This one is just low-hanging fruit and I can’t help myself.
New York Times
June 18, 2001Senator Biden, who met President Bush at the White House just before he left for Europe, questioned whether trust was the right word to use about Mr. Putin, a former operative of the K.G.B., the Soviet intelligence service, and former head of Russia’s domestic intelligence service. At their news conference in Slovenia, Mr. Bush said of Mr. Putin: ”I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.”
Senator Biden said that for his part, ”I don’t trust Mr. Putin; hopefully the president was being stylistic rather than substantive.”
Vladimir Putin is the furthest thing from trustworthy. He’s also a huge troublemaker. And he’s deliberately destabilized his own border region and turned a part of Europe into a no-fly zone.
It’s true that we don’t have all the facts but it certainly appears that ethnic Russian separatists were allowed to get control of military-grade surface to air missiles and were not dissuaded by Putin from taking pot-shots at whatever flies through Eastern Ukrainian airspace. I think Josh Marshall has it right:
Find extremists and hot-heads of the lowest common denominator variety, seed them with weaponry only a few militaries in the world possess – and, well, just see what happens. What could go wrong?
The audio tapes posted by The New York Times might as well be from some future Russia-based version of Waiting for Guffman or Best in Show, a comical rendering of rustics and morons stumbling into an event of vast carnage and international consequence mainly because they’re hotheads and idiots – the kind of people no one in their right minds would give world class weaponry to. It’s like finding some white supremacist/militia types on their little compound in the inter-Mountain west and giving them world class missile launchers and heavy armaments.
If you’re inclined to view Russia sympathetically and blame Europe for pushing too hard for economic integration with Ukraine, just take a look at the way Russia operated in response and the results.
I don’t think this jet was targeted because it was a civilian aircraft. I think it was targeted without much thought at all.
First off, I’m half-Russian/half-Ukrainian – and I hate Putin, and always have.
My sister, who’s out at a Russian Orthodox Choir Conductor training session for a couple of weeks – and usually pretty liberal on most subjects * – really likes Putin, because he’s “strong,” so I can’t wait to ask her what she thinks of him NOW?!?!
I can’t ask her, because she’s at a monastery, and only the library has internet or cell phone access – no, sorry, no WiFi in the monk’s cells.
I hope a lot of our Putin-lovin’ conservatives have backed away from their previous stance that their beloved Putin is strong and good, while Obama is weak and bad.
We’ll see.
They never loved Putin as anything but a fulcrum for tearing Obama down. They have zero sincerity and zero credibility. If they open their mouths, you know they’re lying.
Weren’t they cool with Putin when GWB was in the WH? Weren’t they also cool with the old drunk crook Yeltsin when Clinton was in the WH?
The “conservatives” probably misremember the Clinton years as a time when they were against everything Clinton when in fact they liked almost everything except that he was a Democrat and not a Republican. They’ve simplified their position since then — oppose everything a Democrat in the WH supports except for the use of US military assets and then be quiet not to confuse the rubes with this support.
My mother’s family comes from Ukraine, and I have friends and relatives there. Been there myself several times.
Coincidentally, I dislike Putin too. Not because of Ukraine. I just always thought he was an asshole. And you know what? I was right.
Great post Booman. My wife is Russian American, from Rostov on Don, of Ukrainian ethnicity, with relatives on both sides of the border. (Her family fled East from the Germans during WWII and many stayed in the “Russian” area after the war.) You can imagine the anxiety this situation has engendered in her. She’s basically apolitical, and reminds me of what many Russians are like in the face of that country’s poisoned politics: victims looking to survive a Government they can’t control.
In many ways this is Korean Airlines 007 all over again. I hope the blowback finally puts Putin and his murderous proxies back in the box were they belong, since we’ll never get real justice or accountability out of his situation.
Reminded me of nothing more than a bunch of up-armed Contras, circa 1985…
It’s been reported that there were about 80 small children on the plane and large group of Aids Virus experts on their way to Australia. But, the pressure on Israel to stop killing children and civilians will never come close to the pressure that Putin will face over the next few weeks.
Of course, terrible. But what if there were no AIDS experts or children on the flight? It would still be terrible. It is not more terrible that virtuous persons are on the plane. I am also not interested in the nationalities of the passengers. It is not more newsworthy or less newsworthy if all passengers were American or if no passengers were American.
It’s a terrible event, regardless of the virtue of the passengers. Certainly, if the plane was filled with nothing but felons going to another prison, it would still be terrible.
Putin has handed over first world arms to a bunch of thugs and criminals. While stirring the pot in Ukraine may temporarily deflect attention from the awful job he and his henchman are doing of running the country I suspect that some of those arms will wind up being used for extortion and worse in Russia itself. Maybe that’s what it will take to unseat him. I’m not holding my breath.
Again, Higgs making it personal. How simple it is to hate on a bad man. No need to think what national interests for Russia, or even the US, are at stake here.
First, Russia says that they did not supply the BUK SAMs to the rebels. Is that a lie? How do you know it’s a lie? Because Samantha Powers says so? Well, you, or enough Americans, believed the WMD story, didn’t you?
Curious, though, is the second story where several days ago the rebels allegedly seized some BUKs from the Ukrainian army. Two stories, which means that if one story is disproven then you the consumer of propaganda can fall back to the second one. And if both stories prove to be untrue it doesn’t matter, because you already know that Putin is a bad man. That’s how propaganda works on your brain, Higgs. And you can believe that it was an accident if you can’t get on board the WWIII express and presume Russia’s guilt.
So TWO stories emerge putting the BUKs in rebel hands. Who else has BUKs? Hint, if the rebels allegedly stole a BUK from the Ukrainian army, that must mean that they have them too.
The other problem with the current theory that the rebels shot down the plane is that it takes time to learn how to operate a BUK. Granted, it’s possible that it just so happened that the group of rebels who acquired the BUK were quick learners or had operated BUKs in the Ukrainian army. Or if you’re on the WWIII express, you can believe that bad man Putin supplied a BUK and operators because the bad man was so bad that he didn’t know that shooting down an airliner would be a “game-changer”, a term already used by both the BBC and Talking Points Memo.
That’s why the story of the Spanish air traffic controller is so fascinating. Why would two Ukrainian fighter planes escort that particular airliner, which changes course to fly over the worst area of fighting? Maybe the Ukrainian government wanted the bad man Putin a chance to shoot down an airliner over the war zone. How convenient.
Go team go! Man, I should have invested all I had into Exxon decades ago. The profits may be bloody, but they’re big.
So if I’m reading your correctly, there are two basic possibilities:
Is that more or less what you’re suggesting?
I’m not inclined to accept any part of the “Spanish air controller” story. If there’s any truth at all in it, it is far less than what has been asserted.
Also not being widely reported.
Which means it can’t be true. Right, Judith Miller?
Dunno why you’re choosing me and Marie as your targets here to mock when we’re mostly agreeing with you. Well not necessarily that it was a false flag or whatever, but about propaganda and “wait for shit to be investigated first.”
And exactly who will these supposed impartial “investigators” be, seabe? The hottest-thing-ever experts of every country are bought and sold creatures of those who really control those countries.
C’mon.
AG
An impartial international body and search team? Hans Blix was able to confirm what many people knew: no WMD. Somehow that doesn’t fit your pet theory that experts of “every country” are bought and sold creatures.
Not attacking.
I don’t embrace it because it could be a story used as an okeydoke to further discredit anyone from blaming Kiev. However, I’d like this investigated.
Ukraine says that there are no Spanish air traffic controllers in Kiev. That should be easy to prove. Let’s see if anyone is allowed to go through the employment records of air traffic controllers in Kiev. If the Ukrainians are lying, all bets are off. Of course, if there is a “Carlos” in Kiev he may be finding his surroundings a little uncomfortable about now.
But the same Carlos does exist and was interviewed on RT months ago talking about how bad the coup regime was. So if Carlos is a fake story, was Carlos a Russian agent put in place to shift blame? Seems unlikely. It would just be easier to shoot down the plane away from the war zone, and you don’t create a false story that can easily be disproven. But then why would Russia or the rebels want to shoot down an airplane? Judging from the news of the last 24 hours Ukraine has certainly benefited from it.
Chasing extraordinary claims made by one anonymous person (or machine) on Twitter, etc. tends to stoke CT fantasies and not provide any useful information. Could be propaganda by one or more entities or could be a kid with access to Twitter.
I agree. But you don’t dismiss it. You wait to see if more information surfaces. I’ve been following covert intelligence actions since as a kid JFK was gunned down in broad daylight. Shooting down an airliner was on the books as a possible CIA op back in the fifties. Operation North Woods? Maybe that one was the whole false flag terrorist campaign, but there was some plan on the books for shooting down a plane and blaming it on Castro. So, while you think that killing three hundred people for a false flag operation is extraordinary, it’s been on the books for almost as long as I’ve been alive. The CIA is the chief suspect in Dag H’s plane crash. And don’t get me started on Pan Am 103. The CIA is always doing something despicable and pinning the blame on someone else. It’s a way of doing business.
Conceptually, I dismiss nothing. Too many players in the world wouldn’t blink twice in approving the downing of a commercial airliner if they thought it would benefit them. Killing three hundred civilians is paltry number compared to how many are killed on a regular basis by armed factions throughout the world.
We ordinary folks struggle to understand how a weirdo in the country could mow down students and therefore, are ill-equipped even to believe that the US military wouldn’t consciously and callously target and kill a large number of civilians in a single incident. All part of the “we’re the good guys” propaganda that we’re fed from the time we’re born.
“The other problem with the current theory that the rebels shot down the plane is that it takes time to learn how to operate a BUK.”
Yes, it does take time to learn how to operate a BUK. I see no reason to think they did know how to operate the thing properly yet, or they had any idea what the fuck they were doing. If they did, it seems unlikely they would have shot down a civilian passenger plane on its assigned flight path.
A lot of presumptions there.
No presumptions. I’m just saying that the fact it takes a while to learn to operate this weapon properly is not an argument against the rebels having done it; It can well be the explanation.
How simple to hate your own country and always assume it is the villain, no matter what atrocities the other side commits.
Why do you say such things? In this instance, nobody here seems to be suggesting or even postulating that the US downed MH17. Simply urging caution in assigning responsibility before enough facts exist. Can you honestly not perceive the full court propaganda operation of the Ukrainian government at this point? If the facts are on their side, it will become known, but right now they seem to be as desperate in pushing their storyline as Israel always is in pushing theirs.
Are you proud of this country for killing at least 100,000 Iraqis, maiming even more, and displacing even more than that for a big, fat, fucking lie?
What was the US death toll in Vietnam? A million? Two million?
Have you no shame?
Because Bush was wrong, Obama and Biden are wrong?
Although I rail that nothing has changed economically from Bush, I do see a difference in foreign policy, except for that bizarre adventure in Afghanistan.
However, I will admit to pride in the military skill with which the Iraq invasion was waged. And I’ll admit to profound disgust with Saddam Hussein as a human being. It’s true, though, that the War was a colossal foreign strategy blunder and was the Vietnam war.
I’m not proud of JFK and LBJ for fighting their proxy war in Asia and the behavior of the military command and Robert Strange McNamara was criminally incompetent. I am proud of Higgs Boson’s Mate and all my classmates and current co-workers who fought and died there, for all died in some way, even if it was only their youth and innocence that died. And no, I don’t give a big rat’s ass for any on the other side and for our so-called ally (or puppet if you prefer, it’s apt enough).
Marie, why do you say such things? Have you no shame?
I think we have very different views on violence and honor even though we agree on much else. I’ll even agree that my views are very nineteenth century. But, to quote Carville, I’m right, you’re wrong. I’m trying to follow my own advice to Higgs on civility and I do apologize publicly again for calling you a racist, although that’s what it looks like to me when you support terrorists like Hamas, and you called me first. We are never going to agree on who we love and who we hate, so we should try to stop trying and make our comments on a technical and detached observer basis.
You’re correct, we will never agree. “Shock and awe” filled you with pride; whereas, it filled me with revulsion and pity for all those innocent people our bombs were dropped on.
To quote Muhammad Ali:
But for you, “And no, I don’t give a big rat’s ass for any on the other side …” they aren’t human beings; only targets for the almighty US military power.
If Hamas didn’t exist, Israel would have to invent it — oh, wait, they did. It’s very easy to judge the actions of others around the world from the comfort of our houses with plenty of food, water, and energy. I often find Hamas’ actions incomprehensible but I can say the same for much of what the IDF also does. But I don’t know what it’s like to have been born in a time and place where my family was kicked out of its home and forced to live in abject poverty in overcrowded refugee camps or ghettos and frequently subjected to violent attacks by the IDF for sixty-five years. What I’m not willing to do is dismiss them as subhuman. With no rights to protect themselves or ask for the return of what was stolen from them.
And please stop acting as if only men that served in the military during the Vietnam War era were the only ones whose lives were negatively impacted. Many of us lost loves that were irreplaceable.
Not sure about your point. I’ll be right back after I look a little closer at those aluminum tubes.
Bullying your way into Ukraine, it will be tougher to get any deal done as nearly half of the nation is Russian speaking and there is a strong division.
Your NY Times article [June 2001] provides excellent reading into the mindset of members U.S. Congress and the world. VP Joe Biden is running foreign policy under Obama, similar to Kissinger under Nixon and Nixon under Eisenhower. Nothing has changed, U.S. policy is incoherent to say it mildly.
My diary posted earlier – Wretched Statement by Ms Clinton On Crash Malaysia Flight 017.
Malaysia Air has updated the nationality of the victims, 189 Dutch nationals died in the crash in Ukraine. The Netherlands has a good relationship with Russia dating back to Peter the Great and has important trading ties through joint ventures with Gazprom and Dutch Shell.
PM Rutte just finished his first press conference after he had a phone conversation with President Putin. Although the Dutch newspapers and journals are extremely biased anti-Rusian in its statements and the so-called ‘experts’ they interview on air, Rutte stayed completely neutral. He made clear it serves no purpose to start with accusations where there is little to no evidence. The only indication from the intelligence source, the likelyhood the civilian plane flight ML017 was shot down by a missile launched from the ground.
Two days ago, the Ukrainian government warned the air space above eastern Ukraine was unsafe. It’s not clear why the official international airline organizations permitted flights over the greater area of Donetsk. It appears the pilot of flight ML017 requested the Ukrainian air control permission to ascent to 36,000 feet. Kiev air control replied this was not necessary.
I keep forgetting that that whole Euromaidan thing — or so-called Euro-maidan thing — was already being run out of Langley, or the Frankfurt Börse, or both.
If only the Ukrainians had agency, and could do things in and for their own country.
But as it is, they don’t, and shadowy outside forces have to do it all to and for them.
It should be noted that the CIA was aiding the Chechen separatists for years by 2001. Look up Graham Fuller, Ruslan Tsarnaev (yes, that Uncle Ruslan of the Boston Marathon bombing) and the umbrella organization run out of Fuller’s home address.
If the CIA (and undoubtedly the House of Saud) were financing the Chechen rebels, who were blowing up subways in Moscow and killing schools full of children, then one should ask, “Why?” Was the US merely trying to further weaken Russia? If so, what should Russia have done in Chechnya?
As I asked in another comment on this thread, what’s east of Ukraine and north of Afghanistan? And near Chechnya?
In Gary Shteyngart’s immortal book title…Absurdistan. Also known as “Where the energy deposits lie.”
Bet on it.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the energy’s flowin’.
AG
Someone in the NY Times comments today suggested that Europe stop buying Russian gas and switch to American gas. The game is revealed.
I don’t disagree with what you say about Chechnya.
But I’d like to turn this around: Ukraine is not Chechnya. I think Putin was starting an operation against Ukraine similar to what he did with Chechnya, Georgia, etc. But Ukraine is a very different place.
It’s not that what you say isn’t true. It’s the over-emphasis you put on it in explaining what’s been going on there.
I was thinking about this earlier today: Anything that happens, anywhere, you’re going to have a constellation of outside interests with their various takes and their various interests. They all jump in on it and you can take your pick from any of their propaganda mills. Sometimes these events are manipulated and would not even have occurred except for this outside proxy meddling.
But a country of over 45 million people, by area the largest in Europe with the exception of Russia, that achieved independence only about 25 years ago, has its own interests, and I don’t see that this figures in your thinking.
Yes there are fascists in Ukraine. But the fascists in Russia are playing a far bigger role than they are in Ukraine.
The Svoboda party in Ukraine, the far-right party, received 10% of the vote in the 2012 election. Even our American fascists do a lot better than that.
Svoboda also did not fare well in this year’s snap election. They may have provided the muscle behind the Euromaidan protests, but they don’t seem to be able (thankfully) to translate that to the ballot box.
But they got four ministers in the government. Nuland announced before the coup that Yatsenyuk was her guy, and he did indeed become the first president after the coup. I would not be surprised if Nuland or other Americans insisted that the fascists got certain seats in the government.
In the presidential election of 2014, the Svoboda candidate, Tyahnybok, received 1.16% of the vote. This was the election that officially replaced the pro-Russian Yanukovych.
Admittedly, turnout in Eastern Ukraine was very low, but that is precisely the region in which Svoboda has the least support.
So I think it’s fair to say that nationally, Svoboda is less popular in 2014 than in 2012.
I think the ministers are still there, but there are at least 19-20 ministers in the cabinet.
Well done. But you forgot some. Those AIDS researchers flying to Australia, what where they thinking? The flight path history for MH17 was right there on flightradar24.com for anybody to see.
I’ve got it! Those AIDS researchers conspired with the CIA to commit suicide to embarrass Putin in order to divert attention from Israel’s unprovoked aggression against Hamas! Why didn’t I see it before?
Sometimes those on the Left are nuttier than the Tea Party.
I’ve lived through enough false flag operations run by the US and this one has the same smell. The story circulating about the Spanish air controller should at least be addressed. From the New York Times map you can see that, as the air controller said at the time, the airliner changed course to the south to fly over the war zone. One would imagine that the black boxes might just have someone in the cockpit of the doomed plane mentioning them.
I would also note that the way the story emerged points to how these false flag operations normally are reported.
Finally, I am saddened that Booman fell for the old propaganda trick of demonizing the head of state of Russia. I am old enough to remember Fidel as the bad guy. It would an interesting exercise to trace all the bad men the US has had over the last half century. Once the argument is limited to the “bad guy” you don’t have to discuss rationally state interests of others, etc. It’s mano a mano. If Saddam is a bad man you can believe that he has WMDs because he’s evil. Invade Afghanistan because Osama is evil. Never mind that we’ve stayed there over a decade since Osama slipped across the border to our allies’ safe house. If the invasion was merely to catch Osama, then spending another 12 years there is not logical. But as long as you’re thinking about bad men, logic is not necessary. Khadafy. We replaced a bad man there with… chaos. Who benefits from chaos? Well, if you are driving up prices for a product it doesn’t hurt to take a country’s oil off the market.
Russia’s state interests are to move its natural gas to its European markets. Having a revolution in Ukraine is not in Russia’s interests. What are America’s interests in the Ukraine? I realize that the motives in Afghanistan offered for public consumption don’t tell the whole story. What’s north of Afghanistan and east of Ukraine? A gold star for the first person to guess.
The aircraft was shot down by mistake, you Putin-sucking moron. Both sides in the Ukraine are armed-up beyond their needs and their ability to intelligently deploy those weapons.
Made me think of the Contras, and how much more exciting that corner of the world would have been if the boys in the bush had a couple of functional Hawk batteries, and a little help.
Thank God for the Boland Amendment.
The Boland Amendment was, to me, the last time Congress had balls. Now Congress is all about open-ended AUMFs which allows that same body to deny responsibility for making war and to criticize the president for doing exactly what they authorized him to do. Congress has become home to passive-aggressive bullshit.
Bullshit or cowardice?
Bigger bogeyman for the AUMF.
Only the Dale Dribbles of the world ever thought the Nicaraguans were going to occupy Eagle Pass, TX.
Mother’s family is from Eagle Pass. Aside from that not really a huge loss.
Happy days for the Russophobes. We’re coming up on the hundredth anniversary of this “long war” (suspended for a few years when defeating Germany/Italy/Japan was likely impossible without the USSR on our side). And the US propaganda on USians works better than ever who still can’t be bothered to wait for actual and verifiable facts before blaming Russia.
Repeat after me, Marie2: Just because the United States is bad does not mean that Russia is good.
If you think about it, this is also a form of American exceptionalism….
Where did I say that Russia is good? Merely pointing out how quickly USians buy into “evil Putin” (only the latest of a very long string of “evil doers” that are pulled out to whip up the masses that I’ve been observing back to the days of Ho Chi Minh and extended back further than that) without evidence. How quickly we’ve forgotten all the Central American conflicts that the US supported based on imaginary USSR activities there. Then there was the imaginary WMD in Iraq that permitted this country to destroy Iraq. etc.
I don’t know what’s so difficult about “waiting”. The US government hasn’t even said who is guilty yet. Yet the media is doing that without any prodding.
US cites Evidence Rebels Downed Jet
Would that be the same US government that denied NSA activities that Snowden has been exposing for over a year now? The same government that claimed Assad used Sarin on Syrian civilians? The one that had the WMD goods on Saddam? etc.
Pardon me if I wait for more, and irrefutable, evidence before taking a position.
If you are going to wait for irrefutable evidence, I suggest you don’t hold your breath.
Whatever makes you think I’d hold my breath? Evidence, or the evidence of lack of evidence, takes time to emerge. So easy to recall those that said to me, “Just you wait, we’ll find those WMD” in response to me pointing out that the claims were highly suspect. (Actually, assessing the claims from several different perspectives based on facts in evidence and a bit of logic led to me conclude that there were no WMDs.)
Sometimes fingerprints are quickly apparent (ie Watergate and the coup in Chile; the former confirmed within a year and the later not confirmed for decades), but signatures aren’t always present. And some mysteries forever remain mysteries.
Other than the fact that the BUK missile system is complex and requires a good deal of training to operate, ya’ got me. The aircraft was at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was shot down. That’s more than ten thousand feet beyond the range of shoulder-launched SAMS. The weapon was provided by Russia, period. It had to be fired by trained personnel, period.
I hope that someone is paying you to write this a-historical tripe.
Muslim terrorists must be kicking themselves for wasting all that time trying to blow up airlines with bombs when they could have bought or stolen missile systems that any half-assed terrorist could use to take out commercial airlines flying at altitude.
Do wonder how many of these systems US, Russia, China, and a few other countries that have built their own have been sold to other countries. Weapons are big business in the international marketplace.
I’m going to guess that you haven’t read Chalmers Johnson’s trilogy (beginning with “Blowback”) or even Stephen Kinzer’s
“Overthrow,” (to name but three important books on US foreign policy) and therefore, you aren’t well equipped to perceive US propaganda in real time and seek out any and all sources for concrete facts, meager though they may be. In the short-term, available concrete facts can’t disprove US propaganda, only raise questions suggesting that we’re not getting the truth. And to act militarily on half-truths, often lies, is a crime against humanity regardless of who the actor is.
Marie2, I spent a year in the Mekong Delta. I don’t believe my government. I don’t believe anyone’s government. I firmly believe that governments become stale and rotten. They ooze hope and lies and little else.
Higgs, if you don’t believe our government then why do you believe our government?
I believe that both sides in the conflict in the Ukraine have been armed beyond their capability to intelligently deploy their weapons. I believe that Russia provided the separatists with an advanced missile system. I believe that the separatists used that missile system, in error, to down the airliner. If you’ve been following this story at all, you know that the separatists drove away the first investigators at the scene of the crash. That is not the action of the innocent.
I try not to use a faith based interpretation of major international events. Fully recognizing that patience is required for facts to emerge while the lies have circled the globe several times over. Also that in the first twenty-four hours of any major incident, most of what people think are facts are generally bupkis.
You believe. Did you have your hand across your heart when you wrote that? I believe that they could, that is, it is in the realm of possibilities that Russia could have provided them with the BUK. And the crew. But I have seen zero proof that they did.
The only people in the war zone who DEFINITELY had a BUK were the Ukrainian army. And the most bizarre thing, since the rebels don’t have planes it was of no use to them, except for shooting down airliners passing through.
Actually, the separatists did claim last month to have captured a Ukrainian BUK missile system or two. No information on the condition of it or if they could operate it.
How long has it been since Ukraine had (or stopped) universal conscription into its armed forces? My sense is that there might be a lot of folks in all parts of Ukraine who know how to operate a Soviet-era BUK surface-to-air missile firing battery disconnected from its command-and-control unit.
S-300PS introduced in 1985
S-300PMU introduced in 1992
S-300 V – introduced 1986 but mostly built and sold by the Antey Corporation.
Not exactly old USSR weaponry.
I’m no russophobe. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary. i am angry at the gangsterization and degeneration of that country under Yeltsin and Putin.
Trust you read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” for a full understanding of how that gangsterization under Yeltsin came into being. Hint: Yeltsin was “our guy.”
Higgs, this isn’t Balloon Juice where you can just insult people and claim to know the facts you don’t. Most people here actually think instead of reacting. Samantha Powers has accused the Russians today at the UN.
If it was an accident by the rebels (or anyone) then at least some of the blame has to go to Poroshenko and his US handlers for ending the ceasefire and not negotiating a peace.
Higgs, there is a strategy in propaganda where you demonize the enemy by making it an individual, a bad man. The first bad man I remember was Fidel, but there have been so many. Remember Ho Chi Minh? That justified bombing North Vietnam. Remember the faked sex movies of Sukarno? That helped bring about the 1965 coup and the death of upwards of a million ethnic Chinese. Perhaps you remember Allende. Bad man. The CIA was there helping out the new regime with seating arrangements in those soccer stadia down there. Ah, the contras, the Latin equivalent of our founding fathers. They, like our friends in El Salvador and Guatemala, learned how to torture at our School of the Americas. They were the good guys. That Nicaraguan who wore expensive sunglasses was the bad guy.
More recently, people were willing to believe the lie of WMDs because Saddam was a bad man. And so were his sons. I did some investigative journalism about Pan Am 103 and it wasn’t the Khadafy who blew up that plane. But enough people could get a hate on him so that we were able to bomb Libya into chaos.
But let’s not forget how we invaded Afghanistan to catch that ruffian Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, he slipped across the border to our buddies in Pakistan and for some reason we lolligagged there twelve years after he left. Were we hoping he’d come back across the border? Well, if you believed Dubya, we didn’t care about Osama anymore. Then why the hell did we stay there? For the social work of bombing the people there further back into the Stone Age? Nation-building? Maybe we stayed there to make sure Afghan women had equal rights. What story did you buy, Higgs?
Here’s another story: There were plans going back at least to the Clinton Administration to build a pipeline from Central Asia, through Afghanistan eventuating on the Indian Ocean. That is, the war in Afghanistan was for our oil companies to suck on that big milkshake in Russia and the former Soviet countries and pump it all down so that India had the fuel to run the factories where our jobs went. That’s something to wave a flag about, eh?
How curious that it turns out that the Boston Marathon bombers’ uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev was running an umbrella support organization for the Chechens (you remember, the guys who blew up subways and schools in the name of Allah) out of the basement of Graham Fuller. Graham Fuller has been tied up with Middle Eastern intrigue since Iran-contra. Why would the US support these fanatics? To weaken Russia? Yes, but you also must remember that Chechnya is on the road to Baku.
So why did America want to put a government in place in Kiev that was not only pro-Western but virulently anti-Russian (and yes, Higgs, there are fascists in the government and, yes, there are now CIA on the ground there)? What does Russia pipe across Ukraine? Who has been calling for Europe to stop using Russian gas?
If you’ll notice, I did not mention Putin at all. You mention him because you have been seduced by the “bad man” propaganda. Were you seduced by Osama bad man propaganda, or Saddam bad man propaganda or Khadafy bad man propaganda? It’s a great technique because even smart guys like you fall for it.
You’ve got some tires on ya’, Bob. First you imply that the shoot down was a false flag operation. How? Why? You’re making things up, again. The aircraft was brought down by a Russian missile fired from an area controlled by Russian separatists. Occam’s razor suggests that the separatists fired the missile. The BUK missile system isn’t something that you can throw in a Toyota pickup and smuggle into enemy territory. So keep telling me how to act here, Bob, and I’ll keep telling you that you’re an ignorant fuck.
Let’s see the radar results and let’s hear all the cockpit communications. Perhaps you can share it with us because you know all the facts. Thanks in advance for your good effort in seeking out the facts in this case. And thanks for degenerating into ignorant name-calling. That certainly strengthens your argument.
Yes, this incident really does smell like another false flag operation. All you can smell is bad man Putin. And since there is a Democrat in the White House and you probably believe that the President is in charge of our CIA and makes these decisions, and Obama is not a bad man, so he would never stand for that, therefore the CIA doesn’t do bad things when Democrats are in the White House. Right? The only problem is that the President hasn’t really been in charge of our CIA or our foreign policy since 1963. And as Jim Garrison said in 1967, Congress has been reduced to a debating society.
Wait, Higgs, you’re a smart guy. If the CIA were pulling a fast one to work up the hate on Russia you’d be the first to know. Right?
Higgs, I understand your anger which I share. I respect your service. I was wearing the blue suit around the time that you were in the delta. Luckily I never served in Vietnam, but several of my classmates died there, perhaps alongside you.
Watch the personal invective. I’ve been guilty of the same, but we don’t do that here.
Likewise, I was a vet of the Vietnam era.
touche
Bob,
You know I respect your opinions. You’re often right.
But on what’s been going on in Ukraine lately, I don’t think so. Sometimes the Russians suck more than we do. Sure we have interests in Ukraine, and obviously so does Russia. But the Ukrainians have even greater interest in Ukraine.
You don’t have to agree with me. Just listen to what I say and keep an open mind.
It becomes challenging to keep an open mind and listen to someone who makes open accusations of a false flag operation executed by the U.S. with zero evidence to back it up because CIA HISTORICALLY BAD. That’s rankly offensive.
If they weren’t involved in any way in the downing of this passenger flight, I should think that Russia and the Ukranian rebels would be very pleased to have a well-executed forensic investigation of the wreckage and the black boxes; an investigation could provide valuable exculpatory evidence for them, or evidence which incriminates the U.S. or the national Ukranian armed forces.
The Russian Federation is part of the International Aviation Authority. It appears extremely well positioned to see to it that its international IAA partners could execute an investigation with factual integrity. Instead, armed rebel forces are blocking multi-national observers from having access to the evidence scene:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10977705/MH17-separatists-block-internation
al-observers-from-crash-site.html
And a statement from the White House says “It is vital that no evidence be tampered with in any way…”, apparently to no avail since Ukranians can be seen in photographs walking through the evidence sites and altering them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10975264/Problems-loom-for-investigators-as
-Flight-MH17-black-box-may-be-in-Moscow.html
The claims about the black box do not appear to be particularly well sourced in that last story, but the location of that box is a major concern at this point. I’m totally willing to wait for more broadly verifiable facts to be reported. That willingness to withhold judgment should be provided by the Victoria Nuland and CIA haters among us as well.
Other countries and independent actors are capable of committing immoral acts as well. Let’s accept that as a truth as we move forward.
It’s late so all I can say is if you have read about the CIA over its existence and still think that it’s hunky dory, then you need to read something else. The CIA is essentially an international version of the old coal and iron police. Our post-WWII foreign policy/espionage history is essentially doing the dirty work for the monied. It is the bastard child of Wall Street and the Nazi SS. If you want, I’ll give you a list of books to read.
As far as what Russia or Putin’s positions are regarding investigations, I don’t know all your sources but would hope you try reading Russian sources to at least know what Putin or Lavrov or other spokespeople actually say. Putin, himself and through Lavrov, had been the most consistent government involved at calling for a ceasefire and negotiations. If you don’t know this it is because of your news sources. Both Merkel and Hollande are next. Obama and Poroshenko seem to be the worst. So far no one has asked the rebels to any negotiations.
As far as the investigation itself, I wouldn’t doubt that both Washington and Russia have a pretty good idea of what happened. They both monitor that area pretty closely with a variety of surveillance techniques: radar, satellite, anything you can imagine. The government of Ukraine has access to a lot of information: their own radar, radio connections between the flight and the control tower in Kiev. And, of course, whoever shot the rocket, if that’s what happened, knows.
We are seeing a chess match. I have yet to hear a logical reason why Russia would want to shoot down an airliner, except the “Putin is bad man, mad man” illogic. But, as the last day or so has shown, the US and Ukraine have everything to gain. Whatever, all this suggests a long civil war.
The Ukrainian army by itself will not win this civil war, and if they are defeated outright you can expect other areas, such as Odessa, will be seeking separation from Kiev. The US will not support Kiev with enough economic support to save it from failing. But for US interests, failed states are not necessarily a bad thing. So the US wins either way. And the Ukrainians will lose.
I don’t think the CIA is completely “hunky-dory.” I also don’t think that requires me to immediately accuse the CIA of executing the murder of hundreds of passengers on this commercial flight, especially when there is zero evidence for that claim.
Bob, centerfielddj makes some valid points. Just as some here are too quick to take on faith whatever the US government says, you’re too quick to assume a western/covert ops/false flag explanation for an event based on sketchy and suspect information. Over-reading initial information isn’t better than under-reading it. And neither facilitates good and open discussions of possibilities and probabilities that can point to directions the inquiry needs to take. IMHO that’s why a fuller understanding of the truth of 9/11 was short-circuited. No unique event is without its odd coincidences that are nothing but coincidences. Or chaff. And sometimes there’s so much chaff that the simple truth is difficult to find.
At this point, the odds favor the improbable shoot down by Ukrainian-Russian separatists. However, the odds that it was perpetrated by some faction of western Ukraine may not be much lower. The US and Ukrainian government jumping on this to exploit the “Russia/Putin is really bad” meme may not indicate anything other than being skilled at propaganda and not letting any opportunity go to waste. Or maybe it’s more nefarious than that. But arguing over this at this point isn’t productive. Putting all the possibilities and evidence on the table for consideration as new evidence emerges is. IOW, keep an open mind and consider new evidence as it becomes available.
This is actually one of the more sensible comments I’ve read. Right now, not enough is known to really make much of a judgment regarding responsibility. Any approximation to the truth may not be known for a while. Although I’d probably bet that this was one of those Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moments for the Novorossian rebels, I’d rather wait a bit before I’d feel comfortable stating so confidently. That the rebels were even put in that position is not just on them, of course, but also on the other players in this particular situation. Wading through the propaganda in the meantime will be more than a little frustrating.
Wading through the propaganda is more than a little frustrating.
For example:
Kiev: OMG the rebels are leaving the bodies on the crash site to decompose in the sun and heat.
Kiev: OMG the rebels are removing bodies from the site which is destroying evidence.
And the Russophobes jump on both statements to add it’s all Putins fault with zero comprehension that the two statements conflict. Always amazes me that such crap propaganda sells so easily.
As in the aftermath of Katrina, we also get “there are looters” on site. That’s a sure winner with the working and middle class white folks and distracts them from asking relevant questions and considering relevant information.
I repeat…from another recent comment:
They are all guilty.
Bet on it.
And another 300 people die.
“So what?” say the various politicians. “Collateral damage. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. ‘We”…whichever “we” might be speaking at that particular moment…”gotta win. For the good of the country!!!”
Dog-eat-dog.
Also know as realpolitik
Kissinger must be proud.
He got a Peace Prize too.
Whadda buncha maroons.
I got yer “Peace Prize. Right here!!!
Needs more jpegs.
thanks for making my day, Davis X;
Good God, this goes deeper than I thought. You know who else won a Nobel Peace Prize? Martin Luther King! We hold him up as an icon, and yet he won a Nobel Peace Prize! This means he too is responsible for both the carnage in Ukraine and the crimes of Henry Kissinger!
The Nobel Peace Prize committee more often gets it right than wrong, but their error rate is inexcusably high.
Giving it to Obama was just weird. At the time, he hadn’t been in office long enough to establish a record as either a peacemaker or a warmonger. He basically got a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush.
The Nobel Peace Prize committee is a sucker anti-nuclear weapons rhetoric. But they’re usually more cautious in assessing the credibility of the rhetoric than they were with Obama. They may have let “hope and change” cloud their vision — but Obama’s acceptance speech was enough to tell them that they’d made a big mistake.
What no “Rand Paul is the answer” in this grabbag of stuff? In case your missed it Another Christian warrior for Zionism
No knee-jerk “leftiness” insults either. The four horses of the Apocalypse must be near.
Lovely.
Thanxs, folks.
This place is rapidly turning into dKos, Jr.
All kneejerk, all the time. (With a very few exceptions, of course.)
AG
I can’t help but be reminded of how in 1988 a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian passenger plane in Iranian air space, killing all aboard, including 66 children. Those who shot down the plane were awarded medals, and while we expressed regret, we never did take responsibility or offer any apology; Reagan insisted the crew of the Vincennes acted appropriately. It sounds as though Russia has acted deplorably, but given our history, it will be hard to take any expressions of America’s moral outrage seriously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Yes, I thought of that too when this happenend. And I remembered to ‘Remember the Maine’. Am I mistaken that the US paid compensation to Iran? Iran has a postage stamp commemorating the atrocity.
Approximately $250,000 per victim, though no official apology.
Oh, the US is so meanfisted, tight, ungenerous. Someone like Ms Clinton would disagree, ‘We are the nicest people in the world, just look at PUUUUTIN!’ It’s going to be very interesting to see how this horrid event pans out.
The Iranian passenger plane was sending an IFF signal that it was a warplane. Probably some tech goofed but you can hardly blame the Captain and crew of the Vincennes when a large plane signaling a war plane IFF and refusing to answer radio calls and heading straight at them was fired at.
Have you ever been in that position? Would you hesitate? Would you risk your multi-billion dollar ship and about a hundred crewman depending on your decision?
It’s easy to say “shoulda woulda” in your arm chair. Much harder at the sharp end.
You sure about that? Not even the US Government supports that version.
Where is Judith Miller when you need her?
Who benefits from the shooting down of a Malaysian Airlines commercial passenger plane (another Boeing 777 no less)? Putin certainly doesn’t as the spotlight of the Cold War nostalgists in the US and elsewhere focuses on him.
It distracts from the Israeli invasion of Gaza, but not even Netanyahu benefits from that sort of distraction–despite Wayne Madsden’s beating the drum for this line.
It benefits neither of the Ukrainian sides.
It likely benefits no one. So we can dial back the outrage based on intentionality.
How was the plane destroyed? Despite the US intelligence community jumping the gun with the shoot-down story, we don’t actually know yet. The Boeing 777 is not a perfect airplane to begin with. And if US intelligence has information, given their past failures to correctly identify the difference between civilian parties and terrorist gatherings, they must show their work before I will accept their assertions as credible. Remember that this is the same intelligence community that claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was supporting al Quaeda. Just because the President and his appointees are different doesn’t change all of the compartments in the intelligence apparatus. And with Victoria Nuland at State, the intelligence on Eurasia will be slanted in some way or another to her views as an “intelligence report customer”.
If it was indeed shot down, is there a record of the source of the fire. At 33,000 feet, MANPADs (shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles) can be ruled out even for a lucky shot. Until there are more details reported, that fact is the only reason that analysts are jumping to the conclusion that more sophisticated surface-to-air systems, like the Buk (or as US defense wonks refer to it, SAM-11), have been implicated.
Who shot it down? Geography provides the list of suspects: Ukrainian government forces, Ukrainian paramilitary forces, pro-Russian militia forces, Russian government forces. All of those groups in one way or another have access to Soviet-era and later surface-to-air missile technology.
Also, until analysis is done of the wreckage, it is impossible to rule out a failure or sabotage from inside the plane. Which is why the rush to judgement has become so interesting to me as well as the fact that it is now coming from the President and Vice President.
Assuming that it was shot down by one of the four potential groups in the area, what is the most likely scenario given that it benefits no one.
As best I can determine the design of Buk or SAM-11 batteries is a central command-and-control unit and multiple firing batteries. The command-and-control unit has the capability to identify aircraft signatures so as to indentify commercial vs. military, and friend vs. foe aircraft by type of aircraft. The firing batteries lack this capability.
The most likely source of fire is from pro-Russian militias with equipment captured from overrun Ukraine military bases in eastern Ukraine.
The most likely scenario is an operator of an independent surface-to-air firing battery has enough information to target and successfully hit an aircraft but not the information that identifies the signature of the target. This design ensures that batteries can keep firing after a strike has taken out the command-and-control equipment.
It being a war zone, none of the personnel of any side on the ground is anticipating a civilian aircraft going through the airspace regardless of the fact that the Ukraine government has not suspended previously approved overflights from the air space.
The pro-Russian militias, on a high from having encircled a Ukraine government unit and captured it, and from their success in bringing down Ukraine military aircraft that were supporting the campaign in the breakaway regions, are shooting at anything in the air that moves. At first they are gleeful they shot down something. When they learn that they shot down a civilian airliner, they are appalled. (There are tweets and other social media comments to this effect; take them with the usual grains of salt.)
Under this scenario, which is the easiest to imagine, Putin has done nothing provocative. He has not supplied weapons to the pro-Russian militias; the crossover from the troops in the Ukraine Army to the pro-Russian militias has.
In fact, Putin has been caught flatfooted by the news of the shooting down of the airliner, as the confused rumor mill in his propaganda organs attests. The Interfax news agency releases a story that says that Putin’s plane coming back from the BRICS summit was the real target–of the Ukrainian coup paramilitaries–and passed the air space 40 minutes beforehand. Russia Today broadcast this report to US audiences (and maybe to other audiences) before the Kremlin issued a statement that the report was (1) not true and (2) Putin had avoided Ukraine air space since the coup.
I don’t think its helpful to join the chorus seeking a new Cold War with Russia no matter how Machiavellian Putin is in international politics or repressive he is in domestic politics. We have tolerated other Machiavellian and repressive leaders of competing world powers.
For the US foreign policy establishment, this seems to be about Putin and the financial system proposed for BRICS countries at the BRICS summit and not about the airliner or deaths of the 298 people onboard at all. And the media started the drumbeat on Putin before good information was known.
I’m having those 2003 feelings all over again about the information we are getting (and the disturbing sense that the White House is politically scared from doing due diligence and full disclosure to the public about what the intelligence community is telling them).
Something is not adding up yet.
Ukraine’s Kiev government benefits from the disaster because with the help of its American cheerleaders over the past 24 hours the blame has been pinned squarely on its enemies. And America and its reinvocation of the Cold War gets to have Samantha Powers stand up in the UN and blame Putin.
So don’t think that someone doesn’t benefit.
Things are never going to “add up” again, Tarheel. Not like they used to add up. Deal wid it. Too many different calculators using too many different codes, all of which are biased towards the desired ends of their owners.
If nothing is true…if nothing can reliably be proven to be true because of massive efforts by the various secret governments/deep states of the world…then everything is indeed permitted.
Everything.
Watch.
AG
Sure, it’s just like 2003?
Are we invading Brazil, Russia, India, China or South Africa on the back of this misinformation? Or is it a parlay, and we’re invading any two of them?
(1) US national security policy was pivoting from the Middle East to China until Ukraine came along and the Russia became a “concern”. India’s new nationalistic government has not yet begun to asset itself internationally; that will be interesting to watch. Brazil is worrisome enough that the NSA tracks Dilma Roussef’s communications; remember that fallout from the Snowden documents. And South Africa is the weakest economically of the BRICS countries. But three within that alliance are nuclear powers. I’m not sure that the PTB have condescended to allow the people to know how they intend to deal with this challenge.
(2) It’s the media hysteria that is like 2003. And to the extent that Biden, Powers, and Obama start sounding like John McCain, the White House is a problem as well. Putin is the guy Americans love to hate because of 68 years of anti-Russian propaganda. He’s the villain of choice (even for Bush who looked into his dreamy blue eyes /s).
(3) The policy direction on BRICS is not quite there yet and hopefully the White House will have some rationality about the possibility that there might be two competing financial systems in the world again. We’re not quite to the point of BRICS hysteria, but Republicans are likely to surface it soon in desperation. Until then Russia is the enemy-du-jour.
(4) The fact is, you cannot continue to take advantage financially of populous countries that are growing economically nonetheless and not expect alliances to push back. The rest of the world is going to construct institutions that bypass the US the more the US insists on its own exceptional status.
Yes. Absolutely.
I wish that I could rate this five.
Six, even.
There it is in a nutshell.
Thank you…
AG
Agree. What? Don’t know. The sheer dumb luck of Ukrainian-Russian separatists? On the order of the dumb luck of the 9/11 hijackers to select a day when Cheney was running war games over US airspace?
Absent more solid evidence, the potential list of targets and perps is longer than the simplified version of Ukraine military, Russian military, or separatist rebels acknowledges. Absent real answers to MAH370, probably shouldn’t even dismiss that Malaysia or Malaysian Air wasn’t the intended target.
Good point on Malaysia and Malaysian Air. Or something related to the AIDS conference. There was certain information available on the internet (or available to folks who could break encryption on the internet) about the people going to the AIDS conference. But at the moment that trail is less probable.
As I understand it, hitting a plane at 33,000 feet with a SAM battery disconnected from its command-and-control system is not a matter of dumb luck. Having it turn out to be a commercial airliner as a result of the lack of access to a command and control unit to screen it is the bit of bad dumb luck.
As for the 9/11 dumb luck, just remind yourself of what the NSA mass surveillance presuppositions are all about. Big data is massive correlation of coincidental data. Correlation does not prove causation in the absence of more concrete information.
And again.
Thank you…
AG
re: how the plane was downed, to me it’s strange that we have Malaysian airlines again – here’s a graphic on number of commercial flights flying over the region in the past 7 days by carrier
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bild-981813-726883.html
it’s curious to me that it’s Malaysian airlines again. it’s pretty accepted that the missing plane was lost due to human intervention, though that’s all we regular ppl know (govs probably know more)
Excellent information. That raises the question of why this is the first civilian aircraft to shot down. If there is that much activity in that corridor, why have there not been previous incidents?
And it raises questions about what the air control authorities knew about these flights over air space in the functional equivalent of a war zone. Not just Ukraine authorities but authorities along the entire route from Netherlands to other places, including Kuala Lumpur.
I guess the authorities thought that the conflict risk was limited to small arms and MANPAD risks.
It was a no-fly zone from 0 to 320. It was considered safe above 320 which is the altitude commercial airlines maintain when overflying conflict zones. Guess that will change as it can no longer be assumed that those in control of surface to air missile systems won’t shoot at commercial airliners.
well the pilot requested to fly above and was told by Kiev that it wasn’t necessary. According to the Spanish ATC guy, the plane had been escorted by Ukrainian military planes up until moments before it was shot down.
from what I’ve read about why so many were flying in the airspace it’s a tradeoff between what commercial airlines know of the risk (not always very much) and the expense of a different route.
one question is could there be a connection between 370 being “breached” as it were, if it was taken over by someone other than the pilot or crew and this downing? lots of unknowns imo.
For Booman: Russia lived with Ukraine during the “Orange Revolution” with the politicians and oligarchs trained by NED. What makes this “revolution” different? The presence of actual fascists in the government? Well, the US and the media keep denying that the fascists are fascists. Don’t the Russians know that the fascists aren’t fascists? Why is there a civil war in Eastern Ukraine? Because Russian strategists decided that having a failed energy-starved state over which to transport its gas to Europe is the best way to run its business? Or maybe because stupid bad man Putin just likes to raise hell because he’s evil.
Booman, what are the US’ interests in Ukraine? Obviously, it’s a focus of our foreign policy. Are we there to bring FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY to the Ukraine by overthrowing the elected government? Like Iraq and Afghanistan, right? Like Vietnam. Like Chile.
There have been several stories indicating diplomatic pressure on some of the countries that are supposed to carry Russia’s South Stream into Europe. Who do you think is making that pressure? The countries that need Russia’s gas? Or someone else who wants to sell Europe its energy?
Wouldn’t it be sad to discover that the three hundred dead were a publicity stunt in order for Exxon et al to better market their energy products to Europe? Let’s not think of that.
Irrelevant. The service ceiling of any commercial airliner (around 43000 ft) is in easy reach of an SA-11, which is designed to kill things like B-52’s (50000 ft), F-15’s (65000 ft) or even incautious SR-71’s (85000+ ft).
Small changes in altitude like that enroute are almost always related to winds aloft, and an attempt to save fuel.
Conspiracy Theories are the order of the day when significant events occur.
We know that a plane crashed.
That is it. We suspect it is a missile – maybe it was. We can’t even be sure that is true though at this point.
So in the interim we get people from the left, from the right, from the center regurgitating facts to support their ideology.
Yawn.
Speculations to explain mysteries are a human activity. Nothing wrong with that if stated as such. Those that assert “facts” not in evidence or having beliefs that they use to select historical events that have some similarity to the current event while ignoring other similar events that don’t support their belief are jerkwads.
Marie, in essence that’s how most people think most of the time. Most people react from moment to moment because it’s very hard to be always “on” dividing up between is felt and what is known.
Conspiracy theories are necessary when there is good reason to think there was a conspiracy. This was not a conspiracy, it was fuck up of the highest order.
Because you know that the rebels screwed up and shot down the airline. You’ve tracked the radar. You’ve listened to the cockpit recorders. You know that no government would claim things about another government without proof, or deliberately knowing it’s a lie.
I haven’t seen any proof that Russia supplied a BUK surface-to-air missile system capable of taking out anything at that altitude to the rebels, and I haven’t seen any proof that there were trained Russian crews there to run the system.
But you know who does verifiably have BUK surface-to-air missiles in the war zone? The Ukrainian army. The only problem is that the rebels don’t have any airplanes. Why would you deploy a weapons system to a war zone where it serves no purpose? Who were the Ukrainian army planning on shooting down?
I’ll be excited to see you post the transcripts of the cockpit conversations. Don’t hold back. And pictures of the rebels shooting a BUK. Thanks in advance for giving us dear readers links to your proof so that we know you aren’t stating opinions as fact.
I rather suspect that this was a fuckup. No one had any discernibly rational political interest in shooting it down, unless it was part of some plot to frame the other side, which strikes me as unlikely in the extreme.
Most of the rest of the stuff in this thread is worthy of a Zerohedge thread.
No, the US and its client state have a rational political interest in having this disaster blamed on Russia. Take a look at the reporting over the last 24 hours. Classic demonization.
Is three-dimensional; land, space and cyber. Thanks to the buffoonery of the Klingons he enlisted in his cause Putin has a life-size 3D pyramid of merde to deal with which now threatens to unravel his ambitions.
Does this fit neatly with the aspirations of some of his enemies? You bet it does. Is this evidence of their involvement? Underpants!
Shaun
I am saddened by the theories offered here. Obvious creative opportunities are being ignored.
Isn’t this an obvious retaliation for the Brics attack on Bretton Woods and the Dollar?
Or put another way – isn’t this really all the inevitable result of leaving the gold standard.
I don’t see how we can beat around the bush; this is clearly the work of the alien Anunnaki.
you are just making shit up.
No other way to put it.
exactly what Rush Limbaugh says.
Hey, we are just speculating.
Then he proceeds to pull crapola out of you know where and present it as fact. That’s not what those engaged in honest speculation do.
What concerns me more than who did what is the possibility that this terrible incident may, like the assassination of a certain archduke, have consequences that will lead to even more loss of life and more misery.
I’m old, I grew up with weekly duck-and-cover drills (As if crouching under our little desks would protect us from thermonuclear weapons). I don’t want anyone’s kids to be subjected to that.
I am not reassured by the observation that the rebels are a raggle-taggle assemblage of bumblers. The same could be said of Gavril Prinzip and company.
They are not a raggle-taggle assemblage of bumblers. They are trained Ukrainian army troops or veterans (before the coup) and they know how to operate a SAM well enough to shoot down an aircraft at 30,000 feet or more. I suspect the equipment lacks the capability to identify whether the aircraft is military or civilian or whether it is friend or foe.
According to a vet who has worked with US SAM batteries, if an operator is in danger of having the equipment captured, it is standard operation procedure toe disable certain of the code files that inform the targeting of the battery. If this is an captured Ukrainian SAM, it is possible that even it had the capability of identifying aircraft signatures, that capability might have been sabotaged in order to prevent use by those capturing the equipment.
The probability is high that they are Russian special forces working with local traitors.
Could be. But are they traitors or rebels?
How are they different from those in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine that covert special ops from the US have been working with over the years? How much did Vicky Nuland say the US has spent over the past two decades to facilitate regime change in Ukraine? Was it $5 billion?
Did they swear an oath to Ukraine?
What’s the saying? None dare call it treason. If you win it’s not treason. If you lose it is.
After John McCain mouthed off about arming Ukraine, it occurred to me that the whole Ukraine conflict might come down to which arms manufacturers make a profit from the Ukraine government–US or NATO ally or Russian arms manufacturers. Currently Ukraine is locked into Russian military technology through its current inventory and training.
Before the arms manufacturers can make a profit they have to identify the government that’s willing to pay for the arms as Ukraine can’t. Probably an arms dealer or two out there scooping up spare parts from Russia for transfer to Ukraine as soon as the checks clear.
○ CNN Report: Did surface-to-air missile S-200 take down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17?
“I don’t think this jet was targeted because it was a civilian aircraft. I think it was targeted without much thought at all.”
Exactly.
This whole Ukraine gambit has been an exercise in assholery on Putin’s part. The bullying it typical but the irresponsibility and incompetence is an eye-opener.
My advice to Putin: Quit while you’re ahead. Not that you are ahead, but what I mean is, you’re more ahead now than you’re going to be at any time in the future. This ain’t going anywhere for you.
Putin putin putin. Yes, Priscianus, please. You give Putin some advice. Make it mano a mano.
Propaganda is a glorious thing.
Look in the mirror, Bob.
I look in the mirror and I see someone who isn’t falling for the demonization propaganda trick.
No, you’re providing demonizing propaganda. Trying to make us fall for your version, is all.
I’m “providing demonizing propaganda”? I’m telling you how propaganda works. If you think that propaganda is a good thing, then by all means embrace it. Most people do, and you’ll certainly be swimming with the current.
Claiming the CIA is most likely to have been involved in murdering these passengers with nothing other than references to past events and your spidey sense is an attempt to provide demonizing propaganda on your part, for sure.
Doubting our government line absent good evidence to support it is understandable. Laying particularly volatile accusations against our government with zero real evidence to support those accusations is unreasonable, and it undermines rational discussions.
Similar problems emerged with the Ghouta gas attacks in Damascus and the Maidan Square sniper killings in Kiev …
○ Evidence Continues to Emerge #MH17 Is a False Flag Operation
The Guardian was also complicit in publishing biased information on the Maidan Square sniper killings and a video edited to accuse Ukraine security forces.
Here’s the deal. If Ukrainian-Russian separatists are responsible for the downing of MH17, not allowing observers and neutral inspectors access to the crash site isn’t going to preclude the identification of them as the culprits. OTOH, if they’re not responsible, allowing persons with unknown allegiances access to the site could too easily contaminate the evidence well enough to point the finger at the separatists.
It’s not as if the conflict in Ukraine is unknown and an international team of neutral and experienced inspectors should have been assembled and ready to go within several hours. Would any international airline, other than the spooked Malaysia Air, not have been active in setting this up quickly after reports of the crash?
That would fix the date of the audio recording the Kiev junta used in the false flag operation of July 17.
○ Wikipedia: Ukrainian Air Force
Cross-posted from my diary – Wretched Statement by Ms Clinton On Crash Malaysia Flight 017.
Russia Today had an interesting list of questions for Kiev regarding the plane disaster. I’m not competent using those doohickies below, so I’ll just reprint it:
TEN QUESTIONS FOR THE UKRAINIAN AUTHORITIES
+++
Thanks for being the Voice of Kiev here, but really, since most of what you write is presumptions on your part I think I’d rather hear from Kiev.
“You have a link to an internet video of the rebels shooting down that plane? No. You don’t.”
Well Well well. It seems to have disappeared from youtube. Of course, you could say it was never there. So much for the permanence of the internet.
Similar problems emerged with the Ghouta gas attacks in Damascus and the Maidan Square sniper killings in Kiev …
○ Evidence Continues to Emerge #MH17 Is a False Flag Operation
○ Ukraine Releases YouTube Clip “Proving” Rebels Shot Down Malaysian Flight MH-17
The Guardian was also complicit in publishing biased information on the Maidan Square sniper killings and a video edited to accuse Ukraine security forces.
what do the accounts of the bodies being dead already mean? I’m not following that.
Do you have a source? I’m staying away from nutty or conspirational websites, there are many.
will try to find where I read it and link; yes, I too am staying away from the nutty or conspiratorial websites. the looting stories just look like propaganda to me, but seem to have credibility for the Dutch audience- is this correct?
Looting does happen everywhere. In everyday life, a traffic accident people’s wallet go missing.
Imagine East-Ukraine, a warzone with roaming groups of gangsters, deprived of essentials to stay alive. It’s like Somalia, a nation with no security or government. A big silver bird drops out of the sky, debris falling over an area extended for 10 miles. In fields with sunflower crops, perhaps corn fields in a rural area of deprivation. Coal miners who are fed up by the government in Kiev. Who am I to Judge?
It’s all about how the media brings the news …
○ Dutch News Uses Anne Applebaum as Putin Expert
It didn’t take long for Dutch newspapers and national television broadcast editors to locate U.S. neocon ‘experts’ to tell us how we should think and handle the investigation into the crash of Malaysian passenger jet MH-17 in Ukraine.
yes, I saw that on your diary. unfortunate.
on 8 – why escort that flight? did they escort all flights? here’s the link to the list of flights along that path on the day and previous 6 days.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bild-981813-726883.html
And we already know the answer.
Itar-Tass reported the separatists themselves claiming to have captured the air defence hardware two weeks ago, emphasis added:
Conspiracy, shmearacy. Oh, wait… I know, the spooks went back in time and planted that story. Crikey. This site is the sanest most sober reading on domestic politics but when it comes to international stuff it’s worse than ZeroHedge on a bad day.
Did anyone here deny this report? Or even question its authenticity? Okay, some are saying the Russia gave the separatists a missile system and therefore, Putin has blood on his hands. However, those here that have allowed for the possibility that the separatists downed MH17, either accidentally or on purpose, are accepting that they did get their hands on a Ukraine missile system. That doesn’t mean that it was operational or the separatists had the skill to operate it. Those are some of the open questions at this time.
“You annex Western Ukraine with the goons and yahoos you have, not the goons and yahoos you’d like to have.”
Not getting your point. Who is attempting to annex western Ukraine?
Eastern Ukraine. Spoil sport.
As I’ve followed events, Russia/Putin haven’t acted as if they want to annex eastern Ukraine. They did propose an autonomous eastern Ukraine region but it would still have been part of Ukraine. The Russian speaking inhabitants of eastern Ukraine do fear being ruled by an unleashed western Ukraine. And for good reasons.
Look, the real prize was the Crimea, which is a done deal. But this is how Putin rolls, “Nice little republic you’ve got there, pity if something happened to it.” Not saying Eastern Ukraine doesn’t have mixed feelings but the yahoos he’s enlisted are wholly Putin’s creatures and anyone following his career would see this pattern repeated. He will use this Donetsk People’s Republic bollocks as leverage against Ukraine until further notice and inject armed goons and cash into the ‘rebellion’ as he pleases or circumstances permit.
He’s a walking protection racket; which is about as far as his geopolitcal nous takes him. He’s hardly more than a warlord in a suit himself. That he outwitted the West on Crimea was as much obsession as cunning.
Crimea was about Russia’s only warm water port.
I don’t know “how Putin rolls.” I can’t even figure out how the US rolls — exactly why have we spent $5 billion over two decades to facilitate regime changes?
The people in eastern Ukraine would prefer to be aligned with Russia over the people in western Ukraine. And may well prefer to be independent of both if that were an option. So, it’s not exactly like the US invading and appropriating some distant land (Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam) and claiming it as our own.
Referencing the U.S.’s absorption of the Hawaiian Islands into statehood in a discussion about this shootdown and its surrounding events? Good lord. Rather different geopolitical situations, no?
I’m disinclined to believe the U.S. government line automatically. But I’m also disinclined to automatically disbelieve our government line. That way lies lunacy.
Follow the discussion — I was responding to the claim that Putin is in the process of annexing eastern Ukraine and Shaun “knows how Putin rolls.” Not on the topic of the shootdown of MH17.
You may disagree that having a long standing relationship with a nation on one’s borders and sometimes interfering with internal dynamics of that country isn’t understandable (not that the US hasn’t interfered with Mexico on numerous occasions at least that part that we didn’t steal from them). However, it hardly rises to the level of non-border lands with no long-standing historical ties that the US has appropriated in the past. And most of those territories aren’t US states but exist in some state of not being independent nor fully a part of the US.
I thought this was understood, my emphasis:
The whole thing is a good read. You can’t be all conspiratorial one moment and play dumb the next, Marie. Pick one.
What’s your definition of “conspiratorial?” Does considering as many possibilities and probabilities but without endorsing any of those narratives because there aren’t enough facts to do so make one conspiratorial?
This is Remnick’s source:
That would be like a foreign publication using David Gergen (or any number of US “darkly skillful spin doctors” on the outs with the current WH) as a source for what’s up with Obama. David Remnick is often worth reading. However, anyone that could blow it as thoroughly on the relatively easy to assess situation wrt to Iraq as Remnick did isn’t a strong enough analyst for me to take too seriously.
I get it, no heroes in this tale; doesn’t mean Pavlovsky isn’t right this time, though. I laughed at your Gergen remark, well said, I was thinking more Lanny Davis. But Putin is clearly overextended which is the man’s whole point; res ipsa loquitur since yesterday.
Gergen’s not the best spin doctor, but the best that has worked for both Republicans and a Democrat.
Have no ability to assess what Pavlovsky has said — Russia historically, economically, and cultural is foreign to a western way of thinking. I learned this many years ago in a conversation that latest several hours with a Russian physician. Whether Putin is overextended or not, he did rescue Obama from his Syrian blunders. I also tend to discount reports that sound too much like psychobabble. Not because there may not be some truth in what they say but because it’s way overstated. Why the DC pundits are so dreadful and the anti-Obama and anti-Clinton screeds are ridiculous.
This is the law enforcement securing the crash site. Not a good look.
And some people in Alabama would prefer to be aligned with George Wallace, but until some enabler like Putin comes along with armed muscle and deep pockets it just sells bumper stickers.
Wallace is dead, but dreams of a Confederate restoration, fully owned and run by white people, remains alive.
However, that is a very poor analogy to Ukraine and Russia. If the US should ever break apart and some region decided to forged an alliance with say China and actively seek the destruction of the remaining US through economic measures and discriminate against certain populations within its region, would it be wrong for the US to try to protect those populations that have asked for help? We didn’t, after all leave, the fate of African-Americans in the hands of the South when it broke away. And some of us are proud that our ancestors had the wisdom and fortitude not to allow slavery to continue.
Hatfields and McCoys then.
” This site is the sanest most sober reading on domestic politics”
Just don’ t get us started on the Kennedy assassination.
Why?
I’ve heard that report too, which leads me to a serious question:
The Ukrainian army has an air force. The rebels don’t. Why would you bring a complex weapons system for shooting down planes that are 30,000 feet in the air when the rebels have no planes? Were the Ukrainians planning to shoot down something else, maybe? What? Russian planes. Really? That’s a damned quick way for the Ukrainian army to send their masses into the Hall of Ukrainian Heroes.
And why would you bring in a complex weapons system for shooting down planes when you can’t use it on the rebels and then leave it somewhere where the rebels can use it against you?
This might explain why the Ukrainian army is getting their butts whipped in the east. They are the dumbest military in history.
Or, it might be part of the story leading up to the downing of the airliner and blaming it on the rebels. Elsewhere I’ve addressed why in false flag narratives there are several different explanations, but all pointing to your target. If Russia can’t prove that it didn’t supply the BUK and crew to operate it, then we’ll go with that one. If Russia can prove it, then we’ll go with the rebels finding a weapons system and using it.
just bring out the conspiracy types out of the woodwork.
This thread does resemble a Zerohedge thread. I love the analogy.
Gee, I was a conspiracy theorist about those aluminum tubes. How about you? You take Colin Powell’s word for it?
Hadn’t considered the the US Energy Dept that said the aluminum tubes weren’t suitable for centrifuges was a CT. Accepted their expert conclusion as fact and Bush/Cheney/Powell were selling a lie.
But what that has to do with the various things that you are making up here I have no idea.
I read an article the other day about how we all believe whatever we choose, and damn all evidence to the contrary: and I believe it, damn all evidence to the contrary.
Most likely some group of masked morons used a missile system they shouldn’t have, and now everyone is trying to pin the blame on their villain of choice.
I’m perfectly willing to wait a little bit before saying that Putin/Kiev/CIA did it.
Don’t get me wrong, Putin is a fuckwit, Kiev’s government has fascists, and the CIA is a paramilitary that should be disbanded just after all of the criminals are brought to justice for the shit they’ve done.
Between this and the chemical weapon usage in Syria, it’s going to be very hard to find the actual culprit right away.
Be sure that there are all sorts of satellites looking down on Ukraine, as well as old footage being reviewed. Unfortunately, because of US Empire, why would anyone believe the US government? Especially when the US government is so quick to start blaming one of its eternal boogiemen (Russia).
Actually, it’s pretty unlikely that some dumb cluck fired just fired that missile and accidentally shot down an airliner. It’s within the realm of possibility but it’s damned unlikely, even if they were trying.
Russia could have done it by moving a BUK into the war zone and supplying a crew to operate it that could link with the Russian radar net. But, as the last 24 hours have unfolded, we see that there is no rational reason for Russia to do this.
Ukraine could do it. It would not be a very nice thing to do, but they are capable of doing it, and it’s something from the US intelligence playbook. The Ukies didn’t do it without the US’ encouragement and help. This is much more likely, and the entire bloom of propaganda over the last 24 hours smells like a lot of past US fakery. Go back and read the clippings around the Gulf of Tonkin. And a hell of a lot more people died over that lie than the people on this airliner. But don’t expect this to ever be the conclusion of our media or our government.
Must also remain mindful that some propaganda is merely opportunistic or trying to mask something unrelated to the current issue and not evidence of culpability. It perplexed ordinary USians that Saddam seemed so squirrely about allowing weapons inspectors into Iraq and led many to conclude that he was hiding WMD. What made far more sense to me is that he was militarily very weak and feared if that were known, it might embolden Iran and he didn’t think the US was dumb enough to invade Iraq. He was so locked into his old way of thinking that he completely missed that Bush/Cheney and the PNAC gang were serious and as crazy as he was.
“Go back and read the clippings around the Gulf of Tonkin.”
So do we see the Administration moving public opinion toward forcing a quick Congressional vote to authorize the President to use military force as he sees fit? No?
Pretty fucked-up analogy, then.
First, I wasn’t making a reference to the granting of war powers. I was referring to how the news has been reported, how various government people are putting logs on the fire. It should be clear to any consumer of news that the war drums are beating and that the administration is behind the escalation of rhetoric. You don’t see that?
I don’t think that the US’ goal in this is to engage in a sustained war. But pushing Ukraine into a failed state could serve as a cork to Russia’s trans-Ukrainian gas lines, and I think that US’ interests are in trying to cut off the business relationship that Russia has with Europe and ultimately to control the big pool of Central Asian oil and gas itself.
“It should be clear to any consumer of news that the war drums are beating and that the administration is behind the escalation of rhetoric. You don’t see that?”
No, I don’t. Even you admit in your second paragraph that, despite your spectacular and unsubstantiated claims, you do not think that our goal is to engage in a sustained war. Me, I see no evidence that we want to get engaged in this war at all. Hell, even the Republican hawks aren’t clamoring for military action.
We clearly want to see the Russians suffer geopolitical damage for their incursions here, and for what will be a rather disastrous miscalculation on their part if the best available evidence for who executed this shootdown becomes substantiated. That is NOT synonymous for the beating of war drums.
I’m not siding with Bob wrt to a false flag or even assigning responsibility for the downing of MH17 until more and better information becomes available. However, you do seem to be ignoring all the anti-Russian and anti-Putin rhetoric that has been coming out of DC and promulgated by the MSM for the past year (damn they so wanted the Sochi Olympics to fail), two decades of US funding for regime changes in Ukraine, and all the covert and more extreme recent efforts by Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine. This has all been so blatant and clearly an effort to undermine the Russian government and an economy that is still very hobbled from what Yeltsin and western neo-liberals did to it.
Putin is a smart guy but he’s also too much of a nationalist and socially conservative not to walk into traps, some of his own making. However, he does get it that the west wants Russia’s natural resources and would prefer to get at them without Putin or Russia in the way.
The quote you pull from my post is a partial acknowledgement that I recognize the U.S. is trying to weaken Russia geopolitically through these episodes. The fact that I haven’t been pushing back against the many statements on this thread which have placed the devil’s horns on U.S. foreign policy is another acknowledgement. I just couldn’t stomach a false flag claim without evidence to back it up.
I don’t sign on to absolutely every claim you make here, or ones that others are making on this thread. Some posters put the worst interpretation on agreed-upon facts; some shave other facts. These slight disagreements just haven’t been big enough to comment on. I’m in near or full agreement with most of what’s here, including the foreign policy critiques.
I’ll point out that Russia employs heavy-handed, fact-challenged rhetoric against us as well. To unilaterally disarm our rhetoric would be a flawed strategy.
Or begin building a bridge to a cooperative relationship. The Russians were stupid to oust Gorbachev, but the US was stupid to default on the promise not to expand NATO and kicking Russia when it was down.
Then the full throated US backing of Yeltsin and the neo-liberal economic “shock doctrine.” The significant and rapid decline in life expectancy during those years bordered on a crime against humanity.
I never said someone accidentally clicked the fire button and shot down a jet.
I’m saying it was probably a bunch of morons who knew how to use the weapon just enough to shoot down a passenger jet. Perhaps they were very, very stupid and actually thought it was a Russian/Ukrainian military jet. Who knows.
Wikipedia: Igor Girkin
If this disaster was an “Oops” by one of the Donbass Peoples Militia with enough knowledge of a caputured SAM to be dangerous to civilian air travel, Mr. Girkin is now in a bit of a PR pickle.
There are a lot of former CIA agents out there out of the Agency and acting like loose cannons (not to be confused with the ones acting like loose cannons on behalf of the Agency). Girkin seems like that Erik Prince wannabe type of guy. But if the DPR site Rossiya Vetcha is a reflection of their thinking and PR, he is running for the Baghdad Bob award. Or maybe it’s just Google Translate. But “the plane was full of dead people before it was shot down” just doesn’t fit what we know about it before it entered Ukraine air space.
For a moment I read that as “Dumbass People’s Militia.”
He’s just a ex kgb employee sitting in a comfortable chair & laughing that everyone has inflated his perception into some diabolical fiend.
Meanwhile America is experiencing a full on assault of the stripping of everything sacred. Ask yourself this: Does it really matter thousands of miles away something you can’t even do a nano bit of difference? At least in the USA, we have a fractal chance of something happening.
Yea, I don’t have any time to concern myself w/ Putin. Wake me up when Vlad starts eating children’s eyes like grapes live on u-stream. THEN..I will be TURBO CHARGED offended! Children Grape Eyes? That’s UNACCEPTABLE!
Is he a morally questionable character? Yes, but take a number… because there are more than you and I could even begin to handle.
[sic] Obama and his team have really hit the RESET button. Brave warrior Joe Biden.
○ Pentagon Advocates More Diplomacy, Less Confrontation, in New Strategy Proposal – May 1992
Posted earlier in my diary – Dutch News Uses Anne [Neocon] Applebaum as Putin Expert.
.
Who “Mislaid” the Malaysian MH-17 Black Boxes?
There should be no discrepancy on the whereabouts of the two black boxes. How the hell can Dutch FM Matk Rutte, overnight turned Neocon pro-Atlanticist and anti-Russian, tell the Dutch people just minutes ago:
“Black boxes are in the train to Charkov.” [Kharkiv]
○ ‘Industrial scale’ tampering of evidence at MH17 site, says Aussie PM
○ MH-17 = Ghouta Redux? by Confused Ponderer [blog Sic Semper Tyrannis]
No kidding, so the boxes were stowed on the train with refrigerated wagons for transport of the remains of the victims. The train went through rebel territory over into Ukrainian government territory. No doubt the boxes will be handed over to the FBI/CAA of the United States for ‘urgent investigation’.