RIP INF Treaty: Russia’s Victory, America’s Waterloo

By Dmitry Orlov

Source: Club Orlov

On March 1, 2018 the world learned of Russia’s new weapons systems, said to be based on new physical principles. Addressing the Federal Assembly, Putin explained how they came to be: in 2002 the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. At the time, the Russians declared that they will be forced to respond, and were basically told “Do whatever you want.”

And so they did, developing new weapons that no anti-ballistic missile system can ever hope to stop. The new Russian weapons include one that is already on combat duty (Kinzhal), one that is being readied for mass production (Avangard) and several that are currently being tested (Poseidon, Burevestnik, Peresvet, Sarmat). Their characteristics, briefly, are as follows:

• Kinzhal: a hypersonic air-launched cruise missile that flies at Mach 10 (7700 miles per hour) and can destroy both ground installations and ships.

• Avangard: a maneuverable hypersonic payload delivery system for intercontinental ballistic missiles that flies at better than Mach 20 (15300 miles per hour). It has a 740-mile range and can carry a nuclear charge of up to 300 kilotons.

• Poseidon: an autonomous nuclear-powered torpedo with unlimited range that can travel at a 3000-foot depth maintaining a little over 100 knots.

• Burevestnik: a nuclear-powered cruise missile that flies at around 270 miles per hour and can stay in the air for 24 hours, giving it a 6000-mile range.

• Peresvet: a mobile laser complex that can blind drones and satellites, knocking out space and aerial reconnaissance systems.

• Sarmat: a new heavy intercontinental missile that can fly arbitrary suborbital courses (such as over the South Pole) and strike arbitrary points anywhere on the planet. Because it does not follow a predictable ballistic trajectory it is impossible to intercept.

The initial Western reaction to this announcement was an eerie silence. A few people tried to convince anyone who would listen that this was all bluff and computer animation, and that these weapons systems did not really exist. (The animation was of rather low quality, one might add, probably because Russian military types couldn’t possibly imagine that slick graphics, such as what the Americans waste their money on, would make Russia any safer.) But eventually the new weapons systems were demonstrated to work and US intelligence services confirmed their existence.

Forced to react, the Americans, with the EU in tow, tried to cause public relations scandals over some unrelated matter. Such attempts are repeated with some frequency. For instance, after the putsch in the Ukraine caused Crimea to go back to Russia there was the avalanche of hysterical bad press about Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which the Americans had shot down over Ukrainian territory with the help of Ukrainian military.

Similarly, after Putin’s announcement of new weapons systems, there was an eruption of equally breathless hysterics over the alleged “Novichok” poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. A couple of Russian tourists, if you recall, were accused of poisoning Skripal by smearing some toxic gas on the doorknob of his house some time after he left it never to return. Perhaps such antics made some people feel better, but opposing new, breakthrough weapons systems by generating fake news does not an adequate response make.

Say what you will about the Russian response to the US pulling out of the ABM treaty, but it was adequate. It was made necessary by two well-known facts. First, the US is known for dropping nuclear bombs on other countries (Hiroshima, Nagasaki). It did so not in self-defense but just to send a message to the USSR that resistance would be futile (a dumb move if there ever was one). Second, the US is known to have repeatedly planned to destroy the USSR using a nuclear first strike. It was prevented from carrying it out time and again, first by a shortage of nuclear weapons, then by the development of Soviet nuclear weapons, then by the development of Soviet ICBMs.

Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” was an attempt to develop a system that would shoot down enough Soviet ICBMs to make a nuclear first strike on the USSR winnable. This work was terminated when Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in December, 1987. But then when Bush Jr. pulled out of the ABM treaty in 2002 it was off to the races again. Last year Putin declared that Russia has won: the Americans can now rest assured that if they ever attack Russia the result will be their complete, guaranteed annihilation, and the Russians can rest secure in the knowledge that the US will never dare to attack them.

But that was just the prelude. The real victory happened on February 2, 2019. This day will be remembered as the day when the Russian Federation decisively defeated the United States in the battle for Eurasia—from Lisbon to Vladivostok and from Murmansk to Mumbai.

So, what did the Americans want, and what did they get instead? They wanted to renegotiate the INF treaty, revise some of the terms and expand it to include China. Announcing that the US is suspending the INF treaty, Trump said: “I hope we’re able to get everybody in a big, beautiful room and do a new treaty that would be much better…” By “everybody” Trump probably meant the US, China and Russia.

Why the sudden need to include China? Because China has an entire arsenal of intermediate-range weapons with a range of 500-5500 (the ones outlawed by the INF treaty) pointed at American military bases throughout the region—in South Korea, Japan and Guam. The INF treaty made it impossible for the US to develop anything that could be deployed at these bases to point back at China.

Perhaps it was Trump’s attempt to practice his New York real-estate mogul’s “art of the deal” among nuclear superpowers, or perhaps it’s because imperial hubris has rotted the brains of just about everyone in the US establishment, but the plan for renegotiating the INF treaty was about as stupid as can be imagined:

1. Accuse Russia of violating the INF treaty based on no evidence. Ignore Russia’s efforts to demonstrate that the accusation is false.

2. Announce pull-out of the INF treaty.

3. Wait a while, then announce that the INF treaty is important and essential. Condescendingly forgive Russia and offer to sign a new treaty, but demand that it include China.

4. Wait while Russia convinces China that it should do so.

5. Sign the new treaty in Trump’s “big, beautiful room.”

So, how did it actually go? Russia instantly announced that it is also pulling out of the INF treaty. Putin ordered foreign minister Lavrov to abstain from all negotiations with the Americans in this matter. He then ordered defense minister Shoigu to build land-based platforms for Russia’s new air and ship-based missile systems—without increasing the defense budget. Putin added that these new land-based systems will only be deployed in response to the deployment of US-made intermediate-range weapons. Oh, and China announced that it is not interested in any such negotiations. Now Trump can have his “big, beautiful room” all to himself.

Why did this happen? Because of the INF treaty, for a long time Russia has had a giant gaping hole in its arsenal, specifically in the 500-5500 km range. It had air-launched X-101/102s, and eventually developed the Kalibr cruise missile, but it had rather few aircraft and ships—enough for defense, but not enough to guarantee that it could reliably destroy all of NATO. As a matter of Russia’s national security, given the permanently belligerent stance of the US, it was necessary for NATO to know that in case of a military conflict with Russia it will be completely annihilated, and that no air defense system will ever help them avoid that fate.

If you look at a map, you will find that having weapons in the 500-5500 km range fixes this problem rather nicely. Draw a circle with a 5500 km radius around the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad; note that it encompasses every single NATO country, North Africa and Middle East. The INF treaty was not necessarily a good deal for Russia even when it was first signed (remember, Gorbachev, who signed it, was a traitor) but it became a stupendously bad deal as NATO started to expand east. But Russia couldn’t pull out of it without triggering a confrontation, and it needed time to recover and rearm.

Already in 2004 Putin announced that “Russia needs a breakthrough in order to have a new generation of weapons and technology.” At the time, Americans ignored him, thinking that Russia could fall apart at any moment and that they will be able to enjoy Russian oil, gas, nuclear fuel and other strategic commodities for free forever even as the Russians themselves go extinct. They thought that even if Russia tried to resist, it would be enough to bribe some traitors—like Gorbachev or Yeltsin—and all would be well again.

Fast-forward 15 years, and is that what we have? Russia has rebuilt and rearmed. Its export industries provide for a positive trade balance even in absence of oil and gas exports. It is building three major export pipelines at the same time—to Germany, Turkey and China. It is building nuclear generating capacity around the world and owns a lion’s share of the world’s nuclear industry. The US can no longer keep the lights on without Russian nuclear fuel imports. The US has no new weapons systems with which to counter Russia’s rearmament. Yes, it talks about developing some, but all it has at this point are infinite money sinks and lots of PowerPoint presentations. It no longer has the brains to do the work, or the time, or the money.

Part of Putin’s orders upon pulling out of the INF treaty was to build land-based medium-range hypersonic missiles. That’s a new twist: not only will it be impossible to intercept them, but they will reduce NATO’s remaining time to live, should it ever attack Russia, from minutes to seconds. The new Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo was mentioned too: even if an attack on Russia succeeds, it will be a Pyrrhic one, since subsequent 100-foot nuclear-triggered tsunamis will wipe clean both coasts of the United States for hundreds of miles inland, effectively reducing the entire country to slightly radioactive wasteland.

Not only has the US lost its ability to attack, it has also lost its ability to threaten. Its main means of projecting force around the world is its navy, and Poseidon reduces it to a useless, slow-moving pile of scrap steel. It would take just a handful of Poseidons quietly shadowing each US aircraft carrier group to zero out the strategic value of the US Navy no matter where in the world it is deployed.

Without the shackles of the INF treaty, Russia will be able to fully neutralize the already obsolete and useless NATO and to absorb all of Europe into its security sphere. European politicians are quite malleable and will soon learn to appreciate the fact that good relations with Russia and China are an asset while any dependence on the US, moving forward, is a huge liability. Many of them already understand which way the wind is blowing.

It won’t be a difficult decision for Europe’s leaders to make. On the one pan of the scale there is the prospect of a peaceful and prosperous Greater Eurasia, from Lisbon to Vladivostok and from Murmansk to Mumbai, safe under Russia’s nuclear umbrella and tied together with China’s One Belt One Road.

On the other pan of the scale there is a certain obscure former colony lost in the wilds of North America, imbued with an unshakeable faith in its own exceptionalism even as it grows ever weaker, more internally conflicted and more chaotic, but still dangerous, though mostly to itself, and run by a bloviating buffoon who can’t tell the difference between a nuclear arms treaty and a real estate deal. It needs to be quietly and peacefully relegated to the outskirts of civilization, and then to the margins of history.

Trump should keep his own company in his “big, beautiful room,” and avoid doing anything anything even more tragically stupid, while saner minds quietly negotiate the terms for an honorable capitulation. The only acceptable exit strategy for the US is to quietly and peacefully surrender its positions around the world, withdraw into its own geographic footprint and refrain from meddling in the affairs of Greater Eurasia.

The MH17 Big Lie: The Russians Did It

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By Stephen Lendman

Source: Steve Lendman Blog

Downing MH17 was a classic false flag, the scheme likely cooked up in Washington, using its Kiev puppet regime to do its dirty work, then point fingers the wrong way.

The Russians DID NOT down MH17 – nor Donbass freedom fighters. No credible evidence suggests it. Only fools and liars believe it.

What could they possibly gain from downing a commercial airliner, unrelated to conflict on the ground, killing 298 passengers and crew members.

Washington and/or Kiev had motive and opportunity, gaining plenty by pointing fingers the wrong way, supported by the usual scoundrel media chorus, featuring Big Lies and innuendos.

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) is a front for US imperial policy. Joint Investigation Team (JIT) countries include the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine – conspiratorially allied against Russia, Washington pulling the strings behind the scene.

DSB’s final report is out. It stopped short of naming perpetrators, suggested Russia and Donbass freedom fighters were responsible without saying so.

It claimed a (a no longer in use Soviet era) Russian-made Buk 9M38-series (surface-to-air) missile (used only by Ukraine, not Russia’s military) downed MH17 – refuting earlier reports based on high-resolution photos showing cockpit damage from likely 30 millimeter air-to-air cannon fire.

Eyewitnesses on the ground saw a Ukrainian warplane trailing MH17. Russian radar tracked a Ukrainian SU-25 jet fighter within three km of the fated aircraft.

An unsatisfactorily answered question is why Ukrainian air traffic control let MH17 overfly a war zone. Other commercial airliners avoided it for obvious reasons.

Did Kiev authorities deliberately put MH17 in harm’s way to down it and blame Russia and Donbass freedom fighters for their crime?

Did Washington and Ukrainian fascists jointly plan the incident? Further US and EU sanctions followed plus relentless, irresponsible Putin-bashing.

DSB’s September 9 preliminary report said MH17 “broke up in the air probably as the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.”

Its final report claimed a missile was launched from an Eastern Ukraine 320 square km area without pinpointing the launch site.

Its chairman, Tjibbe Joustra, suggested it came from rebel-held territory without specifically saying so. He claimed “Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane against the left-hand side of the cockpit. This warhead fits the kind of missile that is installed in the BUK surface-to-air missile system.”

It was fired from “an area where the borders have fluctuated a lot, but it’s a territory where the pro-Russian rebels have laid down the law.”

A White House statement ludicrously called DSB’s report an “important milestone in the effort to hold accountable those responsible.”

A criminal investigation is underway. Dutch Prime Minister insultingly asked Russia for “complete cooperation.” The DSB ignored key Moscow supplied evidence.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed it, saying: “There are facts delivered by the Russian side that for unclear reasons are being apparently ignored.”

Moscow “repeatedly expressed its disappointment over the lack of proper level of cooperation and engagement of the Russian experts into the investigation.”

Russia’s Roasaviation deputy head Oleg Storchevoy accused the DSB of ignoring “comprehensive information” presented by Moscow, suggesting willful coverup – in a letter to the International Civil Aviation Association (ICAA).

Russian arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey presented its own findings, based on exhaustive study and sophisticated simulations of what likely happened, disputing DSB’s conclusions, saying MH17 wasn’t downed from rebel-held territory.

CEO Yan Novikov said an older, out-of-date Buk missile (last produced in 1986), no longer used by Russia, still used by Ukraine, downed MH17. DSB members ignored Almaz-Antey’s findings.

The incident occurred on July 17, 2014. The instant knee-jerk reaction from Washington, other Western capitals, and go-along media scoundrels (still unchanged) was “Russia did it” – despite no evidence suggesting it then or now.

A sampling of headlines following release of the DSB’s final report include the following:

New York Times: “Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Most Likely Hit by Russian-Made Missile, Inquiry Says”

Washington Post: “The Latest: Ex-war crimes judge: Dutch report refutes Russia”

Wall Street Journal: “Dutch Investigators Say MH17 Was Downed by Russian-Made Missile”

Los Angeles Times: “Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Report says Russian-made missile system downed jet”

Chicago Tribune: “Dutch Safety Board: Russian-made Buk missile downed MH17 in Ukraine”

BBC: “MH17 Ukraine disaster: Dutch Safety Board blames (Russian-made Buk) missile”

The disturbing innuendo from all these headlines implies Russian-made means Russian-launched.

It bears repeating what should be clear to everyone. Russia DID NOT down MH17 – nor Donbass freedom fighters. Kiev fascists, very likely complicit with Washington, were responsible, wanting Putin blamed for their crime.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

MH17: Malaysia’s Barring from Investigation Reeks of Cover-up

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By Ulson Gunnar

Source: New Eastern Outlook

It was a Malaysian jet, carrying Malaysian passengers, flown by Malaysian pilots, yet after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014, Malaysia has been systematically blocked from participating in the investigation, leaving an overwhelmingly pro-NATO bloc in charge of the evidence, investigation and outcome as well as the manner in which the investigation will be carried out.

Despite the integral role Malaysia has played during several pivotal moments in the aftermath of the disaster, it appears that the closer to the truth the investigation should be getting, the further Malaysia itself is being pushed from both the evidence and any influence it has on the likely conclusions of the investigation. With the downed aircraft in question being Malaysian, Malaysia as a partner in the investigation would seem a given. Its exclusion from the investigation appears to be an indication that the investigation’s objectivity has been compromised and that the conclusions it draws will likely be politically motivated.

Joint Investigation Team Includes, Excludes Surprising Members 

With the Dutch leading the investigation, the logic being that the flight originated from the Netherlands and the majority of the passengers were Dutch, it has formed a Joint Investigation Team (JIT). At the onset of its creation it seemed obvious that Malaysia would too be included, considering it lost the second largest number of citizens to the disaster and the plane itself was registered in Malaysia. Instead, JIT would end up comprised of Belgium, Ukraine, and Australia, specifically excluding Malaysia.

Malaysia was both surprised and has protested its exclusion from JIT, and has repeatedly expressed a desire to be included directly in the investigation.

Malaysia’s Star newspaper would report, “Malaysian Ambassador to the Netherlands Datuk Dr Fauziah Mohd Taib said Malaysia had not been invited to officially join the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which is undertaking the criminal probe.” It would also report that, “Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said recently that Malaysia had expressed its stand very clearly that it must be part of the criminal investigation team and had informed Dutch authorities of its intention.”

The Malaysian Insider cited Malaysian scholar Dr. Chandra Muzaffar who believes the decision to exclude his country from the investigation is politically motivated, aiming at excluding members that may urge caution and objectivity instead of draw conclusions first and bend the investigation’s results around those conclusions. In particular, Dr. Muzaffar believes that the investigations is intentionally being skewed to target Russia.

Ukraine’s involvement in the investigation is particularly troublesome. Had MH17 crashed in Ukraine under different circumstances, Ukraine’s role would be welcome. However, it was apparently shot down specifically in a conflict in which Kiev itself is a participant. With both sides of the conflict possessing anti-aircraft weapons and with Kiev itself confirmed to possess weapons capable of reaching the altitude MH17 was flying at when it was allegedly hit, Kiev becomes a possible suspect in the investigation. Kiev’s inclusion in JIT represents a monumental conflict of interest.

Imagine a potential suspect leading an investigation into a crime they may have committed. The possibilities to cover up, skew, spin, tamper with or otherwise distort both the evidence and the outcome of the investigation are endless.

And to compound this already glaring conflict of interest, it was revealed recently that an alleged “secret deal” was struck by JIT in which any member could bar the release of evidence. With all members of JIT being pro-NATO and decidedly arrayed against Moscow, such a “deal” could prevent crucial evidence from being revealed that would effect an otherwise distorted conclusion drawn by the investigators aimed specifically at advancing their greater political agenda in Eastern Europe. Had Malaysia been a member of JIT, the ability of other members to withhold evidence would have been greatly diminished and it is likely such a bizarre deal would not have been conceivable, real or imaged, in the first place.

Malaysia’s Exclusion Foreshadows Politically Motivated Outcome 

With the ongoing conflict in Ukraine perceived as a proxy war between NATO and Moscow, JIT’s membership including the NATO-backed Kiev regime itself (a possible suspect), two NATO members (Belgium and the Netherlands) and Australia who has passed sanctions against Russia over the conflict, is a textbook case of conflict of interest.

Those nations and international organizations calling for an investigation and for justice but who ignore the obvious problem of participants in a conflict investigating a key incident that may benefit their agenda directly, indicates that such calls for justice are disingenuous and instead, what is being done is not an investigation, but a politically motivated witch-hunt aimed at serving an ulterior motive.

Malaysia is not generally perceived to be a stanch ally of Moscow, but it is neither a loyal client state of Washington, London or Brussels. On many issues, Malaysia has exhibited an independence in foreign policy that has perturbed the so-called international order maintained by the West. And Malaysia’s internal politics have long wrestled to stem inroads by Washington’s favorites including Anwar Ibrahim and his political faction, Pakatan Rakyat.

Its inclusion in the investigation would provide a much needed, impartial counterweight to an otherwise fully pro-NATO JIT membership.

To casual observers, the current investigation led by NATO members and Kiev, a possible suspect, would be no different than the Donetsk People’s Republic and Russia leading it. Few would consider a DPR or Russian led investigation impartial, and few should see a NATO-led investigation as impartial. Had Malaysia been included in the process, an argument could have been made that an actual investigation was taking place rather than a complex propaganda campaign.

Malaysia’s exclusion is a troubling sign for the victims of the MH17 disaster, meaning the true culprits will never be known. The overt politically motivated nature of the investigation will on one hand  help fuel NATO’s propaganda war, but on the other hand, fuel the doubts of millions worldwide over the true events that took place in the skies of eastern Ukraine that day. Like so many other events in human history that took place amid a high stake political struggle, the downing of MH17 will be shrouded in mystery, mystery draped over the truth by the irresponsible leadership of NATO, and those in Washington, London and Brussels egging on the conflict in Ukraine to this very day.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The Downing of Malaysia Flight 17: Sinister Pretext for War with Russia

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By Mike Whitney

Source: Counterpunch

“There is no innocent explanation for the sudden disappearance of MH17 from the media and political spotlight. The plane’s black box has been held in Britain for examination for weeks, and US and Russian spy satellites and military radar were intensively scanning east Ukraine at the time of the crash. The claim that Washington does not have detailed knowledge of the circumstances of the crash and the various forces involved is not credible.”

– Niles Williamson, “Why have the media and Obama administration gone silent on MH17?”, World Socialist Web Site

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/08/18/ukmh-a18.html

See: 11 minute you tube “MH17 – We know with 99% certainty who shot down MH17

The Obama administration has failed to produce any hard evidence that pro-Russia separatists were responsible for the downing of Malaysia Flight 17.  The administration’s theory– that the jetliner was downed by a surface-to-air missile launched from rebel territory in east Ukraine– is not supported by radar data, satellite imagery, eyewitness testimony or forensic evidence.  In fact, there is no factual basis for the hypothesis at all. It’s merely politically-motivated speculation that’s been repeated endlessly in the media to shape public opinion. The preponderance of evidence suggests a different scenario altogether, that is, that MH17 was shot down by Ukrainian fighters in an effort to frame the pro-Russia separatists and demonize Russia by implication.  This is precisely why the MH17 story has vanished from all the major media for the last three weeks. It’s because the bloody fingerprints point to Obama’s puppet-government in Kiev.

So what are the facts?

Fact Number 1: There were eyewitnesses.

According to the Oxford dictionary, an eyewitness is “A person who has personally seen something happen and can give a first-hand description of it.”  This is why eyewitness testimony is so important in criminal investigations, because what people actually see matters. In a capital case, eyewitness testimony can be just as damning as the bloody fingerprints on a murder weapon. In contrast, theories are of little or no importance at all. The administration’s missile theory is just obfuscating blabber intended to pacify the public with a soothing explanation that is entirely divorced from the facts. Eyewitness accounts help to cut through government bullsh** and uncover what really happened.

So, what did happen to MH17? Check out this blurb from a report by the BBC:

 ”The inhabitants of the nearby villages are certain they saw military aircraft in the sky shortly before the catastrophe. According to them, it was actually the jet fighters that brought down the Boeing.

Eyewitness number one: “There were two explosions in the air. And this is how it broke apart, (Waves her hands to show the plane exploding) And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everyone saw it….

Yes, yes, It was flying under it, because it could be seen.  It was flying underneath…below the civilian plane.”

Many people saw what happened. Many people saw the Ukrainian fighter rise in a shark-on-seal type motion. Many people saw the explosion. Are these credible witnesses? Are they lying? Do they have a political agenda?

We don’t know, but we do know what they said. They said they saw a fighter (probably a Ukrainian SU 25) stalking MH17 just before it blew up.  That’s significant and it should have a bearing on the investigation.

Fact Number 2: Russia picked up the Ukrainian fighters on their radar.

According to Russian military analysts:

“Russian monitoring systems registered Ukrainian airforce jet, probably an SU 25 fighter, climbing and approaching the Malaysia aircraft. The SU 25 was between 3 to 5 kilometers away from the Malaysian plane. The fighter is capable of reaching an altitude of 10,000 meters for short periods of time. It’s standard armaments include R-60 air-to-air missiles which are capable of locking and destroying targets within a range of 12 kilometers and which are guaranteed to hit their target from a distance of 5 kilometers.

What was a military aircraft doing on a route intended for civilian planes flying at the same time and same altitude of a passenger plane? We would like an answer to this question? …

To corroborate this evidence we have a picture taken at the regional air traffic control center at Rostov….Ukrainian military officials claimed there were no Ukrainian military aircraft in that area of the crash that day. As you can see, that is not true”   (“MH17 Fully Exposed”, The Corbett report; Check minute 34:17 on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWlAARb0fN4video

Repeat:   “Ukrainian military officials claimed there were no Ukrainian military aircraft in that area of the crash that day. As you can see, that is not true.”

Kiev lied. Not only was one of their fighters in the vicinity, but the warplane  also had the capacity to take down a jetliner.

Let’s be clear about how important this information is: We now have hard evidence (Russian radar data and eyewitness testimony) that a Ukrainian fighter was in the vicinity of Malaysia Flight 17 when it was shot down. Thus, the Ukrainian fighter very well may have played a role in the downing of  MH17.  This is a possibility that cannot be excluded if one is basing their judgments on the facts alone.

Then there the story of Carlos who worked at  Kiev’s Air Traffic Control at Borispol but who mysteriously vanished immediately after the crash. Carlos’s twitter feeds on the day of the incident have become something of a legend on the internet, so we would like to narrow our focus to just a few of his communiques.

Carlos tweets on day of MH17 crash:

“Kiev Authorities, trying to make looks like an attack by pro-Russian”…

“warning! It can be a downing, Malaysia Airlines B777 in ukraine, 280 passengers”…

(Military?) “has taken control of ATC in Kiev”….

“The Malaysia Airlines B777 plane disappeared from the radar, there was no communication of any anomaly, confirmed”….

“Plane shot down, shot down, shot down, no accident”….

“Before They remove my phone or they break my head, shot down by Kiev”…

“The B777 plane flew escorted by Ukraine jet fighter until 2 minutes before disappearing from the radar”…

“If Kiev authorities want to tell the truth, It´s gathered, 2 jet fighters flew very close minutes before, wasn’t downed by a fighter”….

“Malaysia Airlines B777 plane just disappeared and Kiev military authority informed us of the downing, How they knew?”…

“all this is gathered in radars, to the unbelieving, shot down by kiev, here we know it and military air traffic control also”…

“military control now officially [say] the plane was shot down by missile”….(“FINAL – Spanish Air Controller @ Kiev Borispol Airport: Ukraine Military Shot Down Boeing #MH17“,  Rebel’s Blog)

Shortly after posting the news on Twitter, the Military took over the tower, the SBU seized the Air traffic Control recordings, and Carlos disappeared never to be seen again.  At the very least, Carlos’s postings lend support to our thesis that one or two SU 25 fighters were in the vicinity of the Boeing 777 at the time of the incident, which is to say they were in a position to shoot it down.

So why have Obama, Kerry and the entire western media excluded the SU 25s from their analysis?  And why are they withholding the satellite and radar data (that everyone knows they have) of the area at the time of the crash?     According to the World Socialist Web Site: “The US Air Force’s Defense Support Program utilizes satellites with infrared sensors to detect missile launches anywhere on the planet, and US radar posts in Europe would have tracked the missile as it shot through the sky.”

Indeed, the US does have the capability to track  missiles launches anywhere on the planet, so where is the data to support their theory that a missile took down MH17?  Where is the satellite imagery? Where is the radar data?  What is it Obama doesn’t want the American people to know?

German pilot and airlines expert, Peter Haisenko,  thinks that Malaysia Flight 17 was not blown up by a  missile, but shot down by the type of double-barreled 30-mm guns used on Ukrainian SU-25 fighter planes.  Haisenko presented his theory in an article which appeared on the Global Research website titled “Revelations of German Pilot: Shocking Analysis of the “Shooting Down” of Malaysian MH17. “Aircraft Was Not Hit by a Missile”. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“The facts speak clear and loud and are beyond the realm of speculation: The cockpit shows traces of shelling! You can see the entry and exit holes. The edge of a portion of the holes is bent inwards. These are the smaller holes, round and clean, showing the entry points most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile….”  (“Revelations of German Pilot: Shocking Analysis of the “Shooting Down” of Malaysian MH17. “Aircraft Was Not Hit by a Missile””, Global Research)

Haisenko notes that the munitions used on Ukrainian fighters–anti-tank incendiary and splinter-explosive shells–are capable of taking down a jetliner and that the dense pattern of metal penetrated by multiple projectiles is consistent with the firing pattern of a 30-mm gun.

Also, Michael Bociurkiw, who was one of the first international inspectors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to reach the crash site and who spent more than a week examining the ruins– appears to be convinced that MH17 was downed by machinegun fire consistent with the myriad bullet-holes visible on the fuselage.  Here’s what he told on CBC World News:

“There have been two or three pieces of fuselage that have been really pock-marked. It almost looks like machine gun fire; very, very strong machine gun fire that has left these unique marks that we haven’t seen anywhere else.

We’ve also been asked if we’ve seen any signs of a missile?

Well, no we haven’t. That’s the answer.”

(“Malaysia Airlines MH17: Michael Bociurkiw talks about being first at the crash site,” CBC News. Note: The above quote is from the video)

Now, admittedly, the observations of Haisenko and Bociurkiw could mean nothing, after all, they are just opinions. But for the sake of argument, let’s compare what they have to say to the comments made by Obama and Kerry.

Here’s Obama on the day after the crash:

“Here is what we know so far. Evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile that was launched from an area that is controlled by Russian-backed separatists inside of Ukraine.

We also know that this is not the first time a plane has been shot down in eastern Ukraine. Over the last several weeks Russian- backed separatists have shot down a Ukrainian transport plane and a Ukrainian helicopter, and they claimed responsibility for shooting down a Ukrainian fighter jet.

Moreover, we know that these separatists have received a steady flow of support from Russia.

This includes arms and training. It includes heavy weapons. And it includes anti-aircraft weapons.

Now, here’s what’s happened now. This was a global tragedy. An Asian airliner was destroyed in European skies, filled with citizens from many countries. So there has to be a credible international investigation into what happened. The U.N. Security Council has endorsed this investigation, and we will hold all its members, including Russia, to their word…

Now, the United States stands ready to provide any assistance that is necessary…..

Let’s summarize Obama’s allegations:

1–MH17 was shot down in east Ukraine.

2–The separatists have shot down planes in east Ukraine before.

3–Therefore the separatists shot down MH17

Do you find that argument persuasive, dear reader? Keep in mind, Obama has never veered from his original position on the issue nor has he ever addressed the eyewitness reports or the technical data provided by Moscow. When all the media repeat the government’s version of events word-for-word, the facts don’t matter. In other words, Obama hasn’t changed his story, because he doesn’t have to. He knows the dissembling media will assist him in the cover up. Which it has.

Now let’s take a look at what Kerry had to say two days after the crash when he visited all five Sunday talk shows to blast Putin and blame the rebels for downing MH17. According to the Guardian:

 ”Kerry said all the evidence surrounding the downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 points towards pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine…..

“We have enormous input about this that points fingers,” Kerry told CNN’s State of the Union. “It is pretty clear that this was a system from Russia, transferred to separatists. We know with confidence that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point of time.”…

Kerry said social media reports and US surveillance put the missile system in question in the vicinity of the crash before the tragedy.

“We know because we observed it by imagery that at the moment of the shootdown we detected a launch from that area,” he said. “Our trajectory shows that it went to the aircraft.” (“MH17 crash: Kerry lays out evidence of pro-Russia separatists’ responsibility“, Guardian)

Needless to say, Kerry has never provided any proof of the satellite “imagery” he referred to on the day of the interview. The administration’s case still depends on the discredited information it picked up on social media and on its own politically-motivated theory. It’s worth noting, that the administration used its shaky claims to great effect by convincing leaders of the European Union to impose more economic sanctions on Russia before any of the facts were known and without any legal process in place for Russia to defend itself.  The sanctions, of course, are still in effect today even though the administrations hysterical accusations have come under increasing scrutiny.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly called for a transparent and thorough international investigation, but Washington seems more eager to sweep the whole matter under the rug. Moscow is particularly interested in recovering the Air Traffic Control tapes which were seized by Kiev’s security services immediately following the crash. It’s imperative that these tapes be handed over to international inspectors to analyze communications between the cockpit and the tower. There’s no doubt that Kiev would hand over the recordings if Washington simply demanded that they do so. But Obama has issued no such order. Why is that?

Keep in mind, that the ATC recordings could be much more valuable than the black boxes because they record both sides of every communication on every frequency used by that facility (including frequencies used for communication with other ground facilities and/or agencies), and also on every land line in use at that facility.”

What does that mean? It means that ATC recorders also include communications between ATC operators and, lets say, government or military authorities. They would also have recorded the communications between ATC and any fighters that may have been in the vicinity of Flight 17. In other words, if MH17 was in fact shot down by a SU 25, there’s a good chance the communications would show up in the ATC tapes.

Is this why Obama hasn’t demanded that Kiev surrender the recordings, because he doesn’t really want the truth to come out? Now take a look at this out from the World Socialist Web Site:

“After a month during which Washington has failed to release evidence to support its charges against Putin, it is clear that the political offensive of the NATO governments and the media frenzy against Putin were based on lies.

If pro-Russian separatists had fired a ground-to-air missile, as the US government claims, the Air Force would have imagery in their possession confirming it beyond a shadow of a doubt…..

On August 9, the Malaysian New Straits Times published an article charging the Kiev regime with shooting down MH17. It stated that evidence from the crash site indicated that the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter with a missile followed by heavy machine gun fire.

While it is too early to say conclusively how MH17 was shot down, the preponderance of the evidence points directly at the Ukrainian regime and, behind them, the American government and the European powers. They created the conditions for the destruction of MH17, backing the fascist-led coup in Kiev this February that brought the current pro-Western regime to power.”

(“Why have the media and Obama administration gone silent on MH17?“, Niles Williamson, World Socialist Web Site)

The media has played a pivotal role in this tragedy, deliberately misleading the American people on critical details related to the case in order to shape their coverage in a way that best serves the interests of the government.  The MSM doesn’t care about identifying the criminals who killed 298 passengers. Their job is to demonize Putin and create a pretext for waging war on Russia.   And that’s exactly what they’re doing.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

 

Even More Certain Now: Obama’s Ukrainian Stooges Did Intentionally Down that Malaysian Airliner

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By Eric Zuesse

Source: RINF

Information continues to pour in confirming the retired Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko’s reconstruction of how that Malaysian airliner (MH-17) came to be downed over the war-zone in Ukraine, the place to which Obama’s Ukrainian stooges had guided it and then shot it down in order to blame Russia for the tragedy so that Obama’s international sanctions against Russia could be increased. The present article is an updated version of the prior ones I’ve done attempting to present this case as clearly and as fully and honestly as I can. The “PS: at the end here is the main addition to the version I posted yesterday.

We’ll go considerably farther than has yet been revealed by the professional intelligence community, to provide the actual evidence that conclusively shows that (and how) the Ukrainian Government shot down the Malaysian airliner, MH-17, on July 17th.

The latest report from the intelligence community was headlined on August 3rd by Robert Parry, “Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts,” and he revealed there that, “Contrary to the Obama administration’s public claims blaming eastern Ukrainian rebels and Russia for the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, some U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that the rebels and Russia were likely not at fault and that it appears Ukrainian government forces were to blame, according to a source briefed on these findings. This judgment — at odds with what President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have expressed publicly — is based largely on the absence of U.S. government evidence that Russia supplied the rebels with a Buk anti-aircraft missile system that would be needed to hit a civilian jetliner flying at 33,000 feet, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.”

It’s actually based on lots more than that; it’s based not on an absence of evidence, but on positive proof that the Ukrainian Government shot the plane down, and even proving how it was done. You will see this proof, right here, laid out in detail, for the first time anywhere, as of the present date.

The reader-comments to my July 31st article, “First Examination of Malaysian MH-17 Cockpit Photo Shows Ukraine Government Shot that Plane Down,” provided links and leads to independent additional confirmatory evidence backing up that account, of retired Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko’s reconstruction of this event, to such an extent that, after exploring the matter further, I now feel confident enough to say that the evidence on this matter is, indeed, “conclusive,” that Haisenko is right. Here is all of that evidence, which collectively convinces me that Haisenko’s conclusion there, is, indeed, the only one that can even possibly explain this wreckage:

“There have been two or three pieces of fuselage that have been really pockmarked with what almost looks like machine-gun fire, very very strong machine-gun fire.” This remarkable statement comes not from Haisenko, but from one of the first OSCE investigators who arrived at the scene of the disaster. Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ze9BNGDyk4 and you will see it.

That youtube snippet in an interview with Michael Bociurkiw, comes from a man who is “a Ukrainian-Canadian monitor with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), [who] has seen up close … the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. Bociurkiw and one other colleague were the first international monitors to reach the wreckage after the jet was shot down over a rebel-held region of eastern Ukraine July 17.” That description of him is from the lead-in to the full interview with him, at the 29 July 2014 CBC news article, “Malaysia Airlines MH17: Michael Bociurkiw talks about being first at the crash site.” The far briefer youtube clip shows only what’s presented on 6:10-6:24 of this CBC interview with Bociurkiw. The CBC reporter in the video precedes the interview by announcing, “The wreckage was still smoldering when a small team from the OSCE got there.” So: he had to have been there really fast. “No other officials arrived for days,” she said.

So: one of the two first international monitors on-site saw conclusive evidence that the Malaysian plane had been hit by “very very strong machine-gun fire,” not by ground-based missile-fire. Peter Haisenko’s reconstruction of the downing of that airliner, was here being essentially confirmed on-site by one of the two first OSCE international monitors to arrive on-site, while the wreckage was still smoldering. That’s as close to virgin, untouched evidence and testimony as we’ll ever get. Unlike a black-box interpretation-analysis long afterward by the Russian Government, or by the British Government, or by the Ukrainian Government, each of which governments has a horse in this race, this testimony from Bociurkiw is raw, independent, and comes from one of the two earliest witnesses to the physical evidence. That’s powerfully authoritative testimony, and it happens to confirm pilot Peter Haisenko’s theory of what happened. Bociurkiw arrived there fast because he negotiated with the locals for the rest of the OSCE team, who were organizing to come later: Bociurkiw speaks the local languages there — Ukrainian and Russian.

Furthermore, this is hardly testimony from someone who is supportive of the anti-Government rebels. Earlier, there had been this, http://pressimus.com/Interpreter_Mag/press/3492, which transcribes the BBC’s interview with Bociurkiw on July 22nd. He said then: “We’re observing that major pieces, and I’m looking at the tail fin as I said, and then there’s also the rear cone section of the aircraft, they do look different than when we first saw them, … two days ago.” So, he had arrived on-scene July 20th at the latest. (Neither the BBC nor the CBC, both of which interviewed him, were sufficiently professional to have reported the specific date at which Bociurkiw had actually arrived on-scene, but, from this, it couldn’t have been after July 20th. The downing had occurred July 17th. If some of the debris was still “smoldering” as the CBC journalist said, then maybe he had arrived there even earlier.)

The youtube snippet of Bociurkiw came to me via a reader-comment to my article, from Bill Johnson, after which I web-searched the youtube clip for its source and arrived then at the 29 July 2014 CBC news article and its accompanying video.

Further, there’s this crucial 21 July photo-reconstruction of that cockpit-fragment positioned into place on the aircraft as it had originally been in that intact-airliner:  https://twitter.com/EzraBraam. (Sometimes that doesn’t work, so here’s another screen of it from someone who copied it.) Looking at that photo-reconstruction, one can easily tell that the SU-25 or other fighter-jet that was firing into the cockpit from the pilot’s left side didn’t just riddle the area surrounding the pilot with bullets, but that it then targeted-in specifically onto the pilot himself, producing at his location a huge gaping hole in the side of the plane precisely at the place where the pilot was seated. Furthermore, this gaping hole was produced by shooting into the plane, precisely at the pilot, from below and to the pilot’s left, which is where that fighter-jet was located — not from above the airliner, and not from beside it, and also not from below it.

In other words: this was precise and closely-targeted firing against the pilot himself, not a blast directed broadly against, and aiming to hit, the plane anywhere, to bring it down.

Haisenko explained how this penetration of the plane, though it was targeted specifically at the pilot, caused immediately a breaking-apart of the entire aircraft.

Other readers have responded to my news-report about Haisenko’s article, by saying that shrapnel from a Buk missile could similarly have caused those holes into the side of the cockpit. However, that objection ignores another key feature of Haisenko’s analysis. Haisenko said there: “You can see the entry and exit holes. The edge of a portion of the holes is bent inwards. These are the smaller holes, round and clean, showing the entry points most likeley that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile. The edge of the other, the larger and slightly frayed exit holes showing shreds of metal pointing produced by the same caliber projectiles. Moreover, it is evident that … these exit holes of the outer layer of the double aluminum reinforced structure are shredded or bent — outwardly!”

What this means is that in order to have some of those holes frayed inwardly and the other holes frayed outwardly, there had to have been a second fighter-jet firing into the cockpit from the airliner’s right-hand side. That’s critically important, because no ground-based missile (or shrapnel therefrom) hitting the airliner could possibly have produced firing into the cockpit from both  sides of the plane. It had to have been a hail of bullets from both sides, that brought the plane down, in that circumstance. This is Haisenko’s main discovery, by his pointing that out. You can’t have projectiles going in both directions — into the left-hand-side fuselage panel from both its left and right sides — unless they are coming at the panel from different directions. Nobody before Haisenko had noticed that the projectiles had ripped through that panel from both its left side and its right side. This is what rules out any  ground-fired missile.

Peter Haisenko posted an extremely high-resolution image from that photo which he used, and it shows unequivocally that some of the bullet-holes were inbound while others of them were outbound: Here it is, viewed very close-up.

Although the fighter jets that were said to have been escorting the Malaysian plane into the war-zone were alleged to be SU-25 planes, a different type might have been used. SU-25s are designed to be flown up to 23,000 feet without an oxygen-mask, but can go much higher if the pilot does wear that mask, which was probably the case here. Of course, an airliner itself is fully pressurized. That pressurization inside the airliner is, moreover, a key part of Haisenko’s reconstruction of this airliner’s downing. Basically, Haisenko reconstructs the airliner’s breaking apart as soon as that hail of bullets opened and released the plane’s pressurization.

The specific photo of that cockpit-fragment, which Haisenko had downloaded immediately after the disaster, was removed from the Internet, but other photos of this fragment were posted elsewhere, such as at the British publication (which, like the rest of the Western “news” media is slanted pro-Obama, anti-Putin), on July 21st, headlining their anti-Putin missile-theory bias, “MH17 crash: FT photo shows signs of damage from missile strike.” Their “reporters” opened with their blatant anti-Russian prejudice: “The first apparent hard evidence that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down by a surface-to-air missile is emerging from the crash site in eastern Ukraine, after experts confirmed on Monday there were signs of shrapnel damage to the aircraft.” Although they didn’t say in their opener that the “surface-to-air missile” was from the rebels, they made clear their pro-Ukrainian-Government anti-Russian bias by saying, “Over the weekend, western intelligence agencies pointed to mounting evidence that backs Ukraine’s claim that the aircraft with 298 people on board was shot down by mistake by pro-Russian separatists and Russian military personnel with an SA-11 missile launched from a Buk-M1 SAM battery.” Their stenographers (or as they would say “reporters”) stenographed (“reported”) that, “Douglas Barrie of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the photographic evidence ‘was consistent with the kind of damage you would expect to see from the detonation of a high explosive fragmentation warhead of the type commonly used in a SAM system’.” No analyst from the pro-Putin camp  was interviewed by their “reporters.” For example, Russia’s Interfax News Service headlined on July 29th, the same day as the FT’s  article, “Boeing’s downing by Buk missile system unlikely — military expert,” and they stenographed their  “expert,” as follows:

Chief of the Russian Land Forces’ tactical air defense troops Maj. Gen. Mikhail Krush said he doubts that the Malaysian passenger liner was brought down by a Buk surface-to-air missile system. “No one observed a Buk engaging targets in that region on that day, which provides 95 percent proof that Buk systems were not used in this concrete case,” the general said in an interview with the Voyenno-Promyshlenny Kuryer military weekly to be published on Wednesday [July 30th]. “This is no more than a theory for now. However, a guided missile launched by a Buk missile system leaves behind a specific smoke trail as it flies, like a comet. In daylight this trail can be clearly seen within a radius of 20-25 kilometers from the missile system. It cannot remain unnoticed. There are no eyewitnesses to confirm there was any. No one reported a launch. This is one thing,” he said. “Second. The holes left by the strike elements on the Boeing’s outer skin indicate that the warhead blew up from below and sideways. A Buk missile strikes the target from above,” he said. “The damage done to the plane suggests that a different missile was used. Our guidance method is a zoom, when the missile strikes the target from above covering it with a thick cloud of fragments” the general said. “I cannot state categorically, guided by this data, but I can suggest, using my experience, that it was not a Buk missile that hit the Boeing,” the expert said.

General Krush’s statement can fit with Haisenko’s and with Bociurkiw’s, but not with FT’s  or the rest of the “reporters” (just consider them as rank propagandists) in the West.

U.S. President Barack Obama has been saying all along that Russia – against which he is actually systematically building toward war – and not Ukraine (which he’s using as his chief vehicle to do that), is to blame for this airliner-downing. Previously, he had said that the snipers who in February had killed many people at the Maidan demonstrations against the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych came from Yanukovych’s State Security Service and not from the far-right political parties that were trying to bring Yanukovych down and that Obama’s agent Victoria Nuland selected to run the new Ukrainian government. But that too was an Obama lie. He lies a lot, and it’s just about the only type of statement he ever makes about Russia, and about Ukraine: lies.

If someone wants to verify how rabidly the U.S. Government lies, and has lied since at least the time of George W. Bush’s Presidency, just look at this video, by starting at 16:00 on it and going to 42:00 on it, and you will be shocked. (It pertains to lies by Bush that are still being covered up by Obama.) And when you further consider the many obvious questions it points out, which U.S. “news” media refused to ask and still refuse to ask about the matter, you’ll recognize that we are being lied to systematically and with utter contempt of the public, and with no respect for the public’s right to know the truth, even regarding massive history like that. It’s really brutal.

Ignorant “reporters” sometimes slip-up and include, in their stenography, facts that actually support the opposite side’s narrative of events and that discredit their own story-line. Such has been the case, for example, in the Financial Times  piece, which included the statement that, “Anti-aircraft missiles are not designed to score a direct hit as they are targeted to destroy fast, agile fighter jets. Instead, they are designed to explode within about 20m of their target, sending out a cloud of red hot metal to increase the chances of inflicting as much damage as possible.”

But rather than merely “a cloud of red hot metal,” what actually brought down this plane was what Haisenko has said brought it down: magazines-full of carefully targeted rapid-fire machine-gun bullets pouring forth from below the plane, at both its left and right.

This was a Ukrainian Government job. It was close-in. (No missile fired from the distance more than 30,000 feet down to the ground could have been that precise to target the pilot rather than the far larger target of the plane’s entire body.) It came from the Government that Obama installed there in February and that’s now carrying out an ethnic-cleansing campaign against the residents in Ukraine’s southeast, the places where Yanukovych’s voters live (to the extent that they still can and do live).

Compare that picture with the following one, which I take from a propaganda-site for the U.S. regime, and so which is intended instead to support the Administration’s line on this, certainly not Haisenko’s explanation of how the airliner was downed, though it actually supports Haisenko’s case:

3.August.2014.Screen shot 2014-08-03 at 3.25.30 PM

As you can see there, a plane that’s hit by a ground-fired missile, instead of by bullets fired from an attack-plane only a few yards away, has the damage spread rather widely over its body, not concentrated into a tiny area, such as to where the plane’s pilot is seated. Certainly, the contrast between that photo and this one is enormous.

Furthermore, note also that the shrapnel damage to that plane comes from above it, which is where missiles usually hit a plane from, releasing their shrapnel from above, down onto the plane. By contrast, the hail of bullets to the Malaysian plane’s pilot came from below the plane, aiming upward at the cockpit, from both sides of the cockpit.

Furthermore, note also that all of the holes appear to be inbound into the plane, none outbound.

As regards whether there were actually two fighter jets firing into the Malaysian airliner or only one, a proponent of the single-jet hypothesis, Bill Johnson, posted as a reader-comment to my article on August 4th, a series of extreme close-ups of the side-panel, in which he inferred that the explanation of the apparent left-side (pilot-side) bullets was probably the shape of the bullets. I then asked him why he declined to accept the possible existence of two jets. He said, “from what I could find Russian military radar detected only one Ukrainian fighter jet, not two. I have looked and looked for any type of radar confirmation of a second fighter jet and can not find it.” However, the most virginal, very earliest, online evidence concerning the matter was on July 17th, within moments of the downing, headlining in the subsequent English translation, “Spanish Air Controller @ Kiev Borispol Airport: Ukraine Military Shot Down Boeing #MH17,” and it included, “@spainbuca’s TWITTER FEED,” which included his observation, only minutes after the downing, “2 jet fighters flew very close” to the plane. Furthermore, immediately before that, he had tweeted, “The B777 plane flew escorted by Ukraine jet fighter until 2 minutes before disappearing from the radar.” So, perhaps the second jet appeared distinct to him only immediately prior to the downing. An extensive file of tweets from @spainbuca was posted below the headline story and it included also the note: “LAST MINUTE Air Traffic Controller: The Boeing 777 ‘flew fighters escorted by two Ukrainians’ before disappearing.” (The original Spanish there was: “‘voló escoltado por 2 cazas ucranianos’ antes de desaparecer.”)

Additionally, a news story from the Spanish language edition of Russian Television on 8 May 2014, soon after the Odessa massacre, had been headlined in google trans English as “Death threats to a Spanish review in Ukraine crisis” and it said: “Spanish air traffic controller who was threatened by supporters of the Maidan, Carlos, who spoke with RT on the condition of anonymity, has received threats despite not defending any interest. ‘I have my opinion and my view of a normal person, with a separate work [unrelated] or media, or any political party, nor to any association.’” These “supporters of Maidan … threatened to kill him, to send him to ‘do not know what battalion’ and out of the country.” Then on July 17th there was, yet again in google trans from Spanish, “Block a Twitter account accusing Kiev of the demolition of the MH17,” which reported that a controller at “Ukraine’s largest airport said the plane from Malaysia, which crashed in the east with 298 people on board, was escorted by two Ukrainian fighters until minutes before disappearing from radar.”

Another news-report, also on July 17th, came from Global Travel Industry News datelined 17 July and it headlined “Ukraine air traffic controller suggests Kiev military shot down passenger plane.” It said: “This Kiev air traffic controller is a citizen of Spain and was working in the Ukraine. He was taken off duty as a civil air-traffic controller along with other foreigners immediately after a Malaysia Airlines passenger aircraft was shot down over the Eastern Ukraine killing 295 passengers and crew on board. The air traffic controller suggested in a private evaluation and basing it on military sources in Kiev, that the Ukrainian military was behind this shoot down. Radar records were immediately confiscated after it became clear a passenger jet was shot down.” If this is true, then the radar-records upon the basis of which those tweets had been sent out were “confiscated.” That news-story from Global Travel Industry News closed by saying that the report was “based on” “tweets received” and “the statements of one airline controller.”

That person, who called himself anonymously by the name “Carlos,” had produced a file characteristic of someone hostile toward, and personally afraid of, the new Kiev government, and nothing further was heard from him, if he even survived. The Ukrainian Government said that he never existed, though the 8 May 2014 news report of his frictions with the Kiev authorities could hardly have been concocted after July 17th simply out of nowhere; it had pre-existed the airliner-downing, and it fit with his tweets on July 17th.

The best evidence is consistent with the view that those bullet-holes came from two directions not from one. What is virtually certain, however, is that at least one jet fighter was close up and shot down the Malaysian plane targeting the pilot at close range. There is no way that a 33,000-foot-away ground-fired missile could have produced that cockpit side-panel.

And the European Union has been playing along with this hoax. (If you still have any further doubts that it’s a hoax, just click onto that link and look.) And the mass of suckers in the West believe that hoax: it’s succeeding to stir a fever for war, instead of a fever to get rid of our own leaders who are lying us into a war that will benefit only the West’s aristocrats, while it inflicts massive physical and economic harms against everyone else – as if it were the invasion of Iraq except multiplied in this case a thousand-fold, especially with nuclear weapons possibly at the end of it.

If we had a free press, the news media would be ceaselessly asking President Obama why he doesn’t demand accountability against the Ukrainian Government for their massacre perpetrated on May 2nd inside the Trade Unions Building in Odessa, where that newly Obama-installed regime’s peaceful opponents were systematically trapped and then burned alive, which the Obama-installed Ukrainian Government has refused to investigate (much less to prosecute). Basically: Obama had sponsored the massacre. So, our “news” media ignore it, even though it started this civil war on Russia’s doorstep, and thereby re-started the Cold War, as Obama had intended that massacre (his  massacre, and his  subsequent ethnic cleansing) to do. (Similarly, the “news” media, though all of them receive my articles by email, virtually all refuse to publish them, because I won’t let them control what I find and report.)

And while Obama leads this Republican policy, and Vice President Dick Cheney’s top foreign-policy advisor Victoria Nuland actually runs it for Obama, congressional Democrats are just silent about it, and do not introduce impeachment of this fake “Democratic” hyper-George W. Bush neo-conservative President, who’s a “Democrat” in rhetoric only – and though Obama’s policy in this key matter threatens the entire world.

A reader-comment to an earlier version of this news report and analysis objected to my identifying Obama as a Republican-in-”Democratic”-sheep’s clothing, and said: “They may be rethug policies in origin but they are decidedly BI-PARTISAN to anyone who wants to admit FACTS. The democratic party you all think still exists is DEAD and only exists in your brain (the part that doesn’t accept reality).” However, U.S. Senate bill 2277, which invites Obama to provide direct U.S. military support to the Obama-installed Ukrainian regime, has 26 sponsors, and all of them are Republican U.S. Senators. Democratic Senators, by contrast, are just silent on Obama’s turn toward nazism (or racist — in this case anti-ethnic-Russian racist — fascism); the Senate’s Democrats aren’t seeking for it to be stepped up. This is a Republican policy, which congressional Democrats are simply afraid to oppose. Any realistic person knows that however far right Obama turns, the overt  Republican Party will turn even farther to the right, because they have to be to his right in order for them to be able to win Republican primaries and retain their own  Party’s nomination. Just because Obama’s game of moving the American political center as far to the right as he can move it is succeeding, doesn’t mean that the Democratic Party itself should end. It instead means that progressives need to take the Democratic Party over, just like conservatives took the Republican Party over with Reagan. There is no other hope. If a Democrat in the U.S. House will simply introduce an impeachment resolution against Barack Obama, then the right-wing takeover of the Democratic Party might finally end, and the world might yet be saved, because the Democratic Party itself could then reject Obama as being a fake “Democrat,” a Democrat-in-rhetoric-only. It could transform American politics — and American politics needs such a transformation, which would move the Democratic Party back to progressivism, more like the FDR Democratic Party was, so that Republican politicians would no longer need to be so fascist as they now have become (and as they now need to be  in order to be able to win their own  Party’s nomination). If Democrats fail to renounce the conservatism of Obama and of the Clintons, then the Party will end, and needs to be replaced, just like the Republican Party replaced the Whig Party immediately before the Civil War. Nazism has become today’s slavery-type issue – it’s beyond the pale, and Obama’s installation and endorsement of it in Ukraine is like James Buchanan’s endorsement of slavery was during the 1850s: either the Democratic Party will become the progressive party, or else the Democratic Party is over.

But that’s just my own theory of how Obama’s frauds might yet be able to be overcome and defeated, if they still can be; it’s not part of my presentation of the explanation of what brought down the Malaysian airliner, which has been an open case since July 17th, and which is now a closed case. This is past history, not future.

The present news story is being circulated free of charge or copyright to all “news” media in the English-speaking world, in the perhaps vain hope that the cover-ups of our leaders’ constant lies will cease soon enough to avoid a World War III, even though communism is long since gone from Russia and so the ideological excuse wouldn’t make any sense here. This insanity is actually all about aristocratic conquest, like World War I was. It’s not for the benefit of the public anywhere. Silence about it (by “Democrats,” and the “news” media) is a scandal, which needs to stop. The real Democratic Party (the Party of FDR, who loathed and despised nazis — and even mere fascists — yet today Obama installs nazis into power in Ukraine) must be restored, and a real news media needs to become established in America. Even Republicans need it, because the very idea of “victory” in a nuclear war is a vicious fantasy. It is a dangerous lie, though there are some people who find it a very profitable one. And time might be short — let’s hope not already too  short.

After all, Obama’s hoax of having won from Europe the stepped-up economic sanctions against Russia after the government that Obama had installed in Ukraine downed the Malaysian plane and successfully blamed it on “Russian aggression,” is very encouraging to him. And European leaders know that Obama’s entire operation is a very bloody fraud (read the phone-transcript there — it’s a stunner). So, they certainly won’t save the world from it. It’s up to us.

PS (dated August 5th):

Some readers disagree with Peter Haisenko’s reconstruction of the event on account of their not understanding his reconstruction of it (not understanding what I have been trying here to state as clearly as I can, bringing in other evidence). For example, see:

http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/evidence-now-conclusive-2-ukrainian-government-su-25-fighter-jets-shoot-malaysian-airliner-buk-missile-ground-shot-involved/

reader-comment:

“Benoit • [c. 8AM on 5 August 2014]

“I do not agree with Peter Haisenko’s conclusions : if external hull of the cockpit is bent outwards, it is not necessarily because some of the bullets came outwards. It may also be because it’s a double hull, and explosive bullet coming inwards may, when exploding, have torn outer aluminium hull outwards. A very careful analysis shows tha the inner hull (the green one) is bent inwards, and that may well in fact confirm the present analysis. Here’s this careful analysis (in french, use Goolgle translate):

“Benoit” links there to:

http://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/international/article/mh17-preuve-de-canonnage-et-155019

“MH17: evidence gunnery and Western Bankruptcy”

by joelim , Wednesday, July 30, 2014, in which is buried its conclusion:

“Anyway, these five aligned and clearly visible impacts directly lead to the conclusion that fire gunnery (not gun, which stops 20 mm) was made precisely to where stood the driver (see here  and here ). The damage (physical, human, decompression) left them no chance. This is the cause of the crash. The plane did not explode which also explains the appearance of debris found.”

Here is the French original on that:

“MH17 : preuve de canonnage et faillite occidentale”

“Quoiqu’il en soit, ces 5 impacts alignés et parfaitement visibles mènent directement à la conclusion qu’un tir de canonnage (et non de mitrailleuse, qui s’arrête à 20 mm) a été effectué précisément à l’endroit où se tenait le pilote (voir ici et ici). Les dégâts occasionnés (matériel, humain, décompression) ne leur laissaient aucune chance. C’est donc la cause du crash. L’avion n’a pas explosé ce qui explique aussi l’aspect des débris retrouvés.”

In other words: “Benoit” couldn’t understand what he was reading, and so he said “I do not agree with Peter Haisenko’s conclusions.” He cited against Haisenko’s theory of the case, an analysis that was published a day after Haisenko’s, which concluded the same as Haisenko did.

The author of that French article refused to even use the word “Haisenko” in his article, much less to credit Haisenko’s article in any way, but the source-photo that he linked to came from Haisenko’s high-definition pdf of the photo that Haisenko was using. He was trying to get credit for Haisenko’s theory of the case.

There is a lot of lying going on, a lot of misrepresentation. The only way to get to the truth is to base it on the best available evidence, which is what Haisenko did. He found it; he analyzed it; he solved the mystery (though he could have explained it better). To the extent that other “evidence” is reliable, it fits his explanation — an explanation that I shall keep expanding on to the extent that new relevant evidence comes forth, pro and/or con, on it. The important thing to keep in mind, however, is this. It’s even more important than how that plane was brought down.

Barack Obama lies to us. All Republican (or conservative) politicians do. The Democratic Party will die if it fails to state that this is so and to make the case for the charge so that they separate themselves from the Republican Party and be clearly the progressive alternative to conservatism in America. A Democratic impeachment against this Republican President is essential in order to salvage the Democratic Party, and even in order to salvage democracy in America, because no country can be an authentic democracy if the country’s main political parties are all conservative, if none of the main parties is progressive. That’s not a democracy: it is a dictatorship. That’s what we’ve got.

Top AIDS Researchers Killed in Malaysia Airlines Crash

Source: Cryptogon

Utopia, Series 2 Episode 1, 14 July 2014, Channel4, Britain: “We have to plant a bomb on board the plane and we have to kill all of them.”

Utopia is probably the best show I’ve ever seen on TV. The first two episodes from series 2 were recently broadcast in Britain.

Most people outside of Britain won’t have ever heard of Utopia, so I’ll just write a couple of sentences about it in case you need some context. Utopia is a show about the granddaddy of all “conspiracy theories”: A forced reduction in the population of planet earth. This is accomplished by Janus, a bioweapon that sterilizes most people and is delivered as a vaccine during a bogus flu pandemic.

No, it’s not a documentary. *wink*

So I’m leaning back in my chair, enjoying the Series 2 opener, drinking some tea, eating an apple and…

I’ll just type out some dialog from Series 2 Episode 1:

Assistant: The network lab in Tel Aviv, one of the men worked out the RNA codes for Janus. He has an idea of what it does.

Milner: Has he told anyone?

Assistant: Half the lab, as many as fifty people. We’re not sure exactly who yet but we have it locked down.

Milner: Do you have a plane ready?

Assistant: TWA 841 heading to JFK. We’ve told them they’re going to be debriefed by the CIA.

Milner: We know what we have to do then. We have to bring it down. We have to plant a bomb on board the plane and we have to kill all of them.

A few days later, we read that some of the world’s top AIDS researchers were killed in the Malaysia Airlines shoot-down incident.

Obviously, this is just another coincidence, like Neo’s passport or Sandy Hook labeled “Strike Zone” In Dark Knight Rises.

People in Britain can watch Utopia on the Channel4 Website. If you’re outside of Britain, you’ll have to look into bypassing the absurd geoblocking that Channel4 uses. I’m not going to get into that here, but there are countless sites out there that can help you.

Via: Time:

About 100 people traveling to a global AIDS conference in Australia were on board the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed and killed 298 people in eastern Ukraine, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

The researchers, health workers and activists were on their way to the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne. Among the victims planning to attend was Dutch national Joep Lange, a top AIDS researcher and former International AIDS Society president. Briton Glenn Thomas, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization and a former BBC journalist, was also on flight MH17.

The International AIDS Society expressed sadness over the news that its colleagues were on the Malaysian jetliner.

While the medical field mourns the lives of those killed, experts like Associate Professor Brian Owler, federal president of the Australian Medical Association, also fear that breakthroughs in HIV/AIDS research will now be stalled.

“The amount of knowledge that these people who died on the plane were carrying with them and the experiences they had developed will have a devastating impact on HIV research,” Owler told TIME.

“The amount of time it takes to get to a stage where you can come up with those ideas cannot be replaced in a short amount of time. So it does set back work for a cure and strategic prevention of HIV/AIDS very significantly,” he said.

Kiev Losing, Sanctions Flopped, Airliner Down, War Back On?

mh17-crash8-data

By Tony Cartalucci

Source: New Eastern Outlook

With Kiev’s forces being encircled and decimated in eastern Ukraine, western Ukrainians in Kiev protesting the war, and US sanctions receiving global ridicule as feckless – the downing of a Malaysian Boeing 777 airliner with over 280 on board in eastern Ukraine – allegedly shot down over a conflict zone – will undoubtedly be exploited by NATO to vilify Kiev’s opponents, particularly fighters in the east and Russia who NATO accuses of “destabilizing eastern Ukraine.”

Preceding the downing of Malaysian flight MH17, just hours beforehand, Ukraine claimed Russia had shot down one of its SU-25 ground attack aircraft. The BBC’s article, “Ukraine conflict: Russia accused of shooting down jet,” stated that:

A Ukrainian security spokesman has accused Russia’s air force of shooting down one of its jets while it was on a mission over Ukrainian territory. 

Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council, said an Su-25 ground attack plane was downed on Wednesday evening. 

Russia’s defence ministry called the accusation “absurd”, Russian state media reported. 

Rebels in eastern Ukraine say they shot down two Su-25 jets on Wednesday. 

Ukraine also alleges rockets were fired at its forces from Russian territory.

While the weapon systems used to down the Ukrainian SU-25′s were not mentioned, previous aircraft lost to separatists in eastern Ukraine were most likely hit by Igla man-portable anti-air systems. The downed 777 was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet – unreachable by the Igla system. To down it would require a sophisticated weapon system most likely inaccessible to eastern Ukrainian fighters. This was confirmed by the regime in Kiev itself. New York Daily News reported in an article titled, “Malaysia Airlines plane feared shot down in Ukraine near Russian border,” that:

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, said on Facebook that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, reported Interfax, a Ukranian news agency.

The Buk system is maintained by both Russia and Ukraine. Russia would most likely not supply the sophisticated weapon system to fighters in Ukraine even if it were backing them militarily, because it would be nearly impossible to prevent its use or abuse from being traced directly back to Moscow. Ukrainian Buk systems, had the regime in Kiev lost control of one or more, should have been reported missing and international precautions taken to divert vulnerable aircraft around the conflict zone.

Western Reaction

US Senator John McCain, who had been standing in Kiev on stage with Neo-Nazis of the Svoboda Party shortly before they overthrew the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych, stated in an NBC interview:

“To leap to conclusions could be very embarrassing and really inappropriate until we have more information,” he told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “But there have been, as you mentioned, previous incidents of shot down of Ukrai

nian aircraft. This was an airliner headed towards Russian air space. And it has the earmarks, and I’m not concluding, but it has the earmarks of a mistaken identification of an aircraft that they may have believed was Ukrainian.

“If that’s true, this is a horrible tragedy event which was certainly unanticipated by anybody, no matter who they are,” he said. “And there will be incredible repercussions if this is the case. Exactly what those will be will have to be determined by how we find out who was responsible.”

McCain added, “If it is a result of either separatists or Russian actions mistakingly believing that this was a Ukrainian warplane, I think there’s going to be hell to pay and there should be.”

McCain never mentioned what should or could happen if it was the regime he helped put into power that was responsible for downing the airliner.

With the most likely weapon system responsible being the Buk launcher, and the regime in Kiev ascertaining so quickly how the plane was downed and who was responsible, it is now up to Kiev to explain how a Buk system ended up in the hands of separatists and why they would have fired at a plane flying at 33,000 feet heading toward the Russian border at speeds consistent with an airliner.

Cui Bono?

The remote possibility that separatists obtained a sophisticated Buk anti-air missile system, was able to maintain and operate it, failed to identify the Malaysian 777, and exercised the poor judgement to fire on it – would make the tragedy a catastrophic case of mistaken identify – for the separatists have no conceivable reason to fire on a Malaysian passenger liner – and absolutely nothing to gain by doing so.

However, for the regime in Kiev facing decimated and unraveling military forces in the east, growing dissent in the west, and Western sponsors who are unable to materialize any form of meaningful aid militarily, economically, or politically – shooting down a civilian airliner and blaming it on the separatists could unite public opinion and the leadership of European nations behind NATO and the US for a more direct intervention on behalf of Kiev and change the tide of what is now a battle they will otherwise inevitably lose.

The West is already working hard to set the stage for such a scenario. The BBC in an article titled, “Malaysia airliner crashes in east Ukraine conflict zone,” stated that:

Sir Tony Brenton, a former UK ambassador to Russia, told BBC News it would not be a huge surprise if suspicion initially fell on the rebels.

“That would be very damaging both for them and for their Russian supporters,” he said.

“The Russians have undoubtedly been supplying them with weapons, almost certainly with anti-aircraft weapons, so Russia would very likely be implicated and that would raise the volume of international criticism of Russia.”

Only the West and their proxies in Kiev would stand to benefit from this – and commentators like Tony Brenton and the BBC intentionally prey on the ignorance of their audience in hopes that they don’t know the difference between the Igla systems separatists most likely have, and the Buk system they most likely don’t have or are unable to operate.

This is the second Malaysian 777 to be lost under extraordinary circumstances this year. Malaysian flight MH370 disappeared in March, 2014, and has yet to be found despite unprecedented international search efforts.

In the RT timeline of the event, the following report was posted:

13:07 GMT: Ukraine’s traffic controllers ordered the Boeing-777 to lower by 500 meters when the aircraft entered Ukrainian airspace, says a statement on the Malaysia Airlines official website.

“MH17 filed a flight plan requesting to fly at 35,000ft (10,660 meters) throughout Ukrainian airspace. This is close to the ‘optimum’ altitude. However, an aircraft’s altitude in flight is determined by air traffic control on the ground. Upon entering Ukrainian airspace, MH17 was instructed by Ukrainian air traffic control to fly at 33,000ft (10,058 meters).”

Related Article: Obama Definitely Caused the Malaysian Airliner to Be Downed