We continue with Dr George Venturini’s* outstanding and eye-opening analysis on the events (and aftermath) of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 tragedy. In Part 2 Dr Venturini leaves the reader with a multitude of questions to ponder: questions that could have been asked before the finger of blame was pointed.
An avalanche of inconvenient questions:
1. Why – as Malaysia Airlines confirmed - was the pilot of MH17 instructed to fly at a lower altitude by the Kiev traffic control tower upon its entry into Ukraine airspace?
2. Why was MH17 diverted from the usual south-easterly route over the Sea of Azov to a path over the Donetsk war zone, by order (oblast) issued on 17 July?
3. Why was this done, even though – according to Malaysia Airlines – the usual flight route across the Sea of Azov had early been declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and the International Air Transportation Association had stated that the airspace that the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions?
4. Were there Ukrainian military jets present in the area of the new flight path, as confirmed by the Spanish traffic controller employed at the Borispol airport in Kiev who was on duty when the plane was shot down?
5. Why were the audio records of the MH17 flight seized by the Kiev government?
6. Has Russia’s offered to make available public radar and satellite imagery as evidence? Its images suggest the following:
a) Kiev’s government deployed anti-air missile systems in Donetsk in and around the area where flight MH17 crashed.
b) A Ukrainian warplane SU-25 was trailing flight MH17.
c) The evidentiary means were attached to a report which pointed to the possibility of an air-to-air attack on MH17.
d) The same report also pointed to inconsistencies pertaining to the reports of the Ukrainian air traffic control.
7. Why has the United States not produced, despite its global spying apparatus, any radar or satellite imagery to support its claim that Russia and the eastern Ukrainian armed-opposition are responsible for the downing of MH17?
8. Is it correct that the Russian Defence Ministry pointed out that at the moment of destruction of MH17 an American satellite was flying over the area, and has invited the American Government to make available the photos and data captured by the satellite?
9. Is it correct that an American intelligence source claimed that the “U.S. intelligence agencies do have detailed satellite images of the likely missile battery that launched the fateful missile, but the battery appears to have been under the control of Ukrainian government troops dressed in what look like Ukrainian uniforms.”?
10. Is it true that Russia called for an expert independent investigation, and that President Putin has repeatedly stressed that the investigation of MH17 requires “a fully representative group of experts to be working at the site under the guidance of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (I.C.A.O.).”?
11. Has the United States claimed, without evidence, but “with confidence” that Russia was involved? In particular: on 20 July, the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry confirmed that pro-Russian separatists were involved in the downing of the Malaysian airliner and said that it was “pretty clear” that Russia was involved. He clearly said: “It’s pretty clear that this is a system that was transferred from Russia into the hands of separatists. We know with confidence, with confidence, that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point and time, so it obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists.”?
12. And is not Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement (above) regarding Russian involvement in contradiction with the Russian satellite photos and numerous eye witnesses on the ground ?
13. What should one make of the news item by the Associated Press: “U.S. Intelligence: No ‘direct’ Russian involvement in downing of MH17” ?
14. Is it true that a few hours after the crash, Kiev authorities presented a video in which the eastern opposition admitted shooting down the plane? And yet, experts who studied the video concluded that it was a fabrication. In particular:
a) “The tape’s second fragment consists of three pieces but was presented as a single audio recording. However, a spectral and time analysis has showed that the dialog was cut into pieces and then assembled. Short pauses in the tape are very indicative: the audio file has preserved time marks which show that the dialog was assembled from various episodes.”
b) The encoding of the video file shows it was created on 16 July, the day before the plane was shot down.
15. If what precedes is correct, in so far as the information remains to be confirmed, would it mean that the Ukrainian authorities shot the plane down and fabricated evidence to frame the opposition?
16. Is it correct:
– that Secretary of State John Kerry referred to a video that the Ukrainians have made public showing an SA-11 – as the ‘western’ powers refers to the Russian BUK M1 anti-air missile system – unit heading back to Russia after the downing of the plane with ‘a missing missile’ or so?
– that the video was posted on the Facebook account of the Ukrainian Interior Minister?
– that according to numerous sources the video was “taken in or near Krasnoarmeisk”, a town under Kiev’s control since May and located “120 kilometers from the Russian border and 80 kilometers from where the MH17 crashed.”?
17. Is it correct that the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General, Vitaly Yarema, said that the Ukrainian opposition did not possess a Buk missile system: “Ukrainian Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said on 17 July that the MH17 had been downed by the Buk missile system . . . ” and that the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General told Ukrainian Pravda newspaper on 18 July: “After the passenger airliner was downed, the military reported to the president that terrorists do not have our air defense missile systems Buk and S-300 . . . These weapons were not seized.” ?
18. Would it not be possible that the MH17 incident has been used as a pretext to wage economic war against Russia; and that sanctions imposed in the wake of the event, without any evidence of Russian implication, are used to weaken the ruble and destabilise the Russian Monetary system?
19. Is it correct:
– that the downing of MH17 and the reaction of the American administration and media bear strong similarities with the scenario depicted in Operation Northwoods – a secret ‘false flag’ operation planned by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in which a civilian airliner was to be shot down and blamed on the Cuban Government – and
– that the objective was to manufacture a pretext to wage war on Cuba?
20. Did the call for sanctions ignore the possibility of an accident and instead, assumed a willful act?
21. Who could benefit from the situation caused by the downing of MH17?
22. Why and how would Russia and/or the Eastern rebels gain by downing a passenger plane out of the sky?
23. Is it correct:
– that it was estimated, with reference to the problems connected with sanctions, that they will cost the Russian economy 23 billion Euro this year – or about 1.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product, and will grow to 75 billion Euro in 2015 – 4.8 per cent of the G.D.P?
– that The Economist has calculated that Russian firms will suffer losses from the sanctions as high as 744 billion Euro?
– that the sanctions will also weigh heavily on the economies of Western Europe: the E.U. Commission forecasts that the European Union will lose 40 billion Euro – 0.3 per cent of G.D.P. this year and 50 billion Euro in 2015 – 0.4 per cent of G.D.P., and
– that would happen because Russia was expected to retaliate with trade bans of its own against E.U. countries, which are still largely dependent on Russian gas and have strong economic ties with Russia and its rich sources?
With all these considerations, one would be foolish to view the plane tragedy in isolation. Furthermore,
24. Is it correct:
– that Russian Lieutenant-General Andrei Kartopolov told a press conference that a Ukrainian SU-25 attack jet was gaining height and came within 3-5 kilometers of MH17? (Those jets, which are primarily used for ground attack, can briefly fly high enough to have reached the altitude of the MH17, and can be equipped with air-to-air missiles which can destroy flying targets).
– that Lieutenant-General Kartopolov said that Russian officials have evidence of the jet’s presence following images taken by the Rostov monitoring centre. The clear implication is that it might have been a Ukrainian military jet to shot down the MH17,
– that Kartopolov criticised the United States for not releasing its own satellite images taken at the time of the shoot-down, which images – according to the Russians – will confirm just which missile or missiles were launched and by whom, and
– that the general asserted that Ukraine itself had BUK missile launchers located a few miles to the northwest of the Lugansk crash site on 14 July, near rebel-held territory. He said that satellite images revealed the Ukrainian batteries in place on 14 July, but absent from images taken on 17 July, the day of the shoot-down?
25. Is it correct that Russian authorities have posed 10 questions about the tragedy, though few if any ‘Western’ media outlets have even acknowledged them?
26. Immediately after the tragedy, the Ukrainian authorities, naturally, blamed it on the separatist forces. What are these accusations based on?
27. Can Kiev explain in detail how it uses Buk missile launchers in the conflict zone? And why were these systems deployed there in the first place, seeing as the self-defense forces do not have any planes?
28. Why are the Ukrainian authorities not doing anything to set up an international commission?
29. Would the Ukrainian Armed Forces be willing to let international investigators see the inventory of their air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, including those used in SAM launchers?
30. Will the international commission have access to tracking data from reliable sources regarding the movements of Ukrainian warplanes on the day of the tragedy?
31. Why did Ukrainian air traffic controllers allow the plane to deviate from the regular route to the north, towards “the anti-terrorist operation zone”?
32. Why was airspace over the war zone not closed for civilian flights, especially since the area was not entirely covered by radar navigation systems?
33. How can official Kiev comment on reports in the social media, allegedly by a Spanish air traffic controller who works in Ukraine, that there were two Ukrainian military planes flying alongside the MH17 over Ukrainian territory?
34. Why did Ukraine’s Security Service start working with the recordings of communications between Ukrainian air traffic controllers and the MH17 crew and with the data storage systems from Ukrainian radars without waiting for international investigators?
35. What lessons has Ukraine learned from a similar incident in 2001, when a Russian Tu-154 crashed into the Black Sea? Back then, the Ukrainian authorities denied any involvement on the part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces until irrefutable evidence proved Kiev to be guilty.
36. Is it correct that on 21 July Russian officials surprised the American administration and its N.A.T.O. partners when they released all available satellite imagery and air traffic control data which were recorded in and around the final minutes of Flight MH17 – and presented such data to the world media on live television ?
37. Is it correct that the data painted a very different picture, drawing contrasting conclusions to what the American and the Ukrainian administrations had been disseminating through ‘Western’ media since 17 July. Following their presentation, the Russian administration handed its findings – air traffic data and time stamped satellite imagery – to European authorities?
38. Is it correct that, in stark contrast, the American administration has been reluctant to do the same, and will the American administration be willing to release any relevant data or evidence to the public, or is it only interested in sharing that which somehow fits into the same predetermined narrative it stood by on 17 July, one which already assigned guilt to both rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine and Russia?
39. Is it correct that a Malaysia Airlines spokesman has already confirmed that, for some unknown reason, Kiev-based Ukrainian Air Traffic Control ordered MH17 off of its original flight path along the international air route, known as L980?
40. Is it correct that, as MH17 moved into Ukrainian air space, it was moved by the Kiev Air Traffic Control Kiev approximately 200 miles north – putting it on a new course, heading directly into a war zone, a well-known dangerous area by now – one which hosted a number of downed military craft over the previous three weeks ?
41. Is it correct that the British Broadcasting Corporation reported on 17 July that: “Ukraine’s S.B.U. security service has confiscated recordings of conversations between Ukrainian air traffic control officers and the crew of the doomed airliner, a source in Kiev has told Interfax news agency.” ?
42. Is it correct that, soon after the incident, British news outlets began floating the story – without any evidence, that MH17 was diverted to “avoid thunderstorms in southern Ukraine”.?
43. Is it also correct that Malaysia Airlines immediately refuted this in a report from Malaysia News: “MAS operations director Captain Izham Ismail has also refuted claims that heavy weather led to MH17 changing its flight plan … There were no reports from the pilot to suggest that this was the case.” ?
44. Is it correct:
– that the route over the usual Ukrainian airspace is commonly used for Europe to Asia flights. A flight from a different carrier was on the same route at the time of the MH17 incident, as were a number of other flights from other carriers in the days and weeks before. Eurocontrol maintains records of all flights across European airspace, including those across Ukraine.
– that the MH17’s ‘usual flight path’ was similar to the flight paths of some 150 international flights which cross eastern Ukraine on a daily basis, and
– that according to Malaysia Airlines “The usual flight route [across the sea of Azov] was earlier declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and
– that the International Air Transportation Association has stated that the airspace the aircraft was usually traversing was not subject to restrictions.” ?
45. Is it correct that the regular flight path of MH17 – and other international flights – over a period of ten days prior to 17 July 2014 crossing Eastern Ukraine in a southeasterly direction is across the Sea of Azov?
The event
Having left Schiphol in the Netherlands at 10.31 a.m., MH17 met the fatal event at 13.20:03, when data from the flight data recorder and the digital cockpit voice recorder both stopped.
Weather data online were all but unavailable for the area of Donetsk, Ukraine for 17 July, but conditions were evident by numerous videos depicting the crash and crash site in the aftermath. It was cloudy and overcast, with more visibility above the cloud canopy. This factor is important because at its cruising altitude of approximately 33,000 feet (10,000 metres), the airliner would not be visible from the ground in the rebel-held area where the American administration is insisting a SAM missile was launched. Why Kiev air traffic controllers ordered MH17 suddenly to drop its altitude, from 35,000 feet to around 33,000 feet, just before the plane’s demise, is unknown for sure, but it would have been nearly impossible for the alleged rebel gunmen occupying this relatively small rebel-held patch of land to make a visual sighting of MH17 and acquire the target during the 1-2 minute window they would have had, assuming they were even in possession of the BUK missile system.
And so, to more questions:
46. Is it correct that the Ukrainian military had already isolated the rebel area that the Kiev authorities and the American administration insist a rebel-controlled BUK SAM missile battery had fired on the passenger jet?
47. Is it correct:
– that the actual size of the rebel-held part of Ukraine is only 50 miles wide, and that, cruising at 580 mph (933 kmph), MH17 would have only been visible for a very short time – just over 1 minute, and
– that, if Kiev Air Traffic Control had not ordered MH17 to alter its course, and altitude then it would not have been visible at all from the vantage point of the alleged rebel firing position?
48. Is it correct, according to Jane’s Defence, an American magazine devoted to a comprehensive selection of defence, aerospace, transport and security matters, that the alleged culprit – an SA-11 as it is known in ‘the West’ or BUK M1 SAM missile system, requires 5 minutes set-up active targeting, followed by an additional 22 seconds ‘reaction time’ for target acquisition and firing?
49. Is it correct that, as the MH17 was only visible for 70 seconds above the rebel-held area surrounding Grabovo, unless the alleged rebel firing position was specifically tracking MH17 long before it entered the rebel-held airspace and could distinguish it from other military civilian aircraft also in the general vicinity, the American administration’s claim and the Kiev authorities’ accusation – that rebels shot down this aircraft becomes even less credible ?
50. Is it correct that, on 21 July, the Russian government, with almost every major global media outlet in attendance, released all of its air traffic data and satellite imaging data – all verifiable, including time stamps and supporting data?
51. Is it correct that minutes before the downing of MH17, the plane made an unexplainable ‘left turn’ as it flew over the Donetsk area at approximately 13.20 p.m. Amsterdam time, making a sharp 14 kilometres deviation, before attempting to regain its previous course, dropping altitude and disappearing from radar at 13.20.03 p.m. ?
52. Is it correct:
– that these systems included full launching, loading and radio location units, located in the immediate vicinity of the MH17 crash site, and
– that one unit was placed approximately 8 kilometres northwest of Lugansk?
53. Is it correct:
– that, in addition, a radio location system for those Ukrainian Army missile batteries was situated 5 kilometres from Donetsk?
– that on 17 July those batteries were moved to a position 8 kilometres south of Shahktyorsk?
– that, in addition to this, two other radio location units were also identified in the immediate vicinity, and finally
– that those SAM systems have a range of 35 kilometres distance, and 25 kilometres altitude?
54. Is it correct that, unlike rebel fighters, the Ukrainian military is in possession of some 27 BUK missile systems capable of bringing down high-flying jets, and forensic satellite imagery places at least 3 of their launchers in the Donetsk region on the day of the downing, and yet the American administration and N.A.T.O. will not undertake the possibility that any of those system had targeted MH17?
55. Is it correct that at about 13.20 pm MH17 began abruptly to lose speed, eventually slowing to 124 mph (200 kmph), and that at about this time, possibly an Su-25 Ukrainian fighter jet appeared on Air Traffic Control radar climbing in the direction of MH17, before trailing MH17 on the same flight path approximately 3-5km behind MH17, rapidly approaching the same flight level, and only minutes before MH17 disappeared on radar?
56. Is there one very real possibility for MH17 having been diverted 14 kilometres to the left that its Global Positioning System or navigation system was being jammed, while United States and N.A.T.O. forces happened to be conducting an electronic warfare exercise in the Black Sea on 17 July?
57. Is it correct:
– that, in addition to this possibility, all Boeing jets like MH17 – except those of the Lufthansa fleet – are equipped with a remote override which can be accessed by authorities in certain foreign countries, one such authority being the United States, and
– that tough not publicly acknowledged until recently, Boeing Uninterruptible Autopilot systems have been standard since the late 1990s, apparently designed to take control of a commercial aircraft away from the pilot or flight crew, chiefly in the event of a terrorist incident?
58. Is it correct that a crime scene investigation will be very important, although reports to date from the crash site in Grabovo do not inspire very much confidence that a thorough and independent forensic investigation will be carried out, or that the chain of custody for evidence is being observed?
59. Is it correct that ballistics would be the key evidentiary element, tough pieces of shrapnel retrieved from the wreckage could help?
60. Is it correct that, following such investigation, it would be possible easily to establish if such shrapnel came from any of the following:
– a bomb on board (this is still a possibility),
– an air-to-air missile, or
– a surface-to-air missile?
Is it no coincidence:
– that United States and N.A.T.O. forces conducted a large-scale military and intelligence drill in the Black Sea just south of Crimea, named, Sea Breeze 2014, which just so happened to end on 17 July?
- that the drill included hundreds of United States military specialists running ‘war simulations’ in electronic warfare, data collection from a spy satellite, and ‘monitoring’ of all passenger aircraft flying in the region?
Is it also no coincidence that the United States had its new experimental satellite positioned over Eastern Europe for 1-2 hours, and directly over Donetsk in eastern Ukraine from 12.06 p.m. to 12.21 p.m.?
Is it a coincidence that, in the wake of the MH17 disaster, the United States and its N.A.T.O allies have been responding with a renewed call for more military aid to Ukraine and to fast-track the Ukraine’s membership into Washington’s overseas military surrogate, N.A.T.O.?
61. Is it correct that as an emergency response “to secure the crash site”, N.A.T.O. stalwart, the Netherlands, and Australia as ‘an ally’ of the United States were weighing up deploying N.A.T.O. troops into the middle of the war zone in eastern Ukraine ?
62. Is it correct that, following the MH17, the ‘western’ political media machine engaged in an effort to cast Russia and President Putin as international pariah, despite the fact that what has been established thus far is that Ukraine, as well as the United States, the European Union, N.A.T.O., and other ‘Western’ countries, such as Australia, have been systematically and grossly lying about evidence pertaining to the tragedy of MH17, and in the process willfully and bluntly, abuse the tragedy and the demise of the victims and the suffering of their families for perverse political goals related to N.A.T.O. expansionism, anti-Russian hysteria, and patent ‘Russophobia’, in order to support an openly un-democratic regime in Kiev, the objective of which is the deliberate destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure in eastern Ukraine?
63. Is it correct:
– that, immediately after the MH17 crash on 17 July, the Ukrainian authorities quickly uploaded a brief YouTube video it purported to be ‘evidence’ of “a ‘BUK’ missile system being moved” out of a rebel-held area near Donetsk,
– that United States State Department officials, and every American media outlet, led by CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS, along with major American talk radio hosts, immediately took advantage of this 5 second YouTube video claiming it was, “Irrefutable proof that a Russian-made BUK missile system was being moved away after it shot down MH17”, and
– that talking points began to cascade from media, and into public chatter?
64. Is it correct that the Murdoch press, such as the large-circulation The Sun, always seen to be ready to take any pro-war line to the extreme, led the ‘conflict pornography’ on news stands, intentionally inciting fear and jingoism, doing what it always does: nudge the readers of such popular press in a predetermined direction and fuse public opinion among differing classes on divisive international issues?
65. Is it surprising then, that The Sun ran ‘Putin’s missile’ as its headline on 18 July?
66. Is it surprising then:
– that similar covers and headlines were cloned across American and Australian media,
– that, within hours of the news breaking – and despite this blanket coverage, not one of those newspapers, TV or radio broadcasters offered any real evidence outside of anecdotal, scandal-mongering, speculative and conjectural theories?
– that the United Kingdom newspapers quickly aligned themselves with News Corporation?
– that this is what the British press did:
a) Richard Desmond’s Daily Express screamed: PUTIN’S REBELS BLEW UP PLANE.
b) The Daily Mail, which is owned by the conglomerate Daily Mail and General Trust Plc, which is in turn owned by Viscount Rothermere, first-paged: PUTIN’S KILLED MY SON.
c) The Daily Mirror, which is owned by Trinity Mirror Plc, place in first page: PUTIN’S VICTIMS.
d) The Daily Telegraph of the Barclay Brothers said: ‘Russian gangsters killed our loved ones, say British families’.
e) ‘The finger points at Putin’ dared The Independent, which is owned by Independent Newspapers, controlled by Tony O’Reilly an Irish newspaper magnate.
For a few days after the downing, ‘public attention’ had been kept awake by Murdoch sources of ‘information’. In Australia, Fogtel and FauxNews and all the outlets depending on their 70 per cent audience had been very busy in scandalising the tragedy and propagating the much wanted anti-Russian, accusatory purpose.
The rest of the ‘independent’ press kept struggling.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for a long time in the crosshairs of Australian reactionaries and now with an audience slightly over 12-15 per cent, did its best as usual. And so did the multilingual and multicultural Special Broadcasting Service.
But then the daily need to attend to sport rituals took over, and anyway the weeds of mal-information had been sufficiently watered to last – if necessary. The usual, and very influential shock-jocks took over. Later on the dramatic aspects of the downing fell off the page, the air and the screen – as it were. And the fog returned.
67. Is it correct that, according to the report of German pilot and airlines expert Peter Haisenko, the MH17 was not brought down by a missile?
68. Is it correct:
– that the cockpit shows traces of shelling, that one can see the entry and exit holes,
– that the edge of a portion of the holes is bent inwards, and
– that these are the smaller holes, round and clean, showing the entry points most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile?
Would the point better be brought home to incredulous people by the following picture taken sometime before the end of July 2014?
MH17 piece with apparent bullet holes
69. Is it correct that monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported that shrapnel-like holes were found in two separate pieces of the fuselage of the MH17 which was believed to have been downed by a missile in eastern Ukraine?
70. Is it correct that Mr. Michael Bociurkiw of the O.S.C.E. group of monitors at his daily briefing described part of the plane’s fuselage dotted with “shrapnel-like, almost machine gun-like holes”, and that he said that the damage was inspected by Malaysian aviation security officials – as reported in The Wall Street Journal of 31 July 2014?
71. Is it correct:
– that the team of international investigators with O.S.C.E. indicated that they were uncertain if the missile used was fired from the ground as United States military experts have previously suggested, and
– that so much was reported by the Malay Mail online on 25 July 2014 ?
72. Is it correct that all the eyewitnesses interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation, which broadcast on 23 July 2014, confirmed the presence of a Ukrainian military aircraft flying within proximity of MH17 at the time that it was shot down?
73. Is it correct that the shrapnel marks should be distinguished from the small entry and exit holes “most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile” fired from a military aircraft, and that these holes could not have been caused by a missile explosion as hinted by the mainstream media ?
Machine gun like holes
74. Is it correct that a typical SU-25 is equipped with a double-barreled 30-mm gun, type GSh-302 / AO-17A, equipped with: a 250 round magazine of anti-tank incendiary shells and splinter-explosive shells – commonly called ‘dum-dum’ arranged in alternating order?
75. Is it correct that the GSh-302 firing gun operated by an Su-25 is able to fire 3000 rpm which explains the numerous entry and exit holes?
76. Is it correct that one could see that the cockpit of MH17 was evidently been fired at from both sides?
77. Is it correct that, as at 26 July 2014, no investigation appeared to be under way at the crash site, while Dutch and Australian troops remained on standby for deployment to secure the rebel-held site?
78. Is it correct that Australia already had 90 police in Europe ready to deploy and that it was also planning to send troops, while Prime Minister Abbott specified that “This is a humanitarian mission with a clear and simple objective: to bring them home.”?
79. Is it correct that monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that rebels controlling the area were only ready to accept between 25 to 35 members of foreign delegations?
80. Is it correct that the Kiev authorities failed to release transcripts from air traffic control communications which were seized by Ukrainian security services immediately after the incident, although pilots on board an Air India airplane which was flying just 90 seconds behind MH17 say that they heard Ukrainian air traffic control give the order for the doomed plane to change route minutes before MH17 was shot down by a missile?
81. Is it correct that as early as 1 August 2014 some German media were focusing on the presence of one or two Su-25 Ukrainian planes flying near the MH17?
82. Is it correct that there is evidence, coming from a 21 July 2014 briefing by the Russian military, and that such evidence was widely reported by The Wall Street Journal and the Veteran today network?
83. Is it correct that TIME magazine reported outgoing U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Dr. Navi Pillay as saying that “this violation of international law, given the prevailing circumstances, may amount to a war crime. It is imperative that a prompt, thorough, effective, independent and impartial investigation be conducted into this event.” And yet omitted reference to the broad dimensions of the Ukrainian crisis?
84. Is it correct that on 29 July 2014 RT News reported that “Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said [that] Kiev is finally ready for a cease-fire at the MH17 crash site after Russia’s numerous calls . . . [and yet] Kiev continued its military offensive even after the U.N. Security Council urged a halt to fighting in the area [the previous] week.”?
85. Is it correct that, according to RT News, reporting on a Ukrainian press service, President Poroshenko promised, in a phone call with the prime ministers of Australia and the Netherland, that he would declare a unilateral ceasefire for a crash site zone with a 20 kilometres radius, although RT was unable to report a date for the cease-fire to begin, but that Poroshenko said on the phone that Kiev “is making every effort possible to accelerate the international experts’ access of to the crash site.”?
86. Is it correct that on 29 July 2014 nine members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired U.S. intelligence officers organised in 2003 in response to the abuse of intelligence to go to war on Iraq, lamented that similar manipulation and dishonesty were presently occurring in a lengthy letter to President Obama, dealing specifically with the administration’s mishandling of the MH17 shoot-down and explaining in detail why they were “troubled by the amateurish manner in which fuzzy and flimsy evidence has been served up – some of it via ‘social media.’ ”?
87. Is it correct:
– that on 7 August 2014 an article titled ‘MH17: Pockmarks look like from very, very heavy machine gun fire, says first OSCE monitor on-scene’ appeared in The New Straits Times, Malaysia’s flagship English-language newspaper, and accused the Kiev government of downing MH17,
– that the article began by stating that “Intelligence analysts in the United States had already concluded that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by an air-to-air missile, and that the Ukrainian government had had something to do with it.”
– that, given the tightly controlled character of the Malaysian media, it appears that the accusation that Kiev shot down MH17 had the tacit approval of the Malaysian government, and
– that ‘western’ media totally ignored the report?
88. Is it correct:
– that the New Straits Times quoted experts who had said that photographs of the blast fragmentation patterns on the fuselage of the airliner showed two distinct shapes: the shredding pattern associated with a warhead packed with ‘flechettes’, and the more uniform, round-type penetration holes consistent with that of cannon rounds,
– that, to corroborate its statement, the newspaper offered the following photograph where the holes in the wreckage of MH17 are believed to have come from 30mm cannon fire?
89. Is it correct:
– that on 17 July 2014, in a piece expressing the view of its board, The Washington Post editorialised “The world must know whose weapon destroyed a passenger plane” and then proceeded to write
– that “Ukrainian authorities charged that [MH17] had been struck by a missile fired by a Russian-made surface-to-air battery supplied to Moscow’s Ukrainian proxies”,
– that “If the reports are confirmed, the Ukrainian separatists and their sponsors in Moscow will be responsible for a heinous crime. The United States and its allies must insist that those responsible be held accountable – including those in the Kremlin”, and
– that, in an editorial titled ‘Putin’s Latest Escalation – Russia’s support for Ukrainian separatists may lead to a bigger war’, The Wall Street Journal of 17 July 2014 quoted Ukrainian President Poroshenko accusing “Russian staff officers [of] taking part in military operations against Ukrainian forces”, and that it provided no corroborating evidence to accuse President Putin of “attempting to disguise his use of force to achieve his strategic goals . . . “?
90. Is it correct that on 7 August 2014 N.A.T.O.’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed support for Ukraine’s government, saying: “N.A.T.O.’s support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is unwavering. Our partnership is long-standing” to which he added “It’s strong, and in response to Russia’s aggression, N.A.T.O. is working even more closely with Ukraine to reform its armed forces and defence institutions”, accusing Russia of massing troops on Ukraine’s border, shielding “separatists”, and using pretexts for further intervention?
Next installment: Who was behind the MH17 downing?
More reading:
The downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17 (as observed from Australia) – Part 1
* Dr. Venturino Giorgio (George) Venturini has devoted sixty years to the study, practice, teaching, writing and administering of law in four continents. He is the author of eight books and about 100 articles and essays for learned periodicals and conferences. Since his ‘retirement’ Dr. Venturini has been Senior Associate in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash; he is also an Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University, Melbourne. He may be reached at George.Venturini@bigpond.com.
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