August 4, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci – NEO) – It is abundantly clear that a truthful resolution to the tragedy of the downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was never the goal of Washington, London, and Brussels. Citing baseless accusations surrounding the tragedy, the West has leveled a series of incrementally expansive sanctions against Russia while using the tragedy to justify increased military support for Kiev’s military forces even as they wage total war against their own population including the use of ballistic missiles, airstrikes, artillery barrages, and tanks. Clearly the goal then was to exploit the air disaster as long as possible before the truth began to emerge – and when that truth did emerge, to ensure the subject of MH17 altogether faded from the collective consciousness of the general public.
Surely if the facts surrounding the disaster tallied with Washington, London, and Brussel’s initial and baseless accusations, it would make the subsequent moves by the West to sanction Russia while propping up the regime in Kiev, Ukraine, all the more poignant. Instead, the West appears to be intentionally playing down the actual investigation and pushing forward its gains made – wrought from the tragedy and hailed as a “game changer” in a conflict the West was decidedly losing.
As the Truth Trickles Out… In the propaganda firestorm following the downing of MH17 the West was careful to cherry pick certain aspects of the disaster and spin it relentlessly as it accused Russia and eastern Ukraine. But even amongst the West’s own investigators a story far from conclusive emerged casting serious doubts on the narrative being peddled from behind podiums in Washington. In an interview with Canada’s CBC News, Michael Bociurkiw, a Ukrainian-Canadian monitor with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) claimed to have seen what looked like machine gun holes in the fuselage and no evidence he could see of a missile.
While Bociurkiw would admit he lacks the trained eyes to discern what actually may have downed MH17, his eyewitness account sows doubt among the feigned certainty the West used to push through sanctions and to justify military aid to Kiev. The West has utterly failed to provide any evidence at all to either explain Bociurkiw’s observations, or any aspect of their own official narrative. Bociurkiw’s observations do however corroborate certain aspects of Russia’s rebuttal to the West’s accusations.
Russia disclosed radar information and satellite images that contradicted the West’s accusations. The Russian data would also indicate the presence of a Ukrainian SU-25 jet in the vicinity near MH17 before it went down. The SU-25 possesses a 30 mm cannon that would inflict damage like that observed by Bociurkiw. While far from conclusive, it is a much more viable explanation as to what happened to MH17, based on physical evidence, than what has thus far been put forth by the West.
In addition to Bociurkiw’s account, there are many other witnesses and experts who have suggested an SU-25’s 30 mm cannon as the possible culprit behind the downing of MH17 – and as these accounts and analysis begin to reach a crescendo, the West’s interest in ascertaining the truth behind the disaster appears to be at an all time low. So much emphasis was initially placed on the theory of a surface to air missile downing the aircraft that other possibilities were defacto ruled out. However these alternative possibilities were ruled out without any proper investigation or demonstrable evidence to justify doing so.
Sanctions and War In Lieu of an Investigation
Just as the West had attempted to rush to war against Syria based on tenuous, suspicious circumstances surrounding the gassing of thousands on the edge of Damascus, the West now seeks to punish Russia economically and edge itself and Europe ever closer to an expanded proxy war with Moscow. It would be later confirmed that the sarin gas attack in Damascus was the work of NATO itself through its terrorist proxies – and similarly as evidence trickles out regarding MH17 – it appears the West and its proxies were not only the greatest benefactors of the tragedy, but the prime suspects as well.
Once again the West has advanced its agenda forward by disingenuously leveraging tragedy to sell otherwise unjustifiable and undesirable measures against a member of the international community. Stronger European sanctions against Russia had just failed in the days prior to the downing of MH17, but in the wake of the disaster, passed with ease. Likewise, providing Kiev with weapons and training was becoming increasingly unthinkable as their human rights record and their affiliations and proclivities toward Nazism became increasingly difficult to cover up or spin.
Now it appears the West has been able to work around these otherwise insurmountable obstacles and move the region closer toward war and further away from a settlement that would have surely left the West in an undesirable position in relation to Moscow. And as the West moves forward toward what it believes is a more desirable outcome, ascertaining the truth behind what downed MH17 will become an inconvenience. While the West used the memories of those lost in the tragedy to portray Russia and eastern Ukraine as heartless and indifferent to the suffering of innocent lives lost – it is the West who is now demonstrably obstructing justice for these people while shamelessly exploiting it to advance their geopolitical agenda both in Ukraine and against Russia.
For all the promises the West made in regards to seeking the truth behind MH17 – what we see today is memories and enthusiasm fading, the victims forgotten, and the tragedy all but buried – leaving us with sanctions against Russia and binding agreements made by the West to arm, fund, and train militants fighting for the regime in Kiev. If one were to believe the West’s rhetoric about Russia being the “bad guy,” what then, considering the current priority of MH17 within the West’s agenda, does that make Washington, London, and Brussels?
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Tonight on BulletPoints: Our guest this week will be Joaquin Flores of the Center for Syncretic Studies and we will be talking about the current phase in the ongoing struggle for Palestine and how it relates to the broader questions of Zionism and imperialism, both regionally and internationally. And yes, Ukraine, Russia, Syria and the Balkans will all work their way into the conversation.
This post is intended as a round-up of available information on MH17 from various sources around the web. Corbett Report members are encouraged to debate and discuss the situation in the commments thread below, ask questions, suggest links, and otherwise contribute to this investigation. The article will be updated with information as the investigation continues. [Not a Corbett Report member? Sign up today.]
“A Boeing 777-200 passenger plane, operating Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, crashed in the Ukraine, east of Donetsk. All 298 on board were killed. Flight MH17 departed the gate at Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands at 12:14 hours local time, bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was airborne at 12:30 (10:30 UTC) from runway 36C and reached a cruising altitude of FL310 at 12:53 (10:53 UTC). Ninety minutes into the flight, at 12:01 UTC and just prior to entering Ukrainian airspace, the flight climbed to FL330. This altitude was maintained until last contact by ADS-B receivers of flight tracking websites, about 13:21 UTC.
“At the point of last contact it was flying 1000 feet above airspace that had been restricted as a result of ongoing fighting in the area. Malaysia Airlines reported that MH17 filed a flight plan requesting FL350 throughout Ukrainian airspace. However, the flight was instructed by Ukrainian air traffic control to fly at FL330.”
Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today’s tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.
A survey of flights to Asia from Europe in the last week found that some airlines had been flying over eastern Ukraine and some had been avoiding the area. Source: Flight path data from flightradar24.com
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CRASH:
Ukraine’s Position
ITAR-TASS reported in June that Donetsk defense forces seized BUK missile defence systems from an army unit operating in the region, a point repeated and echoed by NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Philip Breedlove in a Pentagon press briefing on June 30. However, this was directly contradicted on July 18th by Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Vitaly Yarema, who told Ukrainian Pravda that militias do not have access to BUK delivery systems or S-300s.
On July 19, Ukrainian intelligence posted what they claim to be intercepted communications showing Russian responsibility for the downing of MH17 along with an English transcript. Numerous alternative media sources claim that the creation timestamp on the video indicates it was created before the crash took place.
Ukraine also claims that a post appeared on the social media account of rebel commander Igor Strelkov exactly 35 minutes after the crash appearing to take credit for the downing. Subsequent reporting, however, pointed out that the post was ambiguously worded and the social media account in question may not be run by Strelkov at all.
The Ukraine security service also published a video on July 18th purporting to show the actual BUK missile launcher used to bring down the plane being shuttled back across the border from Ukraine to Russia. Despite the fact that there is no confirmation from any source when, where or how this video was taken, or whether it in fact shows a BUK system on a Russian transport vehicle, it has been uncritically reported on in much of the western press.
Alternative Positions
In a statement issued late in the day on July 17th, Russian President Putin said: “I want to note that this tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine. And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy.”
A report originally posted to RT.com shortly after the downing suggested that the real target of the missile might have been President Putin’s plane, which was said to have been scheduled to fly over the exact same airspace as MH17 less than an hour after it was shot down. This claim has since been retracted and RT has noted that Putin has been avoiding Ukrainian airspace altogether since the recent coup took place in Kiev.
According to a report circulating widely in the alternative media, a Spanish air traffic controller working in the Ukraine on the 17th tweeted a series of messages indicating that the Ukrainian military shot down the flight and that “Kiev authorities” and “foreigners” subsequently took over the civilian air traffic control center overseeing the disputed airspace in an apparent cover-up. The twitter account (@spainbuca) of the alleged air traffic controller, “Carlos,” was then reportedly removed. [UPDATE: RT has conducted interviews with Carlos, who has been deported from Ukraine.]
Some researchers suggest that the timing of the disaster, coming as it does right after Putin heralded the beginning of the long-awaitedBRICS Development Bank is more than coincidental. This theory posits that the crash was staged by the US/EU/NATO or other powers as part of a proxy war taking place in the “new cold war” between Russia (one of the key players in an organization that is seen as a key rival to the so-called “Washington Consensus” institutions, the IMF and the World Bank) and the US.
Some have suggested that the takedown of MH17 was also related to the six passengers on board who were heading to an AIDS conference in Melbourne hosted by the International AIDS society. The theory holds that the researchers were going to question the origins of AIDS and were taken out in a similar manner to Dr. Jonathan Mann.
Yet others point to the numerology of MH17, noting “Flight MH17, a Boeing 777, first flew on 7-17-97 and crashed 17 years later, on 7-17-14.” It has also been linked to a bizarre video of a speech IMF President Christine Lagarde gave at the National Press Club in Washington on January 15, 2014 in which she repeatedly told the audience to pay attention to the “magic number 7″ and made numerological connections to WWI and other events.
Pentagon intentionally withholds information on Kiev’s indiscriminate use of ballistic missiles in populated areas. July 30, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci – LD) – CNN has reported that the regime in Kiev launched several short-range ballistic missiles into eastern Ukraine – each missile containing warheads of up to 1,000 lbs (450 kg). The missiles fired were OTR-21 Tochka also known by their NATO reporting name as SS-21 Scarabs and are considered far from “precision” weapons.
While smaller than the infamous “Scud” missile, SS-21s are similarly inaccurate and their use in combat against an enemy entrenched in populated areas is almost guaranteed to cause indiscriminate mass casualties. In fact, when Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi allegedly fired Scuds at NATO-backed Al Qaeda terrorists, according to the Telegraph in its article, “Col Gaddafi fires scud missile at rebel territory as Nato braces itself for final violent showdown,” one Western official claimed:
That it didn’t hit anything or kill anyone is not the point. It’s a weapon of mass destruction that Col Gaddafi is willing to train on his own people.
Clearly the West’s conscience has shifted and now weapons of mass destruction Ukraine is willing to train on its own people appears more than acceptable.
The US Department of Defense admittedly holds information regarding Kiev’s use of the ballistic missiles but is refusing to disclose it, only confirming that indeed the weapons have been used. In the CNN report, Major General James A. “Spider” Marks claimed that the reasoning behind the Pentagon’s decision was because “Ukraine has a right to defend itself,” before admitting that SS-21s are used offensively ahead of an invasion or other armed incursion.
What it appears the West is doing by admitting to what is otherwise a crime against humanity by their own definition, is acclimatizing what is left of their impressionable audiences to an increasingly brutal campaign of indiscriminate violence against the whole of eastern Ukraine in an effort to not only break armed resistance, but the civilian population that has rejected Kiev’s authority. The use of such weaponry, just as the Telegraph and others noted before the fall of Libya, hints at tactical weakness and impending strategic defeat – and while the West covers for Kiev’s numerous and multiplying atrocities, the fact that Kiev must resort to increasingly brutal and indiscriminate measures indicates a failure no amount of Western support can undo.
Graham Phillips, an RT contributor covering the conflict in eastern Ukraine, was detained for a second time, and has been deported to Poland, following his arrest at Donetsk airport. The gov’t in Kiev have a policy of targeting journalists who are reporting uncomfortable aspects of the gov’t siege of E. Ukraine, as Kiev continues – with the full blessing of Washington and London, to use its military against its own people. http://www.21stcenturywire.com
Russia’s Defense Ministry has stated that “fake” satellite images of alleged shelling of Ukraine from Russian territory were created by US counselors “with close links to Ukraine’s Security Council.”
The authenticity of the images is impossible to prove, the ministry added.
The Defense Ministry stated that the images posted by the US ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt on his Twitter account, allegedly proving the shelling of Ukraine from Russian territory, are “fake,” ITAR-TASS reports.
“These materials were posted to Twitter not by accident, as their authenticity is impossible to prove – due to the absence of the attribution to the exact area, and an extremely low resolution. Let alone using them as ‘photographic evidence’,” Igor Konashenkov, the official representative of the ministry, stated.
“Pictures” like this, the general continued, “have also been provided by Kiev representatives as an excuse for the usage of heavy artillery and other weaponry by the Ukrainian army – against the country’s civilian population.”
“Last Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Valery Geletey again tried to add a sensational side to photo collages like this in the Ukrainian media – in vain. But on Sunday, the US ambassador to the Ukraine joined in, posting those satellite images on his Twitter page, which secured him the attention of the loyal Ukrainian media,” the Russian ministry said.
This scheme is called “an informational merry-go-round,” Konashenkov added, using an expression commonly uttered in Russia relating to feeding the information to the media.
“It’s no secret to anyone that fakes like this are made by a group of US counselors staying in the Kiev building of the Security Council, led by General Randy Kee,” he noted.
The general outlined the cycle as follows: the US counselors in the Kiev feed the disinformation to the Ukrainian media, with the news being taken by the Washington official representatives and presented as statements.
Afterwards, the Ukrainian media cite the US authorities and publish articles like as “objective.”
August 4, 2014 (
PN 