Stefan Steinberg / World Socialist Web Site & Global Research – 2014-08-30 00:29:58
(August 29, 2014) — With a handful of exceptions, a shroud of silence has been drawn by the international media regarding the fate of Malaysian Airlines MH17, which crashed over Ukraine nearly six weeks ago.
Immediately after the plane crash on July 17, leading US officials, with Secretary of State John Kerry at the fore along with sections of the US and European media, alleged, without a shred of evidence, that the passenger jet had been shot down by a Russian missile fired by pro-Russian separatists operating in eastern Ukraine. The completely unfounded allegations were then used to create a frenzied political climate to justify the imposition of wide-ranging sanctions by the US and the European Union against Russia.
Since the crash there has been deliberate stalling on the part of Western authorities in releasing relevant information. At the start of this month Dutch investigators leading the inquiries announced they would release a preliminary report “in a few weeks.”
Now, with only days before the end of the month, no such report has been issued. This is despite the fact that the Dutch co-ordinator for the struggle against terrorism admitted in parliament that the Dutch authorities already have extensive data from the black boxes and other sources in their possession.
One article which has raised questions regarding the silence surrounding the crash appeared recently in the German magazine Der Spiegel.
The magazine has played a particularly vile role in the US-led propaganda campaign to blame Russia for the crash. On the cover of its July 28 edition, Der Spiegel featured photos of MH17 victims with the prominent red lettered text “Stop Putin Now!”. In its latest edition, the magazine again raises the banner of German militarism in a lead article deploring the state of the German army and arguing for a massive increase in military sending.
However, in one article on the crash, headlined “The strange silence of the investigators”, the magazine attempts to backtrack somewhat and at least intimate there are good reasons to doubt the official line put out by Washington and Brussels. The article refers to a letter sent to Barack Obama at the end of July by a group of former US intelligence officers. In their letter the group, known as VIPS, accused Secretary of State Kerry of attempting to use the crash to blacken Russia, recalling other blatant provocations by the Obama administration, such as the claim that Syria was responsible for chemical weapon attacks. The Obama administration has never responded to the allegations made in the VIPS letter.
The Spiegel article then goes on to quote reports in the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times, which charge Ukraine with responsibility for the crash, citing one journalist who writes: “It is farcical that the country known for overseeing the world’s most sophisticated and far-reaching surveillance capabilities has sunk to citing grainy YouTube videos to justify its policy decisions.”
Noting that Dutch authorities already have considerable information about the details of the crash which they have undoubtedly shared with their German counterparts, the Spiegel article warns that it is unlikely that the black box recordings will ever be released in full. The Dutch investigation team recently announced that there were alleged legal grounds for withholding evidence from the boxes.
The failure of the media to raise the issue of the fate of MH17 prompted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to query on Monday why the plane’s black box recordings had not been released publicly. It appears, Lavrov said, that apart from Russia, “everyone else has lost interest in the investigation.”
Lavrov also asked why Ukraine had not yet provided recordings of conversations between air traffic controllers in the nearby airport of Dnepropetrovsk. Kiev has up until now persistently refused to publish the recordings of the conversations between the MH17 pilot and Ukrainian air traffic controllers.
Lavrov noted that Russia had contacted the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the United Nations aviation agency, and offered to provide its own information on the crash, but noted that “so far there is nothing transparent to be seen there either.”
Lavrov concluded: “We must not allow the investigation of the MH17 crash to be manipulated into oblivion as already happened to investigations of many Ukrainian tragedies, including the sniper assault against civilians in Kiev in February, massacres in Odessa and Mariupol in May, and others.”
Bearing in mind the leading role played by the US in utilizing the crash of MH17 to create the conditions for a confrontation with Russia, there can be no doubt that the administration in Washington and US intelligence services are in close contact with the Dutch authorities and are complicit in the efforts to bury the truth about what really took place on July 17.
MH17 Verdict: Real Evidence Points to US-Kiev Cover-up of Failed “False Flag”
MH17 Verdict: Real Evidence Points to US-Kiev Cover-up of Failed “False Flag”
21st Century Wire & Global Research
(July 25, 2014) — Until this past Monday, the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17th, 2014, was a potential game changer for global geopolitics and the New Cold War. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the Kremlin. . .
In this report, we will lay out the facts based on a wide breadth of available information and data surrounding MH17. We will also present and give critique to Washington and Kiev’s “mountain of evidence” that has saturated US and European-based media coverage since the incident took place.
21WIRE has compiled this report with the help of many contributors and references from English-speaking media, as well as material translated from Russian and Ukrainian media sources, along with other historical references to provide context. Our objective is to get as close to the truth as possible. Although many revelations will appear to be self-evident, we still encourage the public to draw there own conclusions regarding this pivotal event.
There are other well-known anomalies surrounding this event which have been covered at 21WIRE, as well as connections to MH370, but for the purposes of this investigation we will focus on both factual and speculative evidence brought forth by the US, Ukraine and Russia.
The Brink of War
Last Monday morning was not a pleasant one for the US State Department. Russian officials surprised Washington and its NATO partners when it released all available satellite imagery and air traffic control data, which was recorded in and around the final minutes of Flight MH17 — and presented it to the world media on live television. The data painted a very different picture, drawing contrasting conclusions to what Washington and Kiev officials had been disseminating via western media since July 17th.
Following their presentation, Moscow handed its findings — air traffic data and time stamped satellite imagery — to European authorities. We will review those findings in detail later in this report. In stark contrast, US officials have been reluctant to do the same.
Is Washington willing to share any object data or evidence to the public, or is it only interested in sharing that which somehow fits into the same predetermined narrative it stood by on July 17th, one which already assigned guilt to both rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine and Russia?
We hope that political leaders and media organizations in the US and Europe will take the time to consider all available information, rather than simply repeat and spin what is bouncing around the media echo chamber. It’s also crucial to understand the geopolitical context in which this incident has occurred in order to discover who really possessed the motive, and the means to destroy this passenger aircraft, and which parties stand to benefit most from such an international incident.
After reviewing the evidence, all indicators points to the downing of MH17 as a highly coordinated, but failed false flag event.
MH17: A Doomed Flight Path
A Malaysian Airlines spokesman has already confirmed that, for some unknown reason, Kiev-based Ukrainian Air Traffic Control (ATC) ordered MH17 off of its original flight path along the international air route, known as L980.
Most likely, this order was given to pilots while MH17 was still in Polish air space. L980 is one of the most popular and most congested air routes in the world, as well as a key link between major international hubs in Europe, like London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol, and Frankfurt, and Asian destinations, like Singapore, Mumbai, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.
As MH17 moved into Ukrainian air space, it was moved approximately 300 miles north of its usual route — putting it on a new course, flying directly over a war zone — a dangerous area that’s hosted a number of downed military craft over the previous 3 weeks.
Robert Mark, a commercial pilot and editor of Aviation International News Safety magazine, confirmed that most Malaysia Airlines flights from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur would normally travel along a route significantly further south than the route MH17 was diverted onto. Indeed, previous days’ flight records see here confirm that MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur is always assigned routes much further south than the one it took that fateful day.
The fatal event occurred somewhere in the interval between 17:21:28 and 17:22:30 Moscow Time. The exact time of the crash is believed to be at 5:23pm. The last available geographic coordinates can be found here on Flight Radar24:
Weather and Visibility Factor
Kiev-based air traffic controllers not only led MH17 right over its alleged ‘target zone’ in Eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, but also helped make it visible.
Although weather data online is all but unavailable for the area of Donetsk, Ukraine for July 17th, conditions are evident by numerous videos depicting the crash and crash site in the aftermath — it was cloudy and overcast, with more visibility above the cloud canopy. This factor is important because at the normal cruising altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 meters), the airliner would not be visible from the ground in the rebel-held area where Washington is insisting a SAM missile was launched.
Why did Kiev air traffic controllers order MH17 to suddenly drop its altitude, from 35,000 feet to 33,000 feet, just before the plane’s demise is unknown for sure, but it would have been near impossible for the alleged rebel gunman occupying this relatively small rebel-held patch of land to make a visual sighting of MH17 and acquire the target during the 1-2 minute window they would have had (assuming they were even in possession of the BUK missile system).
To date, Kiev has refused to acknowledge or explain why the plane was moved into position in this way. Moreover, Interfax news agency reported that Ukraine’s SBU security service confiscated recordings of conversations between Ukrainian air traffic control officers and the crew immediately after the incident.
The probability that this is all an ‘unfortunate coincidence’ reduces to near zero when one considers the air traffic data and Kiev’s denial of the close proximity of its Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet in pursuit of MH17 minutes before the crash (see ‘Aircraft in the Vicinity’ below).
Small Rebel Target Window
Much has been made by the US and its media of MH17 being shot down and crashing in “the rebel-held area”, but few are aware of just how small the said area actually is. The Ukrainian military had already isolated the rebel area, which Kiev and Washington insist a rebel-controlled BUK SAM missile battery had fired on the passenger jet.
The actual size of this rebel-held patch is only 40-50 miles wide, with MH17 approaching on a southeastern route over Horlivka, the frontline of this rebel-held zone, towards Snezhnoye (Snizhne).
Cruising at 58o mph (933 kmph), MH17 would have only been visible for a very short time — just over 1 minute (if Kiev had not ordered MH17 to alter its course and altitude then it would not have been visible at all), from the vantage point of the alleged rebel firing position. According the Jane’s Defense, the alleged cluprit — an SA-11 (NATO code name) or ‘BUK’ missile system, requires 5 minutes set-up active targeting, followed by an additional 22 seconds ‘reaction time’ for target acquisition and firing.
As the MH17 was only visible for 70 seconds above this rebel-held area surrounding Grabovo, unless the alleged rebel firing position was specifically tracking MH17 long before it entered the rebel-held airspace and could distinguish it from other military civilian aircraft also in the general vicinity, Washington’s theory and Kiev’s accusation — that rebels shot down this aircraft becomes even weaker.
Considering these factors, the probability increases greatly that targeting MH17 would have had to be premeditated far in advance of the 70 seconds it was visible above this particular rebel-held area.
Russian Satellite Data and Public Presentation
On Monday, the Russian government, with almost every major global media outlet in attendance, released all of its air traffic data and satellite imaging data (in fact, only part of it) — all verifiable, including time stamps and supporting data. The entire content of the presentation was also handed over to the European authorities. The conclusions to be drawn from this are stunning, to say the least. Despite the public release of this information, US and British media outlets did report back to its people on these findings. They are as follows:
Minutes before the downing of MH17, the plane made a mysterious ‘Left Turn’ as it flew over the Donetsk area at approximately 5:20pm Moscow time, making a sharp 14km deviation, before attempting to regain its previous course before dropping altitude disappearing from radar at 5:23pm.
As we previously pointed out, air traffic controllers in Kiev had already diverted MH17 300 miles north into the target zone, so the question remains: was Kiev ATC also responsible for this final, fatal diversion, or is there another reason for this unusual turn (see ‘Mysterious Left Turn’, below)?
According to clear satellite images provided, on July 16th, the Ukrainian Army positioned 3-4 anti-aircraft BUK M1 SAM missile batteries close to Donetsk. These systems included full launching, loading and radio location units, located in the immediate vicinity of the MH17 crash site. One system was placed approximately 8km northwest of Lugansk.
In addition, a radio location system for these Ukrainian Army missile batteries is situated 5km north of Donetsk. On July 17th, the day of the incident, these batteries were moved to a position 8km south of Shahktyorsk. In addition to this, two other radio location units are also identified in the immediate vicinity. These SAM systems had a range of 35km distance, and 25km altitude.
From July 18th, after the downing of MH17, Kiev’s BUK launchers were then moved away from the firing zone.
Unlike rebel fighters, the Ukrainian military is in possession of some 27 BUK missile systems capable of bringing down high-flying jets, and forensic satellite imagery places at least 3 of their launchers in the Donetsk region on the day of this tragedy. Yet, Washington and NATO will not inquire about the possibility that any of these system had targeted MH17.
This is a definitive smoking gun: Why did the Ukrainian Army move these short-range anti-aircraft SAM missile batteries into position on July 16-17th — to an interior region of East Ukraine where it’s known that the rebel resistance possess no air crafts whatsoever? Not surprisingly, both the US and Kiev have not answered that difficult question, perhaps for obvious reasons.
In addition, the Ukrainian Army’s radio location traffic near Donetsk peaked on the 16th and 17th, including a total of 9 separate radio location systems active. On the 18th and 19th of July, radio location traffic from these stations dropped sharply, down to 4 stations. If, as Washington/Kiev claims, rebels fired a BUK missile at MH17, then the rebel radar location signals would be clearly noted and verifiable on the day; only, they are not.
All Aircraft in the Vicinity
Between 5pm-6pm Moscow Time on July 17th, the following aircraft have been identified in the general vicinity of MH17 on its course heading to its fatal destination of Grabovo:
1. Boeing 772 — traveling southeast from Copenhagen to Singapore at 5:17pm
2. Boeing 778 — traveling southeast from Paris to Taipei at 5:24pm
3. Boeing 778 — traveling northwest from Delhi to Berlin circa 5:20pm
4. Boeing 777 — Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 at 5:17pm
5. Su-25 Ukrainian Fighter Jet appears on radar, trailing MH17 at same altitude, est. 4km behind it at 5:21pm
Note: the pilots and passengers of Singapore Airlines Flight SIA351 were close enough to have visually observed, at high altitude, the demise of MH17.
At 5:20pm MH17 began to abruptly lose speed, eventually slowing to 124mph (200kmph). At this time, a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet appears on ATC radar and trailing MH17 on the same flight path approximately 2-3km behind MH17, and at the same altitude — only minutes before MH17 disappeared on radar. The Su-25 would not have been visible on ATC radar before it broke the ATC long-range standby radar tracking ceiling of 5km in altitude.
Civilian ATC radar would not be able to identify this Su-25 as military because no secondary detection system is mounted — typical for military aircraft. Note also that the Su-25 is armed with air-to-air missiles with a range of 5km-12km. Over the next four minutes, the Ukrainian fighter remained in the area.
Another Smoking Gun: Kiev government officials insisted on July 17th that, “No military aircraft were available in the region”. Based on available data detailed above, this appears to be a lie, indicating that a cover-up was taking place.
Again, it’s important to note here that at the moment when MH17 was allegedly was hit for the first time, at around 5:23pm Moscow time, the passenger jet was also within the range of several Ukrainian BUK batteries deployed close to Donetsk and as well as the Ukrainian Army’s BUK system positioned on the day just 8km south of Shakhterskoye, only a few miles from the eventual crash site at Grabovo.
IMAGE: A Ukrainian military Su-25 fighter jet carries air-to-air missiles.
MH17′s Mysterious Left Turn
On passing glance, this seemingly minor, yet unexplained event doesn’t appear to be significant, but as is often the case, the devil is in the detail.
Again, was Kiev ATC also responsible for MH17′s final and fatal diversion from its course, or is there another reason for what appears to be an evasive maneuver?
One possible explanation for this crucial event in the timeline is that MH17 was hit, or damaged, taking an emergency 180º left turn for 14km, before disappearing completely off of radar. This appears to be the case. On July 23rd, Anna-News published an interview with retired Russian Air Force colonel Aleksand Zhilin (ÐлекÑандр Жилин) a frequent military commentator on Ukraine’s Civil War.
“According to the colonel, at 16:19:45 (local time, and 5:19pm Moscow time), a Ukrainian jet fighter targeted the Boeing with an air-to-air missile R-60. The missile damaged the right engine of the Boeing. The Boeing was hit, but still managed to stay in the air. However, in doing so, the Boeing turned 180 degrees to the left. It was at this moment that the false flag attack started falling apart.
According to Zhilin, part of the plan controlled by the US with Ukrainian hands executing it was to have the Boeing crash past the southern frontline by the Ukrainian-Russian border. Had the Boeing fallen there, securing the crash sites with the troops in response to international pressure was on top of all else effectively to allow Kiev to lift the encirclement of its brigades (currently pinned down by rebels) in the southern pocket by the Russian border.”
“When, however, the Boeing started to turn in the opposite direction and was still apparently manageable, the US-Ukrainian headquarters of the special operation panicked and ordered the Buk battery to destroy the plane in the air in order to pre-empt the possibility of the Boeing’s emergency landing. A Buk missile was fired and the plane was then finally destroyed.”
21WIRE spoke to former Czech diplomat and political analyst, Vladimir Suchan, who puts Zhilin’s comments into context of what was happening militarily at the time of the crash. Suchan explains, “If MH17 was hit right over the frontline over Snezhnoye, this would have placed the timing and location of the intended downing and crash site to either the territory controlled by the Ukrainian army, or much closer to the border between Russia and Ukraine where the “securing of the site” would allow lifting the strategic encirclement of the Ukrainian troops in the south and thus, on top of other objectives, saving Kiev’s armed forces from its first major military defeat.” (see ‘Military All-Out Offense’ section below)
If, indeed MH17 was struck by an air-to-air missile at that time, a distress call may have been sent to Kiev ATC, but as yet, Kiev officials may be reluctant to share, or release the entirety of its communications from July 17th.
At the time of this report being filed at 21WIRE, a second source to verify this testimony is not presently available. Zhilin’s account certainly makes sense when placed next to all ATC and satellite data released by Moscow.
However, flight recorder information and data from MH17′s black boxes would certainly be able to corroborate this timeline of events, and one hopes that Great Britain’s predetermined political stance against Russia does not prevent Downing Street, or MI5 Intelligence Services from releasing the black box information in its entirety and more importantly, a full and unedited disclosure to the media. More than likely, the BBC will have first access to this release, and how the BBC report their findings will be very telling.
Above, is one possible map of MH17 final minutes, as calculated from one source of available public data, available here:http://nikolay-istomin.livejournal.com/3057934.html
This account is also consistent with the location of key pieces of wreckage scattered over the wider crash site radius. It shows M17 turning back on itself, after being struck initially. If this was the final path, then it completely disapproves the US (US State Department) conspiracy theory that a rebel-controlled BUK missile hit the plane head-on from Snezhnoye (Snizhne).
This U-turn then also helps explain why Kiev’s first “leaked conversation of the rebels” (see ‘Kiev’s Botch Social Media Audio’ below) tried to place the rebel’s BUK battery at a completely different location in Debaltzevo, a few kilometers northwest of the main crash site at Grabovo. However, that would not explain the U-turn, which they tried so much to conceal — for it points to the Ukrainian jet fighter.
As part of their PR damage-control exercise, Washington released this Google Map-style graphic on Tuesday July 22nd, illustrating its theory that the rebel missile battery was now located in Snezhnoye:
Whistleblower: A Spanish Air Traffic Controller in Kiev
All evidence pointing to a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet in the same frame as MH17, also validates the testimony of ‘Carlos’, an ATC contractor in Kiev. ETN received information from an air traffic controller (Borispol Airport) in Kiev on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17:
“This Kiev air traffic controller is a citizen of Spain and was working in the Ukraine. He was taken off duty as a civil air-traffic controller along with other foreigners immediately after a Malaysia Airlines passenger aircraft was shot down over the Eastern Ukraine killing 295 passengers and crew on board. The air traffic controller suggested in a private evaluation and basing it on military sources in Kiev, that the Ukrainian military was behind this shoot down.
“Radar records were immediately confiscated after it became clear a passenger jet was shot down. Military air traffic controllers in internal communication acknowledged the military was involved, and some military chatter said they did not know where the order to shoot down the plane originated from. Obviously it happened after a series of errors, since the very same plane was escorted by two Ukrainian fighter jets until 3 minutes before it disappeared from radar.”
Again, real mounting evidence, which points to an obvious cover-up by Kiev and its NATO partners.
Crime scene investigation is important, although reports to date from the crash site in Grabovo do not inspire much confidence, that a thorough and independent forensic investigation will be carried out. The key evidence would be ballistics, including pieces of shrapnel retrieved from the wreckage. It should be easy to determine if they came from any of the following:
1. A bomb on board (this is still a possibility).
2. An air-to-air missile.
3. A surface-to-air missile.
After that, the autopsy of the bodies would reveal additional evidence about what really took place on July 17th. At present, the majority of the remains are being handled by the Netherlands government, and given their NATO involvement to date in the Ukrainian conflict, it’s debatable whether or not they would present any findings which do not square with Washington and Kiev’s narrow, yet ever-evolving narrative of the incident.
Finally, if MH17 was indeed shot down as a false flag provocation of war by either a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter, or a Ukrainian Army BUK SAM — or both, as much of the hard evidence suggests, then would Malaysia declare war on the Ukraine? Would the UN table a resolution backing sanctions against Ukrainian officials in Kiev for their role in this international war crime?
US-NATO’s Military Drill in the Black Sea Ended on July 17th
Russia’s Satellite Data and Public Presentation on Monday July 21st has put Washington on its back foot. The existence of this intelligence, now made public, along with other data in Russia’s possession, means that the Washington cannot show the real intelligence — which they too have. It’s no coincidence that US and NATO conducted a large-scale military and intelligence drill in the Black Sea just south of Crimea named, SEA BREEZE 2014, which just so happened to end on. . . July 7th.
The drill included hundreds of US military specialists running ‘war simulations’ in electronic warfare, data collection from a spy satellite, and ‘monitoring’ of all passenger aircraft flying in the region. A massive drill — yet another improbable coincidence.
Another smoking gun: Is it a coincidence that the US had its new experimental satellite positioned over Eastern Europe for 1-2 hours, and directly over Donetsk in eastern Ukraine from 5:06pm — 5:21pm. Taking this fact into consideration, alongside the other improbable ‘coincidences’, leads to an almost certain conclusion.
In addition to SEA BREEZE, both US and British armed forces had also scheduled a concurrent military exercise, code named, Rapid Trident 2014, a NATO event which takes place annually in and around the Ukraine, designed to “promote regional stability and security, strengthen partnership capacity and foster trust while improving interoperability between the land forces of Ukraine, and NATO and partner nations,” according to the US Forces in Europe website. Since March, the Pentagon has kept quiet regarding the number of US forces, and hardware assets expected to participate in the maneuvers.
According to US Army spokesman Col. Steven Warren, Rapid Trident is the only Ukraine military exercise the US planned to participate in this year, and it’s main purpose was, “To help the Ukrainian military improve its troops and weapons operability with NATO forces.”
Ukrainian Military All-Out Offensive
Timed For July 18th
Three uncomfortable realities in Kiev were prevailing before the downing of MH17 on July 17th:
First, the troops were losing morale, and suffering defections and other serious set-backs in an increasingly unpopular military theater of Eastern Ukraine. Kiev was losing the PR war hearts and minds in the Ukraine and abroad.
After the downing of MH17, Kiev garnered huge public sympathy and support, and just so happened to launch a massive offensive on July 18th, one which military analysts believe would have to have been planned many weeks in advance — and could not just be a knee-jerk reaction to the MH17 tragedy as government spokespersons in Kiev insist.
Secondly, they were losing the war. Behind the lines battle reports from Igor Strelkov’s blog at the time confirms this all-out offensive at Snezhnoye by the Kiev military planners against the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk — allowing the Ukrainian Army to penetrate deeper and deeper, in effect splitting Donetsk and Lugansk.
Vladimir Suchan adds,
“After the loss of MH17 and some talk about “humanitarian ceasefire”, the Kiev regime launched three massive offensives from the north, the west (from Artemovsk, which included a large tank attack) and in the south.
“Since it always takes some good time to prepare an offensive, this had to be planned sufficiently ahead, though, with a view of the desperate situation for the junta in the south, most likely at a very accelerated pace. http://voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/2968-voyna-na-yugo-vostoke-onlayn-18072014-hronika-sobytiy-post-obnovlyaetsya.html
“In this regard, it is also very plausible that some hope was put on having the command of Novororrysia paralyzed, busy and distracted over MH17. By all accounts, both the timing and location of the MH17 crash, has enabled a huge ‘game changer‘ in terms of how this conflict was previously going.”
If the international community were indeed to connect the prospect of a false flag attack on MH17 with the false flag attack by Maidan snipers back in February, and the attempted false flag attack with the Odessa massacre, perhaps the Ukrainian Civil War could be abated, for the right reasons.
Disturbing reports are also coming in about the Ukrainian Military dropping White Phosphorus on civilian targets this week, as forces continue bombarding areas surrounding of Lugansk. Here are two unconfirmed videos, possible evidence of unconventional chemical weapons being deployed over several locations near Lugansk People’s Republic of Novorossia, from July 20-21, 2014:
Thirdly, Kiev is going broke trying to fund what appears to be an ethnic cleansing campaign in eastern Ukraine. Sources from the Parliamentary budget office in Kiev now confirm that as of August 1st, Kiev can’t pay its military (who are, in fact, waging war against its own people and calling it ‘anti-terror operations).
“To continue the anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine, it is necessary to amend the state budget and to find additional sources of its content. We do not have money to pay at least a cash security to our military from August”, stated Ukraine’s Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak, speaking in Parliament this week.
“According to Shlapak, funds previously provided by the state budget for these purposes has been calculated for the period prior to July 1st, and continued operations will require additional funds totaling 9 billion UAH ($1 billion). Infighting has already begun, as MP’s are now blamingthe Ministry of Defense and army staff for corruption and looting of money.
In the wake of the MH17 disaster, US and its NATO allies are responding with a renewed call for more military aid to Kiev and to fast-track the Ukraine’s membership into Washington’s overseas military surrogate, NATO. As an emergency response to “secure the crash site”, NATO stalwart, The Netherlands, are weighing up deploying NATO troops into the middle of this war zone. Such a move could easily cascade into something much worse should another bizarre “accident” occur, or some tragedy befalls Dutch troops inserted into the hot zone.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded with strong words of condemnation, stating:
“No matter what our Western counterparts tell us, we can see what’s going on. As it stands, NATO is blatantly building up its forces in Eastern Europe, including the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea areas. Its operational and combat training activities are gaining in scale.”
While the US push Kiev eastwards to fight Washington’s proxy war against Russia, the political and financial situation in Kiev is rapidly falling apart.
On Thursday July 24th, Victoria Nuland’s puppet leader following a US-backed, violent military coup back in February, Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy ‘Yatz’ Yatsenyuk (photo, left) announced his resignation in connection with the collapse of a Washington-designed coalition and parliament blocking government initiatives.
Made-up ‘Evidence’ From Washington and Kiev
The talking point shift by the US media on Tuesday July 22nd was an obvious reaction to the Russian data dump. US media are now airing Washington DC’s revised conspiracy theories. Theory 1) “The rebels shot MH17 down by mistake”, and Theory 2) “Russia is responsible for creating the conditions for this tragedy”.
In reality, no evidence actually exists to date, other than anecdotal, that the rebels in the east possess any ‘BUK’ surface-to-air missile systems (see Washington and Kiev’s ‘BUK’ Missile Evidence Debunked’, below).
Close observers of Washington DC’s media blitz can only be left with a feeling of embarrassment, as the US State Department still clings to some semblance of continuity in the face of a total PR meltdown. As late as July 22nd, the US State Department was still attempting to pass-off its ‘evidence’ from social media (Twitter and YouTube), and backed-up by what it claims is “common sense”, that “clearly indicates Ukrainian militia shot down MH17”.
Since the incident on July 17th, the Kiev regime and US State Department have built their case against Rebels in eastern Ukraine and Moscow, and even Vladimire Putin himself, on the following items, which have all been thoroughly discredited by now:
1. The audio “tapes” issued by Kiev
2. A video and photos of BUK missile batteries issued by Kiev (of their own BUK missile batteries)
3. Claims by Kiev and supported by the West, that Ukraine had “no military aircraft in the air” at the time of the crash of the MH17 plane.
On July 22nd, the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was forced to change Kiev’s story — a damage-control exercise to the overwhelming evidence against Ukraine. He has since reversed this position.
Suchan explains the western political media machine and its all-out effort to cast Russia and Putin as international pariahs over the incident:
“What has been thus established is that Ukraine, as well as the US, the EU, NATO, and other Western countries, have been systematically and grossly lying about evidence pertaining to the tragedy of MH17, thus willfully — and bluntly, abusing the tragedy and the demise of the victims and the suffering of their families for perverse political goals related to NATO expansionism and anti-Russian hysteria, and ‘Russophobia’, in order to support an openly fascist regime in Kiev, whose objective is the deliberate destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure in east Ukraine.”
“The smearing campaign has also been used to demonize and criminalize anti-fascism and its resistance to a fascist dictatorship in Kiev, enrolled by Ukraine’s criminal oligarchs.”
Washington and Kiev’s ‘BUK’
Missile Evidence Debunked
Immediately after the MH17 crash event on July 17th, the Ukrainian government in Kiev quickly uploaded a brief YouTube video it purported to be ‘evidence’ of “a ‘BUK’ missile system being moved” out of a rebel-held area near Donetsk.
US State Department officials, and every US media outlet, led by CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS, along with major US talk radio hosts like Sean Hannity, immediately jumped on this 5 second YouTube video claiming it was, “Irrefutable proof that a Russian-made BUK missile system was being moved away after it shot down MH17”. That talking point began to cascade from media, and into public chatter. It seemed their job was all but done.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation newspaper The Sun, always ready to take any pro-war line to the extreme, led the ‘conflict pornography’ on news stands, intentionally inciting fear and jingoism, doing what it always does: nudge British working class readers in a predetermined direction and fuse public opinion among differing classes on divisive international issues.
No surprise then, as The Sun ran, “Putin’s Missile” as its headline the next morning. Similar covers and headlines were cloned across US and British media. Within hours of the news breaking — and despite this blanket coverage, not one of these newspapers or TV broadcasters offered any real evidence outside of anecdotal and wild speculation and conjectural theories.
Once again, we’ve witnessed world’s most powerful, highly coordinated and synchronized propaganda machine. Once it’s set in motion, most western consumers are helpless to fend off it’s relentless repeating and universal coverage across hundreds of media outlets owned in most part by 5 US, and 2 British corporations.
A similar attempt was made by Washington and London last September, when US Secretary of State John Kerry, along with then British Foreign Secretary William Hague, presented their now infamous claim of ‘open source evidence’ (YouTube videos) used to assign blame to the Syrian government for a chemical weapons attack against its own people.
Many of the photos and videos were later proven to be faked and staged, and ‘the gas’ was made in Britain, and that ‘chemical attack’ was in fact staged by Syrian insurgents still being supported by the US-British-Saudi-Qatari Axis.
Washington’s initial ‘BUK Missile’ social media evidence seems to be rapidly heading down the same memory hole as its Syria predecessor, and soon, it will not be mentioned again by any US official. The speed at which it was released after the crash, and the fact that falsified audio, video, and photos have been intentionally released by the Kiev government in the wake of such a tragedy, demonstrates a clear motive to deceive the public about who is to blame for the MH17 event — using falsified evidence to build a case against ‘pro-Russian separatists’ and Moscow, and even Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.
What is obvious, but not being discussed in mainstream western circles, is that like Syria, Washington and its NATO allies have been openly conducting a proxy war in the Ukraine, and have managed to control media coverage in the west so that what clearly a Civil War in the Ukraine — is being cynically, and very wrongly labeled as an “anti-terror operation.”
On a daily basis, the Ukrainian Military are carrying out attacks on civilian targets all over Eastern Ukraine, killing thousands of its own innocent citizens with the full logistical and financial backing of the Washington and NATO.
In Syria, the tables are reversed, where the government in Damascus is clearly fighting against known al Qaeda and ISIS-linked foreign terrorists brigades, as Washington and London politicians and media insist on calling it a ‘civil war’. Both are classic proxy wars being waged by the NATO block of nations.
More Falsified and Sloppy ‘Evidence’ Supplied
By SBU Defense Ministry in Kiev
Let’s start with the famous 5 second YouTube video released by Kiev and lauded by Washington, CNN, ABC, FOX et all, of a BUK missile battery being moved, we were told, secretly by rebels out of the area after the plane crash.
Not only does signage clearly visible in the video place this truck in Krasnoarmeysk — a town which has been in control of the Ukrainian Army since May 11th. Here is one early news release of the now discredited video.
In the absence of any real evidence or data, it’s worth asking who has paid large sums of money to create a 3-D computer animation sequences, of what the US/Kiev governments claim look place?
In addition to falsified the YouTube video, Kiev also published falsified photos of an alleged BUK missile system on July 19th. Kiev’s Security Service (SBU) published photos online it claimed showed ‘Russia’ secretly withdrawing a BUK-M system from the Ukraine civil war zone, but shortly after publishing this article the photos in question were deleted.
The photo released by Kiev was actually an image taken of its own military’s BUK missiles — ironically, our readers will find that Kiev showing photos of its own systems is much closer to the real story than we previously thought.
Somewhat haphazardly, Kiev’s SBU, which is overseen by the new CIA station occupying the top floor in the same building in Kiev, released two more videos meant to assign blame to rebels in Donetsk, with Kiev claiming these were of Russian-made BUK-M being transported back to Russia on July 18th after the crash — but both videos were clearly shot during the winter time, with one found to have been previously published in March. Again, more intentional lying by Kiev, in order to assign blame to ‘pro-Russian Separatists’, and Moscow.
Kiev’s Botched Social Media ‘Audio Clips’
Early on, Washington and the entire western media machine, made much of two audio ‘tapes’ released via YouTube by Kiev officials, alleged to be taken from conversations between ‘pro-Russian separatist’ rebel commanders.
Both Kiev and Washington held these up as ‘evidence’ of rebels using a BUK SAM missile system to shoot down MH17. The only problem here, is that both ‘tapes’ contradict each other regarding the location of the alleged missile batteries.
Vladimir Suchan points out the obvious, “The identification of the direction of the blast then also disproves the junta’s videos with “leaked conversations” from yesterday and today–for the missile could not then be launched either from Debaltzevo, or Donetsk, as claimed on both tapes -these places were by then a bit far, and not in front of MH17.
That’s also evidently why, today the junta’s sites are claiming that the BUK missile battery was supposed to be in Snezhnoye, forgetting all about their first tape leak with commander ‘Bes’ from Gorlovka (40 miles north-west). If the Ukrainian Army used a BUK missile, then it would most likely have been fired from north of Amvrosivka, which is a place of a large concentration of Ukrainian troops. It is also southwest of Torez and Snezhnoye in the proximity of which the crash site is located. BUK missiles have a range of up to 20 miles. Enough for a battery in the Amvrosivka region.”
Zero Hedge reported on July 17th:
“The only problem is that there is absolutely no way to confirm who “Major” and “Grek” are, and considering the entire Ukraine civil war has been merely one provocation and counter-provocation after another, explicitly staged in advance by either the CIA on the side of Kiev or the Kremlin on the Russian side, one does have to wonder whether the said two “smoking gun” participants aren’t merely two random people speaking Russian and reading off a script?
The clip concludes with another unnamed “Militant” who supposedly is speaking to Mykola Kozitsyn, one of the purported leaders of the Cossacks operating in east Ukraine. The Militant makes it clear to Kozitsyn that it is not a military plane and has “Malaysian Airlines” written on the side. One wonders just where one could find such writing on the side of the crashed and exploded fuselage but that one is for the forensics to decide.”
In addition, multiple independent analysis’s of these audio recordings also reveals that these audio recordings were not integral files, indicating they were spliced together, as is evident from the different time stamp dates visible from the raw audio data. It also reveals at least one portion was recorded, or edited on July 16th — before the crash of MH17. ITAR-TASS Agency confirms this:
“The tape’s second fragment consists of three pieces but was presented as a single audio recording. However, a spectral and time analysis has showed that the dialog was cut into pieces and then assembled. Short pauses in the tape are very indicative: the audio file has preserved time marks which show that the dialog was assembled from various episodes, the expert said.
The tape’s linguistic analysis also shows that those who made the faked tape clearly did not have enough material and time, the expert said. That is why, speech fragments can hardly correlate with each other in terms of their sense and the spectral picture of audio materials also differs, the expert said. But the most indicative moment is that the audio tape clearly shows that it was created almost a day before the airliner crash, the expert said.”
Only one conclusion can be drawn here: these tapes were faked, and released after the crash in order to assign blame on rebels and Russia for this event.
In addition to this, video production on both Kiev ‘tapes’ matches a previous YouTube video — same graphics style and editing, which was previously proven to be another fake.
Interestingly, Ukrainian producers used the same actor, an alleged Cossack rebel commander, Mykola Kozitsyn, in their MH17 audio production. Zero Hedge also reveals:
“Finally, we clearly have no way of authenticating the recording or the participants, it was just over a month ago, on June 5, when in another attempt to cast blame and discredit the separatists, Ukraine released another trademark YouTube clip seeking to disparage and frame Kozitsyn, entitled “Russian Cossack Formations are Responsible For Chaos In Ukraine.”
In summary, multiple falsified information releases by Kiev government officials only points to one conclusion: a cover-up. By contrast, Russia officials have not released any falsified or fraudulent ‘evidence’ to assign blame to any parties — instead Moscow released all of its verifiable data surrounding the incident which has now forced Washington to rethink its wild approach which previously tried to pin responsibility on Russia itself. . . .
IMAGE: President Obama and John Kerry unable to settle on a version of events (Photo: RCJ)
US Now in Full Retreat and Damage-Control Mode
Amazingly, in a US State Department briefing led by Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf on Tuesday July 22nd, Harf insisted that, yes, US intelligence officials still include these ‘social media’ posts as part of what Secretary of State John Kerry describes as a “mountain of evidence”.
Obviously under great pressure to show strength in the face of a complete collapse in confidence, Harf could be seen stuttering and twitching nervously as difficult questions were raised by members of the media.
In one of the biggest flops in State Dept. history, Harf appeared so desperate to shed any further questions on ‘social media evidence’, that she opted for a fatal gaff — stating on record that “US intelligence officials have authenticated the audio”. Unless she means they’ve authenticated these as fake, this statement may come back to haunt US officials. Many are now calling it a bold-faced lie, designed to cover-up the mishandling and over-politicization of posts found on social media, shamelessly used by Washington to promote a war agenda.
As a result, CNN and others are now scavenging the tragedy, trying to hide the emerging facts under the heap of its “fair and balanced” mainstream conspiracy theories. The story has now shifted from what happened, to how US politicians are dealing with the crisis, as was evident after one major outlet who ran this headline, “Obama: What exactly are they trying to hide?”
On Tuesday, the US government finally admitted (as well as it could), that it had been bluffing about its ‘certainty’ that Russia was behind the downing of Malaysian Air Flight MH-17.
Washington’s New Conspiracy Theory
In a damage control exercise this past Tuesday, Washington invited members of the majors like the Washington Post and the LA Times, to an ‘intelligence update’ briefing, and a press conference run by the inexperienced Marie Harf.
The Los Angeles Times reported:
“US intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. US officials said it was possible the SA-11 [anti-aircraft missile] was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.”
The quiet U-turn by Washington signals that its previous case blaming the rebels has been destroyed, and rather than concede that the Ukrainian Army has actually shot down MH17, they’ve chosen to instead concoct a new revision about a “rogue defector” and his “rogue team” who happen to be wearing Ukrainian Army uniforms.
Washington’s new and creative official conspiracy theories now include:
1. Ukrainian separatists shot down plane by mistake after misreading ‘fuzzy’ radar images on a much-too sophisticated AS-11 system (as if US intelligence officials were actually there), probably mistook the airliner for a Ukrainian military plane (reverting to their original line).
2. Missile that brought down Malaysian jet probably fired by ‘ill-trained crew’ of pro-Russian rebels
The “ill-trained crew” theory is the work of one US official who, “requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue”. And who could blame him?
Finally, Washington ends up at a place it knows well — reducing a major geopolitical event or crime down to the work of a lone wolf, or in this case, a ‘rogue defector’ from the Ukrainian Army, an image which will no doubt fuel even more wild commentary by Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, George Stephanopoulos and Sean Hannity.
American investigative reporter Robert Parry (who broke many of the Iran-Contra scandal for AP and Newsweek in the 80′s) published this on Consortium News, July 20th (based on his CIA source):
“What I’ve been told by one source, who has provided accurate information on similar matters in the past, is that US intelligence agencies do have detailed satellite images of the likely missile battery that launched the fateful missile, but the battery appears to have been under the control of Ukrainian government troops dressed in what look like Ukrainian uniforms.”
This account is fully consistent with
1) the “anonymous US intelligence officers’ briefing from US mainstream media on Tuesday July 22,” as reported,
2) the briefing by the Russian Ministry of Defense on July 21 and,
3) Alexandr Zhilin’s analysis previously covered.
Backpedaling even further, Washington has officially downgraded its overall indictment, with another ‘senior intelligence official’ announcing a brand new party line — a weaker thesis, somehow claiming that, “Russia created the conditions for this to happen.”
More Western Media Manipulation
London’s media arms have also sprung into action in an attempt to reinforce Washington-NATO-Kiev Axis assignment of guilt. In a classic demonstration of its pro-Foreign Office institutional bias, Guardian writer Shawn Walker carefully attempts to contain the western guilty verdict, considering only ‘pro-Russian rebels’ and intentionally reinforcing the ‘Rebel-BUK conspiracy theory’.
Walker states, “Claims by pro-Russia separatists in east Ukraine that they have never been in possession of the missile launcher apparently used to down flight MH17 are looking increasingly flimsy, as several witnesses told the Guardian they had seen what appeared to be a Buk missile launcher in the vicinity of the crash site last Thursday.
The sightings back up a number of photographs and videos posted online that put the Buk system close to the crash site on the day of the disaster. Just before lunchtime last Thursday, prior to the Malaysia Airlines plane’s takeoff, a Buk was driven through Gagarin Street, one of the central thoroughfares of Torez, witnesses said.”
The Guardian could very well be relaying genuine eyewitness accounts here, but only advanced media watchers will have noticed the slight of hand being applied here: Walker has ruled out any other possible suspects other than rebels — skillfully hiding his paper’s bias in reporting by pouring evidence collected into a pre-determined verdict.
If the Guardian were not applying an institutional (British Foreign Office pre-determined conclusion) bias, then its editor would have combined the eyewitness accounts to the clear satellite photographic evidence provided by the Russian authorities, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who was really in possession of these surface-to-air missile systems — the Ukrainian military.
Official US Plan to Destroy
Civilian Aircraft for Diplomatic Gain
The first official known plan to fake the destruction of a civilian aircraft was drafted by the US Pentagon in 1962. A former NSA analyst at Strategic Culture reports:
“The use of commercial passenger planes as false flag targets of opportunity for US national security and intelligence planners is nothing new.
The US National Archives yielded an explosive formerly classified document some five months before the 9/11 attack in 2001. The document, “Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba,” outlined for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, a series of false flag attacks, code named Operation Northwoods, which would be carried out by the United States on various targets but be blamed on the Fidel Castro government of Cuba. Dated March 13, 1962, the Top Secret Northwoods document was prepared by America’s top covert Special Operations officer, General Edward Lansdale.”
The Northwoods plans called for the sinking of a boatload of Cuban refugees en route from Cuba to US shores, blowing up an American ship in Cuban waters, and more importantly in light of the recent downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, faking a Cuban Air Force attack on a civilian jetliner.
Lansdale and his Northoods planners concluded that the US invasion of Cuba would receive wide support as a result of an outraged public. The document states:
“World opinion and the United Nations forum should be favorably affected by developing the international image of Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere.”
Most certainly, this blueprint by US intelligence is mirrored today in 2014, as the US and its NATO member allies (and media assets in tow) using totally synchronized messaging — dominated by wild speculation, hyperbole and hysteria characterizing the rebels in the east of Ukraine as terrorists, Russia as the enemy, and President Vladimir Putin as ‘the personification of evil’ for American and British media consumers.
All we need now is the truth.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
