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Airline Horror Spurs New Rush to Judgment

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | July 19, 2014

Despite doubts within the U.S. intelligence community, the Obama administration and the mainstream U.S. news media are charging off toward another rush to judgment blaming Ukrainian rebels and the Russian government for the shoot-down of a Malaysia Airlines plane, much as occurred last summer regarding a still-mysterious sarin gas attack in Syria.

In both cases, rather than let independent investigators sort out the facts, President Barack Obama’s ever-aggressive State Department and the major U.S. media simply accepted that the designated villains of those two crises – Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine – were the guilty parties. Yet, some U.S. intelligence analysts dissented from both snap conventional wisdoms.

Regarding the shoot-down of the Malaysian jetliner on Thursday, I’m told that some CIA analysts cite U.S. satellite reconnaissance photos suggesting that the anti-aircraft missile that brought down Flight 17 was fired by Ukrainian troops from a government battery, not by ethnic Russian rebels who have been resisting the regime in Kiev since elected President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown on Feb. 22.

According to a source briefed on the tentative findings, the soldiers manning the battery appeared to be wearing Ukrainian uniforms and may have been drinking, since what looked like beer bottles were scattered around the site. But the source added that the information was still incomplete and the analysts did not rule out the possibility of rebel responsibility.

A contrary emphasis has been given to the Washington Post and other mainstream U.S. outlets. On Saturday, the Post reported that “on Friday, U.S. officials said a preliminary intelligence assessment indicated the airliner was blown up by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile fired by the separatists.” But the objectivity of the Obama administration, which has staunchly supported the coup regime, is in question as are the precise reasons for its judgments.

Even before the Feb. 22 coup, senior administration officials, including Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, were openly encouraging protesters seeking the overthrow of Yanukovych. Nuland went so far as to pass out cookies to the demonstrators and discuss with Pyatt who should be appointed once Yanukovych was removed.

After Yanukovych and his officials were forced to flee in the face of mass protests and violent attacks by neo-Nazi militias, the State Department was quick to declare the new government “legitimate” and welcomed Nuland’s favorite, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as the new prime minister.

As events have unfolded since then, including Crimea’s secession to join Russia and bloody attacks directed at ethnic Russians in Odessa and elsewhere, the Obama administration has consistently taken the side of the Kiev regime and bashed Moscow.

And, since Thursday, when the Malaysian plane was shot down killing 298 people, the Ukrainian government and the Obama administration have pointed the finger of blame at the rebels and the Russian government, albeit without the benefit of a serious investigation that is only now beginning.

One of the administration’s points has been that the Buk anti-aircraft missile system, which was apparently used to shoot down the plane, was “Russian made.” But the point is rather silly since nearly all Ukrainian military weaponry is “Russian made.” Ukraine, after all, was part of the Soviet Union until 1991 and has continued to use mostly Russian military equipment.

It’s also not clear how the U.S. government ascertained that the missile was an SA-11 as opposed to other versions of the Buk missile system.

Slanting the Case

Virtually everything that U.S. officials have said appears designed to tilt suspicions toward the Russians and the rebels – and away from government forces. Referring ominously to the sophistication of the SA-11, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power declared, “We cannot rule out Russian technical assistance.” But that phrasing supposedly means that the administration can’t rule it in either.

Still, in reading between the lines of the mainstream U.S. press accounts, it’s possible to see where some of the gaps are regarding the supposed Russian hand in Thursday’s tragedy. For instance, the Post’s Craig Whitlock reported that Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, U.S. commander of NATO forces in Europe, said last month that “We have not seen any of the [Russian] air-defense vehicles across the border yet.”

Since these Buk missile systems are large and must be transported on trucks, it would be difficult to conceal their presence from U.S. aerial surveillance which has been concentrating intensely on the Ukraine-Russia border in recent months.

The Post also reported that “Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said defense officials could not point to specific evidence that an SA-11 surface-to-air missile system had been transported from Russia into eastern Ukraine.”

In other words, the mystery is still not solved. It may be that the rebels – facing heavy bombardment from the Ukrainian air force – convinced the Russians to provide more advanced anti-aircraft weapons than the shoulder-fired missiles that the rebels have used to bring down some Ukrainian military planes.

It’s possible, too, that a rebel detachment mistook the civilian airliner for a military plane or even that someone in the Russian military launched the fateful rocket at the plane heading toward Russian airspace.

But both the Russian government and the rebels dispute those scenarios. The rebels say they don’t have missiles that can reach the 33,000-foot altitude of the Malaysian airliner. Besides denying a hand in the tragedy, the Russians claim that the Ukrainian military did have Buk anti-aircraft systems in eastern Ukraine and that the radar of one battery was active on the day of the crash.

The Russian Defense Ministry stated that “The Russian equipment detected throughout July 17 the activity of a Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla [a village some 30 kilometers south of Donetsk],” according to an RT report.

So, the other alternative remains in play, that a Ukrainian military unit – possibly a poorly supervised bunch – fired the missile intentionally or by accident. Why the Ukrainian military would intentionally have aimed at a plane flying eastward toward Russia is hard to comprehend, however.

A Propaganda Replay?

But perhaps the larger point is that both the Obama administration and the U.S. press corps should stop this pattern of rushing to judgments. It’s as if they’re obsessed with waging “information warfare” – i.e., justifying hostilities toward some adversarial nation – rather than responsibly informing the American people.

We saw this phenomenon in 2002-03 as nearly the entire Washington press corps clambered onboard President George W. Bush’s propaganda bandwagon into an aggressive war against Iraq. That pattern almost repeated itself last summer when a similar rush to judgment occurred around a sarin gas attack outside Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 21.

Though the evidence was murky, there was a stampede to assume that the Assad government was behind the attack. While blaming the Syrian army, the U.S. press ignored the possibility that the attack was a provocation committed by radical jihadist rebels who were hoping that U.S. air power could turn the tide of the war in their favor.

Rather than carefully weigh the complex evidence, the State Department and Secretary of State John Kerry tried to spur President Obama into a quick decision to bomb Syrian government targets. Kerry delivered a belligerent speech on Aug. 30 and the administration released what it called a “Government Assessment” supposedly proving the case.

But this four-page white paper contained no verifiable evidence supporting its accusations and it soon became clear that the report had excluded dissents that some U.S. intelligence analysts would have attached to a more formal paper prepared by the intelligence community.

Despite the war hysteria then gripping Official Washington, President Obama rejected war at the last moment and – with the help of Russian President Putin – was able to negotiate a resolution of the crisis in which Assad surrendered Syria’s chemical weapons while still denying a hand in the sarin gas attack.

The mainstream U.S. press, especially the New York Times, and some non-governmental organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, continued pushing the theme of the Syrian government’s guilt. HRW and the Times teamed up for a major story that purported to show the flight paths of two sarin-laden missiles vectoring back to a Syrian military base 9.5 kilometers away.

For a time, this report was treated as the slam-dunk evidence proving the case against Assad, until it turned out that only one of the rockets carried sarin and the maximum range of the one that did have sarin was only about two kilometers.

Despite knowing these weaknesses in the case, President Obama stood by his State Department hawks by reading a speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24 in which he declared: “It’s an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack.”

In watching Obama’s address, I was struck by how casually he lied. He knew better than almost anyone that some of his senior intelligence analysts were among those doubting the Syrian government’s guilt. Yet, he suggested that anyone who wasn’t onboard the propaganda train was crazy.

Since then, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed other evidence indicating that the sarin attack may indeed have been a rebel provocation meant to push Obama over the “red line” that he had drawn about not tolerating chemical weapons use.

Now, we are seeing a repeat performance in which Obama understands the doubts about the identity of who fired the missile that brought down the Malaysian airliner but is pushing the suspicions in a way designed to whip up animosity toward Russia and President Putin.

Obama may think this is a smart play because he can posture as tough when many of his political enemies portray him as weak. He also buys himself some P.R. protection in case it turns out that the ethnic Russian rebels and/or the Russian military do share the blame for the tragedy. He can claim to have been out front in making the accusations.

But there is a dangerous downside to creating a public hysteria about nuclear-armed Russia. As we have seen already in Ukraine, events can spiral out of control in unpredictable ways.

Assistant Secretary Nuland and other State Department hawks probably thought they were building their careers when they encouraged the Feb. 22 coup – and they may well be right about advancing their status in Official Washington at least. But they also thawed out long-frozen animosities between the “ethnically pure” Ukrainians in the west and the ethnic Russians in the east.

Those tensions – many dating back to World War II and before – have now become searing hatreds with hundreds of dead on both sides. The nasty, little Ukrainian civil war also made Thursday’s horror possible.

But even greater calamities could lie ahead if the State Department’s “anti-diplomats” succeed in reigniting the Cold War. The crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 should be a warning about the dangers of international brinkmanship.

~

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

July 20, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Putin: Thorough investigation of Malaysian airliner tragedy in Ukraine required

RT | July 18, 2014

The crash of a Malaysian Airlines plane in eastern Ukraine must be investigated thoroughly and objectively, Russian President Putin said in a statement. The tragedy underlines the urgent need for a peaceful resolution of the armed conflict in Ukraine.

Putin’s statement came after he contacted Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to express condolences over the deaths of his fellow citizens in the disaster.

The majority of the passengers of the ill-fated flight, which was apparently shot down over the war zone in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, were from the Netherlands.

Earlier the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), a Russia-based international body tasked with investigation of all civil aircraft incidents in most former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, called for the formation of an international investigative group under the aegis of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN body, to investigate the incident.

The IAC said such a group should be handed over MH17 flight recorders, which are currently being recovered in Ukraine’s Donetsk Region.

So far two flight recorders from the plane have been reportedly recovered in the region currently controlled by the militia forces. Some militia officials said they intended to hand them over to Moscow because they didn’t trust Kiev to properly investigate the incident.

The probe into the loss of the Boeing-777 is bound to be a politically loaded one. There was no official confirmation that the plane was shot down rather than crashed from a different cause, but the parties involved are already trading blame for the tragedy.

Both the Ukrainian military and the militias fighting against Kiev denied shooting at the plane and stated that they had no capability to take down an aircraft flying 10,000 meters high.

Some politicians and Western media are pointing fingers at Russia, alleging that it is responsible for the Malaysia Airlines plane’s loss. They claim Moscow could have provided a missile launcher, which the Ukrainian militia used to take down the plane.

Kiev in the past few days accused the Russian military of several direct attacks in its territory, including an airstrike, which militia reported as conducted by the Ukrainian military, and a downing of a Ukrainian military plane, which militia claimed was their doing. The Russian military called the accusations absurd.

Hours after the crash of the Boeing 777 was reported, Kiev published what it called intercepted communications between militia officers and their Russian handler to apparently discuss the take-down of a civilian aircraft by the militia. The militia labeled the recording “an amateurish fake.”

There were almost 300 people on board Malaysia Airlines flight 17, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, including 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers. In addition to Dutch travelers and Malaysian crew, there were Australians, Indonesians and citizens of several other countries. Nobody survived the crash.

July 18, 2014 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Buk battery radar was operational when Malaysian plane downed – Moscow

RT | July 18, 2014

On Thursday, when a Malaysian Airlines plane was apparently shot down over Ukraine, a Ukrainian Buk anti-aircraft missile battery was operational in the region, the Russian Defense Ministry said, contradicting Kiev’s statements.

The battery was deployed at a site from which it could have fired a missile at the airliner, the ministry said in a statement. It said radiation from the battery’s radar was detected by the Russian military.

“The Russian equipment detected throughout July 17 the activity of a Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla [a village some 30km south of Donetsk],” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the radar could be providing tracking information to another battery deployed in the region, which was at a firing distance from the plane’s flight path.

Earlier Kiev said it could not have fired a missile at the passing civilian plane because it had no Buk missile launchers deployed in the region. At the same time the Ukrainians said the militias had no Buk systems in their hands, according to a statement from the country’s Prosecutor General.

The Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 carrying almost 300 people on board crashed on Thursday as it was flying over Ukraine’s Donetsk Region. The plane was apparently shot down by a surface-to-air missile, although both Kiev and the local militias fighting against it deny responsibility. A flurry of condemnations and calls for a swift investigation followed the disaster.

July 18, 2014 Posted by | Deception | | Leave a comment

Kiev deployed powerful surface-to-air missile systems to E. Ukraine ahead of the Malaysian plane crash – reports

RT | July 17, 2014

The Ukrainian military reportedly deployed a battery of Buk surface-to-air missile systems, capable of bringing down high-flying jets, to the Donetsk region the day before the Malaysian passenger plane crashed in the area.

Itar-Tass and Interfax news agencies are citing a source familiar with the issue, who said that another battery of Buk systems is currently being prepared for shipment to Donetsk region from the Ukrainian city of Kharkov.

The Donetsk region remains the scene of heavy fighting between government troops and the forces of the opposition, which refused to recognize the regime change in Kiev and demand federalization.

A Malaysian Airlines aircraft en route from Amsterdam to Malaysia crashed in Eastern Ukraine – not far from the Russian border – on Thursday.

There were reportedly 280 people and 15 crew members on board the Boeing-777 plane, who reportedly all died in the crash.

There were unconfirmed reports the Malaysian plane was travelling at an altitude of over 10,000 meters when it was allegedly hit by a missile.

There’s no way that the self-defense forces in Donetsk Region are in possession of such complex weaponry, he stressed.

Only S-300 and Buk surface-to-air missile systems are capable of hitting targets at such altitude, the source said.

Buk (Blume) is a family of self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile systems developed by the former USSR and Russia to engage targets at an altitude of up to 30 kilometers.

Chances are high that the Malaysian plane was really downed by the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense, Yury Karash, pilot and aviation expert, told RT.

“A Boeing-777 is an extremely reliable piece of machinery. Modern planes don’t just crash with no reason,” he said. “Let us recall how a Ukrainian missile downed Russian TU-154 aircraft ten years ago. I can’t completely exclude the possibility the Boeing-777 was also hit by a missile.”

“I don’t know who could’ve shot it down. But I can allege that it was most likely the Ukrainian armed forces: simply because its military – anti-aircraft defense, in particular – are, unfortunately, unqualified. As judging by the overall state of the Ukrainian armed forces, insufficient attention has been paid to their training,” Karash added.

Reports in the Western media hurried to blame the self-defense forces of the People’s Republic of Donetsk for bringing the plane down.

The claims were denied by the representatives of the Donetsk People’s Republic, saying that it’s the Ukrainian military, which destroyed the aircraft.

“We simply don’t have such air defense systems. Our man-portable air defense systems have a firing range 3,000 – 4,000 meters. The Boeing was flying at a much higher altitude,” Sergey Kavtaradze, special representative for the prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, explained.

Kavtaradze also expressed condolences to the relatives of all of those who lost their lives in the tragedy.

July 17, 2014 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

E. Ukraine open to ‘any dialogue’, wants to stop war ASAP – opposition leader

RT | July 16, 2014
A local resident near a house destroyed in the Ukrainian army's artillery attack on Lugansk.(RIA Novosti / Mikhail Voskresenskiy)
A local resident near a house destroyed in the Ukrainian army’s artillery attack on Lugansk.(RIA Novosti / Mikhail Voskresenskiy)

Eastern Ukraine leaders want to stop war as soon as possible and are open to any dialogue, Donetsk People’s Republic PM Aleksandr Boroday said. He denied that they “ignored” a video conference with the Kiev side and mediators as reported by the OSCE.

Earlier on Wednesday one of Donetsk People’s Republic’s Vice Premiers reached an agreement with the OSCE mission about consultations via video link to be held on July 17, he added.

“I hope that they [consultations] will really take place. The format of these consultations we will discuss tonight [Wednesday night],” Aleksandr Boroday told Rossiya-1 TV channel.

“Literally an hour ago one of the representatives of our government, vice-PM Andrey Purgin, visited the OSCE mission and reached an agreement to hold this kind of consultation, not negotiations, I stress, tomorrow, possibly, in a videoconference format,” Boroday said.

Purgin has confirmed to Rossiya-24 TV that the talks will take place on Thursday. He said that he is going to represent Donestk region and Aleksey Koryakin, Chairman of the Supreme Council, will be taking part on behalf of Lugansk region.

Earlier, on July 15, the OSCE said that a video conference, involving opposition and the contact group, scheduled for that day “did not materialize”. The organization voiced concerns “about the fact that since June 27 [second round of trilateral consultations], no such consultations have taken place.”

Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Boroday.(RIA Novosti / Mikhail Voskresenskiy)
Prime Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic Alexander Boroday.(RIA Novosti / Mikhail Voskresenskiy)

The Trilateral Contact Group involves senior representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and OSCE members.

However, leaders of Lugansk and Donetsk say that they were not informed about the consultations and only learned about it from the OSCE’s statement that post factum accused them of ignoring the conference.

“We are really open to any kind of dialogue. Yes, we have significant military success, but with all that we really want to stop the war as soon as possible,” Boroday said.

But Boroday claims that Kiev has made no attempt to organize talks or consultations with the opposition in the east.

“OSCE representatives, some journalists and public men called me – everyone wanted to know when those consultations would take place,” he says. “But, actually, there were no attempts from Kiev to [organize] talks or consultations. I personally called Mr. Medvedchuk [leader of “Ukrainian Choice” political organization] and asked if there were going to be any kind of consultations. He said he was himself reading about that in newspapers.”

On June 27, the second round of trilateral consultations on implementing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s plan to restore peace to Ukraine’s south eastern regions took place.

The second round of consultations, followed the similar meeting between Ukrainian, Russian and OSCE representatives in Donetsk on June 23, when peaceful settlement of the conflict was discussed. The meeting was also attended by the former president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and aimed at defining stages of a peace plan.

July 16, 2014 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Ukraine to use science funding for weapons production – Poroshenko

RT | July 9, 2014

ukr1​Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he will reduce the country’s “useless” science programs to finance the production of drones and precision weapons.

“There will be no more spending of billions of people’s money, taxpayers’ money on useless research programs, which were used as a tool for theft,” said a statement published on the president’s website early on Wednesday.

“Today, Ukrainian production will be busy making precision weapons systems, Ukrainian drones, everything Ukrainian army needs, starting with bullet proof vests and ending with thermographic cameras,” he said.

The president added that the army’s experience in fighting against self-defense forces in the east of the country will be used when making production decisions.

The Ukrainian military has been fighting against anti-Kiev forces in the east since April.

Some of the latest developments include Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confirming plans to “liberate” the eastern cities of Lugansk and Donetsk, the two biggest towns in the country’s east controlled by self-defense forces.

Last week, the army shelled the village of Kondrashovka, killing 12 civilians including a five-year-old.

July 9, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Same old, same old: New Ukraine prosecutor wants Maidan activists dispersed

RT | July 9, 2014

Hundreds of activists on Kiev’s Maidan must leave and free seized buildings, Ukraine’s prosecutor general has said. He urged law enforcers to intervene and did not rule out forceful eviction from Independence Square, if activists show resistance.

Security forces will be authorized to take measures if activists do not leave the city center “today, tomorrow or in the near future,” Vitaly Yarema, the prosecutor general, said at a briefing on Wednesday.

“I am appealing to the interior minister and the head of the [Ukrainian Security Service] SBU to take urgent measures. I demand that captured buildings be immediately vacated,” Yarema said. He added that in case those demands are not met, “criminal responsibility will follow” as the seizing of buildings is a crime.

“They want to turn the symbol of the revolution into a caricature,” he added.

Kiev’s Independence Square was the main protester hotspots where pro-EU activists have been demonstrating since November 21, 2013. While the majority of activists left, there are up to 1,000 people still on Maidan, according to Kiev’s newly-elected mayor, Vitaly Klitschko.

The prosecutor general said that law-enforcement bodies should take measures to restore order in the capital’s central districts as crime there was getting worse.

There are 19 buildings, including administrative offices and hotels, which remain under the protesters’ control. According to Yarema’s information, nearly 500 activists are living in the seized offices.

“Instead of protecting the country, defending its independence in the East or working for the country’s benefit, imposters are engaged in direct extortion and banditry,” he said.

On Wednesday, it was reported that over 60 pieces of art worth $185,000 had gone missing from the Ukrainian Museum of National History, which is in the Ukrainian house, international exhibition and convention center. This building is currently in the control of the activists

When asked about the possibility of using force while evicting the so-called euromaidan encampment, Yarema replied: “The option of force is possible. If there is armed resistance, police officers have the right to use their weapons.”

At the same time, he assured journalists that “there will be no confrontation” and people would only be detained if they offer resistance to police.

Responding to the prosecutor general’s demands, Vitaly Klitschko said the use of force is “an extreme” measure, which he had never considered.

“The forcible dispersal of Maidan, I am sure, can only be an extreme step. I do not consider this and never have. I am sure that we need to communicate so that people leave,” he said.

Klitschko agreed that activists should leave so at least traffic could be restored along the city’s main Khreschatyk Street.

He stressed that he has been receiving “a large number” complaints filed by Kiev residents because the “blockade of the main artery of the center of Kiev, Khreschatyk, is paralyzing the work of the entire city.”

Moreover, gunshots and explosions can be heard coming from the encampment from time to time.

Kiev’s authorities have suggested that Maidan activists leave the city’s main square and move to some location outside Kiev. However, this proposal was rejected.

Klitschko said that a joint decision on “eviction of Maidan” will be taken in the coming weeks.

Elected Kiev’s mayor back in May, Klitschko has so far failed to reach any agreement with activists occupying Maidan.

One of Klitschko first public statements after securing his post was a call for them to leave.

“The key goal of the Maidan – ousting the dictator – has been reached, so the barricades should be dismantled,” he said back in May.

However, Klitschko’s call provoked mass protests as activists criticized Klitshchko for not taking into account their opinion on whether Maidan should be dismantled or not.

They threatened to start “a third Maidan” (following the 2004 protest during the “orange revolution” and the second one in November 2013-February 2014), unless the order to dismantle the barricades in the Ukrainian capital is rescinded.

That was when Vitaly Klitschko quickly changed his rhetoric, saying that Maidan should itself determine its future.

July 9, 2014 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

US defends Kiev’s use of airstrikes

RT | July 8, 2014

The US State Department has defended Kiev’s right to use airstrikes against civilians in eastern Ukraine explaining that it is defending the country.

“The government of Ukraine is defending the country of Ukraine and I think they have every right to do that as does the international community,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in response to RT’s Gayane Chichakyan’s question about Ukrainian air force strikes in eastern Ukraine.

“The people of Ukraine have the right to live in peace and security without Russian-backed separatists attacking their homes and going into buildings and I think that is where the root cause of this is and we shouldn’t forget that fact,” Psaki added during the briefing on Monday.

Despite the horrific footage of eastern Ukrainian villages and towns being shelled by the Ukrainian air force, the State Department continues to stand behind Kiev’s actions, saying that all those killings are the fault of anti-Kiev forces.

“To be clear, on the ground the reports that we’ve seen and the vast majority of people who are reporting from the ground are reporting that the Russian-backed separatists are the ones who are not only engaged in violence and efforts to take over buildings and attack people and innocent civilians and they have no place doing that in a country that is a sovereign country like Ukraine.”

Just last week, 12 civilians were killed including a five-year old in the eastern Ukrainian village of Kondrashovka, which was shelled by Kiev troops. At least five shells hit the settlement, destroying an entire street in the peaceful Lugansk region community, 25km from the city of Lugansk.

Aside from approving Kiev’s actions, the US State Department denied reports on the number of refugees fleeing the conflict in eastern Ukraine to Russia, including UN’s statistics.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated that the number of Ukrainian refugees in Russia has reached 110,000 people, while 54,400 others have been internally displaced. In response, the State Department’s spokesperson Maria Harf said she cannot confirm this data, and thus can’t consider it reliable.

July 8, 2014 Posted by | Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO arming Ukraine with Soviet weapons

arms-europe.si

RT | July 4, 2014

NATO’s newest Eastern European members are handing over their Soviet arms stockpiles to the Ukrainian army, Russia’s Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin says, adding that the alliance is in danger of pouring gasoline on the flames of that country’s civil war.

Rogozin, who supervises the Russian military industry, has tweeted that NATO is asking its newest members to get rid of operable Soviet military equipment and send it to Ukraine, to aid the miserable state of the country’s military hardware.

“In turn, the US is ready to compensate for the “losses” of the newly co-opted NATO member states. The American military-industrial complex must be happy,” Rogozin wrote in his Twitter account.

“By the way, this is NATO’s commonplace to put out civil wars’ fire with aviation kerosene,” Rogozin added.

Over the months of Ukraine’s hot political crisis, NATO member states, primarily the US, announced they are planning non-lethal aid to Ukrainian troops, supplying uniforms and tents, and even promising to deploy a number of military instructors to train the Ukrainian army to fight the adherents of federalization of the country in Eastern Ukraine.

Political commentator Mikhail Rostovsky told RIA Novosti news agency that the “US and EU are thinking not about Ukraine but about the neutralization of Russia.”

Rostovsky compared the current policies of the European and American leaders with that of British PM Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand towards the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990.

Speaking loudly about “the European choice for Ukraine,” the EU and US politicians are essentially seeking ways to drive a wedge between Moscow and Kiev to neutralize what they regard as Russia’s possible “imperial ambitions,” Rostovsky said. “We’re dealing with politics dictated by fear: God forbid the Kremlin’s imperial instincts got awakened! This is a matter of principle to deny the Kremlin such an opportunity and break Ukraine away from Russia.”

Rostovsky said he fully agreed with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who told Der Spiegel in late April that Europe has slid “into the worst crisis since the end of the Cold War.”

“Those who can remember the fall of the Berlin Wall know what we’ve accomplished over the past 25 years. The gains we’ve made almost everywhere in Europe in terms of peace, freedom and prosperity are now at risk,” Steinmeier said, adding that that it was important to take “every measure to prevent things [in Ukraine] from getting worse.”

July 4, 2014 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Putin to West: Stop turning world into ‘global barracks,’ dictating rules to others

RT | July 1, 2014

Russia’s president has blamed the turmoil in Ukraine on the country’s newly-elected leader Petro Poroshenko. Vladimir Putin also criticized the West for its intention to turn the planet into a “global barracks.”

Russia’s president has laid the blame for the ongoing turmoil between Kiev and south-eastern regions squarely at the feet of Petro Poroshenko, after the Ukrainian leader terminated the ceasefire.

He has stressed that Russia and European partners could not convince Poroshenko to not take the path of violence, which can’t lead to peace.

“Unfortunately, President Poroshenko has made the decision to resume military actions, and we – meaning myself and my colleagues in Europe – could not convince him that the way to reliable, firm and long-term peace can’t lie through war,” Putin said. “So far, Petro Poroshenko had no direct relation to orders to take military action. Now he has taken on this responsibility in full. Not only military, but also political, more importantly.”

On Monday, the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine held a phone call in which Putin stressed the need to prolong the ceasefire and the creation of “a reliable mechanism for monitoring compliance with it and the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] should play an active role.”

Russia offered that checkpoints on the Russian side should be monitored by representatives of the Ukrainian Border service as well as OSCE observers for “the joint control of the border.”

As the violent conflict continues in the east of Ukraine and the number of refugees fleeing to Russia grows, Putin vowed to provide help to everyone who needs it.

“Everything that’s going on in Ukraine is of course the internal business of Ukrainian government, but we are painfully sorry that people die, civilians,” Putin said. He added that the killing of journalists was “absolutely unacceptable.”

“In my opinion, there is a deliberate attempt to eliminate representatives of the press going on. It concerns both Russian and foreign journalists,” the president said.

Speaking in front of ambassadors on Tuesday, Putin expressed hope that Western partners will stop imposing their principles on other countries.

“I hope pragmatism will still prevail. The West will get rid of ambitions, pursuits to establish a ‘world barracks’ – to arrange all according to ranks, to impose uniform rules of behavior and life of society,” Putin said.

“I hope the West will start building relations based on equal rights, mutual respect and mutual consideration of interests.”

Putin recalled the situation with France and the delivery of the Mistral-class ships that was agreed between Moscow and Paris, but was jeopardized in March.

“We know about the pressure that our American partners put on the French so that they would not deliver the Mistral [ships] to Russia,” Putin said. “And we know that [they] hinted that if the French don’t deliver Mistral, sanctions on banks will be gradually removed, or at least minimized. What is this, if not blackmail?”

Russia is ready to have dialogue with the US only on the basis of equality, Putin added.

“We are not going to stop our relations with the US. The bilateral relations are not in the best shape, that is true. But this – and I want to emphasize – is not Russia’s fault,” he told diplomats.

Speaking about international relations, Putin stressed that Russia always tried to be “predictable, to do business on an equal basis”, however, in return, its interests were quite often ignored.

July 1, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cameraman for Russia’s top broadcaster killed in E. Ukraine

RT | June 29, 2014

A cameraman for Russia’s Channel One TV station died from injuries after being shot by Kiev troops in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, said the broadcaster’s press service.

“Our colleague Anatoly Klyan died tonight… he was fatally wounded in the stomach. He was 68-years-old,” Channel One said on air.

Klyan, along with a few other journalists, boarded a bus full of women – mostly mothers – who were traveling to a military base in Donetsk to demand that their sons be dismissed from the unit and allowed to go home, Kulbatskaya added.

When the bus reached its destination, shots were fired from the base and that is when the cameraman was injured.

russian-cameraman-last-video.siKlyan died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, DNR’s First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Purgin told RIA Novosti, adding that the driver of the bus was wounded in the neck and is currently in hospital.

A crew from Channel One confirmed to RT’s Maria Finoshina – currently in Lugansk – that Klyan was, in fact, shot and killed.

“We have been able to speak with these journalists and they called their colleagues in Donetsk and this information is now confirmed,” Finoshina said.

She described the victim filming with his crew at one of the military bases in Donetsk when the shooting took place.

“We know the journalists finished their work and they were smoking cigarettes at the moment when suddenly shooting started. It is very hard to say exactly who was firing, but we hear information that this particular bus and its passengers were targeted,” she said.

“The bus that was also carrying the mothers of self-defense fighters. They were heading towards this military base currently controlled by the Ukrainian military to start negotiations over their sons.”

Another team of Russian journalists also came under attack on Sunday. A LifeNews crew was fired at near a Donetsk military base, Kulbatskaya said. Their car was fired at from a grenade launcher. No one was injured in the attack.

The ceasefire between Kiev and self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine expires at 22:00 (19:00 GMT) on Monday.

Journalists under attack

This latest death comes after a number of journalists were killed during the coverage of events in eastern Ukraine.

Earlier in June, Rossiya TV journalist Igor Kornelyuk and his colleague, sound engineer Anton Voloshin, were killed in shelling. They were the first Russian journalists to die while on professional duty in Ukraine, since the coup in Kiev and the beginning of civil unrest in eastern regions began.

ukraine8.si

Rossiya TV journalist Igor Kornelyuk (R) and sound engineer Anton Voloshin (L)

They were working on a report covering Ukrainian refugees fleeing the town of Metallist in Lugansk region when they were hit with mortar shells.

There have also been numerous cases where journalists have been attacked, shot at, and detained while reporting on the crisis in eastern Ukraine.

For example, on June 16 a group of journalists  came under fire while reporting from Slavyansk’s outskirts. One of the journalists was Ruptly correspondent Andrey Krasnoshchyokov.

On June 14, Zvezda TV channel said two of its journalists had been detained.

A Channel One crew was also fired at on June 11 while covering events in the village of Semenovka, located near Slavyansk.

In another incident, RT contributor and UK national Graham Phillips was detained by Kiev military forces at a checkpoint in the city of Mariupol on May 20. He was transferred to army barracks and interrogated by Ukrainian security forces. He was released after 36 hours.

Fedor Zavaleykov, a 23-year-old Ruptly cameraman, was wounded during fighting in Mariupol on May 9.

June 30, 2014 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Video, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

War is Our Business and Business Looks Good

By Edward S. Herman | Z Magazine | June 28, 2014

It is enlightening to see how pugnacious the U.S. establishment, led by the Peace Laureate, has been in dealing with the Ukraine crisis. The crisis arguably began when the Yanukovich government rejected an EU bailout program in favor of one offered by Russia. The mainstream media (MSM) have virtually suppressed the fact that the EU proposal was not only less generous than the one offered by Russia, but that whereas the Russian plan did not preclude further Ukrainian deals with the EU the EU plan would have required a cut-off of further Russian arrangements. And whereas the Russian deal had no military clauses, that of the EU required that Ukraine affiliate with NATO. Insofar as the MSM dealt with this set of offers they not only suppressed the exclusionary and militarized character of the EU offer, they tended to view the Russian deal as an improper use of economic leverage, “bludgeoning,” but the EU proposal was “constructive and reasonable” (Ed., NYT, Nov. 20, 2014). Double standards seem to be fully internalized within the U.S. establishment.

The protests that ensued in Ukraine were surely based in part on real grievances against a corrupt government, but they were also pushed along by rightwing groups and by U.S. and allied encouragement and support that increasingly had an anti-Russian and pro-accelerated-regime-change flavor. They also increased in level of violence. The sniper killings of police and protesters in Maidan on February 21, 2014 brought the crisis to a new head. This violence overlapped with and eventually terminated a negotiated settlement of the struggle brokered by EU members that would have ended the violence, created an interim government and required elections by December. The accelerated violence ended this transitional plan, which was replaced by a coup takeover, along with the forced flight of Victor Yanukovich.

There is credible evidence that the sniper shootings of both protesters and police were carried out by a segment of the protesters in a false-flag operation that worked exceedingly well, “government” violence serving as one ground for the ouster of Yanukovich. Most telling was the intercepted phone message between Estonia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Paet and EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Upton in which Paet regretfully reported compelling evidence that the shots killing both police and protesters came from a segment of the protesters. This account was almost entirely suppressed in the MSM; for example, the New York Times never mentioned it once through the following two months. It is also enlightening that the protesters at Maidan were never called “militants” in the MSM, although a major and effective segment was armed and violent—that term was reserved for protesters in Eastern Ukraine, who were commonly designated “pro-Russian” as well as militants.

There is also every reason to believe that the coup and establishment of a right wing and anti-Russian government were encouraged and actively supported by U.S. officials. Victoria Nuland’s intercepted “fuck the EU” words express her hostility to a group that, while generally compliant and subservient, departed from neocon plans for a proper government in Kiev headed by somebody like “Yats.” So she would surely have been pleased when the EU-supported February compromise plan was ended by the violence and coup. The U.S. support of the coup government has been enthusiastic and unqualified, and whereas Kerry and company delayed recognition of the elected government of Maduro in Venezuela, and have strongly urged him to dialogue and negotiate with the Venezuelan protesters—in fact, threatening him if he doesn’t — Kerry and company have not done the same in Ukraine where the Kiev government forces have slowly escalated their attacks on the Eastern Ukraine, but not on “protesters,” only on “militants!”

The Kiev government’s military is now using jets and helicopters to bomb targets in the East and heavy artillery and mortars in its ground operations. Its targets have included hospitals and schools, and as of June 8 civilian casualties have been in the hundreds. A dramatic massacre of 40 or more pro-Russian protesters in Odessa on May 2 by a well-organized cadre of neo-Nazi supporters, possibly agents of the Kiev government, was an early high point in this pacification campaign. No investigation of this slaughter has been mounted by the Kiev government or “international community” and it has not interfered in the slightest with Western support of Kiev. In parallel the MSM have treated it in very low key. (The New York Times buried this incident in a back page continuation of a story on “Deadly Clashes Erupt in Ukraine,” May 5, which succeeds in covering up the affiliation of the killers.) Kerry has been silent, though we may imagine his certain frenzy if Maduro’s agents had carried out a similar action in Venezuela. Recall the “Racak massacre,” where the deaths of 40 alleged victims of the Serb military created an international frenzy; but in that case the United States needed a casus belli, whereas in the Odessa case there is a pacification war already in process by a U.S. client, so MSM silence is in order.

It is an interesting feature of media coverage of the Ukraine crisis that there is a regular focus on alleged or possible Russian aid, control of and participation in the actions of the protesters/militants/insurgents in Eastern Ukraine. This was evident in the Times’s gullible acceptance of a claim that photos of insurgents included a Russian pictured in Russia, later acknowledged to be problematic (Andrew Higgins, Michael Gordon and Andrew Kramer, “Photos Link Masked Men in East Ukraine to Russia,” NYT, April 20, 2014); and in another lead article which was almost entirely speculation (Sabrina Tavernise, “In Ukraine Kremlin Leaves No Fingerprints,” NYT, June 1, 2014.). But this interest in foreign intrusion in Ukraine affairs, with the implication of wrong-doing, does not extend to evidence of U.S. and other NATO power aid and control. Visits by Biden, Cain, Nuland and intelligence and Pentagon figures are sometimes mentioned, but the scope and character of aid and advice, of U.S. “fingerprints,” is not discussed and seems to be of little interest. It is, in fact, normalized, so that as with the aid plans in which Russian proposals are “bludgeons” but U.S.-EU plans are “constructive and reasonable” the double standard is in good working order here as well.

Isn’t there a danger that Russia will enter this war on behalf of the pro-Russian majority of the eastern part of Ukraine now under assault? Possibly, but not likely, as Putin is well aware that the Obama-neocon-military-industrial complex crowd would welcome this and would use it, at minimum, as a means of further dividing Russia from the EU powers, further militarizing U.S. clients and allies, and firming up the MIC’s command of the U.S. national budget. Certainly there are important forces in this country that would love to see a war with Russia, and it is notable how common are political comments, criticisms and regrets at Obama’s weak response to Russian “aggression” (e.g., David Sanger, “Obama Policy Is put to Test: Global Crises Challenge a Strategy of Caution,” NYT, March 17, 2014). But so far Putin refuses to bite.

In response to this pressure from the powerful war-loving and war-making U.S. constituencies, Obama has been furiously denouncing Russia and has hastened to exclude it from the G-8, impose sanctions and penalties on the villain state, increase U.S. troops and press military aid on the near-Russia states allegedly terrified at the Russian threat, carry out training exercises and maneuvers with these allies and clients, assure them of the sacredness of our commitment to their security, and press these states and major allies to increase their military budgets. One thing he hasn’t done is to restrain his Kiev client in dealing with the insurgents in eastern Ukraine. Another is engaging Putin in an attempt at a settlement. Putin has stressed the importance of a constitutional formation of a Ukraine federation in which a still intact Ukraine would allow significant autonomy to the Eastern provinces. There was a Geneva meeting and joint statement on April 17 in which all sides pledged a de-escalation effort, disarming irregulars, and constitutional reform. But it was weak, without enforcement mechanisms, and had no effect. The most important requirement for de-escalation would be the termination of what is clearly a Kiev pacification program for Eastern Ukraine. That is not happening, because Obama doesn’t want it to happen. In fact, he takes the position that it is up to Russia to curb the separatists in East Ukraine, and he has gotten his G-7 puppies to agree to give Russia a deadline to do this, or face more severe penalties.

This situation calls to mind Gareth Porter’s analysis of the “perils of dominance,” where he argued that the Vietnam war occurred and became a very large one because U.S. officials thought that with their overwhelming military superiority North Vietnam and its allies in the south would surrender and accept U.S. terms—most importantly a U.S. controlled South Vietnam—as military escalation took place and a growing toll was imposed on the Vietnamese (see his Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam). It didn’t work. In the Ukraine context the United States once again has a militarily dominant position. On its own and through its NATO arm it has encircled Russia with satellites established in violation of the 1990 promise of James Baker and Hans-Dietrch Genscher to Mikhail Gorbachev to not move eastward “one inch,” and it has placed anti-missile weapons right on Russia’s borders. And now it has engineered a coup in Ukraine that empowered a government openly hostile to Russia and threatening both the well-being of Russian-speaking Ukrainians and the control of the major Russian naval base in Crimea. Putin’s action in reincorporating Crimea into Russia was an inevitable defensive reaction to a serious threat to Russian national security. But it may have surprised the Obama team, just as the Vietnamese refusal to accept surrender terms may have surprised the Johnson administration. Continuing to push the Vietnamese by escalation didn’t work, although it did kill and injure millions and ended the Vietnamese alternative way. Continuing and escalating actions against Russia in 2014 may involve a higher risk for the real aggressor and for the world, but there are real spinoff benefits to Lockheed and other members of the MIC.

June 30, 2014 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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