Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Paul Craig Roberts: "When I read that the report on the downing of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine was being put in the hands of the Dutch, I knew that there would be no investigation and no attention to the facts." "The reason that the West has no future is that the West has no media, only propagandists for government and corporate agendas and apologists for their crimes." "An editor of a major German newspaper has written a book, a best-seller published in Germany, in which he states that not only he himself served the CIA as a reliable purveyor of Washington’s lies, but that every significant journalist in Europe does so also."


The MH-17 ‘Report’ — Paul Craig Roberts

October 13, 2015 | Original Here                                            Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

The MH-17 ‘Report’

Paul Craig Roberts

When I read that the report on the downing of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine was being put in the hands of the Dutch, I knew that there would be no investigation and no attention to the facts.

And there wasn’t.

I did not intend to write about the report, because Washington’s propaganda has already succeeded, at least in the Western world, in its purpose of laying the blame on Russia. However, the misrepresentation of the Dutch report by Western media, such as NPR, is so outrageous as to make the media the story and not the report.

For example, I just heard NPR’s Moscow correspondent, Corey Flintoff, say that the missile that hit the airliner was fired by Ukrainian separatists who lack the technical ability to operate the system. Therefore, the missile had to have been fired by a Russian.

There is nothing in the Dutch report whatsoever that leads to this conclusion. Flintoff either is incompetent or lying or he is expressing his view and not the report’s conclusion.

The only conclusion that the report reaches is one that we already knew: if a Buk missile brought down the airliner, it was a Russian-made missile. The Dutch report does not say who fired it.

Indeed, the report places no blame on Russia, but it does place blame on Ukraine for not closing the airspace over the war area. Attorneys have stated in response to the report that families of those killed and the Malaysian airline itself are likely to file lawsuits against Ukraine for negligence.

Of course, there was nothing of this in Flintoff’s report.

As I wrote at the time of the airliner’s destruction, the Western media already had “the-Russians-did-it” story ready the moment the airliner was reported to be shot down. This story was very useful to Washington in hardening its European vassal states into sanctions against Russia, as there was some dissent. What Washington has never explained and the Western media has never asked is: What motive did separatists and Russia have to shoot down a Malaysian airliner?

None whatsoever. The Russian government would never allow such a thing. Putin would have immediately strung up those responsible.

Washington’s story makes no sense whatsoever. Only an idiot could believe it.

What motive did Washington have? Many. The demonization of Russia made it impossible for European governments to resist or abandon the economic sanctions that Washington is using to break economic and political relationships between Europe and Russia.

The Russian manufacturer of the Buk missile has proven that if a Buk missile was used, it was an old version that exists only in the Ukraine military. For some years the Russian military has been equipped with a replacement version that has a different signature in its destructive impact. The damage to the Malaysian airliner is inconsistent with the destructive force of the Buk missile in Russian service. The reports were given to the Dutch, but no effort was made to replicate and verify the validity of the tests conducted by the manufacturer of the missile. Indeed, the Dutch report does not even consider whether the airliner was downed by Ukrainian fighter jets. The report is as useless as the 9/11 Commission’s report.

Don’t expect any acknowledgement of this by the Western media, a collection of people who lie for a living.

The reason that the West has no future is that the West has no media, only propagandists for government and corporate agendas and apologists for their crimes. Every day the bought-and-paid-for-media sustains The Matrix that makes Western peoples politically impotent.

The Western media has no independence. An editor of a major German newspaper has written a book, a best-seller published in Germany, in which he states that not only he himself served the CIA as a reliable purveyor of Washington’s lies, but that every significant journalist in Europe does so also.

Obviously, his book has not been translated and published in America.

NPR, like all of Western media, has lost its integrity. NPR claims to be reader-supported. In fact, it is supported by corporations. Pay attention to the ads: “NPR is supported by xyz corporation working to sell you this or that product or service.”

The George W. Bush regime destroyed NPR by appointing two Repuplican female ideologues to oversee NPR’s public function. The two Republicans succeeded in making job security, not reporting integrity, the motive of NPR journalists.

As a person who worked with President Reagan to end the Cold War and associated nuclear threat, I am dismayed that the Western media has failed life on earth by resurrecting the prospect of nuclear armageddon.



1 comment:

Oystein said...

Roberts decries the distortions and cherry-picking of the Dutch Safety Board's final report () by media, but commits his own distortions and engages in cherry-picking - did you notice?

PCR wrote: "The only conclusion that the report reaches is one that we already knew: if a Buk missile brought down the airliner, it was a Russian-made missile."
This is FALSE: The report's conclusions go further than that, and PCR's wording "if a Buk missile" cannot be anything but deliberately misleading, for the report states directly, clearly and without qualification THAT a Buk missile shot down MH17 (page 137):
"Findings
The combination of [various strands of evidence] led the Dutch Safety Board
to conclude that the aeroplane was struck by a 9N314M warhead as carried on a
9M38-series missile and launched by a Buk surface-to-air missile system."
The 9N314M warhead is indeed carried only on 9M38-series missile, and the 9M38-series missiles are indeed only fired by Buk missile launchers (the older variants Buk, Buk M1 and Buk M1-2).

"The Dutch report does not say who fired it."
This is by deliberation, in order to not prejudge a criminal investigation. But the report shows very specifically the area within which the Buk-launcher must have stood when it shot down MH17: It is an area of very roughly only 16 by 20 kilometers (10 to 12.5 miles), centered about 25 km (15 miles) south-east of MH17's last known (FDR) position. That area includes the towns/villages of Snizhne, Pervomais'kyi and Stepanivka. The area was fully under control of the Separatists on the day of the shoot-down. There is no possible way that the Ukrainean forces could have placed a Buk system in that area without detection and interception.
So while the Dutch refrain from naming names, it is inescapable that MH17 was shot down by Separatist troops OR by Russian troops allowed by the Separatists to operate in the area controlled by them.

"Indeed, the report places no blame on Russia"
It is legitimate and firmly within the responsobility and indeed duty of free and independent media to point out to the public this clear, inescapable conclusion that either Separatists or Russians operated the the Buk system that shot down MH17. PCR's denial thereof speaks volumes about his ideological blinders and purposes - he is engaging in pro-Russian propaganda.

"but it does place blame on Ukraine for not closing the airspace over the war area."
This is cherry-picked and thus disinformation.
Yes, the report finds that the Ukraine OUGHT to have closed the airspace, but also finds that such closings over war areas are unusual, and further points to inadequacies in the way that such areas are handled internationally. As such, the report ALSO "blames" Malaysian Airlines as well as ICAO and IATA. "Blame" is a loaded word, too - the report doesn't assign "blame", it rather documents decision processes, and addresses "recommendations" - to ICAO, ICAO member states, IATA, States of operators (such as Malaysia), operators (such as MH). The report really "blames" ALL states and ALL operators that continued to overfly the Donbass - and it also lays particular blame on Russia for not complying with CAO standards and for not cooperating sufficiently with the investigation. It appears like Russia is the main dodger here. And we know why - MH17 was shot down by Russians.

PCR denying this truth has a bad taste.