War

Propaganda about downing of Malaysian plane over Ukraine.

"What Kirby fails to mention is that Russian expertise is hardly required, since whole Ukrainian army divisions sent in to crush the rebels have chosen to defect rather than fire on their countrymen. There are plenty of rebels with the training to operate an SA-11 or SA-20, but that comment about direct Russian support – "and even fired it" – tells us everything we need to know about this latest chapter in the ongoing US-Russian standoff. They want to pin the blame on Putin, but that is a case that won’t stand up in court."

They also don't mention the US instigated the coup.

"That’s because the "evidence" of Russian complicity is flimsy. The SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence agency formerly preoccupied with brutalizing opponents of whatever regime was in power, has come up with a series of "intercepts" that are being played nonstop on American cable television: these purportedly show not only rebel responsibility for the downing but also direct Russian assistance. The playing of the SBU tapes is usually preceded by ass-covering boilerplate that they "could not be independently verified" – with the unspoken addendum that "but, heck, why not broadcast them anyway?" One tape presented as a conversation between a rebel commander and his henchman on the ground was apparently made the day before the plane was downed – sloppy work, but good enough for cable news."

No surprise the intercepts are unreliable.

"This is especially evident in the Ukraine, where Washington has hooked up with a motley gang of ultra-nationalists, open fascists, and Ukrainian oligarchs. Yet the violent coup that ousted President Viktor Yanukovich was just the beginning as far as the War Party is concerned. The Obama administration has been under attack from fellow Democrats as well as McCainite Republicans to deliver some serious arms to Kiev – as well as the Syrian rebels – and the MH17 incident may well provide the political impetus for him to do so, at least in the case of the former."

Let's hope this is the worst consequence.

"The investigation into who and what caused the crash is focused for the moment on the "crime scene," in areas controlled by rebel forces in the east. Yet the real evidence isn’t scattered over those fields of sunflowers but in MH17′s last communications with Ukrainian air traffic controllers located in Kiev. Reports that these have been seized by the authorities are not encouraging: nor are the tweets coming from someone of Spanish nationality claiming to be an air traffic controller working in Kiev which say the Ukrainian military shot down the airliner – perhaps mistaking it for a Russian fighter jet. That is all too possible, given the jittery circumstances prevalent on the Ukrainian battlefield."

Everybody has an interest, so nobody can be trusted.

Ron Paul must be reading my blog.

"While western media outlets rush to repeat government propaganda on the event, there are a few things they will not report.

They will not report that the crisis in Ukraine started late last year, when EU and US-supported protesters plotted the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Without US-sponsored “regime change,” it is unlikely that hundreds would have been killed in the unrest that followed. Nor would the Malaysian Airlines crash have happened."

Western powers were the aggressors, and US undersecretary for coups Victoria Nuland complained the EU wasn't aggressive enough.

"They will not report that the post-coup government in Kiev has, according to OSCE monitors, killed 250 people in the breakaway Lugansk region since June, including 20 killed as government forces bombed the city center the day after the plane crash! Most of these are civilians and together they roughly equal the number killed in the plane crash. By contrast, Russia has killed no one in Ukraine, and the separatists have struck largely military, not civilian, targets."

They won't bite the hand that feeds them.

Ukrainian rebels hand over black boxes to Malaysian officials. Malaysian officials are not independent, but you can't fault the rebels for this. I doubt the Ukrainians, Russians or US rulers would do the same. Let's hope the Malaysians don't surrender them to others and are honest with their reports.

The NSA won't produce all the communications that would expose the Malaysian flight killers because they don't want us to know. This is supposedly the communications NSA is supposed to monitor.

The world sees the US has an empire.

"The historian who chronicles US Empire, William Blum, issued his 130th Anti-Empire Report this week. In it he notes that the US, by far, is seen by the people of the world as “the greatest threat to peace in the world today” with 24% taking that view. Only 2% see Russia as such a threat, and 6% see China.
This should not come as a surprise since, as this map shows, much of the world has been bombed, had their democratically chosen governments overthrown and has been occupied by the United States."

That's a big difference.

I'm not interested in any apologies for shooting down the Korean airliner during Reagan's term.

Analysis slams Israel's Iron Dome system.

"During the November 2012 conflict, a detailed review of a large number of photographs of Iron Dome interceptor contrails revealed that the rocket-defense system's success rate was very low—as low as 5 percent or, perhaps, even less. A variety of media outlets have attributed the low casualty number to the supposed effectiveness of the Iron Dome system, quoting Israeli officials as saying it has destroyed 90 percent of the Hamas rockets it targeted. But close study of photographic and video imagery of Iron Dome engagements with Hamas rockets—both in the current conflict and in the 2012 hostilities—shows that the low casualties in Israel from artillery rocket attacks can be ascribed to Israeli civil defense efforts, rather than the performance of the Iron Dome missile defense system."

Gosh, who would have suspected the media would lie?