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Forum Post: it was putins's missile? by pepe escobar

Posted 9 years ago on July 22, 2014, 7:20 a.m. EST by flip (7101)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Here’s the spin war verdict: the current Malaysian Airlines tragedy – the second in four months – is “terrorism” perpetrated by “pro-Russian separatists” armed by Russia and Putin is the main culprit. End of story. Anyone who believes otherwise, shut up.

Why? Because the CIA said so. Because Hillary ‘We came, we saw, he died’ Clinton said so. Because crazy Samantha ‘R2P’ Power said so – thundering at the UN, everything duly printed by the neo-con infested Washington Post.

Because Anglo-American corporate media – from CNN to Fox (who tried to buy Time Warner, which owns CNN) – said so. Because the President of the United States (POTUS) said so. And mostly because Kiev had vociferously said so in the first place.

Right off the bat they were all lined up – the invariably hysterical reams of ‘experts’ of the ‘US intelligence community’ literally foaming at their palatial mouths at ‘evil’ Russia and ‘evil’ Putin; intel ‘experts’ who could not identify a convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing the Iraqi desert to take Mosul. And yet they have already sentenced; they don’t need to look any further, instantly solving the MH17 riddle.

It doesn’t matter that President Putin has stressed the MH17 tragedy must be investigated objectively. And ‘objectively’ certainly does not mean that fictional ‘international community’ notion construed by Washington – the usual congregation of pliable vassals/patsies.

And what about Carlos?

A simple search reveals that MH17 was in fact diverted 200km north from the usual flight path taken by Malaysian Airlines in the previous days – and plunged right in the middle of a war zone. Why? What sort of communication had MH17 received from the Kiev air control tower?

Kiev has been mute about it. Yet the answer would be simple, had Kiev released the Air Traffic Control recording of the tower talking to flight MH17; Malaysia did it after flight MH370 disappeared forever.

It won’t happen; SBU security confiscated it. So much for getting an undoctored explanation as to why MH17 was off its path, and what the pilots saw and said before the explosion.

The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, has confirmed that a Kiev-controlled Buk anti-aircraft missile battery was operational near the MH17’s crash. Kiev has deployed several batteries of Buk surface-to-air missile systems with at least 27 launchers; these are all perfectly capable of bringing down jets flying at 33,000 ft.

Radiation from a battery’s Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla [a village some 30km south of Donetsk] was detected by the Russian military. According to the ministry, the radar could be providing tracking information to another battery which was at a firing distance from MH17’s flight path.

The tracking radar range on the Buk system is a maximum of 50 miles (80km). MH17 was flying at 500mph. So assuming the ‘rebels’ had an operational Buk and did it, they would have had not more than five minutes to scan all the skies above, all possible altitudes, and then lock on. By then they would have known that a cargo plane could not possibly be flying that high.

For evidence supporting the possibility of a false flag, check here.

And then there’s the curiouser and curiouser story of Carlos, the Spanish air traffic controller working at Kiev’s tower, who was following MH17 in real time. For some Carlos is legit – not a cipher; for others, he’s never even worked in Ukraine. Anyway he tweeted like mad. His account – not accidentally – has been shut down and he has disappeared. His friends are now desperately looking for him. I managed to read all his tweets in Spanish when the account was still online. And now copies and an English translation are available.

These are some of his crucial tweets:

“The B777 was escorted by 2 Ukrainian fighter jets minutes before disappearing from radar (5.48pm)”

“If the Kiev authorities want to admit the truth 2 fighter jets were flying very close a few minutes before the incident but did not shoot down the airliner (5.54)”

“As soon as the Malaysia Airlines B777 disappeared the Kiev military authority informed us of the shooting down. How did they know? (6.00)”

“Everything has been recorded on radar. For those that don’t believe it, it was taken down by Kiev; we know that here (in traffic control) and the military air traffic control know it too (7.14)”

“The Ministry of the Interior did know that there were fighter aircraft in the area, but the Ministry of Defense didn’t. (7.15)”

“The military confirm that it was Ukraine, but it is not known where the order came from. (7.31)”

Carlos’s assessment (a partial compilation of his tweets is collected here: the missile was fired by the Ukraine military under orders of the Ministry of Interior – NOT the Ministry of Defense. Security matters at the Ministry of the Interior happen to be under Andrey Paruby, who was closely working alongside US neo-cons and Banderastan neo-Nazis on Maidan.

Assuming Carlos is legit, the assessment makes sense. The Ukrainian military are divided between Chocolate king [President Petro] Poroshenko – who would like a détente with Russia essentially to advance his shady business interests – and St. Yulia Tymoshenko, who’s on the record advocating genocide of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. US neo-cons and US “military advisers” on the ground are proverbially hedging their bets, supporting both the Poroshenko and Tymoshenko factions.

So who profits?

The key question remains, of course, cui bono? Only the terminally brain dead believe shooting a passenger jet benefits the federalists in eastern Ukraine, not to mention the Kremlin.

As for Kiev, they’d have the means, the motive and the window of opportunity to pull it off – especially after Kiev’s militias have been effectively routed, and were in retreat, in the Donbass. And this after Kiev remained dead set on attacking and bombing the population of eastern Ukraine even from above. No wonder the federalists had to defend themselves.

And then there’s the suspicious timing. The MH17 tragedy happened two days after the BRICS announced an antidote to the IMF and the World Bank, bypassing the US dollar. And just as Israel ‘cautiously’ advances its new invasion/slow-motion-ethnic-cleansing of Gaza. Malaysia, by the way, is the seat of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, which has found Israel guilty of crimes against humanity.

Washington, of course, does profit. What the Empire of Chaos gets in this case is a ceasefire (so the disorganized, battered Kiev militias may be resupplied); the branding of eastern Ukrainians as de facto ‘terrorists’ (as Kiev, Dick Cheney-style, always wanted); and unlimited mud thrown over Russia and Putin in particular until Kingdom Come. Not bad for a few minutes’ work. As for NATO, that’s Christmas in July.

From now on, it all depends on Russian intelligence. They have been surveilling/tracking everything that happens in Ukraine 24/7. In the next 72 hours, after poring over a lot of tracking data, using telemetry, radar and satellite tracking, they will know which type of missile was launched, from where, and even produce communications from the battery that launched it. And they will have access to forensic evidence.

Unlike Washington – who already knows everything, with no evidence whatsoever (remember 9/11?) – Moscow will take its time to know the basic journalistic facts of what, where, and who, and engage on proving the truth and/or disproving Washington’s spin.

The historical record shows Washington simply won’t release data if it points to a missile coming from its Kiev vassals. The data may even point to a bomb planted on MH17, or mechanical failure – although that’s unlikely. If this was a terrible mistake by the Novorossiya rebels, Moscow will have to reluctantly admit it. If Kiev did it, the revelation will be instantaneous. Anyway we already know the hysterical Western response, no matter what; Russia is to blame.

Putin is more than correct when he stressed this tragedy would not have happened if Poroshenko had agreed to extend a ceasefire, as Merkel, Hollande and Putin tried to convince him to do in late June. At a minimum, Kiev is already guilty because they are responsible for safe passage of flights in the airspace they – theoretically – control.

But all that is already forgotten in the fog of war, tragedy and hype. As for Washington’s hysterical claims of credibility, I leave you with just one number: Iran Air 655.

50 Comments

50 Comments


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[-] 4 points by turbocharger (1756) 9 years ago

"As this story unfolds its becoming clearer and clearer that this was the result of the rebels"...

Exactly how a false flag is carried out. Not saying that rebels couldnt have used their best weapon as target practice against a Malaysian airliner, but if they didnt its really simple to get "mass opinion" to conform when you own the "mass media"..

What a joke. Meanwhile the BRICs have declared their own bank and desire to create a new reserve currency, we have reinvaded Iraq (assuming the thousands of private security contractors that were there werent included in the "ending of the war"...wow...) and ... hey look at that....

Obama just opened up the entire east coast ocean to oil exploration in the middle of all the drama. What a coincidence!

Sometimes I wish I was still dumb enough to think that if I can just get as many people as possible to go and vote for Democrats, this is all going to change.

Nope, been there, done that, bought the flag.

[-] 4 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

didn't know about the east coast oil move - what a shock that our democratic leader would do such a thing. if only I had voted harder

[-] 4 points by turbocharger (1756) 9 years ago

Yes good point, vote harder. Ive had some people tell me that its not enough to vote, that you have to keep constant pressure on em afterwards.

So why the fuck do we have representatives if after sacrificing work, sweat and tears to get em elected you have to freakin baby sit em 24/7 like a dog with a steak in front of it?

Things like this are why I say the system just sucks, its not well designed for where we are as a country.

[-] 3 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

for sure they do not represent us no matter how many times they tell us they do. they represent the "moneyed interests" - just like Madison wanted it. he designed the system after all to subvert any real democracy. and yes Obama's timing was perfect - he is no dummy - also he is no democrat! small d that is

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[-] 3 points by turbocharger (1756) 9 years ago

Perfect time to do it, the establishment is usually about 5 steps ahead of us. I'm still waiting for the explanation as to why the rebels would have shot down a Malaysian airliner.

I heard one report that there have been several planes shot down, military planes, over the last few months and I was like What? Whose planes have being shot down?

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/ap-newsbreak-obama-opens-east-coast-oil-search-24617695

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

It could be an attempt by the U.S. to strengthen the backbone of the EU, especially the timid but really hurt Dutch. Aside from the Deepwater Horizon blow-out catastrophe, offshore drilling was "safe" for many decades.

If EU sectoral sanctions against Russia's energy sector are imposed, Royal Dutch Shell's oil interest in Russia may be hurt greatly. The U.S. may be sending a signal to the EU, "Don't worry about your energy supply being cut off by Russia. Stand up to the thug! Your oil and gas companies can play off of our eastern shore instead of in Russia."

[-] 0 points by turbocharger (1756) 9 years ago

Thats a very insightful comment, thanks.

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[-] 2 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 9 years ago

by international weapons sales

the missile was more likely to have been bought from america

[-] 2 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

would be no surprise

[-] 2 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 9 years ago

I imagine our weapons companies are very upset are government allowed russian companies to sell those separatist missiles.

[-] 3 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

very true - but we sold them to Ukraine and will be selling plenty more to all of nato. hard to justify aircraft carriers and jet fighters to stop 9/11 style attacks but Russia is a whole new ball game - game on military industrial complex!

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[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

It is rather plain that Russia was at least indirectly involved in the downing of MH17 through its reluctance to tamp down the fervor for independence of Eastern Ukraine.

Very few countries have the technological and technical capability to shoot down a B777 flying at 33,000 feet. Russia is one of the elite few there. Yes, I know that the U.S. was another suspect but it is extremely unlikely for the current administration to have done it even inadvertently. Availability of surface-to-air missiles was taboo even for shooting down the airforce of Assad whose ouster Obama had called for.

Without Russia's backing, the security situation in Eastern Ukraine would not have deteriorated to such a degree. The Dutch was partly culpable for not sending a strong unified EU message to Russia to tamp down the fervor but the Dutch has certainly learnt a bitter body-blow lesson about being too timid, sitting far back in the EU away from Russia but with much business interest at stake with Russia. Russia, guilty in downing MH17? Probably not. Russia, culpable? Definitely.

[-] 2 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

first of all is it true that someone diverted the plane 150 miles off it's usual course? i am very confident that the facts show that you are wrong here. no time to get into details but i can get the info easily if you would like. google stephen cohen or ray mcgovern on the subject and tell me where you think they are incorrect or which facts they use are wrong. here is a news item from 2001 - Ukraine admits it shot down Russian airliner By Ben Aris in Moscow12:01AM BST 13 Oct 2001 Ukraine finally admitted yesterday that its military shot down a Russian airliner that crashed into the Black Sea last week, killing all 78 passengers and crew. Evhen Marchuk, the chairman of Ukraine's security council, conceded that the plane had probably been brought down by "an accidental hit from an S-200 rocket fired during exercises".

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Did MH17 go down? Yes, there is substantial video, radar, and physical evidence.

Where did it go down? Eastern Ukraine.

Why did it happen there? It is a de-facto war zone with loose surface-to-air-missiles (SAM) batteries that had shot down other aircraft recently. Evidence points to MH17 having been downed by a missile.

Where did the SAM batteries come from? Not the U.S. which did not even have much military muscle there to stop Russian adventures in Georgia and Crimea. They likely came from Russia to support the Eastern Ukrainian separatists in Russia's effort to make Ukrainian government fail.

Is Russia culpable? Definitely, for not helping to stabilize Ukraine as called for; for destabilizing Ukraine by aiding and abetting "Novorossiya" enthusiasts (breaking Russia-signed Budapest agreement protecting Ukraine's territorial integrity); for playing with fire on its border (military exercises, balaclava-clad armed gunmen with Russian military equipments) to create a failed-state-like situation. Putin is a thug!

[-] 2 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

if you want tot parrot state dept talking points than i am not interested. if you are interested in the truth then google ray mcgovern, stephen cohen and let me know what you think. i would be very interested to hear how they are off base - and here is pepe - It was Putin’s Missile?

By Pepe Escobar Source: RT.com July 21, 2014 Here’s the spin war verdict: the current Malaysian Airlines tragedy – the second in four months – is “terrorism” perpetrated by “pro-Russian separatists” armed by Russia and Putin is the main culprit. End of story. Anyone who believes otherwise, shut up.

Why? Because the CIA said so. Because Hillary ‘We came, we saw, he died’ Clinton said so. Because crazy Samantha ‘R2P’ Power said so – thundering at the UN, everything duly printed by the neo-con infested Washington Post.

Because Anglo-American corporate media – from CNN to Fox (who tried to buy Time Warner, which owns CNN) – said so. Because the President of the United States (POTUS) said so. And mostly because Kiev had vociferously said so in the first place.

Right off the bat they were all lined up – the invariably hysterical reams of ‘experts’ of the ‘US intelligence community’ literally foaming at their palatial mouths at ‘evil’ Russia and ‘evil’ Putin; intel ‘experts’ who could not identify a convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing the Iraqi desert to take Mosul. And yet they have already sentenced; they don’t need to look any further, instantly solving the MH17 riddle.

It doesn’t matter that President Putin has stressed the MH17 tragedy must be investigated objectively. And ‘objectively’ certainly does not mean that fictional ‘international community’ notion construed by Washington – the usual congregation of pliable vassals/patsies.

And what about Carlos?

A simple search reveals that MH17 was in fact diverted 200km north from the usual flight path taken by Malaysian Airlines in the previous days – and plunged right in the middle of a war zone. Why? What sort of communication had MH17 received from the Kiev air control tower?

Kiev has been mute about it. Yet the answer would be simple, had Kiev released the Air Traffic Control recording of the tower talking to flight MH17; Malaysia did it after flight MH370 disappeared forever.

It won’t happen; SBU security confiscated it. So much for getting an undoctored explanation as to why MH17 was off its path, and what the pilots saw and said before the explosion.

The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, has confirmed that a Kiev-controlled Buk anti-aircraft missile battery was operational near the MH17’s crash. Kiev has deployed several batteries of Buk surface-to-air missile systems with at least 27 launchers; these are all perfectly capable of bringing down jets flying at 33,000 ft.

Radiation from a battery’s Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla [a village some 30km south of Donetsk] was detected by the Russian military. According to the ministry, the radar could be providing tracking information to another battery which was at a firing distance from MH17’s flight path.

The tracking radar range on the Buk system is a maximum of 50 miles (80km). MH17 was flying at 500mph. So assuming the ‘rebels’ had an operational Buk and did it, they would have had not more than five minutes to scan all the skies above, all possible altitudes, and then lock on. By then they would have known that a cargo plane could not possibly be flying that high.

For evidence supporting the possibility of a false flag, check here.

And then there’s the curiouser and curiouser story of Carlos, the Spanish air traffic controller working at Kiev’s tower, who was following MH17 in real time. For some Carlos is legit – not a cipher; for others, he’s never even worked in Ukraine. Anyway he tweeted like mad. His account – not accidentally – has been shut down and he has disappeared. His friends are now desperately looking for him. I managed to read all his tweets in Spanish when the account was still online. And now copies and an English translation are available.

These are some of his crucial tweets:

“The B777 was escorted by 2 Ukrainian fighter jets minutes before disappearing from radar (5.48pm)”

“If the Kiev authorities want to admit the truth 2 fighter jets were flying very close a few minutes before the incident but did not shoot down the airliner (5.54)”

“As soon as the Malaysia Airlines B777 disappeared the Kiev military authority informed us of the shooting down. How did they know? (6.00)”

“Everything has been recorded on radar. For those that don’t believe it, it was taken down by Kiev; we know that here (in traffic control) and the military air traffic control know it too (7.14)”

“The Ministry of the Interior did know that there were fighter aircraft in the area, but the Ministry of Defense didn’t. (7.15)”

“The military confirm that it was Ukraine, but it is not known where the order came from. (7.31)”

Carlos’s assessment (a partial compilation of his tweets is collected here: the missile was fired by the Ukraine military under orders of the Ministry of Interior – NOT the Ministry of Defense. Security matters at the Ministry of the Interior happen to be under Andrey Paruby, who was closely working alongside US neo-cons and Banderastan neo-Nazis on Maidan.

Assuming Carlos is legit, the assessment makes sense. The Ukrainian military are divided between Chocolate king [President Petro] Poroshenko – who would like a détente with Russia essentially to advance his shady business interests – and St. Yulia Tymoshenko, who’s on the record advocating genocide of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. US neo-cons and US “military advisers” on the ground are proverbially hedging their bets, supporting both the Poroshenko and Tymoshenko factions.

So who profits?

The key question remains, of course, cui bono? Only the terminally brain dead believe shooting a passenger jet benefits the federalists in eastern Ukraine, not to mention the Kremlin.

As for Kiev, they’d have the means, the motive and the window of opportunity to pull it off – especially after Kiev’s militias have been effectively routed, and were in retreat, in the Donbass. And this after Kiev remained dead set on attacking and bombing the population of eastern Ukraine even from above. No wonder the federalists had to defend themselves.

And then there’s the suspicious timing. The MH17 tragedy happened two days after the BRICS announced an antidote to the IMF and the World Bank, bypassing the US dollar. And just as Israel ‘cautiously’ advances its new invasion/slow-motion-ethnic-cleansing of Gaza. Malaysia, by the way, is the seat of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, which has found Israel guilty of crimes against humanity.

Washington, of course, does profit. What the Empire of Chaos gets in this case is a ceasefire (so the disorganized, battered Kiev militias may be resupplied); the branding of eastern Ukrainians as de facto ‘terrorists’ (as Kiev, Dick Cheney-style, always wanted); and unlimited mud thrown over Russia and Putin in particular until Kingdom Come. Not bad for a few minutes’ work. As for NATO, that’s Christmas in July.

From now on, it all depends on Russian intelligence. They have been surveilling/tracking everything that happens in Ukraine 24/7. In the next 72 hours, after poring over a lot of tracking data, using telemetry, radar and satellite tracking, they will know which type of missile was launched, from where, and even produce communications from the battery that launched it. And they will have access to forensic evidence.

Unlike Washington – who already knows everything, with no evidence whatsoever (remember 9/11?) – Moscow will take its time to know the basic journalistic facts of what, where, and who, and engage on proving the truth and/or disproving Washington’s spin.

The historical record shows Washington simply won’t release data if it points to a missile coming from its Kiev vassals. The data may even point to a bomb planted on MH17, or mechanical failure – although that’s unlikely. If this was a terrible mistake by the Novorossiya rebels, Moscow will have to reluctantly admit it. If Kiev did it, the revelation will be instantaneous. Anyway we already know the hysterical Western response, no matter what; Russia is to blame.

Putin is more than correct when he stressed this tragedy would not have happened if Poroshenko had agreed to extend a ceasefire, as Merkel, Hollande and Putin tried to convince him to do in late June. At a minimum, Kiev is already guilty because they are responsible for safe passage of flights in the airspace they – theoretically – control.

But all that is already forgotten in the fog of war, tragedy and hype. As for Washington’s hysterical claims of credibility, I leave you with just one number: Iran Air 655.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

In legal matters, there is the concept of habeas corpus. Produce the UNCONTAMINATED evidence that points the culpability elsewhere aside from Putin's Russia.

Why was the international community impeded in their effort to examine the crash debris field? Why was the forensic evidence tampered with by moving the body parts and cadavers?

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

i do not know the answer to your questions or if your statements are accurate since we have been lied to on the subject. and many others no? do you know the history of this crisis - the last 6 months or so anyway? if you do not you should read cohen for a better understanding of the situation. here is part of an article by ray mcgovern - let me know where you think he is off base - Facts Needed on Malaysian Plane Shoot-Down

By Ray McGovern Source: Consortium New July 21, 2014

As usual, the mainstream U.S. media is rushing to judgment over the crash of a Malaysian airliner in war-torn eastern Ukraine, but the history of U.S. government’s deceptions might be reason to pause and let a careful investigation uncover the facts, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

It will likely take some time to determine who downed the Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people onboard. Initial speculation is that someone with a missile battery mistook the plane as a military aircraft, but the precise motive may be even harder to discern.

Given the fog of war and the eagerness among the various participants to wage “information warfare,” there is also the possibility that evidence – especially electronic evidence – might be tampered with to achieve some propaganda victory.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko immediately labeled the tragedy “a terrorist act” although there was no evidence that anyone intentionally shot down the civilian airliner. But Poroshenko and others in the Kiev government have previously designated the ethnic Russians, who are resisting the Feb. 22 overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, as “terrorists” so Poroshenko’s bellicose language was not a surprise.

For their part, the separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine denied responsibility for the crash – saying they lacked anti-aircraft missiles that could reach the 33,000-foot altitude of the Malaysian airliner – but there are reasons to suspect the rebels, including their previously successful efforts to shoot down Ukrainian military aircraft operating in the war zone.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin deflected questions about who may have fired the missile as he called for an international investigation. But he made a telling point when he noted that the “tragedy would not have happened if military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine.”

Those likely to agree with that statement include German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande who, during a lengthy four-way conference call with Poroshenko on June 30, tried desperately to get him to prolong the ceasefire. Only the U.S. voiced support for Poroshenko’s decision to spurn that initiative and order Ukrainian forces into a major offensive in the east.

It was in the context of Ukrainian forces using their airpower to strike rebel positions that led to the rebels’ efforts to neutralize that advantage by deploying anti-aircraft missiles that have achieved some success in downing Ukrainian military planes. The Ukrainian military is also known to possess anti-aircraft batteries scattered throughout the country.

Raw Meat for Russia Bashing

But the chance to further demonize Putin and Russia will be hard for Official Washington and its corporate-owned press to resist. The New York Times was quick out of the starting blocks on Friday with a lead editorial blaming the entire Ukraine conflict, including the Malaysian Airline tragedy, on Putin:

“There is one man who can stop it – President Vladimir Putin of Russia, by telling the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine to end their insurgency and by stopping the flow of money and heavy weapons to those groups.”

Among Putin’s alleged offenses, according to the Times, has been his “failing to support a cease-fire and avoiding serious, internationally mediated negotiations” – though Putin has actually been one of principal advocates for both a cease-fire and a negotiated solution. It has been the U.S.-backed Poroshenko who canceled the previous cease-fire and has refused to negotiate with the ethnic Russian rebels until they essentially surrender.

But the death of all 298 people onboard the Malaysian Airline flight, going from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, will surely provide plenty of fuel for the already roaring anti-Russian propaganda machine. Still, the U.S. press might pause to recall how it’s been manipulated by the U.S. government in the past, including three decades ago by the Reagan administration twisting the facts of the KAL-007 tragedy.

In that case, a Soviet fighter jet shot down a Korean Air Line plane on Sept. 1, 1983, after it strayed hundreds of miles off course and penetrated some of the Soviet Union’s most sensitive airspace over military facilities in Kamchatka and Sakhalin Island.

Over Sakhalin, KAL-007 was finally intercepted by a Soviet Sukhoi-15 fighter. The Soviet pilot tried to signal the plane to land, but the KAL pilots did not respond to the repeated warnings. Amid confusion about the plane’s identity — a U.S. spy plane had been in the vicinity hours earlier — Soviet ground control ordered the pilot to fire. He did, blasting the plane out of the sky and killing all 269 people on board.

The Soviets soon realized they had made a horrendous mistake. U.S. intelligence also knew from sensitive intercepts that the tragedy had resulted from a blunder, not from a willful act of murder (much as on July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes fired a missile that brought down an Iranian civilian airliner in the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people, an act which President Ronald Reagan explained as an “understandable accident”).

But a Soviet admission of a tragic blunder regarding KAL-007 wasn’t good enough for the Reagan administration, which saw the incident as a propaganda windfall. At the time, the felt imperative in Washington was to blacken the Soviet Union in the cause of Cold War propaganda and to escalate tensions with Moscow.

Falsifying the Case

To make the very blackest case against Moscow, the Reagan administration suppressed the exculpatory evidence from the U.S. electronic intercepts. The U.S. mantra became “the deliberate downing of a civilian passenger plane.” Newsweek ran a cover emblazoned with the headline “Murder in the Sky.”

“The Reagan administration’s spin machine began cranking up,” wrote Alvin A. Snyder, then-director of the U.S. Information Agency’s television and film division, in his 1995 book, Warriors of Disinformation.

USIA Director Charles Z. Wick “ordered his top agency aides to form a special task force to devise ways of playing the story overseas. The objective, quite simply, was to heap as much abuse on the Soviet Union as possible,” Snyder recalled.

Snyder noted that “the American media swallowed the U.S. government line without reservation. Said the venerable Ted Koppel on the ABC News ‘Nightline’ program: ‘This has been one of those occasions when there is very little difference between what is churned out by the U.S. government propaganda organs and by the commercial broadcasting networks.’”

On Sept. 6, 1983, the Reagan administration went so far as to present a doctored transcript of the intercepts to the United Nations Security Council (a prelude to a similar false presentation two decades later by Secretary of State Colin Powell on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction).

“The tape was supposed to run 50 minutes,” Snyder said about recorded Soviet intercepts. “But the tape segment we [at USIA] had ran only eight minutes and 32 seconds. … ‘Do I detect the fine hand of [Richard Nixon's secretary] Rosemary Woods here?’ I asked sarcastically.’”

But Snyder had a job to do: producing the video that his superiors wanted. “The perception we wanted to convey was that the Soviet Union had cold-bloodedly carried out a barbaric act,” Snyder wrote.

Only a decade later, when Snyder saw the complete transcripts — including the portions that the Reagan administration had hidden — would he fully realize how many of the central elements of the U.S. presentation were false.

The Soviet fighter pilot apparently did believe he was pursuing a U.S. spy plane, according to the intercepts, and he was having trouble in the dark identifying the plane. At the instructions of Soviet ground controllers, the pilot had circled the KAL airliner and tilted his wings to force the aircraft down. The pilot said he fired warning shots, too. “This comment was also not on the tape we were provided,” Snyder wrote.

It was clear to Snyder that in the pursuit of its Cold War aims, the Reagan administration had presented false accusations to the United Nations, as well as to the people of the United States and the world. To these Republicans, the ends of smearing the Soviets had justified the means of falsifying the historical record.

In his book, Snyder acknowledged his role in the deception and drew an ironic lesson from the incident. The senior USIA official wrote, “The moral of the story is that all governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The key is to lie first.” [For more details on the KAL-007 deception and the history of U.S. trickery, see Consortiumnews.com’s “A Dodgy Dossier on Syrian War.”]

...........................So, there is, sadly, additional reason to kick the tires of any fancy truck carrying “intelligence” offered by the U.S. with respect to the Malaysian Airline shoot-down on Thursday.

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Shooting down a high-flying non-combatant civilian passenger aircraft is despicable, be it considered as first-degree murder, second-degree, or otherwise. The downing of flight MH17 is DESPICABLE. Even if Russia did not pull the trigger itself, Russia is still guilty of being accessory to or committing at least hundreds of felony murders.

Russia was better to be dealt with under Medvedev's Presidency. It was certainly easier to work with Russia then to foster peace than to work with warring religious fanatics of some countries. Putin's Russia knows very well the potential damages coming from a warring failed state next door. It is NOT in Russia's interest to have Ukraine in turmoil next door.

By reneging its promise in the Budapest Agreement and instigating continued violence in Eastern Ukraine, Russia must suffer long-term damages. Let the global warming produced by Russia's vast gas and oil kill the Russian "Polar Bear."

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

did you read what i sent - doesn't seem so. no comment on what ray puts together? and how about shooting down an Iranian civilian plane - any comment on that one?

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

I knew what happened long ago because I had lived through those times. Here are some lessons that I had learnt: it is important to lower the general level of tension in the world and keep away from war or near-war zones. Advanced weapon (such as missiles) proliferation in areas of high tension makes everyone (yep, certainly including the big-gunned but sometimes not fast enough U.S. military) more trigger-happy.

The downings of the civilian aircraft changed the mental dynamics of Reagan and perhaps the Soviets, too, making possible the eventual ending of the Cold War. The U.S. opened up GPS for civilian usage so KAL-like straying incidents would hopefully never recur. The people on KAL-007 might have saved us all from even more disastrous fate.

The tense situation in the Persian Gulf and the existence of advanced French weaponry there created the backdrop for the phobic reaction causing the downing of the Iranian civilian airliner. I would not be surprised if there would be more incidents like that with the further proliferation of advanced French weaponry and continued tension in various hot spots around the world. The U.S. military IS susceptible to taking perceived proportionate actions against imaginary or real threats. Hence, it is better if the U.S. military stays near home more.

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

a few facts for further comment if you care to - from wiki - Despite the mistakes made in the downing of the plane, the men of the Vincennes were awarded Combat Action Ribbons for completion of their tours in a combat zone. Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, received the Navy Commendation Medal.[9] In 1990, The Washington Post listed Lustig's awards as one being for his entire tour from 1984 to 1988 and the other for his actions relating to the surface engagement with Iranian gunboats.[46] In 1990, Rogers was awarded the Legion of Merit for his service as the commanding officer of the Vincennes from April 1987 to May 1989. The citation made no mention of the downing of Iran Air 655.[47]

from pepe escobar - "A simple search reveals that MH17 was in fact diverted 200km north from the usual flight path taken by Malaysian Airlines in the previous days – and plunged right in the middle of a war zone. Why? What sort of communication had MH17 received from the Kiev air control tower?

Kiev has been mute about it. Yet the answer would be simple, had Kiev released the Air Traffic Control recording of the tower talking to flight MH17; Malaysia did it after flight MH370 disappeared forever.

It won’t happen; SBU security confiscated it. So much for getting an undoctored explanation as to why MH17 was off its path, and what the pilots saw and said before the explosion.

The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, has confirmed that a Kiev-controlled Buk anti-aircraft missile battery was operational near the MH17’s crash. Kiev has deployed several batteries of Buk surface-to-air missile systems with at least 27 launchers; these are all perfectly capable of bringing down jets flying at 33,000 ft.

Radiation from a battery’s Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla [a village some 30km south of Donetsk] was detected by the Russian military. According to the ministry, the radar could be providing tracking information to another battery which was at a firing distance from MH17’s flight path.

The tracking radar range on the Buk system is a maximum of 50 miles (80km). MH17 was flying at 500mph. So assuming the ‘rebels’ had an operational Buk and did it, they would have had not more than five minutes to scan all the skies above, all possible altitudes, and then lock on. By then they would have known that a cargo plane could not possibly be flying that high.

STEPHEN COHEN: Who precipitated this crisis? It was the European Union, in this sense. It gave the Ukrainian government, which, by the way, is a democratically elected government—if you overthrow this government, just like they overthrew Morsi in Egypt, you’re dealing a serious blow to democracy. So if the crowd manages to essentially carry out a coup d’état from the streets, that’s what democracy is not about. But here’s what the European Union did back in November. It told the government of Ukraine, "If you want to sign an economic relationship with us, you cannot sign one with Russia." Why not? Putin has said, "Why don’t the three of us have an arrangement? We’ll help Ukraine. The West will help Ukraine." The chancellor of Germany, Merkel, at first thought that was a good idea, but she backed down for various political reasons. So, essentially, Ukraine was given an ultimatum: sign the EU economic agreement or else.

Now, what was that agreement? It would have been an economic catastrophe for Ukraine. I’m not talking about the intellectuals or the people who are well placed, about ordinary Ukrainians. The Ukrainian economy is on the brink of a meltdown. It needed billions of dollars. What did the European Union offer them? The same austerity policies that are ravaging Europe, and nothing more—$600 million. It needed billions and billions.

There’s one other thing. If you read the protocols of the European offer to Ukraine, which has been interpreted in the West as just about civilizational change, escaping Russia, economics, democracy, there is a big clause on military cooperation. In effect, by signing this, Ukraine would have had to abide by NATO’s military policies. What would that mean? That would mean drawing a new Cold War line, which used to be in Berlin, right through the heart of Slavic civilization, on Russia’s borders. So that’s where we’re at to now.

  STEPHEN COHEN:Let me mention, because I think it’s relevant to what you’re covering here, your very, very powerful segments before I came on today about what’s going on in Gaza, the pounding of these cities, the defenselessness of ordinary people. The same thing has been happening in East Ukrainian cities—bombing, shelling, mortaring by the Kiev government—whatever we think of that government. But that government is backed 150 percent by the White House. Every day, the White House and the State Department approve of what Kiev’s been doing. We don’t know how many innocent civilians, women and children, have died. We know there’s probably several hundred thousand refugees that have run from these cities. The cities are Donetsk, Luhansk, Kramatorsk, Slovyansk—a whole series of cities whose names are not familiar to Americans. The fact is, Americans know nothing about this. We know something about what’s happening in Gaza, and there’s a division of opinion in the United States: The Israelis should do this, the Israelis should not do this. But we know there are victims: We see them. Sometimes the mainstream media yanks a reporter, as you just showed, who shows it too vividly, because it offends the perception of what’s right or wrong. But we are not shown anything about what’s happened in these Ukrainian cities, these eastern Ukrainian cities.

Why is that important? Because this airliner, this shootdown, took place in that context. The American media says it must have been the bad guys—that is, the rebels—because they’ve shot down other airplanes. This is true, but the airplanes they’ve been shooting down are Ukraine’s military warplanes that have come to bomb the women and children of these cities. We don’t know that.

STEPHEN COHEN: If you’ll permit me, I don’t think we can look at the death of that person—and I think there were more than that who died—outside the context of what has happened since the Kiev government. Now, let our—let our viewers be clear: This Kiev government is the government that came to power without legality. You can accept it or not accept it, but it is the government that is embraced 100 percent by Washington and by Europe. It is our government. This government sent troops to eastern Ukraine. That’s about—seems to be about 10,000-15,000, maybe not that many, but tanks, armored personnel carrier, heavy artillery, with helicopters flying over. And they flew over these cities that we’re discussing. Now, remember, please, what happened in Odessa about 10 days ago. I trust your listeners and viewers will remember, 40 people were burned to death in a building. That’s a horrific event. Then—

AMY GOODMAN: And who did that?

STEPHEN COHEN: Let’s come back to that. Then, a day or two after that, Ukrainian troops from Kiev entered the city—entered the city, 500,000 people, right into the residential area where people live, with parks, with mothers and fathers with their kids strolling in the park—sent tanks and armored personnel carrier into that city and opened fire. All right, put that together with Odessa. That’s horrific. It doesn’t matter who began that. It doesn’t matter if two guys in the street after a soccer game began punching each other. What government sends tanks into a city when there’s nothing happening in the city that provokes you?

And here’s the second part of the story. Personally, this outrages me. I don’t know how your viewers and listeners think. But what did the United States government say? Did it say, "We regret the loss of life"? Did it say, "There should be an investigation"? No. It said Kiev has the right to restore law and order. Now, I would stretch this out. If a war crime was committed in Odessa by the burning of 40 people to death in a building and by tanks entering the streets of Mariupol, or any other city, if that’s a war crime, we didn’t commit it, but we applauded it. And there’s something wrong there, no matter who’s right and wrong in this dispute. And that, when the referendum took place—and you asked about the shooting—the Kiev government tried to intimidate people going to the votes by opening fire on some areas outside the city. They failed. The turnout was large, not as large as the autonomy people are claiming it was, but it was large.

[-] 3 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

To all that, I say history both saves and sucks. The U.S. military knew of the sinking of the British warship in the Falkland War and the Iraqi attack on the U.S.S. Stark, all with advanced French weaponry. It clinched the case that asymmetric warfare did not mean that the stronger could come out ahead. The Persian Gulf is far too small for the big-gunned U.S. military to make an informed split-second life-or-death decision. Erring on the side of survival made evolutionary sense - unfortunate sometimes but true. You should recall that Iran had earlier taken over U.S. embassy in Tehran and held U.S. hostages, contrary to diplomatic conventions. That is why I am keen to lower the tension in the Persian Gulf region but religions and hatred block the way.

As for Eastern Ukraine, Russia guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine including Eastern Ukraine as a part of it. Russia was deplorable in reneging its promise under the Budapest Agreement. WWII started with the invasion of Poland by Germany - reflect on that. There are close parallels between Sudetenland and Crimea, Munich Pact and the West's acquiescence after Russia's annexation of Crimea, Poland and Eastern Ukraine, the thuggish behaviors of Hitler and Putin. Russia under Putin no longer abides by international agreement previously signed by Russia so Russia must be cordoned off as a pariah state from the international community. There is a virulent contagious "disease" in Russia. Quarantine is the way to secure the safety of ALL.

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

very weak response. can you comment on what i wrote? i am not an apologist for putin but the west is in the wrong here - that is very clear to anyone who can read. to equate putin to hitler one must be completely blinded - like ms clinton. stephen cohen is right - STEPHEN COHEN: Who precipitated this crisis? It was the European Union." - instead of some not very relevant history can you debate this simple point. how did this all start - the facts will not line up with your analysis. and then i would like you to comment on this from pepe escobar - is he right or wrong - "A simple search reveals that MH17 was in fact diverted 200km north from the usual flight path taken by Malaysian Airlines in the previous days – and plunged right in the middle of a war zone. Why? What sort of communication had MH17 received from the Kiev air control tower? Kiev has been mute about it. Yet the answer would be simple, had Kiev released the Air Traffic Control recording of the tower talking to flight MH17; Malaysia did it after flight MH370 disappeared forever. It won’t happen; SBU security confiscated it. So much for getting an undoctored explanation as to why MH17 was off its path, and what the pilots saw and said before the explosion.

[-] 3 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Let the Malaysians, the Dutch, and the Australians answer you as investigation continues on what had happened to their nationals and MH17. I believe that the Malaysians now possess the black boxes which may have gone on a "detour" to Russia. Still the crash site of MH17 has not been granted access to the international community. The crash site was NOT properly secured as a forensic crime scene and delayed access muddied the investigation efforts.

If Putin were satisfied with Crimea's annexation and had stopped Russia's saber-rattlings near the border with Ukraine and the smuggling of heavy arms into Ukraine, MH17 would not have been shot down. I think Putin's Greed and playing with fire may burn his whole house down.

Regardless of Angela Merkel's revulsion over U.S. spying, she grew up in then East Germany (which got BOTH Gestapo and Stasi! OMG.). She knows very well how it feels to lick the jackboots of the Soviet, now Russian, "Polar Bear." Mutti must cater to domestic Kinder but the prospect of eventually licking the jackboots no doubt disgusts her gutturally.

[-] 2 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

one last gasp here then i give up - you can have the last word if you like - Noam Chomsky | Red Lines in Ukraine and Elsewhere Friday, 02 May 2014 11:22By Noam Chomsky, Truthout | Op-Ed The current Ukraine crisis is serious and threatening, so much so that some commentators even compare it to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Columnist Thanassis Cambanis summarizes the core issue succinctly in The Boston Globe: "(President Vladimir V.) Putin's annexation of the Crimea is a break in the order that America and its allies have come to rely on since the end of the Cold War - namely, one in which major powers only intervene militarily when they have an international consensus on their side, or failing that, when they're not crossing a rival power's red lines." This era's most extreme international crime, the United States-United Kingdom invasion of Iraq, was therefore not a break in world order - because, after failing to gain international support, the aggressors didn't cross Russian or Chinese red lines. In contrast, Putin's takeover of the Crimea and his ambitions in Ukraine cross American red lines. Therefore "Obama is focused on isolating . Putin's Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state," Peter Baker reports in The New York Times. American red lines, in short, are firmly placed at Russia's borders. Therefore Russian ambitions "in its own neighborhood" violate world order and create crises. The point generalizes. Other countries are sometimes allowed to have red lines - at their borders (where the United States' red lines are also located). But not Iraq, for example. Or Iran, which the U.S. continually threatens with attack ("no options are off the table"). Such threats violate not only the United Nations Charter but also the General Assembly resolution condemning Russia that the United States just signed. The resolution opened by stressing the U.N. Charter ban on "the threat or use of force" in international affairs. The Cuban missile crisis also sharply revealed the great powers' red lines. The world came perilously close to nuclear war when President Kennedy rejected Premier Khrushchev's offer to end the crisis by simultaneous public withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba and American missiles from Turkey. (The U.S. missiles were already scheduled to be replaced by far more lethal Polaris submarines, part of the massive system threatening Russia's destruction.) In this case too, the United States' red lines were at Russia's borders, and that was accepted on all sides. The U.S. invasion of Indochina, like the invasion of Iraq, crossed no red lines, nor have many other U.S. depredations worldwide. To repeat the crucial point: Adversaries are sometimes permitted to have red lines, but at their borders, where America's red lines are also located. If an adversary has "expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood," crossing U.S. red lines, the world faces a crisis. In the current issue of the Harvard-MIT journal International Security, Oxford University professor Yuen Foong Khong explains that there is a "long (and bipartisan) tradition in American strategic thinking: Successive administrations have emphasized that a vital interest of the United States is to prevent a hostile hegemon from dominating any of the major regions of the world." Furthermore, it is generally agreed that the United States must "maintain its predominance," because "it is U.S. hegemony that has upheld regional peace and stability" - the latter a term of art referring to subordination to U.S. demands. As it happens, the world thinks differently and regards the United States as a "pariah state" and "the greatest threat to world peace," with no competitor even close in the polls. But what does the world know? Khong's article concerns the crisis in Asia, caused by the rise of China, which is moving toward "economic primacy in Asia" and, like Russia, has "expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood," thus crossing American red lines. President Obama's recent Asia trip was to affirm the "long (and bipartisan) tradition," in diplomatic language. The near-universal Western condemnation of Putin includes citing the "emotional address" in which he complained bitterly that the U.S. and its allies had "cheated us again and again, made decisions behind our back, presenting us with completed facts . with the expansion of NATO in the East, with the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders. They always told us the same thing: 'Well, this doesn't involve you.' " Putin's complaints are factually accurate. When President Gorbachev accepted the unification of Germany as part of NATO - an astonishing concession in the light of history - there was a quid pro quo. Washington agreed that NATO would not move "one inch eastward," referring to East Germany. The promise was immediately broken, and when Gorbachev complained, he was instructed that it was only a verbal promise, so without force. President Clinton proceeded to expand NATO much farther to the east, to Russia's borders. Today there are calls to extend NATO even to Ukraine, deep into the historic Russian "neighborhood." But it "doesn't involve" the Russians, because its responsibility to "uphold peace and stability" requires that American red lines are at Russia's borders. Russia's annexation of Crimea was an illegal act, in violation of international law and specific treaties. It's not easy to find anything comparable in recent years - the Iraq invasion is a vastly greater crime. But one comparable example comes to mind: U.S. control of Guantanamo Bay in southeastern Cuba. Guantanamo was wrested from Cuba at gunpoint in 1903 and not relinquished despite Cuba's demands ever since it attained independence in 1959. To be sure, Russia has a far stronger case. Even apart from strong internal support for the annexation, Crimea is historically Russian; it has Russia's only warm-water port, the home of Russia's fleet; and has enormous strategic significance. The United States has no claim at all to Guantanamo, other than its monopoly of force. One reason why the United States refuses to return Guantanamo to Cuba, presumably, is that this is a major harbor and American control of the region severely hampers Cuban development. That has been a major U.S. policy goal for 50 years, including large-scale terror and economic warfare. The United States claims that it is shocked by Cuban human rights violations, overlooking the fact that the worst such violations are in Guantanamo; that valid charges against Cuba do not begin to compare with regular practices among Washington's Latin American clients; and that Cuba has been under severe, unremitting U.S. attack since its independence. But none of this crosses anyone's red lines or causes a crisis. It falls into the category of the U.S. invasions of Indochina and Iraq, the regular overthrow of parliamentary regimes and installation of vicious dictatorships, and our hideous record of other exercises of "upholding peace and stability."

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

The U.S. is perfectly willing to have Russia solve the humanitarian crisis in Syria, avoid the Levant falling into the control of radical religious fanatics, create some peace and quiet and good life for the Gazans, Israelis, and the West-Bank Palestinians. This is a regional job posting. Is Russia interested?

The U.S. did this for Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Communist China, and Poland, etc. so it can be done (even for the deadliest enemies and ideological nemesis). China, Japan, and Germany are now the number 2, 3, and 4 largest economies in the world so the U.S. can be rightfully proud of what the freedom of the seas and world order it imposed have accomplished. Russia can blaze its own record, too!

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

i don't see how you can read this and say what you said - STEPHEN COHEN:Who precipitated this crisis? It was the European Union, in this sense. .......here’s what the European Union did back in November. It told the government of Ukraine, "If you want to sign an economic relationship with us, you cannot sign one with Russia." Why not? Putin has said, "Why don’t the three of us have an arrangement? We’ll help Ukraine. The West will help Ukraine." The chancellor of Germany, Merkel, at first thought that was a good idea, but she backed down for various political reasons. So, essentially, Ukraine was given an ultimatum: sign the EU economic agreement or else.

Now, what was that agreement? It would have been an economic catastrophe for Ukraine. I’m not talking about the intellectuals or the people who are well placed, about ordinary Ukrainians. The Ukrainian economy is on the brink of a meltdown. It needed billions of dollars. What did the European Union offer them? The same austerity policies that are ravaging Europe, and nothing more—$600 million. It needed billions and billions.

There’s one other thing. If you read the protocols of the European offer to Ukraine, which has been interpreted in the West as just about civilizational change, escaping Russia, economics, democracy, there is a big clause on military cooperation. In effect, by signing this, Ukraine would have had to abide by NATO’s military policies. What would that mean? That would mean drawing a new Cold War line, which used to be in Berlin, right through the heart of Slavic civilization, on Russia’s borders. So that’s where we’re at to now.

[-] 3 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Angela Merkel, O Mutti, must cater to domestic Kinder. It is the same for the U.S.

Now if Russia was such a good neighbor to Ukraine, what did it do with the balaclava-clad gunmen with Russian military equipments?

[-] 1 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 9 years ago

thanks

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

we agree on what you just wrote - thanks for the measured response

[-] 3 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Yes, I understand that we are all deep down very emotional creatures. It was very heart-breaking for me to see so many Dutch coffins and the seemingly endless parade of hearses. I want to hold people accountable.

Having monitored the Ukrainian crisis for a while already, I suspect that Putin bears a big chunk of the responsibility for the awful outrage. The EU is not entirely guilt-free, either, in not standing up to Putin earlier because I have previously found the Dutch's timid accommodation of Putin's roguish behaviors distasteful (especially its seemingly having been due to the Royal Dutch Shell to Russian oil and gas connection). The Dutch seemed to be retarding from behind but they unfortunately found their nationals right on the firing line in this globalized jet age. If only the Dutch had learnt earlier from KAL-007 and Iranian Air Flight 655 incidents that not tamping down international tensions can have deadly consequences!

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

we disagree and i have given you enough info to try to find the truth if you are interested. stick to the party line with the rest of the war mongers - clinton, kerry, obama, mccain and the rest. i have no more time for this - putin is no angel but he is on the right side of too much here - it is a shame that we are the demons but no surprise - we have been for all of my life - 64 years! there are none so blind as those who will not see!

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

It takes time for the Truth to come out. You have tried to enlighten me and I appreciate that. I have learnt over the years that premature judgments can be bad. Let history and the people's voice be the judge.

[-] 0 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

we disagree on the facts it seems and matters of opinion. you are following the party line here you know - you are lining up with mainstream media and our "leaders" from both parties - that is usually a very bad place to be. i am always very nervous when i agree with what is said on the tube by the ruling elite. i have given you enough info to do more reading if you care to. if not i am ok with disagreeing here. i understand what you are saying but i hear it every day from all sides and don't buy it - cohen has a much better understanding of the situation which is why he is allowed very little media time

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

I always give new voices a chance, no matter what the authorities have said previously. I even count on Russia Today for revealing information that the U.S. wrong-doers try to hide. On this Ukraine issue, I sense that due to the intimate interest of Russia in the matter, Russia has tried to warp the public perception of the reality of Russian aggression there. Before the internet, there was shortwave radio so yes, I am the ancient mariner from another age and I have had extensive experience with Cold War propaganda on both sides.

My ears ARE yours but my brain is mine.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Blaming the downing of MH17 by Russia on Ukraine's government makes no sense. Ukraine has its overflight payments by the airlines to lose and don't we ALL know by now that Ukraine needs MONEY, the more the better? Wasn't that what had precipated the EU/Russia wrestling over Ukraine? Also Kyiv government claimed innocence and called for an investigation earlier than just about anyone else.

Psychologically, I would be furious when somebody had just ruined my lemonade stand and I know very well that I was innocent of the act. I would have reacted in the same way as Kyiv government and called for an investigation. There were also impediments by the separatists to allow international investigators access to the crash debris.

It is only human to want to cover up the urine stain in bed in hope of avoiding momma's spanking should she investigate and discover the Truth.

[-] 0 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

my question remains - blaming russia for this mess stands reality on its head

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

Is your question: Who should be blamed for this mess? There is enough blame to go around for nearly everybody around and some in Ukraine.

Russia was not controlling its SA-11 missile system tightly enough and that is the proximate technical cause. The U.S. bit the dust to keep SAMs away from conflict zones. Russia could have acted similarly with restraint. That it did not do so made it an accessory to the horrendous murders.

Russia did not use its dominant position there to influence events for the better. Instead, it worshipped violence through military exercises, arms smuggling into Ukraine, instigation of rebellions to undermine Ukraine's central government, and reneged on its own security promise to Ukraine in the Budapest Agreement. Russia acted with conducts unbecoming of a good neighbor to Ukraine. Russia is culpable.

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[-] -1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

you don't think the ukrainian government is attacking civilians in the east - with tanks and planes and helicopters? you think russia is the aggressor in this war - they want a cease fire and the ukrainian govt won't go for it - those are the facts - no?

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

The Soviet Union (Russia mostly) gave Crimea to Ukraine. Annexation of Crimea by Russian forces WAS aggression, breaking its covenant with Ukraine. The seed for the most destructive wars in history was planted precisely by this type of roguish behavior of Russia under Catherine "the Great" and also later. Russia's division and annexation of neighboring Poland (not to mention the Baltic countries) repeatedly helped bring on several bloodiest wars.

Instigation of riots and the funneling of heavy weapons to separatists in Ukraine amount to the subversion of the newly elected Kyiv government.

Yes, Russia, your slip is showing - your stooges in Ukraine who had PROBLEMS (how can local people get LOST in their neighborhoods?) finding the government buildings to take over spoke Russian. The balaclava-clad gunmen wore Russian military uniforms, used Russian military equipments, and spoke Russian.

Sure, civil wars are not very civil affairs. They are bloody affairs but what else can one expect after yet another mauling by the Russian "Polar Bear" which was a signatory to the Budapest Agreement guaranteeing Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Russia might have talked of a cease fire but what has it done instead? Shelling Eastern Ukraine from Russian territories. This bear IS extremely SICK judging by its flatulence. Russia is absolutely the aggressor in Eastern Ukraine, Crimea, Georgia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, etc. This damned bear is drunken with BLOOD!

[-] -2 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

do you realize that the eu demanded that ukraine take no aid from russia as a condition of their aid package - seems clear who wanted this crisis to escalate

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 9 years ago

It often takes two hands to clap. I had hoped for Russia's helping out with settling the humanitarian disaster in Syria but that obviously ended in failure. The EU has its own inclinations so tit for tat between Russia and the EU was unpreventable by the U.S. Both sides created the conditions for the conflagration - is it the hot coal or the bucket of liquid oxygen that has caused the boom? Really, no matter... We are all haunted by the ghosts of the past.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 9 years ago

Lets try to make some sense of this all...............hmmmmm f@#k where did I put that Rachel Maddow link . . . . d#mn . . . . oh well ummmm this should help:

Tue Jul 22, 2014 at 05:00 AM PDT Jon Stewart exposes GOP lies about Reagan's response to downed airliner

by BruinKidFollow

[-] 4 points by turbocharger (1756) 9 years ago

I hear all of these dumb shit Republicans talking about that, things like "He was a real president"..

The dumb war crazed freaks tend to forget that after Lebanon, he did absolutely nothing.

If that happened these days, Bush/Obama would probably nuke the fuckin place. Reagan can't hold their jock strap when it comes to foreign policy overload, but nothing makes things look how the establishment wants like time. Lots and lots of time.

[-] 4 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

nice - leave it to john to tell us the real story. his show is the best news on tv - very sad for our country

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[-] 4 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

have you seen this from ray McGovern? "Still, the U.S. press might pause to recall how it’s been manipulated by the U.S. government in the past, including three decades ago by the Reagan administration twisting the facts of the KAL-007 tragedy.

In that case, a Soviet fighter jet shot down a Korean Air Line plane on Sept. 1, 1983, after it strayed hundreds of miles off course and penetrated some of the Soviet Union’s most sensitive airspace over military facilities in Kamchatka and Sakhalin Island.

Over Sakhalin, KAL-007 was finally intercepted by a Soviet Sukhoi-15 fighter. The Soviet pilot tried to signal the plane to land, but the KAL pilots did not respond to the repeated warnings. Amid confusion about the plane’s identity — a U.S. spy plane had been in the vicinity hours earlier — Soviet ground control ordered the pilot to fire. He did, blasting the plane out of the sky and killing all 269 people on board.

The Soviets soon realized they had made a horrendous mistake. U.S. intelligence also knew from sensitive intercepts that the tragedy had resulted from a blunder, not from a willful act of murder (much as on July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes fired a missile that brought down an Iranian civilian airliner in the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people, an act which President Ronald Reagan explained as an “understandable accident”).

But a Soviet admission of a tragic blunder regarding KAL-007 wasn’t good enough for the Reagan administration, which saw the incident as a propaganda windfall. At the time, the felt imperative in Washington was to blacken the Soviet Union in the cause of Cold War propaganda and to escalate tensions with Moscow.

Falsifying the Case

To make the very blackest case against Moscow, the Reagan administration suppressed the exculpatory evidence from the U.S. electronic intercepts. The U.S. mantra became “the deliberate downing of a civilian passenger plane.” Newsweek ran a cover emblazoned with the headline “Murder in the Sky.”

“The Reagan administration’s spin machine began cranking up,” wrote Alvin A. Snyder, then-director of the U.S. Information Agency’s television and film division, in his 1995 book, Warriors of Disinformation.

USIA Director Charles Z. Wick “ordered his top agency aides to form a special task force to devise ways of playing the story overseas. The objective, quite simply, was to heap as much abuse on the Soviet Union as possible,” Snyder recalled.

Snyder noted that “the American media swallowed the U.S. government line without reservation. Said the venerable Ted Koppel on the ABC News ‘Nightline’ program: ‘This has been one of those occasions when there is very little difference between what is churned out by the U.S. government propaganda organs and by the commercial broadcasting networks.’”

On Sept. 6, 1983, the Reagan administration went so far as to present a doctored transcript of the intercepts to the United Nations Security Council (a prelude to a similar false presentation two decades later by Secretary of State Colin Powell on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction).

“The tape was supposed to run 50 minutes,” Snyder said about recorded Soviet intercepts. “But the tape segment we [at USIA] had ran only eight minutes and 32 seconds. … ‘Do I detect the fine hand of [Richard Nixon's secretary] Rosemary Woods here?’ I asked sarcastically.’”

But Snyder had a job to do: producing the video that his superiors wanted. “The perception we wanted to convey was that the Soviet Union had cold-bloodedly carried out a barbaric act,” Snyder wrote.

Only a decade later, when Snyder saw the complete transcripts — including the portions that the Reagan administration had hidden — would he fully realize how many of the central elements of the U.S. presentation were false.

The Soviet fighter pilot apparently did believe he was pursuing a U.S. spy plane, according to the intercepts, and he was having trouble in the dark identifying the plane. At the instructions of Soviet ground controllers, the pilot had circled the KAL airliner and tilted his wings to force the aircraft down. The pilot said he fired warning shots, too. “This comment was also not on the tape we were provided,” Snyder wrote.

It was clear to Snyder that in the pursuit of its Cold War aims, the Reagan administration had presented false accusations to the United Nations, as well as to the people of the United States and the world. To these Republicans, the ends of smearing the Soviets had justified the means of falsifying the historical record.

In his book, Snyder acknowledged his role in the deception and drew an ironic lesson from the incident. The senior USIA official wrote, “The moral of the story is that all governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The key is to lie first.” [For more details on the KAL-007 deception and the history of U.S. trickery, see Consortiumnews.com’s “A Dodgy Dossier on Syrian War.”]

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[-] 0 points by Nevada1 (5843) 9 years ago

Good post. Typical False Flag by US/TPTB.

[-] 1 points by flip (7101) 9 years ago

seems that way no?

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