What happened with Flt 17?

[RobertEarl]

This thread is about statements from two people who are quite aware of how things work in government and foreign fields.

These statements are concerned about Flt 17 which crashed in the Ukraine.

These were found on other DU threads and I just thought they needed to be joined. You will notice the statements do not jump to conclusions, but instead lay out several scenarios we should all consider before we start demanding that Putin, or anyone, take the blame.

I will post each statement in two separate posts that follow this OP.

Please, read carefully before replying.

[RobertEarl]

1. Steven Cohen's statement

Stephen Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics, New York University and Princeton University.


STEPHEN COHEN: The horror of it all, to quote Conrad, watching your reports on Gaza, knowing what I know but what’s not being reported in the mainstream media about what’s been going on in eastern Ukraine cities—these cities have been pounded by Kiev—and now this. "Emeritus," as you call me, means old. I’ve seen this before. One function of cold war is innocent victims. The people who died, nearly 300, from many countries, are the first victims, nonresidential victims, of the new Cold War. This crash, this shootdown, will make everything worse, no matter who did it.

There are several theoretical possibilities. I am not a conspiracy buff, but we know in the history of the Cold War, there are provocations, people who want to make things worse. So, in Moscow, and not only in Moscow, there are theories that somebody wanted this to happen. I just can’t believe anybody would do it, but you can’t rule anything out.

The other possibility is, because the Ukrainian government itself has a capability to shoot down planes. By the way, the Ukrainian government shot down a Russian passenger jet, I think in 2001. It was flying from Tel Aviv to Siberia. It was an accident. Competence is always a factor when you have these weapons.

Another possibility is that the rebels—we call them separatists, but they weren’t separatists in the beginning, they just wanted home rule in Ukraine—that they had the capability. But there’s a debate, because this plane was flying at commercial levels, normally beyond the reach of what they can carry on their shoulders.

There’s the possibility that the Russians aided and abetted them, possibly from Russian territory, but I rule that out because, in the end, when you don’t know who has committed a crime, the first question a professional investigator asks is, "Did anybody have a motive?" and the Russians certainly had no motive here. This is horrible for Putin and for the Russian position.

That’s what we know so far. Maybe we’ll know more. We may never know who did this.

..............................

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5259634

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. Cohen is obviously ill-informed.

We know it was a Buk launcher (which has the range), we know it was fired from within rebel-held territory (because of triangulation). There are photos of a Buk launcher in a village nearby within a few hours of the MH17 shootdown. There's (since scrubbed) social media posts of separatists saying "look at our shiny rocket launcher". There's a claim (since scrubbed) of separatists taking credit for shooting down an An-26 transport at the same time and in the same location as MH17. And Ray McGovern is full of shit because none of this info has been coming from the US government (apart from the triangulation of the launch site, which only verifies what all the other data are saying).

[cvoogt]

5. Ukraine has the same Buk launchers

That said, from what I have seen the evidence strongly points to Russian complicity.

[twirlybird]

16. So you believe that unless it comes from the US government, it is "full of shit"?

I'll bet you believed it when Condoleeza Rice or George Bush was trying to scare us into a war with claims that Iraq had WMDs and with visions of "mushroom clouds" dancing in your head! Did you also believe the government when they wanted to bail out the banksters...that was largely planned and decided on during GB's reign. Of course, now we know that Obama is just a knock-off of old Georgy boy...or maybe I should say Dick Cheney...because he was the real boss behind it all. Both Bush and Obama are both flunkies for the ruling elite.

So, why do you have to have a US government seal of approval before you can believe it? They lie to us all the time! Haven't you figured that out yet?

[RobertEarl]

2. Ray McGovern's statement

By Ray McGovern

It will likely take some time to determine who downed the Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people onboard. Initial speculation is that someone with a missile battery mistook the plane as a military aircraft, but the precise motive may be even harder to discern.

Given the fog of war and the eagerness among the various participants to wage “information warfare,” there is also the possibility that evidence – especially electronic evidence – might be tampered with to achieve some propaganda victory.

<snip>

... the U.S. press might pause to recall how it’s been manipulated by the U.S. government in the past, including three decades ago by the Reagan administration twisting the facts of the KAL-007 tragedy.

<snip>

U.S. intelligence also knew from sensitive intercepts that the tragedy had resulted from a blunder, not from a willful act of murder (much as on July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes fired a missile that brought down an Iranian civilian airliner in the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people, an act which President Ronald Reagan explained as an “understandable accident”).

<snip>

On Sept. 6, 1983, the Reagan administration went so far as to present a doctored transcript of the intercepts to the United Nations Security Council (a prelude to a similar false presentation two decades later by Secretary of State Colin Powell on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction).

“The tape was supposed to run 50 minutes,” Snyder said about recorded Soviet intercepts. “But the tape segment we (at USIA) had ran only eight minutes and 32 seconds. … ‘Do I detect the fine hand of (Richard Nixon's secretary) Rosemary Woods here?’ I asked sarcastically.’”

But Snyder had a job to do: producing the video that his superiors wanted. “The perception we wanted to convey was that the Soviet Union had cold-bloodedly carried out a barbaric act,” Snyder wrote.

<snip>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101698197

[delrem]

3. Nobody shot down that plane, on purpose, knowing what it was. OK?

There is NO party that could possibly benefit.

[The Magistrate]

7. It Surprises Me A Little To Do So, Sir, But I Agree With You

It is cut and dried the thing was shot down by the secessionists, but just as cut and dried that they mistook it for a Ukrainian transport.

[cvoogt]

6. probably mistaken for transport plane

I fail to see how any party could benefit from doing it on purpose. Russia ... I mean "Ukrainian separatists" have been downing Ukrainian planes in that area a fair bit recently, and they moved the Buk launchers in this week. That "Ukrainian" separatist commander guy boasted about downing an AN transport, then sanitized his VK feed after MH17 hit the news. I have seen some Russian theories claiming it was Ukrainians trying to shoot down Putin's plane (also in the area at that time) and maybe it missed and got MH17 instead. Seems highly dubious to me.

[CJCRANE]

8. It was bait, and the separatists took the bait.

It's like the tactic floated in the Downing Street Memo.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. That's completely absurd

the plane was following a normal route for air traffic on the Europe/East Asia route and flying above restricted airspace. There were two other civilian airliners within 20 miles of the plane at the time.

[CJCRANE]

10. An article in the WSJ says there are questions to answer about air traffic control there.

I know it's a Murdoch paper, but the article goes against Murdoch's neocon narrative so it might have some validity.

Ukraine Knew of Separatists' Air-Defense Capabilities, Say Officials
Claims Raise Questions of Why Ukraine Failed to Close Airspace


KIEV—Ukraine intelligence officials said they knew three days before the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that rebels in the east of the country possessed sophisticated air-defense systems capable of felling a jetliner at altitudes in excess of where the Boeing BA 777 was flying.

Full article: http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-knew-of-separatists-air-defense-capabilities-say-officials-1405781508
0

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. Not really, there aren't

Ukrainian intelligence services may have known, but whether the information was shared with ATC is another matter. And I have an easier time believing that they didn't think an airliner would be shot down than I do that they were hoping one would be; "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity".

[CJCRANE]

12. That's not really a good way to investigate something.

We've seen with our own eyes over the last decade how things can be done through both malice and stupidity.

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. What exactly is there to investigate, here?

a) the plane was on a routine flight path regularly used by other airlines and flying outside of restricted airspace.
b) the plane was, based on the evidence we have, brought down by a rocket fired by separatist rebels.

Culpability is clear here, and it doesn't lie with Ukraine. This sounds like the same sort of conspiracist mindset as "FDR ordered the suppression of intelligence and allowed the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor".

[CJCRANE]

14. The article clearly spells it out. I'll leave others to make their own judgments.

[twirlybird]

15. Russians had nothing to gain and neither did the separatists but Kiev Nazis had everything to gain

Several Kiev military aircraft had been shot down previously. The shoot down of the Malysia airliner was a false flag operation by Kiev to rally the world against their enemies. Where they failed to avoid being shot down previously, they devised this different tactic...a war of propaganda...which appears to be working.

The Malasia airliner was told to go from 35,000 feet to 33,000 feet and was forced to travel over the area of conflict where two Kiev military jets, just a few minutes prior to the Malaysia airliner crash, had been escorting and forcing the airliner to the target area. Either the military jets shot it down or the SA-11 missile, from the Buk launcher operated by Ukraine forces, shot it down. The official story is that the airliner was changing course to avoid bad weather. But then why didn't all the other airliners divert their courses that same day for the same reason?

The conversation between the alleged Russian commander and the Ukraine rebel talking about shooting down the airliner was most likely fake because the metadata date was dated the day before the Malaysia airliner shoot down occurred. It's kind of like when news anchors were reporting that Building 7, during 9/11, had fallen 1/2 hour before it actually did.

What's wrong with the people who believe the propaganda coming from the likes of the criminals who lied us into a war with Iraq. The same criminals who control our news media...the same criminals who caused the banking scandals and real estate scams...Wall Street scams. And I suspect that the same people who fell for the official Bush/Neocon regime's treasonous false flag of 9/11 are the same people who are swallowing this "official" story about the Malaysia airliner crash.

The Ukraine NAZIs, who overthrew the legitimate government of Ukraine (and aided by the US), are the ruthless thugs that you should suspect of doing this false flag. It wouldn't make any sense for the Russians nor the separatists to do this. But the Kiev thugs planned and orchestrated this dastardly deed...would be the only ones to gain by turning the world against Russia and the separatists.