Saturday, July 26, 2014



MH17 – Sacrificed Airliner

Andre Vltchek* 
The special train carrying refrigerated corpses from the MH17 catastrophe has left the station of Torez, just a few miles from the crash site. People, who died a terrible death onboard the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, will soon be reunited with their grieving families. They will receive a proper funeral, and will be laid to rest in the Netherlands, Malaysia and several other countries. They are on their way home, at last.
The Ukrainian rebels handed over the black boxes to international authorities. The investigation can begin. It hopefully will begin, unobstructed by political maneuvering.
Will the Empire allow the investigation to follow its course? The Western propaganda machine is in full gear. The twisting of facts, obscuring of evidence, and maneuvering public opinion all over the world: all this is being done with determination and routinely applied precision.
So much is at stake! Increasing cooperation between Russia, Latin America and China could mean the end of Western neo-colonial control of the world. The creation of alternatives to the World Bank can free billions of human beings from market feudalism and its slavery. Powerful news organizations broadcasting from Russia (RT), Venezuela (TeleSur) and Iran (Press TV) are consistently breaking the depressing and nihilistic monopoly of Western propaganda and control of people’s brains all over the world.
The more liberating these trends and waves are for the world, the more panic there is in Washington, London and Paris, but also on Wall Street and in the City, as well as in the newsrooms of the corporate media.
The West is terrified. Its ‘exceptionalism’, tremendous profits from controlling everything that moves on this planet, the kick of being in charge and holding the whip, all this can disappear if these waves of resistance are not reversed!
And the villains are damned Russia and Putin, who is refusing to yield. Putin is despicable, and a real nuisance in the eyes of the Empire, because he is unwilling to sacrifice, or to destroy his own country as Yeltsin had done two decades earlier. The villains are also those bloody Chinese, because they are sticking to their ideals, to socialism the Chinese way, while lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. The other villains are those bastards from Latin America, with their big dreams and humanism, their revolutions and sudden refusal to sacrifice their own people for the wellbeing of the Western elites.
And all of them – these three disobedient parts of the world, three cohorts – are now getting closer and closer together, forging an as yet undefined alliance, but an alliance nevertheless, increasing cooperation, signing treaties, creating alternative organizations, and saying “No!” to the world order. And more countries are looking at all this with hope; more are joining the club of the free. Not absolutely free, but free from Western colonial terror, which is now perhaps the worst kind of terror that exists on this planet (including those horrid derivates of the regime, implanted all over the planet).
To fight these dissident nations openly, to do it on ideological or moral grounds, is impossible. They would most certainly not lose! By now it should be too obvious, it should be too clear who is on the ‘right and wrong sides of history’.
Therefore, the “smear” is the only way for the Empire to advance its destructive cause. Or at least it is the most effective way. The good old way of discrediting one’s enemy, was by dragging him through filth, by turning his achievements into failures, his heroic resistance into hideous crimes. The Brits perfected this, ruling their colonies for centuries, by deceit and perverse philosophical concepts. The German Nazis were fairly effective as well.
The way it stands, there is nothing good that Russia can do. There is nothing decent about China (it is Communist when it suits Western propaganda or ‘more capitalist than traditionally capitalist countries are’, when it fits the bill). Venezuela with its direct democracy is dictatorial. And so on.
And now the plane… The second Malaysian Boeing 777 lost in one single year… Both belonged to one of the best airlines on earth, with a great maintenance record for its equipment! Strange, very strange… But Russia is certainly to blame. Because the President of the United States said so, because the British PM said so… No proof is needed. The Western public is extremely obedient.
Now the bodies are going! From a small Torez station, they are going home, wrapped in bags.
They are victims of something that many decent people all over the world are even afraid to formulate in their minds.
The area of Eastern Ukraine that they – the corpses – are now leaving, is full of local victims, too – those civilian victims of ethnic cleansing, whose only fault is that their maternal tongue happened to be Russian, or that they do not or cannot live in a country run by the pro-Western fascist dictatorship of the ‘Chocolate King’, Poroshenko, and his gangsters.
Now civilians are dying, every day. That does not bother the Western regime. Killing the rebels, their families and neighbors, is encouraged. Burning people in Odessa, burning them alive, is not even criticized in the lackey corporate media. The entire debate and coverage of events has become grotesque and sick.
More then 100,000 people have recently crossed into Russia, seeking refuge from Ukrainian bombers and rockets, or perhaps more, most likely much more.
Russian lives do not count. Asian lives do not count. African lives do not count. Middle Eastern lives do not count. The lives of Latin Americans do not count. That is why the West so freely and without hesitation has murdered tens of millions of ‘unpeople’, for decades and centuries.
The formula is simple: Dutch tourists do count. Ukrainian villagers don’t. It was quite similar during Nazi control of Europe.
***
Right after the tragedy, the legendary thinker and Chief Editor of “The Greanville Post”, Patrice Greanville, summarized the events and predicted what is coming. He did it with deadly accuracy:
“The US TV networks —the West’s Ministry of Truth organs—and other media have been blabbering almost nonstop for the past few hours about the Malaysian airliner down in Ukraine.
In the early reports on CBS, ABC, etc., I perceive a marked tendency to suggest “Russia or her proxies did it”, in this case also involving the “Pro-Russia separatists” in East Ukraine, who supposedly “have been shooting at planes” (the implication is indiscriminately) in their struggle against Kiev’s all-out military offensive.
As you probably agree, this is either an outright blatant provocation by the West, or a direct result of Washington’s criminal policies in Ukraine.
It’s easy to determine several scenarios in varying degrees of plausibility and culpability. While it’s plausible the plane was shot down by Eastern Ukraine separatists, it’s also obvious they (and Russia) have little to gain from such an act. So at worst, it can be argued it was simply an error on their part.
Indeed, if the plane was shot down by a missile, it could have been fired accidentally by the East Ukraine rebels—perfectly understandable given the horrible pounding they’ve been taking by Kiev’s air force, etc.
The second type of suspect involves not error but direct intention and therefore complete culpability. Here the lineup is clear, as the shot could have come from Kievan forces in the region, seeking to heighten tensions as per script, or a third party working for the West…
As usual, the larger context, that the US is the principal and very real meta-cause of this tragedy, will be lost to most in America…
Welcome to the new, even higher stakes Cold War, courtesy of the usual bastards in Washington, and their accomplices around the world.
The problem for us now is how to counter the inevitable propaganda wave sure to follow. Brace yourselves for the barrage of hypocrisy and sanctimonious accusations to pour out of Washington’s mouthpieces.”
All this was happening while I was working in Cambodia, trying to counter another fully perverse narrative manufactured by the West in this tortured country, several decades ago.
I met my friend, a fellow war correspondent, Andrew Marshall, and asked him, theoretically, about the coverage of similar events. Andrew is the former head of Reuters in Iraq, who later resigned from the agency because it refused to publish his critical findings about the Thai establishment and its ‘elites’ (I will be soon publishing my full interview with him). He offered his thoughts on the issue of the downed passenger jet. The point he was making: whatever the answer to ‘The question’ is (who is responsible for the act itself?), it does not change the wider geopolitical and ethical issue:
“There is a tendency in the 21st century World of 24-hour rolling news coverage to overemphasize and dramatize individual incidents in a conflict, subjecting them to intense coverage, while at the same time failing to analyze the underlying causes and patterns of conflict. The task of analyses is to focus on the “signal”, not the “noise”, but most modern media do the opposite. It’s also clearly true that powerful global interests seek to control the narrative by staging events to drown out the signal with noise. Some opponents of this strategy seek to create their own “noise”, trying to undermine the dominant narrative. In many instances it is justified, but a focus on the noise rather than signal can be counterproductive.
For example, I believe the overwhelming evidence of what happened on 9/11 is that men associated with Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This was then exploited by the United States to justify a disastrous “war on terror” in the Muslim world.
The modern news media seize on incidents such as MH17, or 9/11, to exemplify a wider struggle. But in fact, in conflict, all sides tend to commit atrocities sometimes, and all sides make mistakes. In any conflict, innocents on all sides, and innocents unconnected with any side, routinely suffer. This is tragic. But sensible analysts need to avoid conflating the horror and blame of specific incidents within a conflict with the overall moral calculus of the conflict. The two are totally unconnected.”
***
Soon, things began to crystalize. As Western propaganda howling reached a crescendo, I contacted another trusted source, Sergei Kirichuk, the leader of the ‘Borodba’ movement, an influential left-wing organization in Ukraine, which is fully opposed to the Kiev junta, but at the same time maintains its independence, and cannot be defined as fully ‘pro-Russian’. He replied at length, and I have translated most of his quote for this essay:
“Without any doubt, the tragedy of the Malaysian airliner has become the most significant political event of the last few years. The tragic death of innocent people shook public opinion in Ukraine and in the entire world. Unfortunately, the circumstances of the tragedy and the information related to it, offers more questions than answers. First, and the most important question, is how did a passenger airliner happen to be in the epicenter of the military conflict? In all those days leading to the tragedy, the mass media was carrying stories about attempts by the insurgents (both successful and unsuccessful attempts) to down airplanes belonging to the Ukrainian military. Earlier it was announced that the airspace was declared closed for civilian aviation. Besides, MH17 deviated significantly from its usual flight path; routinely it was flying more to the south. Answers to these questions should be given through an international investigation.
The second important question is based on the claim by the Ukrainian security services, related to some “intercepted communication of the terrorists”, that the ‘terrorists’ were the ones who downed the plane. This communication appears to be a clear fabrication, fake, but were it to be genuine, it would provoke even more questions towards the Ukrainian security services: would it mean that they were able to monitor the communications of their adversaries, were familiar with their plans, but did nothing to prevent the tragedy?
The most terrible thing is that the tragedy of innocent people who lost their lives is being used by Ukrainian mass media as some sort of justification for the loss of lives of the civilian population in Donbas. The onslaught of the Government forces began with renewed zeal, not caring at all, anymore, about the losses among the armed forces or civilian population.
Besides that, pro-NATO elements now believe that there is solid justification for the invasion of Ukraine by Western forces…”
***
But a leading international lawyer, Christopher Black (he has investigated genocides and crimes against humanity all over the world), based in Toronto, Canada, went even further, and declared in a letter to me:
“The downing of the Malaysian airliner was either an accident by the Kiev forces or the anti-fascist forces of the Donetsk Republic, in each instance targeting the plane because they thought that it was a military and therefore a legitimate target, or it was a deliberate attack on a known civilian aircraft.  If it was deliberate then it is a case of mass murder and a war crime since it took place in the midst of hostilities. I wouldn’t call it an act of terrorism as some have said as an act of terrorism is designed to create fear and panic in a population. Clearly those who downed the plane had other motives than creating fear and panic among civilians.
Many writers over the past few days have commented that neither the DPR forces nor Russia had either the equipment in place to hit neither the plane nor the motive to deliberately shoot it down. But there is strong circumstantial evidence that the forces of the Kiev regime had the means, the opportunity and the motive. They had the equipment and engaged in very suspicious actions; they had BUK anti-aircraft systems in place for unknown reasons since the DPR forces have no aircraft, the Ukraine Air Traffic Control ordered the plane’s crew to divert from the regular more southerly route to go north over the combat zone, a Ukraine jet fighter was recorded by Russian radar climbing rapidly towards it just before it went down, and, within minutes of the crash, it was the Kiev regime and its masters in Washington and London who cried loudly that it was the DPR and Russians who were to blame without a shred of evidence to support the claim. And now we know that the Ukraine SBU immediately seized the ATC radar tapes and do not appear to have handed them over to international investigators.
Kiev and Washington also had the motive: to smear Russia and the anti-fascist forces and to provoke the EU to abandon its political and economic relations with Russia. It does not take a Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes to conclude the most likely suspects are in Kiev and Washington not in Donetsk and Moscow.
President Putin has insisted on an objective international investigation since the news broke while President Obama and his minions in Kiev have done nothing but call for the head of Putin.  History shows that President Putin has insisted on adherence to international law and civilized behavior consistently throughout his terms in office. His integrity is unquestioned, whereas President Obama has been consistent in his calls for war, war and more war in every region of the globe and insists that the Americans are “exceptional” and above the law and judgment.
It may be that the results of an independent investigation of this tragic and terrible event will have consequences for the United States that are beyond its imaginings and that will erase any remaining influence or credit that it may still have in the world. They have committed many crimes. This may be the one crime too many.”
***
The presentation of logical arguments and proof, by Moscow, by the rebels, and even by some dissidents inside the Western regime, has not changed the dogged and extremist position of the Empire. But why should it, really, if the entire scenario had been, most likely, manufactured (or at least manipulated) by the neo-con mafia in Washington and by their counterparts in European capitals?
At some point, The Wall Street Journal reported in its article, “Russia Presents Its Account of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash,” and it was refreshing that at least some quotes ‘from the other side’ were able to make it into the mainstream Western media:
“Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday presented its first detailed account of the final moments of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, saying Russian radar had spotted a second aircraft in the vicinity shortly before the crash and that satellite imagery showed Ukraine had moved missile systems into the area before the incident.
At a news conference, air force chief Igor Makushev didn’t say who the ministry thought had fired the missile that apparently brought down the airliner on Thursday.
In an elaborate presentation displaying radar and satellite imagery, Mr. Makushev said it was likely that the second airplane was a Ukrainian fighter jet. He also showed satellite photos allegedly portraying several Buk ground-to-air missile systems in the area close to where the plane crashed. The systems, he said, could only belong to the Ukrainian military. Ukraine has accused Russia of giving the rebels a Buk system, with which they then shot down the passenger jet.
Mr. Makushev said the airplane deviated from its course by 14 kilometers, but then attempted to return to its course, before crashing shortly after.
He said Russia is prepared to hand all of the information it has to European authorities, which included satellite imagery and data from its own radars.”
***
But there was much more to it – proof after proof painstakingly put together by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. And one is only left to wonder how many ‘objective’ and ‘well-informed’ European and US citizens ever read these accounts.
It is becoming clear and obvious, that even at the height of the so called Cold-War, citizens of the Soviet Union, even countries like Romania, were much better informed and knew more about the lines of thought of their adversaries, than the arrogant and thoroughly brainwashed Westerners now know about the points made by the people in the countries designated as their enemies.
But back to the Russian response:
The Wall Street Journal was referring to what occurred on July 21, 2014, at a Special Briefing by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777 in Ukrainian air space, the speech was given by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General A.V. Kartapolov. For those who are interested in what Russia has to say, these briefings are indispensable.
I worked for several hours, on improving the original translation, while trying to keep the original tone in which this was presented.
General Kartapolov argued that:
After the Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 accident on July 17, studying the international flight-plan for, Amsterdam – Kuala Lumpur, we can find a quantity of conflicting information. In this case, the Russian Federation Ministry of
Defense considers it necessary to submit the information which is at the General Staff’s disposal. On the scheme you can see the international flight-path. The
Boeing-777 was supposed to fly on this flight-path. Draw your attention to the fact that the aircraft was flying inside the specified air corridor to Donetsk, but then it deviated north from the route. Meanwhile the maximum distance from the left border of the air corridor was 14 kilometers.
Then we can see that the Boeing-777 turned back to the borders of the specified air corridor. Nevertheless, the Malaysian aircrew didn’t perform the maneuver successfully. At 17.20 the aircraft began registering a rate reduction, at 17.23 the aircraft’s point blinked off on the radar. Why did the aircraft cross the border of the air corridor? Was it a navigation mistake, or the aircrew following the Dnepropetrovsk ground control orders? We will find out the answers after the decoding of the “black boxes” and communications. According to our information on the day of the accident, the Ukrainian Armed Forces deployed 3 to 4 artillery batteries of Buk-M1 missile systems not far from Donetsk. The system can hit targets at a distance of up to 35 kilometers, and at an altitude, up to 22 kilometers. Why did the Ukrainian Armed Forces deploy these air defense units in the Donetsk region? As we know militants don’t have any aircraft.
On the scheme we can see that both the projected impact point and the flight-path are inside the air defense battle zone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Buk-M1 missile system. We have satellite photos of the Ukrainian Air Defense systems deployed in the Southeast of the country.”
Then the photos of the Buk are shown, near Luhansk and Donetsk. The first three photos are dated July 14, 2014. There are photos from that day to the day of the accident: launchers, radar, all belonging to the Ukrainian military.
After the painstaking photo presentation, the General continued:
“I want to expose the airspace situation in the Donetsk area that day. In the picture you can see the information of the objective air traffic control between 17.10 to 17.30 Moscow time.
During that period, there were 3 civilian aircraft:
Flight from Copenhagen to Singapore at 17.17;
Flight from Paris to Taipei at 17.24
Flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur… Beside it, the Russian system for air traffic control detected a Ukrainian Air Force aircraft, supposedly a Su-25, moving upwards towards the Malaysian Boeing-777. The distance between two aircraft was 3-5 kilometers.
The Su-25 can gain an altitude of 10,000 meters in a short time. It is armed with an air-to-air missile R-60, which is able to lock-on and destroy a target at a distance of 12 kilometers, and destroy it definitely at a distance of 5 kilometers. What was the mission of the combat aircraft, in the flight-path of civilian aircraft, almost at the same time and same altitude with the civilian craft? We want to have this question answered.
The video of the Rostov Aerial Center of the Joint Air Traffic Management
System can provide the information. The Chief of Staff of the Air
Force, Lieutenant-General Igor Makushev, will comment on the video.”
Then the Chief of Staff of the Air Force of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General I.Y. Makushev presents his arguments:
“Today the aircraft Air Traffic Control has acquired some objective control materials from the Rostov Aerial Center of the Joint Air Traffic
Management System. The video presents the air control information on the airspace situation in the region of Donetsk in the period from 17.19 P.M. to 17.25P.M., Moscow time, on July 17, 2014. In the upper left corner there is a
Boeing-772 mark, as it was following the route from Copenhagen to Singapore. Under this dot, there is another aircraft – it is marked as Boeing-777, which is on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. And on its right there is a Boeing-778 mark making its way from Delhi to Birmingham. All these three aircraft have been steadily monitored by the three radar stations of the air traffic control of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The Boeing-777 is moving towards the Russian Federation state boundary, and is to cross it at the point of «TONAK». An air traffic control officer has been controlling the aircraft flight and keeps on enquiring for its flight variables to compare them with the given ones. At 17.20 P.M. at a distance of 51 kilometers from the Russian Federation state boundary and the azimuth of 3000(degrees), the aircraft started to lose its speed inexplicably, which is to be seen quite distinctively on the table of the aircraft characteristics. At 17.21.35 (seconds) P.M. with the aircraft at a speed of 200 km/h, at the point of the Boeing crash, there is a new mark of an aircraft to be seen. The radar stations of Ust-Donetsk and Butirinskoe, during the 4 minute period, steadily monitored the aircraft. The Air Traffic Control officer, having enquired for the characteristics of newly appeared aircraft but couldn’t possibly get them, because it is in all likelihood that the aircraft had no secondary deduction system mounted on it, which is typical of military aircraft. The early detection of this aircraft appeared to be quite impossible because those radars work in a standby mode and usually perform the air situation control. Detection possibilities at the given distance are over 5000 m altitude.
The detection of the aircraft turned out to be possible as soon as the aircraft ascended.
The further aircraft flight variables changed. It was now flying in the area of the Boeing crash and was monitoring the situation. Earlier the Ukrainian officials reported that on the day of the Boeing-777 accident, there were no military aircraft flying in the region. So, as you can see, it does not appear to be true.
…We also have some questions for our US partners. According to the statement of the US representatives, they have some pictures from space supporting that the militants launched the missile. But nobody has seen these pictures.
According to our records from 17:06 till 17:21 Moscow time on the July 17 over the Southeastern territory of Ukraine, a US space satellite flew overhead. This is a special device of the experimental space system designed to detect and track various missile launches. If the US party has photos made by the satellite, please let us ask them to show them to world community for further investigation.
Is it a coincidence or not? However, the time of the Malaysian Boeing-777 accident and the time of the observation done by the satellite over the Ukrainian territory are the same. In conclusion, I would like to mention that all the concrete information is based on the objective and reliable data of the different Russian equipment, in contrast to the accusations of the US against us, made without any evidence. A good example of such facts is that some mass media showed the transportation of a Buk-M1 missile system from Ukrainian to Russian territory. We can clearly see that it is a frame-up. These pictures were taken in the city of Krasnoarmeisk, which is confirmed by a banner situated close to the road. This banner has an address of the car shop situated at No. 34, Dnepropetrovskaya Street. Since May 11th, the Krasnoarmeysk city has been under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. That is why we have some questions. What kind of launching system is it? Where is it being transported? Where is it now? Why is it completely unloaded? What was the last time it launched missiles? To end my speech I would like to emphasize that the Russian Federation did not deliver any Buk-M1 missiles systems to the militants, and any other such equipment. All the data compiled by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation will be transmitted today to the experts of the European countries and Malaysia…
The Ministry of Defense will continue to inform you about the newly revealed facts connected with the air disaster of Malaysian Boeing-777.
***
Now why on earth should we not believe this presentation, backed by facts, images and concrete analyses?
Western and Ukrainian lies are piling up: wobbly explanations or no explanations at all for change of 777’s course, lowering altitude, ‘bad weather’, and revealing testimony of the Spanish traffic controller working in Ukraine…
And why should we believe people like the current President of the United States, who openly bragged about US ‘exceptionalism’, at the military academy, which has been responsible for producing countless mass murderers?
And for the sake of objectivity, why would we not listen to the Russians, before imposing sanctions on them, for something that we are, most likely, responsible for, ourselves?
And although it is most likely that the pro-Western Ukrainian military shot down the plane, even if it were to be the other side that did it, the entire conflict began with the EU and the US destabilizing Ukraine, overthrowing the legitimate government, and igniting the war.
Angry Dutch families of the victims should stop pointing fingers at Russia. Instead they should go to Brussels and Washington to express their wrath and to demand justice.
***
And what about Malaysia and Indonesia? Indonesia lost 12 people on that ill-fated flight.
Most of the Southeast Asian countries are historically “client” states of the West, with hardly any independent, non-corporate media. Indonesia has been exactly that since the 1965 ‘events’. Malaysia, pushing for an independent course under Dr. Mahathir’s rule, is presently being lured by the US, which is trying to establish military bases there, or to at least gain access to existing Malaysian ones.
Suddenly, a great amount of US funding has been unleashed, to win over Malaysian intellectuals, some of the most shamefully subservient in the region. Several have already began departing for conferences, cultural exchanges and writer’s retreats, to destinations all over the United States, all expenses paid.
In Kuala Lumpur, there was deadly silence after the downing of MH17. Not one writer or filmmaker that I know and contacted wanted to go on record. One mistaken word and the entire rosy dream of Western ‘funding’ would go up in flames.
Only the official anti-Russian narrative was available.
Two filmmakers spoke, but off the record:
“To be honest, Malaysians are completely out of touch with what’s happening or even with the political consequences of the ‘deal’ that our Prime Minister had made to bring the bodies back. No one has even questioned what the deal was. There is no discussion whatsoever, even in the educated circles as it’s taboo to even start talking about anything other than the people who died. All Malaysians care about is that it’s tragedy and that we should feel sad. But largely, Russia and Putin are the villains in the mind of Malaysians.”
In Indonesia, theories vary. Some are far, remote from the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Agus Suhartono, a former aeronautical engineer at PT. Dirgantara Indonesia, thinks that Malaysia has been punished for creating an alternative banking system for the Muslim world:
“I think it is bit strange. How could a plane at an altitude of more than 30,000 ft be a mistaken missile target? At that altitude, the plane identification should be very clear. Whoever fired knew perfectly well what he was doing. The question should be why MAS (Malaysia Airlines) again? Did they rub somebody the wrong way? Why was Malaysia the target twice in a row? I think maybe because the financial turnover of the Arab world is centered in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is the gate. The sharia gate of the Arab financial world.”
***
New sanctions are being leveled against Russia. “Cold Warriors” in Canada, Australia, UK and US are back in their saddles, like Major Kong in the unforgettable film, “Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”, they are ready to cover their skulls with cowboy hats, and stick A-bombs between their legs. Time to ‘go and bomb the Russkies’.
Arabs are not tough enough adversaries, and most of the Muslim world is now in ruins anyway, thanks to the ‘War on… ehm… terror’.
Russia and China are again blocking the West from fully controlling the world. ‘How dare they?’
The most frightening thing is the state of the self-righteousness and self-deception of the Western public. One wants to scream: Don’t they see? Do they refuse to see? Is it more comfortable not to see? How long are they going to pretend that they are blind? Or maybe they are blind…
After the MH17 tragedy and after the way it has been handled by the Western mass media, there is no doubt that we are back to the Cold War again. It is not just a war against Russia. The war is reflected in the arms race that is being accelerated by the US in Asia, from the revolting, racist anti-Chinese propaganda, and from the attempts to overthrow our socialist governments in Latin America.
We should never forget that Western imperialism murdered tens of millions of innocent people all over the world, after the Nagasaki ‘A-bomb’ and the official end of the WWII: all those crimes and horror to satisfy its unbridled obsession with controlling the world.
Tens of millions of lives already lost.
Why should they spare some 298 of those on MH17?
Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. The result is his latest book: “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. ‘Pluto’ published his discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and the market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. His feature documentary, “Rwanda Gambit” is about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter 26.07.2014 | 22:20

Guardian investigation uncovers evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza


Washington’s Second Front in Information War against Russia

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 27.07.2014 | 00:00
Russia is not backing down to play Washington’s Fall Guy over the Malaysia Airlines disaster – and that «truculence» by Moscow to not meekly accept the assigned guilty role is earning it increasing pariah status in official American eyes.
The Washington Post reported at the weekend: «Instead of Mr Putin de-escalating the conflict after the Malaysia Airlines tragedy, ‘he’s actually taken a decision to escalate,’ Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the [US] Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a security forum» in Aspen, Colorado.
Those words convey a sense of arrogant disbelief among American leaders, who have asserted Russian complicity in the downing of the civilian jet last week over Ukraine… Washington spared no time in rushing to heap blame on Moscow within hours of the crash near the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, with the loss of all 298 on board. 
Washington has so far provided no specific details to support its finger pointing against Moscow or «Russian-backed separatist militia» in eastern Ukraine. Washington has been relying arrogantly on the presumption that what it says is all that matters, and that it is not obliged to disclose any details of its «intelligence» to verify its claims – no matter how provocative those claims are. 
Meanwhile, the Russian military command has furnished European Union officials in Brussels with a dossier of its own evidence, based on satellite, radar and air traffic control communications that tend to show a completely different set of circumstances over the downing of the airliner. Russia’s information, which is verifiable unlike Washington’s with-held «secret intelligence», strongly suggests that Malaysia Airlines MH17 was taken down by Western-backed Ukrainian military forces under the command of the Kiev regime. 
Russia’s stoic resolve to keep calm amid the maelstrom of US-led accusations following the crash seems to be now provoking even more reckless claims from Washington to open up a second front in the information war.
On Thursday, the US State Department said that Russian forces were guilty of firing artillery shells across the border into Ukraine. Spokeswoman Marie Harf would not disclose what evidence the US had to support such a tendentious claim. Harf was, in effect, accusing Russia of committing an act of war on a sovereign state, which the US is allied to, yet she was unwilling to provide the substance to support this grave implication.
As with the airliner incident, the only discernible sources of US information are what its client regime in Kiev is telling it; and a variety of dubious social media references. The Kiev regime’s capacity for telling lies and fabrication has been proven countless times in recent months since its illegal coup against the elected Yanukovych government on February 23. For example, the regime continues to deny that its military forces are attacking civilian centres in Donetsk and Lugansk, even though the United Nations has reported hundreds of civilians killed during the past months from Kiev’s so-called «anti-terror operations» in the region. 
Even the pro-Western rights group Human Rights Watch has lately come out to condemn the Kiev regime for crimes against humanity over its indiscriminate firing of Grad rockets. In spite of video evidence of these projectiles being fired and horrendous civilian casualties, the Kiev regime continues to deny it has Grad rockets in region. A spokesman for the regime forces turned reality on its head this week and has accused «terrorists» of bombing their own people to put the blame on Kiev. 
The Kiev junta has also denied having deployed anti-aircraft Buk M1 missile launchers in Donetsk, which may have been involved in shooting down the civilian airliner. Washington says it accepts Kiev’s assurance on this, even though verifiable Russian intelligence has shown that the Kiev military did in fact deploy these missile systems in the vicinity and at the time of Malaysia Airlines MH17 going down.
Since the US State Department refuses to evince its latest «proof» of Russia’s alleged cross-border shelling, we may speculate that it is based on social media photographs posted on the site VKontakhe hours before Washington announced its latest claim. The photographs were ostensibly posted by a Russian soldier who bragged about «shelling Ukraine all night long». 
A Russian soldier, by the name of Vadim Grigoriev, has since declared publicly that his social media site has been hacked into, and that the posted photographs have no relation to the alleged incidents of shelling cited by Washington or the Kiev regime. 
Why Marie Harf at the US State Department press briefing would not elaborate on what the sources of intelligence were for her claims of Russian cross-border artillery fire is no doubt because similar American social media «evidence» implicating Russia over the downing of the Malaysia airliner were quickly shown to be fake. US «intelligence» was subsequently scoffed at in many media around the world for its amateurish attempt to incriminate Russia. 
Reeling from that public relations embarrassment, the Washington Post reported one anonymous US official as saying: «We are seeing a full-court press by the Russian government to instruct affiliated or friendly elements to manipulate the media environment to spread Russia’s version of the story.» 
In other words, the US is irked by the fact that its narrative on the airliner, implicating Russia, is not working to whip up a worldwide frenzy against Moscow based on America’s say-so. And also by the fact that US intelligence is being exposed as relying on crumby social media for its «high confidence» pronouncements.
Having seen its Putin-is-to-blame narrative failing to impress world opinion on the downed airliner, Washington now seems intent on opening up a second propaganda front – namely, that Russia is escalating the conflict in eastern Ukraine by conducting cross-border attacks.
It is telling that US General Dempsey made his accusations against Russia within hours of the State Department «revealing» the alleged cross-border shelling. Dempsey did offer some hesitation by saying «if these reports turn out to be true» but that did not stop him from rushing headlong with reckless accusations against Russia.
Nor did the US State Department’s undisclosed, tenuous claims act in any way to restrain American media. 
Under the headline ‘Russia Steps Up Help for Rebels in Ukraine War’, the New York Times reports this weekend: «Rather than backing down after last week’s downing of a civilian passenger jet, Russia appears to be intervening more aggressively in the war in eastern Ukraine in what American and Ukrainian officials call a dangerous escalation that will almost certainly force more robust retaliation from the United States and Europe.»
Note the repetition of General Dempsey’s peeved phrase, «rather than backing down after last week’s downing of a civilian passenger jet».
Also note that the NY Times can only go as far as saying: «Russian appears to be intervening more aggressively in the war in eastern Ukraine». That necessary qualification «appears to be» is because there is no intelligence or evidence, apart from the unreliable word of the US-backed Kiev regime and dodgy social media accounts. Nevertheless, that does not stop the NY Times and other American media slyly stepping up the accusations against Russia to a definitive level.
The irony in all this is that the evidence shows that incidents of cross-border shelling in eastern Ukraine are actually being conducted by the US-backed Kiev forces – against Russian territory and civilians. During the past two months there have been at least 10 separate cross-border mortar or artillery attacks carried out by the US-backed Ukrainian military on Russian territory. In one such attack on 13th July, a Russian civilian was killed when shells hit the city of Donetsk in Rostov region (a Russian city with the same name as its Ukrainian counterpart). 
On Friday just past, a Russian team of criminal investigators came under mortar fire from pro-Kiev forces when they entered the village of Primiussky in Rostov to conduct a probe into a reported mortar attack the day before. A total of more than 70 mortars were fired from inside Ukraine into Russia.
These deadly incidents of cross-border shelling of Russian territory have been previously confirmed by monitors belonging to the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). 
Yet rather than dealing with the verifiable facts, the US government and its news media are leaping to unsubstantiated claims against Russia that are unsupported by any evidence. 
Reckless American accusations that Russia is escalating conflict in Ukraine would seem to be a substitute for failed attempts to implicate Moscow over the downing of the Malaysia airliner. Despite Washington’s intense goading, the European Union has not gone along with the narrative to impose the punitive economic sanctions against Russia that are desired by the US.
Having lost the propaganda battle over the doomed airliner, Washington seems intent on opening up a second front in the information war, alleging cross-border shelling by Russian forces.
But such is American arrogance and deceit, this information war runs a very real risk of inciting a full-on shooting war between world powers.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/07/27/washington-second-front-information-war-against-russia.html