What Happened to the Malaysian Airliner? — Paul Craig Roberts
What Happened to the Malaysian Airliner?
Paul Craig Roberts
Washington’s propaganda machine is in such high
gear that we are in danger of losing
the facts that we do have.
the facts that we do have.
One fact is that the separatists do not have the expensive Buk
anti-aircraft missile system or the trained personnel to operate it.
Another fact is that the separatists have no
incentive to shoot down an airliner and neither does Russia. Anyone can tell the
difference between low-flying attack aircraft and an airliner at 33,000 feet.
The Ukrainians do have Buk anti-aircraft missile
systems, and a Buk battery was operational in the region and deployed at a site
from which it could have fired a missile at the airliner.
Just as the separatists and the Russian government
have no incentive to shoot down an airliner, neither does the Ukrainian
government nor, one would think, even the crazed extreme Ukrainian nationalists
who have formed militias to take the fight against the separatists that the
Ukrainian army is not keen to undertake–unless there was a plan to frame Russia.
One Russian general familiar with the weapon system
offered his opinion that it was a mistake made by the Ukrainian military
untrained in the weapon’s use. The general said that although Ukraine has a few
of the weapons, Ukrainians have had no training in their use in the 23 years
since Ukraine separated from Russia. The general thinks it was an accident due
to incompetence.
This explanation makes a certain amount of sense
and far more sense than Washington’s propaganda. The problem with the general’s
explanation is that it does not explain why the Buk anti-aircraft missile system
was deployed near or in a separatist territory. The separatists have no
aircraft. It seems odd for Ukraine to have an expensive missile system in
an area in which it is of no military use and where the position could be
overrun and captured by separatists.
As Washington, Kiev, and the presstitute media are
committed to the propaganda that Putin did it, we are not going to get any
reliable information from the US media. We will have to figure it out for
ourselves.
One way to begin is to ask: Why was the missile
system where it was? Why risk an expensive missile system by deploying it in a
conflict environment in which it is of no use? Incompetence is one answer, and
another is that the missile system did have an intended use.
What intended use? News reports and circumstantial
evidence provide two answers. One is that the ultra-nationalist extremists
intended to bring down Putin’s presidential airliner and confused the Malaysian
airliner with the Russian airliner.
The Interfax news agency citing anonymous sources,
apparently air traffic controllers, reported that the Malaysian airliner and
Putin’s airliner were traveling almost the identical route within a few minutes
of one another. Interfax quotes its source: “I can say that Putin’s plane and
the Malaysian Boeing intersected at the same point and the same echelon. That
was close to Warsaw on 330-m echelon at the height of 10,100 meters. The
presidential jet was there at 16:21 Moscow time and the Malaysian aircraft at
15:44 Moscow time. The contours of the aircrafts are similar, linear dimensions
are also very similar, as for the coloring, at a quite remote distance they are
almost identical.”
I have not seen an official Russian denial, but
according to news reports, the Russian government in response to the Interfax
news report said that Putin’s presidential plane no longer flies the Ukraine
route since the outbreak of hostilities.
Before we take the denial at face value, we need to
be aware that the implication that Ukraine attempted to assassinate the
president of Russia implies war, which Russia wants to avoid. It also implies
Washington’s complicity as it is highly unlikely that Washington’s puppet in
Kiev would risk such a dangerous act without Washington’s backing. The Russian
government, being intelligent and rational, would obviously deny reports of an
attempted assassination of the Russian president by Washington and its Kiev
puppet. Otherwise, Russia has to do something about it, and that means
war.
The second explanation is that the extremists who
operate outside the official Ukrainian military, hatched a plot to down an
airliner in order to cast the blame on Russia. If such a plot occurred, it
likely originated with the CIA or some operative arm of Washington and was
intended to force the EU to cease resisting Washington’s sanctions against
Russia and to break off Europe’s valuable economic relationships with Russia.
Washington is frustrated that its sanctions are unilateral, unsupported by its
NATO puppets or any other countries in the world except possibly the lap-dog
British PM.
There is considerable circumstantial evidence in
support of this second explanation. There is the youtube video which purports to
be a conversation between a Russian general and separatists who are discussing
having mistakenly brought down a civilian airliner. According to
reports, expert examination of the code in the video reveal that it was made the day before the airliner was
hit.
Another problem with the video is that whereas we
could say that separatists conceivably could confuse an airliner at 33,000 feet
with a military attack plane, the Russian military would not. The only
conclusion is that by involving the Russian military, the video doubly
discredited itself.
The circumstantial evidence easiest for
non-technical people to understand is the on cue news programs
organized to put the blame on Russia prior to the knowledge of any
facts.
In my previous article http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/17/sanctions-airliners-paul-craig-roberts/
I reported on the BBC news
report which I heard and which was obviously primed to place all blame on
Russia. The program ended with a BBC correspondent breathlessly reporting that
he has just seen the youtube video and that the video is the smoking gun that
proved Russia did it. There is no longer any doubt, he said. Somehow the
information got on a video and on youtube before it reached the Ukrainian
government or Washington.
The evidence that Putin did it is a video made
prior to the attack on the airliner. The entire BBC report aired over National
Public Radio was orchestrated for the sole purpose of establishing prior to any
evidence that Russia was responsible.
Indeed the entire Western media spoke as one:
Russia did it. And the presstitutes are still speaking the same way.
Possibly, this uniform opinion merely reflects the
pavlovian training of the Western media to automatically line up with
Washington. No media source wants to be subject to criticism for being
unamerican or to find itself isolated by majority opinion, which carries the
day, and earn black marks for being wrong. As a former journalist for, and
contributor to, America’s most important news publications, I know how this
works.
On the other hand, if we discount the pavlovian
conditioning, the only conclusion is that the entire news cycle pertaining to
the downing of the Malaysian airliner is orchestrated in order to lay the blame
on Putin.
Romesh Ratnesar, deputy editor of Bloomberg
Businessweek, provides convincing evidence for orchestration in his own remarks
of July 17.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-17/the-malaysia-airlines-shootdown-spells-disaster-for-putin?campaign_id=DN071814
Ratnesar’s opinion title
is: “The Malaysia Airlines Shootdown Spells Disaster for Putin.” Ratnesar does
not mean that Putin is being framed-up. He means that prior to Putin having the
Malaysian airliner shot down, “to the vast majority of Americans, Russia’s
meddling in Ukraine has largely seemed of peripheral importance to U.S.
interests. That calculus has changed. . . . It may take months, even years, but
Putin’s recklessness is bound to catch up to him. When it does, the downing of
MH 17 may be seen as the beginning of his undoing.”
As a former Wall Street Journal editor, anyone who
handed me a piece of shit like Ratnesar published would have been fired. Look at
the insinuations when there is no evidence to support them. Look at the lie that
Washington’s coup is “Russia’s meddling in Ukraine.” What we are witnessing is
the total corruption of Western journalism by Washington’s imperial agenda.
Journalists have to get on board with the lies or get run over.
Look around for still honest journalists. Who are
they? Glenn Greenwald, who is under constant attack by his fellow journalists,
all of whom are whores. Who else can you think of? Julian Assange, locked away
in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London on Washington’s orders. The British puppet
government won’t permit free transit to Assange to take up his asylum in
Ecuador. The last country that did this was the Soviet Union, which required its
Hungarian puppet to keep Cardinal Mindszenty interred in the US Embassy in
Budapest for 15 years from 1956 until 1971. Mindszenty was granted political
asylum by the United States, but Hungary, on Soviet orders, would not honor his
asylum, just as Washington’s British puppet, on Washington’s orders, will not
honor Assange’s asylum.
If we are honest and have the strength to face
reality, we will realize that the Soviet Union did not collapse. It simply
moved, along with Mao and Pol Pot, to Washington and London.
The flaw in Putin’s diplomacy is that Putin’s
diplomacy relies on good will and on truth prevailing. However, the West has no
good will, and Washington is
not interested in truth prevailing but in Washington prevailing. What Putin
confronts is not reasonable “partners,” but a propaganda ministry aimed at him.
I understand Putin’s strategy, which contrasts
Russian reasonableness with Washington’s threats, but it is a risky bet. Europe
has long been a part of Washington, and there are no Europeans in power who have
the vision needed to separate Europe from Washington. Moreover, European leaders
are paid large sums of money to serve Washington. One year out of office and
Tony Blair was worth $50 million dollars.
After the disasters that Europeans have
experienced, it is unlikely that European leaders think of anything other than a
comfortable existence for themselves. That existence is best obtained by serving
Washington. As the successful extortion of Greece by banks proves, European
people are powerless.
Here is the official statement of the Russian
Defense Ministry: http://www.globalresearch.ca/mh-17-crash-in-ukraine-official-statement-from-russian-defense-ministry/5392000
Washington’s propaganda assault against Russia is a
double tragedy, because it has diverted attention from Israel’s latest atrocity
against the Palestinians locked up in the Gaza Ghetto. Israel claims that its
air attack and invasion of Gaza is merely Israel’s attempt to find and close the
alleged tunnels through which Palestinian terrorists pour into Israel inflicting
carnage. Of course there are no tunnels and no terrorist carnage in Israel.
One might think that at least one journalist
somewhere in the American media would ask why bombing hospitals and civilian
housing closes underground tunnels into Israel. But that is too much to ask of
the whores that comprise the US media.
Expect even less from the US Congress. Both the
House and Senate have passed resolutions supporting Israel’s slaughter of
Palestinians. Two Republicans–the despicable Lindsey Graham and the
disappointing Rand Paul–and two democrats–Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin–sponsored
the Senate resolution backing Israel’s premeditated murder of Palestinian women
and children. The resolution passed the “exceptional and indispensable” people’s
Senate unanimously.
As a reward for its policy of genocide, the Obama
regime is immediately transferring $429 million of US taxpayers’ money to Israel
to pay for the slaughter.
Contrast the US government’s support for Israel’s
war crimes with the propaganda onslaught against Russia based on lies. We are
living all over again “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” “Assad’s
use of chemical weapons,” “Iranian nukes.”
Washington has lied for so long that it can’t do
anything else.
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