MH-17 - "No Perry Mason moment"

Comments from Vladimir Suchan

""Senior U.S. intelligence officials claim [today--July 22] that their services have not found any indication that Russia was involved in the demolition of the MH17 in eastern Ukraine."

This means that U.S. intelligence officials are basically saying that US President Obama, State Secretary Kerry, all the other leaders of the West, NATO, and the EU, and virtually all the Western corporate media have been 1) grossly lying to the world in a way that was posing a threat to peace and security, conversely put, that 2) all these Western leaders and the media have been making unsubstantiated claims and accusations, and 3) that this is a de facto U.S. forced response to the hard evidence about the MH17 case given by the Russian Ministry of Defense on July 21, which was officially and in the media ignored, belittled, and ostensibly dismissed.

At the same time, the U.S. intelligence forced and belated admission comes after four days of intensive, global, well-planned and coordinated vitriolic smearing campaign demonizing Russia, the Russians in east Ukraine, and Putin personally.

Since July 17, the list of documented lies include:

1. the "tapes" issued by Ukraine

2. the video issued by Ukraine--with their own Buk missile battery

3. claims by Ukraine and supported by the West that Ukraine had no military aircraft in the air at the time of the crash of the MH17 plane. These claims were made till the evening of July 21. On July 22, Poroshenko changed the tune--he was forced to by the overwhelming evidence against Ukraine.

What has been thus established is that Ukraine as well as the US, the EU, NATO, and other Western countries have been systematically and grossly lying about evidence pertaining to the tragedy of MH17, thus willfully and bluntly abusing the tragedy and the demise of the victims and the suffering of their families for perverse political goals related to NATO expansionism to the gates of Moscow and anti-Russian hysteria and Russophobia to support the fascist regime in Kiev and its violence, from the Maidan snipers through the Maidan massacre and the deliberate destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure in east Ukraine.

The smear campaign has also been used to demonize and criminalize antifascism and its resistance to the fascist dictatorship in Kiev enrolled by Ukraine's thieving oligarchs. The campaign also tried to mark both Putin and Russia as "international outcasts" or "pariahs"--outlaws.

U.S. Finds No Direct Link to Russia in Downing of MH17

NBC News,

22 July, 2014

The United States has found no direct link between the Russian government and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last week, three senior intelligence officials said Tuesday.

The officials repeated their belief that pro-Russian separatists fired the missile that took out the jetliner over Ukraine, killing 298 people, but they said they could not say definitively that the separatists did it.

“There’s not going to be a Perry Mason moment,” one U.S. official said. “We don’t know who pulled the trigger.”

The White House stressed that it was not backing off what President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power have said for days — that Russia provided training and support for the separatists who probably shot down the plane, and therefore bore some responsibility.

Instead, the intelligence officials were “just saying that we don’t know if Russians pulled the trigger,” one administration official said. “That doesn’t absolve Russia.”

The officials cited several reasons they could not make a final determination about who fired. One was that U.S. officials have yet to see the plane wreckage in person.

The disclosures came a day after Russian officials challenged the United States to back up its finger-pointing with evidence.

The intelligence officials, summarizing the findings of American intelligence five days after the crash, said the most likely explanation was that the separatists hit the passenger jet by mistake. Separatists had boasted about shooting down Ukrainian military aircraft.

And the intelligence officials said that Russia is still helping the separatists. As recently as Tuesday, the Ukrainian military told the United States that at least 20 vehicles, including tanks and armored vehicles, crossed from Russia into Ukraine.

Russia also stepped up its deliveries of vehicles and rocket launchers in the weeks prior to the downing of Flight 17, one official said, noting that the Ukrainian military was making advances at the time and Russia was trying to help the separatists fight back.

Russia has been “very deliberate” about the equipment it ships, the official said, and sometimes sends the same equipment that the Ukrainian military uses so that Russia can deny knowing where it came from. The official even cited instances in which Russia has sent tanks no longer in service in Russia to the separatists so they have the same models as the Ukrainian military.

The United States believes that the separatists had at least one SA-11 missile launcher at the time of the crash, but the officials said that the U.S. did not know they had it until after Flight 17 was shot down. The SA-11 missile is believed to have taken out the plane.

US intelligence: No direct link to Russia in Malaysia plane downing

Unnamed US officials are telling Associated Press that their intelligence suggests Malaysia plane shot down by anti-Kiev militia, no link to Russia found.

RT,

22 July, 2014

Officials believe that the passenger aircraft was intercepted by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile, which was fired by Ukrainian militia members. One official said the likeliest explanation was the aircraft was shot down in error, an assertion that seem to be bolstered by the previous downing of 12 Ukrainian military aircraft by militants in the region.

Intelligence suggests that, although the US maintains that Russia "created the conditions" that led to the incident, officials were not aware of the presence of any Russians during the missile launch, and would not confirm that the missile crew was trained in Russia.

The crash of the airliner last week with 298 passengers aboard has only exacerbated the row between the US, European powers and Russia over the developing situation in eastern Ukraine.

The aircraft’s black boxes were turned over to Malaysian authorities late Monday night by Ukrainian militia. Access to the debris field, which is located within the restive Donetsk People’s Republic, has been limited and rumors have run rampant regarding the conduct of militia in the area.

One official said that, regarding as to who precisely fired the missile, "we don't know a name, we don't know a rank and we're not even 100 percent sure of a nationality." The official added that "there is not going to be a Perry Mason moment here," referring to any likely absence of definitive conclusions.

Officials noted that their inquiry relied partly on social media postings, citing specifically video of a missile launcher purported to be a Buk system battery crossing into Russian territory, and appearing to be missing a missile. Following questions, intel officials admitted they had not verified the video’s origin or content.

The Tuesday briefing seemed to be a sharp departure from comments made by US President Barack Obama a day prior, who stated that the Malaysia Airlines aircraft had been “shot down over territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists” that had been both armed with anti-aircraft weapons and trained by Russia.

On Monday State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf was asked whether the US could back up claims that "common sense" indicated Ukrainian militia had sho9t down the Malaysian Airlines plane, along with evidence provided by social media. Harf responded that there was a "host of information" gathered by US intelligence on the incident.

“Sometimes you can’t get into all the specifics,” she said. “Based on open information which is basically common sense, right – we know where it was fired from, we know who has this weapon.”

“I certainly am blaming the Russians for the pro-Russian separatists’ behavior in general, but we need to get all the facts about this specific incident. We don’t – I don’t want to go out there and put culpability on anyone until we have all of those facts,” Harf told journalists.

The Russian military has presented information that a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter had been gaining altitude in the direction of the Malaysian Boeing prior to the catastrophe. According to military monitoring data outlined by chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov along with chief of the Air Force Main Staff Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev this week, Russia is concerned about a number of unanswered questions surrounding the downing of the jet.

"Russian monitoring systems registered that there was a Ukrainian Air Force jet, probably Su-25, climbing and approaching the Malaysian Boeing," said Kartopolov.

“The Su-25 was 3-5 km away from the Malaysian plane. Su-25 is capable of climbing to the altitude of 10,000 meters for a short period of time. Its standard armament includes R60 air-to-air missiles, which are capable of locking and hitting targets from 12 km and which are guaranteed to hit the target from the distance of 5 km.”

The Russian military has also prompted Kiev to explain why MH17 seemed to deviate from its flightpath after reaching Donetsk, out of the international corridor over the country's airspace, and why Buk missile systems had been deployed on the edge of militia-controlled territory by Ukraine prior to the plane's downing.

Despite earlier claims that the media would be presented with unclassified evidence from intelligence sources, unnamed Obama administration officials mostly reiterated earlier claims based on social media posts and unverified audio and video recordings published by Ukrainian government.

US coy on Malaysian plane evidence, points to social media and 'common sense'

Evidence from social media and “common sense” indicate Ukrainian militia shot down the Malaysian Airlines plane, the State Department says. The US also cites its own intelligence which it has refrained from revealing to the public.

Marie Harf (image from wikipedia.org)Marie Harf (image from wikipedia.org)

RT,

22 July, 2014

In a State Department briefing on Monday, Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf said there was a “preponderance of evidence” pointing to the fact that militia in eastern Ukraine downed flight MH17. Harf said the US government’s suspicions were based on information gathered from social media sites.

“We saw in social media afterwards, we saw videos, we saw photos of the pro-Russian separatists bragging about shooting down an aircraft,” she told assembled press.

Unverified tape released by Kiev presented as ‘proof’ E. Ukraine militia downed MH17

When asked whether she could back up the claims with any other evidence, Harf said there is “a host of information” the US had gathered about who did this. However, Harf said the American government is limited to the information that it is allowed to share.

“Sometimes you can’t get into all the specifics,” she said. “Based on open information which is basically common sense, right – we know where it was fired from, we know who has this weapon.”

According to Harf, the Obama administration is attempting to put out as much information as possible that underlies their assessment of the information. The deputy speaker also discouraged people from believing the Russian government’s version of events because it has a history of “misinformation and propaganda” in the Ukrainian conflict.

To blame or not to blame?

On Monday, the Russian military released information that a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet gained altitude towards the Malaysian Boeing on the day of the catastrophe. In addition, they said the plane crashed within the operating zone of the Ukrainian army’s self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air ‘Buk’ missile systems. The Russian Defense Ministry says Kiev must explain why a military jet was tracking a passenger plane.

Deputy speaker Harf said she could not confirm these reports but would be “happy to check it out.”

She stressed that an investigation was necessary to “get all the facts” and establish who was behind the plane crash that killed 298 people. However, Harf said that she holds the Russian government responsible for the Ukrainian militia’s actions, although she prefers not to blame anyone before conclusive evidence has been found.

“I certainly am blaming the Russians for the pro-Russian separatists’ behavior in general, but we need to get all the facts about this specific incident. We don’t – I don’t want to go out there and put culpability on anyone until we have all of those facts,” she told journalists.

Three Dutch forensics experts arrived in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk on Monday to assess the crash site and check the bodies of the victims. Ukrainian militia in the area have resolved to allow inspectors full access to the evidence and handed over the plane’s in-flight data recorders to Malaysian inspectors on Monday.