blame at Moscow for all the troubles of Ukraine, Obama has created more geopolitical space for Kiev to expand its brutal onslaught that now has included reported use of poorly targeted ballistic missiles against population centers.

Obama’s covering for the Kiev regime is even more outrageous if the U.S. intelligence analysts are right to suspect that Ukrainian forces were behind the Flight 17 shoot-down.

And as for who’s been responsible for destroying evidence of the Flight 17 shoot-down, an assault by the Ukrainian military on the area where the plane crashed not only delayed access by international investigators but appears to have touched off a fire that consumed plane debris that could have helped identify the reasons for the disaster.

On Saturday, the last paragraph of a New York Times story by Andrew E. Kramer reported that “the fighting ignited a fire in a wheat field that burned over fuselage fragments, including one that was potentially relevant to the crash investigation because it had what appeared to be shrapnel holes.” The shrapnel holes have been cited by independent analysts as possible evidence of an attack by Ukrainian jetfighters.

Accepting Reality

Yet, given how far the U.S. political/media establishment has gone in its Flight 17 judgment pinning the blame on the rebels and Russia even before an official investigation was started, it’s not clear how those power-brokers would respond if the emerging analysis fingering Ukrainian forces turns out to be correct.

The embarrassment to high-level U.S. officials and prominent mainstream U.S. news outlets would be so extreme that it is hard to believe that the reality would ever be acknowledged. Indeed, there surely will be intense pressure on airline investigators and intelligence analysts to endorse the Putin-is-to-blame narrative.

And, if the investigators and analysts won’t go that far, they might at least avoid a direct contradiction of the conventional wisdom by suggesting that the Flight 17 mystery remains unsolved, something for historians to unravel.

Such has been the pattern in other cases of major mainstream mistakes. For instance, last year, some of the same players, including Secretary Kerry and the New York Times, jumped to conclusions blaming the Syrian government for an Aug. 21 sarin gas attack that killed hundreds of people in a Damascus suburb.

On Aug. 30, Kerry gave a bellicose speech filled with “we knows” but providing no verifiable evidence. A punitive U.S. bombing campaign against the Syrian government was averted at the last minute when President Obama decided to first seek congressional approval and then accepted President Putin’s assistance in working out a deal in which the Syrian government surrendered all its chemical weapons while still denying a role in the Aug. 21 incident.

Only later did much of Kerry’s case fall apart as new evidence pointed to an alternative explanation, that extremist Syrian rebels released the sarin as a provocation to push Obama across his “red line” and into committing the U.S. military to the Syrian civil war on the side of the rebels. But neither U.S. officialdom nor the mainstream U.S. press has acknowledged the dangerous “group think” that almost got the United States into another unnecessary war in the Middle East. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case.”]

It may seem cynical to suggest that the powers-that-be in Official Washington are so caught up in their own propaganda that they would prefer the actual killers of innocent people – whether in Syria or Ukraine – to go unpunished, rather than to admit their own mistakes. But that is often how the powerful react. Nothing is more important than their reputations.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

 

[Pinball Wizard]

Can you image what would have happened if they shot Vlad down?..."holy sheepshit, Batman"!

 

[Storm Shadow]

http://rt.com/news/178584-us-navy-black-sea/

US missile cruiser enters Black Sea again ‘to promote peace’

US missile cruiser Vella Gulf has entered the Black Sea in what the American Navy described as a move to "to promote peace and stability in the region." Moscow has considered any such acts as “offensive.”
The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf (CG 72) entered the Black Sea on Wednesday as part of the effort to “strengthen the collective security of NATO allies and partners in the region,” according to a statement by the US 6th Fleet.

“The US Navy's forward presence in Europe allows us to work with our allies and partners to develop and improve ready maritime forces capable of maintaining regional security,” the statement reads.
The multi-mission cruiser Vella Gulf is 173 meters long, carries up to 400 crewmembers aboard and can achieve a speed of over 30 knots. The vessel’s weapons include SM-2 surface-to-air missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, torpedoes, Phalanx Close-in Weapons Systems for self-defense against aircraft and missiles, and five-inch, rapid fire guns.

It’s not the first time this year that Vella Gulf is sent on a mission in the Black Sea. It was moored in the port of Constanta, Romania from late May till mid-June.

In July, the US missile cruiser spent a week in the Black Sea, joining six other vessels for NATO’s naval drills.
The vessel can’t stay in the area for long and has to come and go instead, as the Montreux Convention, a US-authorized treaty from 1936, bars outside countries from keeping warships in the Black Sea for more than 21 days.

Despite the limits set by the convention, NATO has managed to increase its presence in the region in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis by constantly rotating warships there. Moscow has never approved of what it sees as the military alliance’s muscle-flexing in its backyard.

Vladimir Putin has promised Russia will respond to NATO’s expansion towards its borders.

“No matter what our Western counterparts tell us, we can see what’s going on," Putin said at an emergency Security Council meeting in late July. "As it stands, NATO is blatantly building up its forces in Eastern Europe, including the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea areas. Its operational and combat training activities are gaining in scale.”

Putin stated that NATO’s military build-up near Russia’s border is not just for defense, but is an “offensive weapon” and an “element of the US offensive system deployed outside the mainland.”

Earlier, Russia responded to NATO's military drill in the Black sea by launching its own war games in the region on the same day.
As part of the NATO build-up at the Russian border, the alliances warships have also intensified patrols in the Baltic Sea, and jet fighters have likewise stepped up their air patrols.
Thousands of NATO troops held exercises in Latvia in June.
In July, NATO’s Europe commander General Philip Breedlove, reportedly, came up with the idea of stockpiling a base in Poland with enough weapons, ammunition and other supplies to support, if needed, a rapid deployment of thousands of troops against Russia.

 

[gaiusmarius]

it's starting to look bad for globalism, all these sanctions being implemented are making countries realize that economic interdependency/ globalization, puts them at risk when if sanctions are declared. so the whole world wide push towards globalization is receiving a massive kick in the balls by the present activities of the US administration.

but even worse the way the US is using the dollar system to punish countries that won't do their will is gonna make even more independent countries go off the dollar system, indeed many are reducing their dollars reserves and making deals for using other currencies when possible for trade.

so really Obama is destroying something, thats been built up over decades and longer, for 1, the dollar system, we all know how much it benefits the US.

then we have globalization which is also being shown to be a danger to any countries that want to maintain their own foreign policy independence and sovereignty.

 

[armedoldhippy]

gonna have to agree that the globalization of the worlds economies was a pretty bad deal....except for the multi-national corporations involved. THEY are doing pretty good, in contrast to the individual workers who have been getting the wrong end of the stick for the last thirty years or so.

 

[jump117]

Ukrainians are shooting from mortars http://youtu.be/LtaWsdtC93U