The 4th Media » US Intel Stands Pat on MH-17 Shoot-down

Exclusive: Almost eight months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine – creating a flashpoint in the standoff between nuclear-armed Russia and America – the U.S. intelligence community claims it has not updated its assessment since five days after the crash, reports Robert Parry.

----------

Despite the high stakes involved in the confrontation between nuclear-armed Russia and the United States over Ukraine, the U.S. intelligence community has not updated its assessment on a critical turning point of the crisis – the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 – since five days after the crash last July 17, according to the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

On Thursday, when I inquired about arranging a possible briefing on where that U.S. intelligence assessment stands, DNI spokesperson Kathleen Butler sent me the same report that was distributed by the DNI on July 22, 2014, which relied heavily on claims being made about the incident on social media.

So, I sent a follow-up e-mail to Butler saying: “are you telling me that U.S. intelligence has not refined its assessment of what happened to MH-17 since July 22, 2014?”
Her response: “Yes. The assessment is the same.”

I then wrote back: “I don’t mean to be difficult but that’s just not credible. U.S. intelligence has surely refined its assessment of this important event since July 22.”

When she didn’t respond, I sent her some more detailed questions describing leaks that I had received about what some U.S. intelligence analysts have since concluded, as well as what the German intelligence agency, the BND, reported to a parliamentary committee last October, according to Der Spiegel.

While there are differences in those analyses about who fired the missile, there appears to be agreement that the Russian government did not supply the ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine with a sophisticated Buk anti-aircraft missile system that the original DNI report identified as the likely weapon used to destroy the commercial airliner killing all 298 people onboard.
Butler replied to my last e-mail late Friday, saying “As you can imagine, I can’t get into details, but can share that the assessment has IC [Intelligence Community] consensus” – apparently still referring to the July 22 report.

Complete story at - The 4th Media » US Intel Stands Pat on MH-17 Shoot-down

Another MH17 Cover-Up: Hiding a Key Autopsy - Fort Russ

By Eric Zuesse

Decisive evidence as to how the July 17th shooting-down of the MH17 Malaysian airliner occurred is being hidden by the four-nation team that’s doing the official ‘investigation’ into the plane-downing incident.

This decisive evidence is the coroner’s report on the corpse of the airliner’s pilot. If the pilot was killed by bullets, then the standard ‘explanation’ of the downing (that the plane was downed by a ground-fired missile) isn’t just false, it’s an outright hoax. So: where’s the pilot’s autopsy?

This investigation is important because stringent economic sanctions against Russia were instituted immediately after the downing; these sanctions were based upon never-substantiated charges from the Ukrainian Government, and from its sponsor the U.S. Government, alleging that the plane had been downed by rebels who were supported by Russia. (The “Buk” missile launcher charged by Ukraine as the cause was actually manned by Ukraine’s soldiers.)

The same Government, the U.S., that had lied its way into invading Iraq, might now be orchestrating still-more-dangerous frauds, with the potential even for a nuclear war against Russia.

The four nations doing the official investigation and report into the airliner-downing are: Ukraine, Australia, Belgium, and Netherlands. All four are U.S. allies; and, one of them, Ukraine, is one of the two main suspects in this case, the other being separatists against the Ukrainian Government. 

(They’re not represented in this ‘investigation.’) The United States and Ukraine say that the airliner was downed by separatists who mistakenly thought that they were shooting down a Ukrainian bomber instead of an airliner. (Even if that had been true, the U.S. would still have been the ultimate cause of the downing. The whole cover-story was designed to be believed only by fools.)

However, the Ukrainian Government, which until now has maintained steadfastly that there is only one possible explanation for the downing — their explanation, that it had been downed by a “Buk” ground-fired missile controlled by the rebels — finally changed their tune on December 21st, and announced that maybe it wasn’t. Apparently, the other three nations on the team are refusing to sign their names onto a joint report from all four (according to the secret agreement signed by them all on August 8th, this report will be unanimous or else it won’t be at all) that commits to Ukraine’s ‘explanation,’ because the real evidence is overwhelmingly against it — as will herein be explained and documented.

According to London’s Daily Mail on December 5th, a video documentary from a Russian journalist “suggested” that, “pieces of 30mm rounds were found in the bodies of the pilots.” 30mm bullets are the same size of bullets that come from the types of fighter-jet planes that are in the Ukrainian Air Force, including the following jets: Su-25, Su-27, and Mig-29. 30mm bullets are very different from missile-shrapnel, which the U.S. and Ukraine allege had brought down this airliner.

Complete story at - Another MH17 Cover-Up: Hiding a Key Autopsy - Fort Russ

Captain Wan Amran left behind his wife and two sons, Wan Yusof, 10 and Wan Irfan, eight

Call For Independent Inquiry of the Malaysia Air Crash in Ukraine and its Catastrophic Aftermath | RootsAction

CALL FOR INDEPENDENT INQUIRY OF THE AIRPLANE CRASH IN UKRAINE AND ITS CATASTROPHIC AFTERMATH
TO: ALL THE HEADS OF STATES OF NATO COUNTRIES, AND OF RUSSIA AND THE UKRAINE, TO BAN-KI MOON AND THE HEADS OF STATES OF COUNTRIES ON THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL


2,237 of 3,000 signatures

Campaign created by alice slater

At this very moment in history, when so many people and nations around the world are acknowledging the 100th Anniversary of our planet's hapless stumble into World War I, great powers and their allies are ironically once again provoking new dangers where governments appear to be sleepwalking towards a restoration of old Cold War battles. A barrage of conflicting information is broadcast in the various national and nationalistic media with alternative versions of reality that provoke and stoke new enmities and rivalries across national borders.

With the U.S. and Russia in possession of over 15,000 of the world’s 16,400 nuclear weapons, humanity can ill-afford to stand by and permit these conflicting views of history and opposing assessments of the facts on the ground to lead to a 21st Century military confrontation between the great powers and their allies. While sadly acknowledging the trauma suffered by the countries of Eastern Europe from years of Soviet occupation, and understanding their desire for the protection of the NATO military alliance, we the signers of this global call to action also note that the Russian people lost 20 million people during WWII to the Nazi onslaught and are understandably wary of NATO expansion to their borders in a hostile environment. Russia has lost the protection of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the US abandoned in 2001, and warily observes missile bases metastasizing ever closer to its borders in new NATO member states, while the US rejects repeated Russian efforts for negotiations on a treaty to ban weapons in space, or Russia’s prior application for membership in NATO.

For these reasons, we the peoples, as members of Civil Society, Non-Governmental Organizations, and global citizens, committed to peace and nuclear disarmament, demand that an independent international inquiry be commissioned to review events in Ukraine leading up to the Malaysian jet crash and of the procedures being used to review the catastrophic aftermath. The inquiry should factually determine the cause of the accident and hold responsible parties accountable to the families of the victims and the citizens of the world who fervently desire peace and a peaceful settlement of any existing conflicts. It should include a fair and balanced presentation of what led to the deterioration of U.S. –Russian relations and the new hostile and polarized posture that the U.S. and Russia with their allies find themselves in today.

The UN Security Council, with US and Russian agreement, has already passed Resolution 2166 addressing the Malaysian jet crash, demanding accountability, full access to the site and a halt to military activity which has been painfully disregarded at various times since the incident. One of the provisions of SC Res 2166 notes that the Council “[s]upports efforts to establish a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines.” Further, the 1909 revised Convention on the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes adopted at the 1899 Hague International Peace Conference has been used successfully to resolve issues between states so that war was avoided in the past. Both Russia and Ukraine are parties to the Convention.

Regardless of the forum where the evidence is gathered and fairly evaluated, we the undersigned urge that the facts be known as to how we got to this unfortunate state of affairs on our planet today and what might be the solutions. We urge Russia and Ukraine as well as their allies and partners to engage in diplomacy and negotiations, not war and hostile alienating actions. The world can little afford the trillions of dollars in military spending and trillions and trillions of brain cells wasted on war when our very Earth is under stress and needs the critical attention of our best minds and thinking and the abundance of resources mindlessly diverted to war to be made available for the challenge confronting us to create a livable future for life on earth.
Why is this important?

It’s important because there is so much misinformation and disinformation in the media that we are careening towards a new cold war with Russia over this.

Initial Signatories for petition:
(Organizations for Identification Only)

Hon. Douglas Roche, OC, Canada
David Swanson, co-founder, World Beyond War
Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space
Alice Slater, JD, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, NY
Professor Francis A. Boyle, University of Illinois College of Law
Natasha Mayers, Union of Maine Visual Artists
David Hartsough, co-founder, World Beyond War
Larry Dansinger, Resources for Organizing and Social Change
Ellen Judd, Project Peacemakers
Coleen Rowley, Women Against Military Madness
Medea Benjamin, Code Pink
Brian Noyes Pulling, M. Div.
Anni Cooper, Peaceworks
Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance
Leah Bolger, CDR, USN (Ret), Veterans for Peace
Raymond McGovern, former CIA analyst, VA
Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance
Gloria McMillan, Tucson Balkan Peace Support Group
Ellen E. Barfield, Veterans for Peace
Cecile Pineda, author. Devil's Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step
Jill McManus
Steve Leeper, Visiting professor, Hiroshima Jogakuin University,Nagasaki University
Kyoto University of Art and Design
William H. Slavick, Pax Christi Maine
Helen Caldicott, Helen Caldicott Foundation
David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Brigadier Vijai K Nair, VSM [Retd] Ph.D. , Magoo Strategic Infotech Pvt Ltd
Kevin Martin, Peace Action
Carol Reilly Urner, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Ann E. Ruthsdottir
Kay Cumbow
Steven Starr, Senior Scientist, Physicians for Social Responsibility
Tiffany Tool, Peaceworkers
Sukla Sen, Committee for Communal Amnity, Mumbai India
Joan Russow, PhD, Coordinator, Global Compliance Research Project
Rob Mulford, Veterans for Peace, North Star Chapter, Alaska
Jacqueline Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, United for Peace and Justice
Ingeborg Breines, Co-president International Peace Bureau
Judith LeBlanc, Peace Action
Felicity Ruby
Jerry Stein, The Peace Farm, Amarillo , Texas
Michael Andregg, professor, St. Paul, Minnesota
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council, ret.: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Washington
Robert Shetterly, artist, “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” Maine
Katharine Gun, United Kingdom
Dave Webb, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK
Amber Garland, St. Paul, Minnesota
John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus
Beverly Bailey, Richfield, Minnesota
Joseph Gerson, Convener, Working Group for Peace & Demiitarization in Asia and the Pacific
Stephen McKeown, Richfield, Minnesota
Dominique Lalanne, France
Bill Rood, Rochester, Minnesota
Tom Klammer, radio host, Kansas City, Missouri
Barbara Vaile, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Mali Lightfoot, Helen Caldicott Foundation
Tony Henderson, spokesperson for universal humanism, Hong Kong
Darlene M. Coffman, Rochester, Minnesota
Sister Gladys Schmitz, Mankato, Minnesota
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
J. Kirk Wiebe, NSA Senior Analyst (ret.), MD
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Jill Stein, Green Party 2012 Presidential nominee
Cheri Honkala, Green Shadow Cabinet
Ed Asner
Norman Solomon, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Agneta Norberg, Sweden
Rick Rosoff, Stop NATO
Kathleen Sullivan, Hibakusha Stories
Michael Eisenscher, US Labor Against the War
Clare Coss, playwright
Jean-Marie Matagne, President, Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (France)
Carolyn Rusti Eisenberg, United for Peace and Justice
Ben Manski, president, Liberty Tree Foundation

Complete story at - Call For Independent Inquiry of the Airplane Crash in Ukraine and its Catastrophic Aftermath | RootsAction

Malaysia Airlines jet hit by ‘Ukrainian missile’ | Ukraina.ru

In a video posted on the Internet, a former Ukrainian army sergeant says the controversial Buk surface-to-air missile (SAM) system that purportedly downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MN17 belonged to the Ukrainian Armed Forces

The sergeant was interviewed by Ukrainian reporter Anatoly Sharyi.

According to the serviceman, when the Malaysian Boeing crashed, Ukraine tried to attribute the system to the self-defense forces or the Russian army.

"We were deployed in the field. First, in Kramatorsk (…). This is definitely a Ukrainian Buk. I personally know this machine. The Buk picture that I sent from Luhansk shows the Yubileinaya coalmine in the background. The military unit is in the town of Metallist. It was ridiculous when Kiev said the Buk belonged to the Russians or the self-defense forces," the sergeant said.

He also deciphered the digits in the self-propelled system’s ID number: "3" is the number of the Ukrainian army subdivision (Luhansk), "1" is the battery number, and "2" is the crew ID number.

"It is totally incomprehensible why a SAM system is necessary in the anti-terrorist operation zone," the soldier concluded.

Complete story at - Malaysia Airlines jet hit by ‘Ukrainian missile’ | Ukraina.ru

Frustrated Relatives of MH17 Victims Demand UN Take Over Investigation / Sputnik International

The families of the victims of Flight MH17, frustrated with what they see as the failure of Dutch authorities to investigate the disaster, are demanding that the UN take over the investigation and launch an international inquiry into the tragedy.

MOSCOW, December 6 (Sputnik) — The relatives of those died in the July, 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine are frustrated with what they see as a Dutch mishandling of the investigation into the tragedy.

They are now demanding that the UN take over and launch an international inquiry into the disaster.

Reuters obtained a copy of a letter written by Van der Goen Attorneys on behalf of 20 relatives from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the US, which was sent Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Friday, accusing Dutch officials of having failed to build a case.

The letter demanded that inquiries by the Safety Board and prosecution service be handed over to the UN, and that Rutte ask the UN to appoint a special envoy to take over.
It said the Netherlands "has completely botched" the fact-finding investigation and the legal framework of the case.

Complete story at - Frustrated Relatives of MH17 Victims Demand UN Take Over Investigation / Sputnik International

Netherlands Refuses To Divulge Secret MH17 Deal | DeepResource

In Dutch parliament several attempts by opposition parties to get access to the contents of a secret deal between amongst others, the Dutch government, Ukraine and the MH17 international investigation team, have failed. The Dutch government refuses to release information concerning 17 secret documents:



Fake arguments used: privacy of civil servants named in the documents, protecting investigation techniques and tactics as well as stimulating the free flow of sensitive information between the parties involved.

To add insult to injury, the Malayan ambassador on Dutch television (Nieuwsuur) has expressed his dismay yesterday, that his country was not invited to participate in the investigation. Since it was a Malayan airliner that was shot down, Malaysia is a primary stake-holder, but unfortunately not a vassal of the US, unlike those other countries that were invited: Holland, Belgium, Australia and Ukraine (the main suspect). And even the OSCE has criticized the way the Dutch government is handling the MH17 case.

The Netherlands is listed #8 on the global corruption index (#1 = least corrupt). The obvious attempt to cover up the murder of nearly 200 of its own citizens, just because the US insists for reasons of geopolitical opportunism, namely to lift the Ukraine unhindered from the Russian into the Western sphere of influence, should be sufficient reason to kick that country (the Netherlands) a few notches down that ranking. Add the Netherlands to the list of banana-republics. That’s what you get when you hang out with the wrong friends.

As said several times before, the West has no proof that Russian separatists did it, otherwise it would have been shouted from the rooftops. Now they follow plan B: covering the crime up with delay tactics.

Complete story at - Netherlands Refuses To Divulge Secret MH17 Deal | DeepResource

The Vineyard of the Saker: Obama in retreat on MH17

by Alexander Mercouris

Amidst all the hysteria about what western leaders said to Putin during the Brisbane G20 summit (answer: nothing new or important), the media has entirely ignored certain very interesting comments about MH17 that Obama made in his speech at the University of Queensland. His precise words (taken from the White House website) were as follows:

"We’re leading the international community in the fight to destroy the terrorist group ISIL. We're leading in dealing with Ebola in West Africa and in opposing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine -- which is a threat to the world, as we saw in the appalling shoot-down of MH17, a tragedy that took so many innocent lives, among them your fellow citizens. As your ally and friend, America shares the grief of these Australian families, and we share the determination of your nation for justice and accountability. So, yes, we have a range of responsibilities. That's the deal. It's a burden we gladly shoulder."

Obama played his usually sly trick of talking about the MH17 tragedy in conjunction with his condemnation of Russian policy ("Russia's aggression") towards the Ukraine. That way he continues to give the impression that Russia shot MH17 down.

This should not confuse. What is striking is that in this speech, delivered in Australia where the MH17 tragedy is a very hot issue, Obama did not say that Russia shot MH17 down and did not say that the NAF shot MH17 down. He did not even say (as he has said in the past) that MH17 was shot down by a surface to air missile launched from NAF controlled territory. Rather what Obama is now saying is that Russia is responsible for MH17 being shot down because by its supposed "aggression" against Ukraine it has supposedly created the conditions that led to MH17 being shot down.

This actually leaves open the possibility (for the first time coming from Obama or from anyone in the US administration) that it might have been the Ukrainians who shot MH17 down.

With a character as slippery as Obama it is never possible to be completely sure but this looks to me frankly like a retreat to a fall back position. Certainly it is a long way from the categorical claims made by Obama and Kerry in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

All this makes me wonder what Obama is been told in private by his intelligence chiefs as more information about the shoot down comes trickling in.

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Obama in retreat on MH17

The Vineyard of the Saker: New MH17 satellite photos - a warning

by Alexander Mercouris

I have deliberately helped back on the story about the satellite photos that supposedly show a Ukrainian fighter shooting down MH17 to see what the response would be, whether any more evidence would come to light and what the Russian government and military would say about them .

In the event the Russian government and military have ignored them as I notice to a great extent have Russian media organisations like Sputnik,TASS and RT.

The photos have been widely ridiculed as fakes and I am afraid I tend to agree. My reason for thinking that these photos are almost certainly fakes is not because of the specific criticisms that have been made of the photos (persuasive though some of these criticisms are) but that the photos are quite simply too good to be true. Until and unless we know the actual provenance of these photos (ie. whose satellite supposedly took them - we only know it was not the Russians') we should pay them no attention.

I would make two more points about these photos:

1. It seems that these photos were part of the evidence used by a body known as the Russian Institute of Engineers that published a report on MH17. I don't know much about this body but I was frankly unimpressed by the report. If the report did draw on these photos, then I am afraid that is another reason to treat that report with skepticism.

2. From literally the day MH17 was shot down it has been clear to me that an organised attempt is being made by someone to spread the story that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter. There was the story of the mysterious Spanish air traffic controller for instance that circulated within hours of the tragedy and which effectively got the theory going. Note that we have heard little or nothing from this person since then, which makes his evidence look even more like someone's fabrication.

It is possible that those behind this operation are the Russians, possibly because they know that that is what happened and they want to draw people's attention to the fact. However if that were the case then I would have expected them to say as much publicly and to make their evidence public since they have no conceivable reason to keep it secret.

Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: New MH17 satellite photos - a warning

Mainstream News Coverage of Ukraine, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Shows Western Propaganda Machine at Work

Media analyst and professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School, Edward S. Herman, co-author with Noam Chomsky of Manufacturing Consent, discusses the propaganda embedded in US mainstream media coverage of the Ukraine crisis.

Dan Falcone: What is missing in the US mainstream news coverage of Ukraine? What major elements are being suppressed?

Edward Herman: What is missing, first of all, is a minimum of objectivity. The media are functioning more than ever as a propaganda machine for the State Department. One thing missing - and being suppressed - is the important role of neo-Nazi elements both in the Kiev government and in the forces they have fielded in their war against East Ukraine. The media are eager to find Russians in Ukraine, but will not even recognize neo-fascists staring them in the face, but working on our side. They had earlier virtually suppressed the very important role of these right-wing elements in the Maidan protests and the accompanying violence and overthrow of the elected government in Kiev. The media regularly called those forces "protesters," whereas they called the East Ukraine rebels "pro-Russian militants" and "separatists" rather than "protesters" and "federalists." The double standards here are dramatic and the sign of a propaganda system at work.

So also is the different treatment of casualties. In the Maidan street protests and fighting before the coup, the media were very sensitive to violence against the protesters, although less attentive to violence by the protesters; whereas the thousands of civilian casualties in the Kiev war against the East have been of little interest to the media, again following the party line and paralleling the attention of [US Secretary of State John] Kerry and [US Ambassador to the UN Samantha] Power. They buried the story of the Odessa massacre, which was surely of greater scope than the Racak massacre in Kosovo, which so aroused US officials and the ever-so-amenable media.

Complete story at - Mainstream News Coverage of Ukraine, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Shows Western Propaganda Machine at Work

Why the Silence on MH17? - Russia Insider

Common sense dictates who is responsible for shooting MH17 out of the sky over a conflict zone in Ukraine.

Common sense says it was the Ukrainian military or Ukrainian extremist militias waging war in east Ukraine on Kiev's behalf.

However that is a truth no one wants to discuss.

The US says MH17 was shot down from inside Ukraine. That appears to rule Russia out.

MH17 was shot down by an aircraft or a surface to air missile. The rebels have no aircraft. There is no convincing evidence the rebels have surface to air missiles capable of shooting down aircraft at the altitude MH17 was flying. Ukrainian intelligence has produced photos culled from social media it says show such surface to air missiles in rebel hands. That sort of evidence is worthless since it is so easy to fake. If the rebels had neither the aircraft nor the missiles then they cannot have shot MH17 down.

By contrast there is absolutely no doubt the Ukrainian military had both the aircraft and the missiles available to shoot MH17 down.

Common sense says Washington knows most of the story and knows who is responsible.

Complete story at - Why the Silence on MH17? - Russia Insider

MH17: Relatives of German victims to sue Ukraine for negligence, says lawyer - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Relatives of German victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 downed over Ukraine plan to sue the country and its president for manslaughter by negligence in 298 cases, the lawyer representing them said.

Professor of aviation law Elmar Giemulla, who is representing three families of German victims, said that under international law Ukraine should have closed its air space if it could not guarantee the safety of flights.

"Each state is responsible for the security of its air space," Mr Giemulla said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

"If it is not able to do so temporarily, it must close its air space. As that did not happen, Ukraine is liable for the damage."

Bild am Sonntag Sunday newspaper quoted Mr Giemulla as saying that by not closing its airspace, Ukraine had accepted that the lives of hundreds of innocent people would be "annihilated" and this was a violation of human rights.

Complete story at - MH17: Relatives of German victims to sue Ukraine for negligence, says lawyer - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 reeks of Northwoods | New Eastern Outlook

July 17, 2014. A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 on flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur plunged out of the sky in eastern Ukraine. The crash resulted in the death of all 298 passengers and crew. Malaysian Premier Najib Razak lashed out at those behind the geopolitical chess game that led to the tragedy. An independent journalistic investigation was stonewalled with strategies ranging from ignoring calls and mails to an attempt to infect our PC with mal-ware via an e-mail sent from Ukraine. All of that, of course, in the interest of an international flying public who is expected to shut up and trust that they won’t win in the lottery of death. The MH17 tragedy reeks of operation Northwoods.

The Plane, Malaysia Airlines, and Malaysian PM Najib Razak.

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) stated that the 19 year-old Boeing 777-200 had a perfect maintenance and safety record. There was, in other words, no apparent reason why the plane should suddeny disintegrate in flight and plummet out of the sky with 298 souls on board. The immediate response was an international positioning and blame-game that prompted a visibly shaken Malaysian Premier Najib Razak to lash out at ”those behind the geopolitical chess game that led to the disaster”, adding:

”As a leader, there has never been an occasion as heart-breaking as what I went through yesterday. Wives losing their husbands, fathers losing their children. Imagine their feelings from such a great loss. … This is what happens when there is a conflict that cannot be resolved through negotiations, with peace. In the end, who becomes the victim? Najib Razak’s words were ominous and reflected precisely the sentiment of millions of people worldwide. People who depend on air traffic for business, for holidays, for being reunited with loved ones, and the fact that all of them are being held in the dark about what happened on that fateful day.

A lot of Speculation and very little Evidence.

Speculations ran wild from day one and both the USA, Ukraine and Russia provided what was described as “evidence”. The problem is, non of the “evidence” was made available to independent media for independent analysis. The flightaware software showed that MAS MH17 had flown a more southernly route in the days before the tragedy and that the route was changed to a more northernly route on July 16.On July 17, the route was changed even farther to the North, directly over a conflict zone and air-space that according to MAS and the Ukrainian government had been closed to an altitude of 32,000 ft. When the pilot of MH17 filed a flight plan in Amsterdam, he requested an altitude of 35,000 ft, reported MAS, adding that Ukrainian air traffic controllers had contacted the Boeing 777-200 crew when it entered Ukrainian air space and designated an altitude of 32,000 ft. The U.S. State Department claimed that it possessed evidence, showing that so-called “pro-Russian rebels”had shot down the plane. Ukrainian authorities released Youtube videos, including one that allegedly showed rebels driving a self-propelled rocket launcher with one of the rockets missing. The Russian Foreign Ministry then released a statement showing that the video was shot in a region that was controlled by troops loyal to Kiev. The Russian Foreign Ministry also released a video showing a screen shot from a radar station in the Rostov region plus satellite images. The radar screen shot showed MAS MH17 rapidly deviating from its course in northeasterly and then again in southeasterly direction before it lost speed and disappeared from radar. The radar images also showed that a plane with primary radar return only ascended towards MAS MH17. The fact that the plane gave aprimary radar return only, led to speculation that it may have been a SU-25 from the Ukrainian air force.

Complete story at - Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 reeks of Northwoods | New Eastern Outlook

Asia Times Online :: Vanishing point …

By Pepe Escobar

First, passenger airliner MH370 vanished from Planet Earth. Then MH370 vanished from the news cycle. First, MH17 was shot down by "Putin's missile" - as Planet Earth was told. Then MH17 vanished from the news cycle.

Where's Baudrillard when we need him? Had he been alive, the dervish of simulacra would have already deconstructed these two Malaysian planes as mirror images; from absolute vanishing to maximum exposure, then vanished again. They might as well have been abducted - and shot - by aliens. Now you seem them, now you don't.

Black boxes, data recorders - everything MH17 is now floating in a black void. The British are taking forever to analyze the data - and if they have already done so, they are not talking. It's as if they were singing, I see a black box / and I want it painted black … void.

The Pentagon, with 20-20 vision over Ukraine, knows what happened. Russian intelligence not only knows what happened but offered a tantalizing glimpse of it in an official presentation, dismissed by the "West". The best technical analyses point not to "Putin's missile" - a BUK - but to a combination of R-60 air-to-air missile and the auto-cannon of an Su-25.

A reader led me to this fair assessment by former USAF and Boeing engineer Raymond Blohm: "With proper vectoring, a Su-25 need not be quite as fast as a Boeing 777 in cruise. It just has to get to a missile-firing position. Since the 777 was not maneuvering, it would be simple to pre-calculate when to get in a certain spot in the sky below the 777. From there, it's the missile that has the speed and altitude capability to hit the 777. (The R-60 is a very capable missile.) After the missile takes out an engine, both the 777's max speed and its max altitude are well within the Su-25 fighter's speed & altitude capabilities. Then, the Su-25 can show off its cannon power."

Complete story at - Asia Times Online :: Vanishing point …

ZCommunications » Outrage

by Noam Chomsky

Almost every day brings news of awful crimes, but some are so heinous, so horrendous and malicious, that they dwarf all else. One of those rare events took place on July 17, when Malaysian Airlines MH17 was shot down in Eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people.

The Guardian of Virtue in the White House denounced it as an “outrage of unspeakable proportions,” which he attributed to “Russian support.” His UN Ambassador thundered that “when 298 civilians are killed” in the “horrific downing” of a civilian plane, “we must stop at nothing to determine who is responsible and to bring them to justice.” She also called on Putin to end his shameful efforts to evade his very clear responsibility.

True, the “irritating little man” with the “ratlike face” (Timothy Garton Ash) had called for an independent investigation, but that could only have been because of sanctions from the one country courageous enough to impose them, the United States, while Europeans had cowered in fear.

On CNN, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor assured the world that the irritating little man “is clearly responsible…for the shoot down of this airliner.” For weeks, lead stories reported on the anguish of the families, the lives of the murdered victims, the international efforts to claim the bodies, the fury over the horrific crime that “stunned the world,” as the press reported daily in grisly detail.

Every literate person, and certainly every editor and commentator, instantly recalled another case when a plane was shot down with comparable loss of life: Iran Air 655 with 290 killed, including 66 children, shot down in Iranian airspace in a clearly identified commercial air route. The crime was not carried out “with U.S. support,” nor has its agent ever been uncertain. It was the guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes, operating in Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf.

The commander of a nearby U.S. vessel, David Carlson, wrote in the U.S. Naval Proceedings that he “wondered aloud in disbelief” as “’The Vincennes announced her intentions” to attack what was clearly a civilian aircraft. He speculated that “Robo Cruiser,” as the Vincennes was called because of its aggressive behavior, “felt a need to prove the viability of Aegis (the sophisticated anti-aircraft system on the cruiser) in the Persian Gulf, and that they hankered for the opportunity to show their stuff.”

Complete story at - ZCommunications » Outrage

‘Wrong time, altered images’ Moscow slams Kiev’s MH17 satellite data — RT News

Satellite images Kiev published as ‘proof’ it didn’t deploy anti-aircraft batteries around the MH17 crash site carry altered time-stamps and are from days after the MH17 tragedy, the Russian Defense Ministry has revealed.

The images, which Kiev claims were taken by its satellites at the same time as those taken by Russian satellites, are neither Ukrainian nor authentic, according to a Moscow statement.

The Defense Ministry said the images were apparently made by an American KeyHole reconnaissance satellite, because the two Ukrainian satellites currently in orbit, Sich-1 and Sich-2, were not positioned over the part of Ukraine’s Donetsk Region shown in the pictures.

Moscow claims weather and lighting conditions in the images were not be possible at the dates and times Ukraine claims they were made, the Russian military said.

At least one of the images published by Ukraine shows signs of being altered by an image editor, the statement added.

The Russian ministry also criticized images published by Kiev to back its allegations Russia smuggled heavy weapons over the border and shelled Ukrainian army positions.

The images lack proper timestamps and coordinates, while Kiev didn’t bother to explain why it believes that whatever vehicles are shown in them are Russian, the statement pointed out.

“It’s the latest ‘masterpiece’ in the Ukrainian exercise in conspiracy theories, an attempt to divert responsibility,” the defense ministry said.

Complete story at - ‘Wrong time, altered images’ Moscow slams Kiev’s MH17 satellite data — RT News

Ukraine MH17 may be CIA false flag and it ain’t flying — RT Op-Edge

The world has seen all this theatre before. We saw it with the false flag Gulf of Tonkin incident during the Vietnam War. We saw it with the CIA-Saudi faked Sarin gas episode in 2013 that brought the world to the brink of a world war.

We saw it in the fake Niger uranium yellowcake episode that was used to bully a US Congress into war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003—the so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction that were never found.

Now the world is seeing it again in the frantic efforts by the US State Department and elements of the CIA to try to blame Putin’s Russia for allegedly giving the east Ukraine separatist rebels highly sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft weapons allegedly used to shoot down the Malaysia Airlines plane.

Putin, so charges Secretary of State John Kerry on five (!) US talk shows on July 20, is de facto guilty for not controlling the eastern Ukraine rebels. The proof of it all? “Social media,” according to the State Department official press spokesperson.

The good news for those sober souls who are not eager to see a World War III pitting China-Russia and the BRICS against a US-led NATO and turning Western Europe into a devastated Trümmerfeld for the third time in a century, is that this attempt to blame Putin’s Russia is backfiring even as this is being written.

Unanswered questions

One of the most shocking features of Western mainstream media coverage of the MH17 event is the utter lack of serious, cautious investigative journalism of the variety which used to exist only a few years ago. Rather than err on the side of caution before rushing to judgment in a situation that could easily trigger a new Cold War or worse, CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, and most EU media including German simply quote Kiev government officials, among them the neo-Nazi ones, as if they were credible. Real inquiry must look at the unanswered questions.

First we should begin with several very vital unanswered questions before making judgment what happened to MH17 Boeing 777 aircraft on July 17.

Complete story at - Ukraine MH17 may be CIA false flag and it ain’t flying — RT Op-Edge

West Isolating Itself with Sanctions Against Russia | New Eastern Outlook

Citing the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 as impetus, US President Barack Obama announced stronger sanctions against Russia leveled by both the US and EU. This comes after previous sanctions implemented before the downing of MH17 failed to garner support across Europe, leaving the US measures politically and economically impotent. In the wake of American sanctions, pundits, politicians, and corporate-lobbyists decried Europe’s desire to continue doing business with Russia, claiming US sanctions alone would only hurt US corporations leaving a void gladly filled by Europe and others.

MH17 – The Convenient Impetus

With the “serendipitous” downing of MH17, this geopolitical calculus changed abruptly, and US President Barack Obama, even while admitting investigations were ongoing, invoked the tragedy to justify both the pressure put on Europe to finally impose stronger sanctions against Russia, but also as a means to sell the decision to a public targeted by weeks of baseless anti-Russian propaganda.

Clearly MH17 is being exploited, and especially so since investigations are still under way and no conclusions – or even preliminary results – have been announced. At face value, the West exposes itself as shameless opportunists leveraging human misery to advance their geopolitical ambitions. But Washington, London, and Brussels’ actions also raise serious suspicion over their possible role in the downing of the aircraft. While evidence is forthcoming, a motive for the West to have shot the aircraft down and blame Russia has been demonstrably established.

Despite the “convenience” of the MH17 tragedy and the expediency with which the West has exploited it, this latest attempt to ram through ineffectual sanctions indicate increased desperation from Washington, London, and Brussels, not a renewed initiative in Ukraine, or against Russia as a whole.

Sanctions Don’t Work

Sanctions haven’t worked against nations many times smaller and economically weaker than Russia, and they won’t work against Russia. In fact, the sanctions will instead motivate Moscow to build stronger ties elsewhere, as well as become stronger internally. Many of the sanctions will not even bite for years to come – if ever. Europe was initially reluctant to level sanctions against Russia, not because of any particular affinity for Moscow, but because they would suffer economically as a result of implementing them. Western think-tanks bemoaned Europe’s insistence that the “pain” be shared equally – pain the sanctions were surely to cause all those who agreed to them.

It took the shameless political exploitation of a tragedy to twist Europe’s collective arms into agreeing to the measures now being taken, measures that will immediately begin effecting European nations dependent on long-standing economic ties with Russia and ties that cannot be easily replaced.

Japan likewise, citing nothing other than a desire to “cooperate with G7,” issued new sanctions against Russia – Japan also being a nation that cannot afford narrowing prospects for its declining economy.

Complete story at - West Isolating Itself with Sanctions Against Russia | New Eastern Outlook

OCSE monitor mentions bullet holes in MH17

TV ZVEZDA: Who Benefits from the downing of #MH17 - ENG Subs

Russia Bashing: Hatred, Hysteria and Humbug | The Smirking Chimp

by Brian Cloughley

“A civilian jet airliner shot down by US Navy surface to air missiles on 3 July 1988 as it flew over the Strait of Hormuz at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The aircraft, an Airbus A300B2-203 operated by Iran Air, was flying from Bandar Abbas, Iran, to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. While flying in Iranian airspace over Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf on its usual flight path, it was destroyed by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes. All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, perished.”

The captain of the ship that killed 290 innocent people was given a high military decoration by the United States of America “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service” during his period in command.

The following report about Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 sums up the attitude of the great majority of the west’s media and political administrations to the disaster in Ukraine. It is from a British newspaper that I used to respect, the Independent, which announced that “The 192 bodies found after the Flight MH17 plane crash have been bundled into black body bags and unceremoniously loaded into large refrigerated train cars, bound, it is understood, for the rebel heartland.” The paper didn’t have a reporter anywhere near the place, and shifted its shaky ground a bit when stating that “the bodies were reportedly moved by Ukraine’s emergency services who were working for the rebels under duress on Sunday.” It had to inject that “under duress” bit, but couldn’t avoid admitting that experts from official Ukrainian emergency services were involved.

If the bodies had been dealt with in the way the Independent claimed then of course there would be reason for disgust and condemnation. But it didn’t happen that way. The bodies were not “bundled” into body bags, nor were they “unceremoniously” loaded into the refrigerated wagons. But lots of media outlets followed the same propaganda line. The UK Daily Mail, which is admittedly a joke of a newspaper, screamed that “pro-Russian rebels left the victims’ bodies to decay for several days in body bags dumped around the crash site before eventually allowing them to be taken by train to Kharkiv airport.” Absolute rubbish.

According to Euronews, to which (with Al Jazeera, AFP, AP, Reuters and the BBC) I increasingly have recourse in order to obtain unbiased accounts of world affairs, it wasn’t like that at all. It reported that “the Ukrainian government announced that it had reached an agreement on the removal of bodies with representatives of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, the pro-Russian rebels who control the territory around the crash site” and that “International observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) inspected the train before it departed. The train was made up of refrigerated wagons to preserve the remains of the victims.” The BBC recorded that “the remains . . . have been loaded on to refrigerated rail wagons,” and that “Dutch experts examined some of the 196 bodies kept in refrigerator wagons in Torez, some 15 km away from the crash site. ‘I think the storage of the bodies is of good quality,’ team leader Peter van Leit said after the inspection.” There was no drama about these reports — because there was no drama.

Complete story at - Russia Bashing: Hatred, Hysteria and Humbug | The Smirking Chimp