669 MH17 cockpit shows traces of Shelling! It was hit by a Jet Fighter, not a Missile

MH17 cockpit shows traces of Shelling! It was hit by a Jet Fighter, not
a Missile

Newsletter published on 1 August 2014

This newsletter is at http://mailstar.net/bulletins/140801-b2429-MH17.rtf

(1) Key evidence - photo of MH17 Cockpit, and BBC Report (deleted; now
Youtube video)
(2) Deleted BBC Report: "Ukrainian Fighter Jet Shot Down MHI7" - Donetsk
Eyewitnesses
(3) MH17 cockpit shows traces of Shelling! It was hit by a Jet Fighter,
not a Missile
(4) Former US intelligence officers demand US present evidence to back
up claimed Russian involvement in MH17
(5) Captain Rogers, who shot down Iran Air Flight 655, was awarded the
Legion of Merit
(6) US demonizing Russia as Prelude to War - Paul Craig Roberts
(7) US has ‘neocon agenda’ in Ukraine, Russia - James Morris

(1) Key evidence - photo of MH17 Cockpit, and BBC Report (deleted; now
Youtube video)
- by Peter Myers, August 1, 2014

Photo of MH17 cockpit:
http://www.anderweltonline.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/Cockpit-MH017.pdf

BBC Report (since deleted; now Youtube video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUvK5m2vxro

IT WAS ORIGINALLY AT
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/multimedia/2014/07/140722_v_mh17_buk_hunt.shtml

Save both the photo and the video if you can. I find that the saved
video lacks the translator's subtitles. Can anyone remedy this?

(2) Deleted BBC Report: "Ukrainian Fighter Jet Shot Down MHI7" - Donetsk
Eyewitnesses

From: Ionut Dobrinescu <idobrinescu@ddrept.net>
Subject: Revelations of German Pilot: Shocking Analysis of the “Shooting
Down” of Malaysian MH17. “Aircraft Was Not Hit by a Missile”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/deleted-bbc-report-ukrainian-fighter-jet-shot-down-mhi7-donetsk-eyewitnesses/5393631

{visit the link to watch the video}

Deleted BBC Report. "Ukrainian Fighter Jet Shot Down MHI7", Donetsk
Eyewitnesses
The Catastrophe of #MH17: #BBC in the Search of the “#BUK” – The Video
Report Deleted by @BBC
By Global Research News
Global Research, July 27, 2014

  The original BBC Video Report was published by BBC Russian Service on
July 23, 2014.

In a bitter irony, The BBC is censoring its own news productions.

Why did BBC delete this report by Olga Ivshina?

Is it because the BBC team was unable to find any evidence that a rocket
was launched in the area that the Ukrainian Security Service (“SBU”)
alleges to be the place from which the Novorossiya Militia launched a
“BUK” missile?

Or is it because every eyewitness interviewed by the BBC team
specifically indicated the presence of a Ukrainian military aircraft
right beside the Malaysian Airlines Boeing MH17 at the time that it was
shot down?

Or is it because of eyewitness accounts confirming that the Ukrainian
air force regularly used civilian aircraft flying over Novorossiya as
human shields to protect its military aircraft conducting strikes
against the civilian population from the Militia’s anti-aircraft units?

Highlights of Witness statements (see complete transcript below)

Eyewitness #1: There were two explosions in the air. And this is how it
broke apart. And [the fragments] blew apart like this, to the sides. And
when …

Eyewitness #2: … And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside
it. Everybody saw it.

Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It was flying under it, because it could be
seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one.

Eyewitness #3: There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the
sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane made a sharp turn-around
like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in that direction
[indicating the direction with her hands].


Video: The Catastrophe of #MH17: #BBC in the Search of the “#BUK”
Introductory Paragraphs to the BBC Video Report

by slavyangrad.wordpress.com

Intro of BBC Report (For Full Transcript see below)

The “black boxes” of the crashed Malaysian Boeing have finally been
transferred into the hands of the experts. However, how much can they
tell us?

The recorders logged the coordinates and the heading of the aircraft at
the time of the incident and may have recorded the sound of the
explosion. However, they will not tell us what exactly caused the explosion.

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

The Ukrainian government rejects this version of events. They believe
that the Boeing was shot down using a missile from a “BUK” complex that
came in from Russia.

The Ukrainian Security Service has published photographs and a video,
which, in its opinion, prove that the Boeing was shot down with a “BUK”
missile.

BBC reporter Olga Ivshina and producer Oksana Vozhdayeva decided to find
the place from which the missile was allegedly launched.


Original BBC Video Report: Preserved by Google Web-cache
Transcript of the BBC Video Report

DPR Representative: Here it is.

Olga Ivshina, BBC: The black boxes from the crashed Boeing are finally
being transferred into the hands of the experts. However, how much can
they tell us?

The recorders logged the coordinates and the heading of the aircraft at
the time of the incident and may have recorded the sound of the
explosion. However, they will not tell us what exactly caused the explosion.

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

Eyewitness #1: There were two explosions in the air. And this is how it
broke apart. And [the fragments] blew apart like this, to the sides. And
when …

Eyewitness #2: … And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside
it. Everybody saw it.

Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It was flying under it, because it could be
seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one.

Eyewitness #3: There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the
sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane made a sharp turn-around
like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in that direction
[indicating the direction with her hands].

Olga Ivshina, BBC: The Ukrainian government rejects this version of
events. They believe that the Boeing was shot down using a missile from
a “BUK” complex that came in from the direction of Russia.

Vitaliy Naida, Department of Counterintelligence of SBU [Ukrainian
Security Service]: This was a BUK M1 system from which the aircraft was
shot down. It came to Ukraine early in the morning on the 17th of July.
It was delivered by a tow truck to the city of Donetsk. After that, it
was redeployed from Donetsk, as part of a column of military equipment,
to the area of the city of Torez, to the area of Snezhnoye, to the area
of Pervomaisk.

Olga Ivshina, BBC: The Ukrainian Security Service has published
photographs and a video, which, in its opinion, prove that the Boeing
was shot down with a “BUK” missile. We attempted to verify these
photographs and information at the location.

One of the photographs showed a landscape not far from the city of
Torez, on which smoke could be seen coming from the presumed location of
the missile’s launch. We attempted to find this location, and it appears
that we were successful.

We are now on the outskirts of the city of Torez. Behind me,
approximately five kilometres away, is the city of Snezhnoye. And the
landscape here matches the landscape that we can see on the photograph
published by the Ukrainian Security Service.

To find the place from which the smoke was allegedly coming from, we
adopted as markers these three poplars and the group of trees.
Presumably, this is the place that can be seen on the photograph
published by the SBU. And here are our markers: the three solitary
poplars and the small group of trees in the distance.

The smoke that can be seen on the photograph came from somewhere over
there [pointing behind her], behind my back. The SBU believes that this
is a trace coming from the launch of a “BUK” missile.

However, it must be noted that there are here, approximately in the same
place, the Saur-Mogila memorial, near which the fighting continues
almost unabated, and a coalmine. It turns out that the smoke with the
same degree of probability could have been coming from any of these
locations.

Having circled around the nearby fields, we were unable to find any
traces of a missile launch. Nor did the local inhabitants that we
encountered see any “BUK” either.

At the ruins of an apartment building in the city of Snezhnoye, the
topic of the jet fighters that may have been escorting civilian aircraft
comes up again. A bomb dropped from above took away the lives of eleven
civilians here.

Sergey Godovanets, Commander of the Militia of the city of Snezhnoye:
They use these civilian aircraft to hide behind them. It is only now
that they stopped flying over us – but, usually, civilian aircraft would
always fly above us. And they hide [behind them]. [The experience in]
Slavyansk had demonstrated that they would fly out from behind a
civilian aircraft, bomb away, and then hide, once again, behind the
civilian aircraft and fly away.

Olga Ivshina, BBC: The commander of the local militia emphasizes that
they have no weaponry capable of shooting down a jet fighter [flying] at
a significant height. However, he says that if such weaponry were to
appear, they would have tried to.

Sergey Godovanets: If we know that it is not a civilian aircraft, but a
military one, then – yes.

Olga Ivshina, BBC: So, could the Boeing have been shot down by the
militias that had mistaken it for a military aircraft? There is as yet
no unequivocal confirmation of either this or any other version [of what
took place]. The international experts are just beginning their work
with the information obtained from the crashed airliner. It now appears
that it is difficult to overstate the importance of this investigation.
Olga Ivshina, BBC.

The Catastrophe of #MH17:

#BBC in the Search of the “BUK” – The Video Report Deleted by BBC

Translation by: Valentina Lisitsa
http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com

(3) MH17 cockpit shows traces of Shelling! It was  not hit by a Jet
Fighter, not a Missile

http://www.globalresearch.ca/german-pilot-speaks-out-shocking-analysis-of-the-shooting-down-of-malaysian-mh17/5394111

Revelations of German Pilot: Shocking Analysis of the “Shooting Down” of
Malaysian MH17. “Aircraft Was Not Hit by a Missile”

By Peter Haisenko

Global Research, July 30, 2014
anderweltonline.com

The tragedy of Malaysian MH 017 continues to elude any light of clarity
being cast over it.

The flight recorders are in England and are evaluated. What can come of
it? Maybe more than you would assume.

Especially the voice recorder will be interesting when you look at the
picture of a cockpit fragment. As an expert in aviation I closely looked
at the images of the wreckage that are circulating on the Internet.

Peter Haisenko in Cockpit of Condor DC 10

First, I was amazed at how few photos can be found from the wreckage
with Google. All are in low resolution, except one: The fragment of the
cockpit below the window on the pilots side. This image, however, is
shocking. In Washington, you can now hear views expressed of a
“potentially tragic error / accident” regarding MH 017. Given this
particular cockpit image it does not surprise me at all.

Entry and exit impact holes of projectiles in the cockpit area

Source for all photos: Internet

I recommend to click on the little picture to the left. You can download
this photo as a PDF in good resolution
<http://www.anderweltonline.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/Cockpit-MH017.pdf>.
This is necessary, because that will allow you understand what I am
describing here. 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. 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 at these exit holes of the outer layer of the double
aluminum reinforced structure are shredded or bent – outwardly!
Furthermore, minor cuts can be seen, all bent outward, which indicate
that shrapnel had forcefully exited through the outer skin from the
inside of the cockpit. The open rivets are are also bent outward.

In sifting through the available images one thing stands out: All
wreckage of the sections behind the cockpit are largely intact, except
for the fact that only fragments of the aircraft remained . Only the
cockpit part shows these peculiar marks of destruction. This leaves the
examiner with an important clue. This aircraft was not hit by a missile
in the central portion. The destruction is limited to the cockpit area.
Now you have to factor in that this part is constructed of specially
reinforced material. This is on account of the nose of any aircraft
having to withstand the impact of a large bird at high speeds. You can
see in the photo, that in this area significantly stronger aluminum
alloys were being installed than in the remainder of the outer skin of
the fuselage. One remembers the crash of Pan Am over Lockerbie. It was a
large segment of the cockpit that due to the special architecture
survived the crash in one piece. In the case of flight MH 017 it becomes
abundantly clear that there also an explosion took place inside the
aircraft.

Tank destroying mix of ammunition

Bullet holes in the outer skin

So what could have happened? Russia recently published radar recordings,
that confirm at least one Ukrainian SU 25 in close proximity to MH 017.
This corresponds with the statement of the now missing Spanish
controller ‘Carlos’ that has seen two Ukrainian fighter aircraft in the
immediate vicinity of MH 017. If we now consider the armament of a
typical SU 25 we learn this: It is equipped with a double-barreled 30-mm
gun, type GSh-302 / AO-17A, equipped with: a 250 round magazine of
anti-tank incendiary shells and splinter-explosive shells (dum-dum),
arranged in alternating order. The cockpit of the MH 017 has evidently
been fired at from both sides: the entry and exit holes are found on the
same fragment of it’s cockpit segment!

Now just consider what happens when a series of anti-tank incendiary
shells and splinter-explosive shells hit the cockpit. These are after
all designed to destroy a modern tank. The anti-tank incendiary shells
partially traversed the cockpit and exited on the other side in a
slightly deformed shape. (Aviation forensic experts could possibly find
them on the ground presumably controlled by the Kiev Ukrainian military;
the translator). After all, their impact is designed to penetrate the
solid armor of a tank. Also, the splinter-explosive shells will, due to
their numerous impacts too cause massive explosions inside the cockpit,
since they are designed to do this. Given the rapid firing sequence of
the GSh-302 cannon, it will cause a rapid succession of explosions
within the cockpit area in a very short time. Remeber each of these is
sufficient to destroy a tank.

What “mistake” was actually being committed – and by whom?

Graze on the wing

Because the interior of a commercial aircraft is a hermetically sealed
pressurized chamber, the explosions will, in split second, increase the
pressure inside the cabin to extreme levels or breaking point. An
aircraft is not equipped for this, it will burst like a balloon. This
explains a coherent scenario. The largely intact fragments of the rear
sections broke in mid air at the weaker points of construction most
likely under extreme internal air pressure. The images of the widely
scattered field of debris and the brutally damaged segment of cockpit
fit like hand in glove. Furthermore, a wing segment shows traces of a
grazing shot, which in direct extension leads to the cockpit.
Interestingly, I found that both the high-resolution photo of the
fragment of bullet riddled cockpit as well as the segment of grazed wing
have in the meantime disappeared from Google Images. One can find
virtually no more pictures of the wreckage, except the well known
smoking ruins.

If you listen to the voices from Washington now who speak of a
“potentially tragic error / accident”, all that remains is the question
of what might have been the nature of this “mistake” perpetrated here. I
am not given to hover long in the realm of speculation, but would like
to invite others to consider the following : The MH 017 looked similar
in it’s tricolor design to that that of the Russian President’s plane.
The plane with President Putin on board was at the same time ”near”
Malaysia MH 017. In aviation circles “close” would be considered to be
anywhere between 150 to 200 miles. Also, in this context we might
consider the deposition of Ms. Tymoshenko, who wanted to shoot President
Putin with a Kalashnikov.

But that this remains pure speculation. The shelling of the cockpit of
air Malaysia MH 017, however, is definitely not speculation.

(4) Former US intelligence officers demand US present evidence to back
up claimed Russian involvement in MH17

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/07/31/side-j31.html

Former US intelligence personnel challenge Obama to present evidence of
Russian complicity in MH17 crash

By our reporter

31 July 2014

In a memorandum to President Barack Obama, a group called Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) has demanded that any
actual evidence of Russian involvement in the downing of Malaysia flight
MH17 over Ukraine is made public.

The memorandum was prepared by the VIPS Steering Group, headed by
William Binney, the former Technical Director, World Geopolitical &
Military Analysis of the National Security Agency and including some
senior NSA, CIA, State Department and military personnel with “a
cumulative total of 260 years in various parts of US intelligence.”

The analysts warn Obama that “US–Russian tensions are building in a
precarious way over Ukraine, and we are far from certain that your
advisers fully appreciate the danger of escalation.”

The memorandum speaks for sections of the intelligence apparatus that
are concerned that the behavior of the Obama administration threatens
not only to provoke war, but to discredit the American state both
internationally and at home.

“Twelve days after the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, your
administration still has issued no coordinated intelligence assessment
summarizing what evidence exists to determine who was responsible—much
less to convincingly support repeated claims that the plane was downed
by a Russian-supplied missile in the hands of Ukrainian separatists,”
the memorandum states. “Your administration has not provided any
satellite imagery showing that the separatists had such weaponry…
Washington’s credibility, and your own, will continue to erode, should
you be unwilling—or unable—to present more tangible evidence behind
administration claims.”

The analysts say they are “troubled by the amateurish manner in which
fuzzy and flimsy evidence has been served up—some of it via ‘social
media’. As intelligence professionals we are embarrassed by the
unprofessional use of partial intelligence information.”

The evidence released to date on MH17 “does not bear close scrutiny,”
the memorandum states. “[I]t does not permit a judgment as to which side
is lying about the shoot-down of Flight 17.”

Secretary of State John Kerry is described as being “particularly
definitive… His statements seem premature and bear earmarks of an
attempt to ‘poison the jury pool,’ before drawing a parallel with “the
behavior of the Reagan administration in the immediate aftermath of the
shoot-down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 over Siberia on August 30, 1983.”

Expressing the hope that Obama “will come to see merit in preventing
ties with Moscow from falling into a state of complete disrepair… [a]
strategic danger [that] dwarfs all other considerations”, the analysts
note that “the Reagan administration used its very accomplished
propaganda machine to twist the available intelligence on Soviet
culpability for the killing of all 269 people aboard KAL007. ... To make
the very blackest case against Moscow for shooting down the KAL
airliner, the Reagan administration suppressed exculpatory evidence from
US electronic intercepts.”

The media joined in the propaganda offensive at the time, the memorandum
noted: “ABC’s Ted Koppel noted with patriotic pride, ‘This has been one
of those occasions when there is very little difference between what is
churned out by the US government propaganda organs and by the commercial
broadcasting networks’.”

“Apparently, not much has changed,” the memorandum states; “Time’s cover
this week features ‘Cold War II’ and ‘Putin’s dangerous game.’ The cover
story by Simon Shuster, ‘In Russia, Crime Without Punishment,’ would
merit an A-plus in William Randolph Hearst’s course ‘Yellow Journalism
101’.”

Various examples of pervious lies by Kerry are listed, centred on his
claim made on August 30, 2013, “no fewer than 35 times, that ‘we know’
the government of Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical
incidents near Damascus nine days before” in order to push for military
action against Syria.

Given Kerry’s record, they write, “We suggest you call a halt to this
misbegotten ‘public diplomacy’ offensive. If, however, you decide to
press on anyway, we suggest you try to find a less tarnished statesman
or woman… If the US has more convincing evidence than what has so far
been adduced concerning responsibility for shooting down Flight 17, we
believe it would be best to find a way to make that intelligence
public—even at the risk of compromising ‘sources and methods.’ Moreover,
we suggest you instruct your subordinates not to cheapen US credibility
by releasing key information via social media like Twitter and Facebook.”

Damningly, the memorandum adds, “We are hearing indirectly from some of
our former colleagues that what Secretary Kerry is peddling does not
square with the real intelligence.”

(5) Captain Rogers, who shot down Iran Air Flight 655, was awarded the
Legion of Merit

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_67104.shtml

A Bloody Farce: Ukraine, MH 17, and the Charge of the Atlanticist Brigade

By Peter Lee, Counterpunch

Thursday, Jul 24, 2014

The bloody farce in the Ukraine took another ugly turn with the
shootdown of MH 17.

And to be ugly about it, if the rebels shot the plane down, it shouldn’t
matter very much except as a horrible and unexpected catastrophe in a
war zone and an overwhelming tragedy to the survivors of the victims on
board.  Call it an accident, collateral damage, manslaughter, there is
no credible version of events in which it was intentional mass murder or
terrorism, either by the rebels or Russian technicians that, according
to the Ukrainian government, possessed the ability to operate the
elderly but complex anti-aircraft systems fingered in the attack.

Recall the US shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 by the USS
Vincennes.  It was also an ugly business.  The Iran Air jet was on a
standard civilian flight path with its transponders on; the Vicennes
through some bit of naval derring-do had actually intruded into Iranian
territorial waters when it shot the plane down (something that was only
admitted by the US three years later).  290 people died, the US never
apologized, but eventually paid out some money to smooth things over,
not in a particularly classy way, according to a 2002 account:

     The US had compensated non-Iranian victims about 2.9 million
dollars (not acknowledging any responsibility) but nothing to Iranian
family members. In 1996, a 131.8 million dollar settlement was reached
that included the ignored families (61.8 million). Seventy million was
to be put into bank accounts and used to “pay off private U.S. claims
against Iran and Iran’s expenses for the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal,
which is handling the claims.” The US stated it was for claims
“involving banking matters, not the airliner,” while Iran said that 30
million was for the plane.

The shootdown was accompanied by the usual quotient of dishonest denial
and blame shifting.

     The following day, the Pentagon held a news conference on the
incident. After originally having flatly denied Iran’s version of the
event, saying that it had shot down an F-14 fighter and not a civilian
aircraft, the State Department (after a review of the evidence) admitted
the downing of Iran Air 655. It was claimed that the plane had “strayed
too close to two U.S. Navy warships that were engaged in a battle with
Iranian gunboats” and, according to the spokesman, that the “proper
defensive action” was taken (in part) because the “suspect aircraft was
outside the prescribed commercial air corridor” (Washington Post).

     That it “strayed” from its normal, scheduled flight path is
factually incorrect. And so was the claim that it was heading right for
the ship and “descending” (emphasis, mine) toward it—it was ascending.
Another “error” was the contention that it took place in international
waters (it did not, a fact only later admitted by the government).
Incorrect maps were used when Congress was briefed on the incident.

In an interesting sidebar, the “planeful of naked corpses” conspiracy
canard (for which Western journos have repeatedly mocked a Ukrainian
rebel militia leader who was, presumably, dumbfounded by the grotesque
carnage of the crash) was first deployed by right wing US radio
commentators to accuse Iran of staging a provocation by flying a plane
of naked corpses at the Vincennes.

The Iran Air shootdown was classified as a goof—although the Iranians
declared it rose to the level of criminal misconduct (and have been
accused of engineering the Lockerbie bombing as retaliation)–and the
captain of the Vicennes was condemned by his fellow officers as a
reckless dingbat, per Wikipedia:

     Commander David Carlson, commanding officer of the USS Sides, the
warship stationed near to the Vincennes at the time of the incident, is
reported to have said that the destruction of the aircraft “marked the
horrifying climax to Captain Rogers’ aggressiveness, first seen four
weeks ago.”[39] His comment referred to incidents on 2 June, when Rogers
had sailed the Vincennes too close to an Iranian frigate undertaking a
lawful search of a bulk carrier, launched a helicopter within 2–3 miles
(3.2–4.8 km) of an Iranian small craft despite rules of engagement
requiring a four-mile (6.4 km) separation, and opened fire on small
Iranian military boats. Of those incidents, Carlson commented, “Why do
you want an Aegis cruiser out there shooting up boats? It wasn’t a smart
thing to do.” He also said that Iranian forces he had encountered in the
area a month prior to the incident were “…pointedly non-threatening” and
professional.[40] At the time of Rogers’ announcement to higher command
that he was going to shoot down the plane, Carlson is reported to have
been thunderstruck: “I said to folks around me, ‘Why, what the hell is
he doing?’ I went through the drill again. F-14. He’s climbing. By now
this damn thing is at 7,000 feet.” Carlson thought the Vincennes might
have more information, and was unaware that Rogers had been wrongly
informed that the plane was diving.[41]

     Craig, Morales & Oliver, in a slide presentation published in
M.I.T.’s Spring 2004 Aeronautics & Astronautics as the ”USS Vincennes
Incident”, commented that Captain Rogers had “an undeniable and
unequivocal tendency towards what I call ‘picking a fight.’” On his own
initiative, Rogers moved the Vincennes 50 miles (80 km) northeast to
join the USS Montgomery. An angry Captain Richard McKenna, Chief of
Surface Warfare for the Commander of the Joint Task Force, ordered
Rogers back to Abu Musa, but theVincennes helicopter pilot, Lt Mark
Collier, followed the Iranian speedboats as they retreated north,
eventually taking some fire:

     …the Vincennes jumps back into the fray. Heading towards the
majority of the speedboats, he is unable to get a clear target. Also,
the speedboats are now just slowly milling about in their own
territorial waters. Despite clear information to the contrary, Rogers
informs command that the gunboats are gathering speed and showing
hostile intent and gains approval to fire upon them at 0939. Finally, in
another fateful decision, he crosses the 12-nautical-mile (22 km) limit
off the coast and enters illegally into Iranian waters.[42]

Captain Rogers was not officially censured for the shootdown; instead,
two years later he was awarded the Legion of Merit for his services
while captain of the Vincennes and soon after retired.

There you have it.

So, by the ordinary standards of murderous military ineptitude, the
fallout from the MH 17 tragedy would be disorganization and denial, an
exhaustive and time-consuming investigation, a belated acknowledgment of
responsibility, no legal consequences, and the application of some
financial emollient eight or so years down the road.

This is obviously Putin’s goal, whether or not rebel forces were
complicit (which I should say is not yet a slam dunk, despite the
declarations of the US government), an objective which the US and many
of its allies are determined to deny him.

There have been several attempts to frame the accidental shootdown as an
episode of Putin barbarism that places him and his government beyond the
civilized pale and in the fatal zone of illegitimate pariah state upon
whom demands can be made, and whose calls for due process can be swept
aside, and fair game for whatever principled skullduggery the democratic
powers can concoct.

The first and, to be blunt, most ludicrous episode was “corpse gate”, an
attempt to depict the militias, and by extension their purported
puppetmaster, Putin, as inhumanly callous in their treatment of the
remains of the nearly 300 people that had fallen from the sky.

The militias were clearly overwhelmed by the vast disaster scene and the
question of how to secure it properly.  No doubt there was looting—an
endemic problem at all crash sites, even in the civilized United
States—and possibly the idea of diddling with evidence and getting the
black boxes into friendly Russian hands.  As to the disgusting
drunkenness allegedly exhibited by some militia members, crash scenes
are horrible, they can be extremely traumatic, and it is not out of the
question that some militia members turned to alcoholic oblivion to deal
with the scenes they had witnessed.

But the media tried to latch on to the idea that the militias were
committing a crime against humanity by dragging the rotting bodies
hither and yon through the 88-degree heat and eventually loading them
into refrigerated rail cars.  In this effort the militias worked
together with emergency services of the Ukranian government, which
somehow made it on site, a fact that was ignored in the accusations of
militia barbarism.  Once the body bags were put on the train, there was
also some attempt to flay the militias for not immediately pulling the
train out of the station, even though the root problem seems to have
been the Ukrainian government’s inability to come up with dispatch
instructions.

Then there was “destruction of evidence gate”.  Again, beyond the
militias’ fiddling with luggage and removal of bodies, there is no
credible reportage that they were attempting to tamper with the key
evidence: the immense debris field of plane wreckage.

On US ABC News, an aviation expert, John Nance, pointed out that the key
forensic evidence to be gleaned from the crash site would be shrapnel
impact on the airframe, which would indicate what struck the plane (SAM,
air to air missile or whatever) and where, and is available in abundance
across the crash site.  The black box recorders would be unlikely to
yield useful information on the instantaneously catastrophic event
itself, nor would the bodies.

The key evidence for the overall investigation will be the surveillance
records of US and Russian satellites and radars, which should be able to
identify where the missiles came from, as well as addressing accusations
that Kyiv fighters were shadowing the jet, etc.

If indeed MH17 was destroyed by a surface to air missile at 30,000 feet,
the culprit would appear to be a BUK mobile air defense battery, a
Soviet product extensively deployed across the remains of the USSR.  The
Russians have them—and the Ukrainian government has accused Russia of
shuttling units across the border in order to do the dirty on Ukrainian
military aircraft.  The rebels might have captured one or more units;
it’s unclear whether the Ukrainian military actually disabled them
before abandoning them, as they claimed.  The Ukrainian government also
has its own working BUK units; despite government denials that there was
any need to deploy anti-aircraft batteries in the east, AP had
photographs of a Ukrainian BUK battery trundling through Slavyansk in
early July to protect its ATO units against potential Russian airstrikes.

The Russians have already distributed a fair amount of evidentiary chaff
of varying quality, claiming that a Ukranian BUK radar was switched on
at the time of the incident; Robert Parry’s US defense sources are also
telling him there’s a suspicion that a Ukrainian BUK battery was
responsible.

So, in an ordinary investigation, plenty of he said/she said, fog o’
war, bluster, obfuscation and the prospect that a mutually acceptable
story will be sorted out months if not years down the road.

As to the “restricting access to crash site gate” the subject of much
indignant huffing and a newly-minted UNSC resolution (which Russia
supported) this appears to be a canard.

Most Western journalists in the field have reported that they easily
passed through rebel checkpoints and wandered unrestricted through the
crash site (one journo was castigated for actually rifling through a
victim’s luggage to illustrate his video report), and noted that, if
anybody was delaying the arrival of the international investigatory
team, it was the Ukrainian government (which held 100+ international
experts in Kyiv until “security issues” could be sorted out).  Further
cognitive dissonance was assured when Kyiv forces launched several
attacks in Donetsk, not exactly conducive to the ceasefire intended to
facilitate the investigation, and also endangering the passage of the
“corpse train” that everybody was, at least a couple days ago, so worked
up about.

To date, the US strategy seems to be to crank up the indignation machine
by whatever means come to hand, in this case excoriating Russia for
obstructions of the investigation that aren’t occurring, in order to
justify immediate further sanctions that would short circuit Russia’s
desire for a conventional, legalistic, and protracted investigation.

As of this writing, the international experts have arrived at the crash
site, the rebels, after some unedifying back and forth, have coughed up
the black boxes, and there seems to be little that the West can
currently complain about.

But the United States is perhaps considering this unpalatable contingency.

Will it demand an immediate and intrusive inventory of Russian and rebel
BUK units “or else”?  Hold Russia responsible for non-appearance of
rebel witnesses/suspects?  Issue a pre-emptive US declaration that the
culprits have been identified, coupled with a demand to produce them?
Or content itself with the boilerplate declaration that Russia is not
doing enough to rein in the east Ukrainian militias? We shall see.

By now, I think sanctions are an end in themselves for US Russia policy.

My outsider’s impression is that the US foreign policy for Russia has
been pretty much captured by doctrinaire anti-Russians in a diplomatic
and military deep state that pretty much permeates and survives every
incoming administration.  The Russia desk has had a reasonably good run
since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I think today the prevailing
idea is that oligarch anxieties about the sanctioning of their overseas
assets will soon reach a tipping point (see this article about “horror
of the oligarchs”), and the “Atlanticists”, perhaps led by that nice Mr.
Medvedev, will club together against Putin’s “Eurasianists” and pull the
plug on his dreams of confronting the West as an equal and opposite force.

Maybe Putin will need more of a shove—he’s an ex-KGB guy with multiple
assets in the Russian elite and his current approvals are running over
80%–but there’s an app for that: intensified sanctions.

So sanctions, and more sanctions.  Sanctions for Crimea, sanctions for
succoring the separatist uprising, now sanctions related to the plane
crash.  Sanctions that will never go away, no matter what Putin does, as
long as he stays in power.

Best case, some combination of popular and elite revulsion pushes Putin
from power and a new regime approaches the West as supplicant.  Worst
case, Russia = Venezuela, neutered by perpetual sanctions, vitriol,
economic and political warfare, and subversion.

The key point, at this stage, is for the US to get European
buy-in—especially from Angela Merkel, who is demonstrably less than
enthusiastic about having a constitutionally dysfunctional relationship
with Russia (and not enamored of the continual political heat brought by
revelations of US spying)—so that the US is isolating Russia, and not
the other way around.

My sense of the situation, especially from the Asian perspective, is
that the US is in danger of overplaying its hand, indeed that it has a
bad case of tunnel vision in which it is fixated on the goal of sticking
it to Putin at the expense of US global interests.

With its almost comical insistence that “the world” is uniting against
Russia (which only counts if “the world” is defined as the Atlantic
democracies and their close allies and China, India, et. al. are
excluded) and, even more damagingly, the US insistence on peddling the
Russia = the world’s greatest monster story even as the United States
condones the catastrophic and much more bloody Israel incursion into
Gaza, the US is accelerating the natural trend toward disintermediation
of America in significant chunks of the global diplomatic and economic
system.

The PRC occasionally comes in for mockery for its alleged hubris in
wishing to elevate the Chinese RMB to the status of an international
currency.  However, I don’t think the PRC’s near term objective, or even
desire, is to assume the glorious but extremely onerous burden of
displacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency.

Instead, I think there are tactical as well as strategic forces in play,
inspired in part by Russia’s sanctions miseries as well as the PRC’s own
experiences with covert as well as overt US financial sanctions relating
to China’s Iran and North Korea transactions, which date back to the
George W. Bush years.  The PRC approach reflects the difficulty of
sustaining strict capital controls on a national currency when China’s
economy is increasingly open to the world; and the risk that a more
freely-trading Chinese currency can bring to the PRC in its current
competition and incipient clash with the United States.

So the PRC internationalizes the yuan in a series of bilateral
agreements with key trading partners, so that its financial transactions
increasingly exit the dollar and are less vulnerable to US and Western
sanctions; it tries to push its investors to look for adequate returns
in friendly regions rather than dumping excess funds in Western
financial centers; and it cracks down on corruption and capital flight
so that its oligarchs will be less exposed to financial and legal
blackmail in places like London and the United States. And for that
matter, it offers the enticement to global financial centers of
profitable, high-volume trading in yuan, a fungible benefit that can be
diverted somewhere else if a jurisdiction turns unfriendly.

And the Xi Jinping regime must take into account the possibility that
the outrage and sanctions machine, so intensively deployed against
Russia over Ukraine, will be employed against the People’s Republic of
China.

The United States is backing off from its stated “honest broker”
position in the South China Sea to a tilt toward China’s adversaries,
offering the possibility of direct confrontation over the PRC’s maritime
claims and use of the sanctions regime to punish PRC misbehavior.
Taiwan is inexorably bumping along to a political confrontation between
the pro-mainland KMT and pro-independence DPP and student forces, which
will offer the US government, if so inclined, a chance to ditch the One
China policy and stand up to the PRC militarily and with sanctions.

And, finally, there is Hong Kong.

With that wonderful synchronicity that liberals adore (and their
adversaries roll their eyes at) the three UK China-bashing prestige
liberal organs—the Independent, the Guardian, and the Financial
Times—all recently editorialized that Great Britain should “stand up” to
the PRC on behalf of the people of Hong Kong on the issue of whether
candidates for the Hong Kong chief executive should be chosen by full
suffrage (instead of nominated by a pro-mainland committee).  If Xi
Jinping decides now is not the time to countenance defiance of the PRC
within China’s borders and cracks down on the sizable number of
pro-democracy activists and supporters, sanctions would appear to be the
inevitable consequence.

So one consequence of the singleminded US campaign against Russia is
that it is being driven into the arms of the PRC; another is that the
PRC is making its ability to resist sanctions a national priority.  The
US Atlanticists may succeed in either subduing Russia to Western
tutelage or simply expelling it from the European sphere; but what about
the Pacific?

Peter Lee wrote a ground-breaking essay on the Chinese military in the
current issue of CounterPunch magazine. He edits China Matters.

(6) US demonizing Russia as Prelude to War - Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/26/world-doomed-western-insouciance-paul-craig-roberts/

The World Is Doomed By Western Insouciance — Paul Craig Roberts

July 26, 2014

The World Is Doomed By Western Insouciance
don’t expect to live much longer

Paul Craig Roberts

European governments and the Western media have put the world at risk by
enabling Washington’s propaganda and aggression against Russia.

Washington has succeeded in using transparent lies to demonize Russia as
a dangerous aggressive country led by a new Hitler or a new Stalin, just
as Washington succeeded in demonizing Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the
Taliban in Afghanistan, Qaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria, Chavez in
Venezuela, and, of course, Iran.

The real demons–Clinton, Bush, Obama–are “the exceptional and
indispensable people” above the reach of demonization. Their horrific
real crimes go unnoticed, while fictitious crimes are attributed to the
unexceptional and dispensable people and countries.

The reason that Washington demonizes a leader and a country is to permit
the creation of circumstances that Washington can use to act with force
against a leader and a country.

Washington’s incessant lies alleging “Russian aggression” have created
Russian aggression out of thin air. John Kerry and the State
Department’s Marie Harf issue new lies daily, but never any supporting
evidence. With the stage set, the US Senate, the NATO commander and the
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff are busy at work energizing the
wheels of war.

Senate bill 2277 provides for beefing up forces on Russia’s borders and
for elevating Ukraine’s status to “ally of the US” so that US troops can
assist the war against “terrorists” in Ukraine.
http://un.ua/eng/article/522930.html See also:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/collapse-of-ukraine-government-prime-minister-yatsenyuk-resigns-amidst-pressures-exerted-by-the-imf/5393168

NATO commander Breedlove is preparing his plans for stockpiling war
material on Russia’s borders so that US/NATO troops can more quickly
strike Russia. http://rt.com/news/175292-nato-poland-supply-base/

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, is at
work preparing American opinion for the upcoming war.

On July 24 Dempsey told the Aspen Security Forum, a high level group
where US opinion is formed, that Putin’s aggression in Ukraine is
comparable to Stalin’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and that the Russian
threat was not limited to Ukraine or Eastern Europe but was global.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/25/gen-dempsey-were-pulling-out-our-cold-war-military-plans-over-ukraine

The intellects in the Aspen Forum did not break out laughing when
Dempsey told them that Russia’s (alleged but unproven) involvement in
Ukraine was the first time since 1939 that a country made a conscious
decision to use its military force inside another sovereign nation to
achieve its objectives. No one asked Dempsey what Washington has been
doing during the last three presidential regimes: Clinton in Serbia,
Bush and Obama in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen, Obama
in Libya and Syria.

Here are Dempsey’s words: “You’ve got a Russian government that has made
a conscious decision to use its military force inside another sovereign
nation to achieve its objectives. It’s the first time since 1939 or so
that that’s been the case. They clearly are on a path to assert
themselves differently not just in Eastern Europe, but Europe in the
main, and towards the United States.” [...]

(7) US has ‘neocon agenda’ in Ukraine, Russia - James Morris

From: James Morris <justicequest2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: MH17 in the light of Operation Northwoods: a False Flag attack

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/24/352114/us-has-neocon-agenda-in-ukraine-russia/

US has ‘neocon agenda’ in Ukraine, Russia: Analyst

Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:53PM

The United States is pursuing a “neocon agenda” in Ukraine and Russia in
order to weaken and destabilize the two countries, a political
commentator says.

There is a “neocon effort to go after Russia because Russia did not
support the war for Israel agenda against Israel’s enemies,” said James
Morris, an editor for America-hijacked.com, an anti-Zionist blog.

“So the neocons would like to weaken Russia and that’s what we see
happening in Ukraine,” Morris told Press TV on Monday.

“It’s a very dangerous situation” because the crisis in Ukraine could
cause another world war, he added. “The neocons…. have been encouraging
what’s been happening in Ukraine.”

On Sunday, the Ukrainian parliament ousted President Viktor Yanukovych
and named Oleksandr Turchynov as interim president.

Ukraine has been rocked by anti-government protests since Yanukovych
refrained from signing a trade agreement with the European Union on
November 29, in favor of closer ties with Russia.

Analysts say American neocons engineered the overthrow of the
pro-Russian Yanukovych in a coup spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias.

US National Security Advisor Susan Rice on Sunday warned Russia against
sending military troops into Ukraine.

AHT/AGB ==

More at
http://america-hijacked.com/2014/02/24/us-has-neocon-agenda-in-ukraine-russia-analyst/