Crisis in the Ukraine

solarz said:

Here's a link to flightradar24:

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You are free to think it's prejudice. Everything can be dismissed as coincidence if you really want to. Others, however, are not so willing to discount the risks.



Hell, I wouldn't fly with them if they *paid* me!

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Quickie said:

Oh no. It's not a matter of being free to see. It's a matter seeing something for exactly what it is.

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solarz said:

To each their own. Continue to defend Malaysia Air if you want, but I suspect they're not going to recover from this.

Anyway, that's the last I will say on this subject.

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delft said:

I'm angry. I just listened to the survey of the British papers on BBC Radio 4 ..... One paper objects to the use of refrigerated rail cars because it is reminded of the rail cars used by Hitler to move people to death camps!!!!!!!!!! The other comments were hardly better.

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What the Media Won’t Report About Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17

Just days after the tragic crash of a Malaysian Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine, Western politicians and media joined together to gain the maximum propaganda value from the disaster. It had to be Russia; it had to be Putin, they said. President Obama held a press conference to claim – even before an investigation – that it was pro-Russian rebels in the region who were responsible. His ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, did the same at the UN Security Council – just one day after the crash!

While western media outlets rush to repeat government propaganda on the event, there are a few things they will not report.

They will not report that the crisis in Ukraine started late last year, when EU and US-supported protesters plotted the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Without US-sponsored “regime change,” it is unlikely that hundreds would have been killed in the unrest that followed. Nor would the Malaysian Airlines crash have happened.

The media has reported that the plane must have been shot down by Russian forces or Russian-backed separatists, because the missile that reportedly brought down the plane was Russian made. But they will not report that the Ukrainian government also uses the exact same Russian-made weapons.

They will not report that the post-coup government in Kiev has, according to OSCE monitors, killed 250 people in the breakaway Lugansk region since June, including 20 killed as government forces bombed the city center the day after the plane crash! Most of these are civilians and together they roughly equal the number killed in the plane crash. By contrast, Russia has killed no one in Ukraine, and the separatists have struck largely military, not civilian, targets.

They will not report that the US has strongly backed the Ukrainian government in these attacks on civilians, which a State Department spokeswoman called “measured and moderate.”

They will not report that neither Russia nor the separatists in eastern Ukraine have anything to gain but everything to lose by shooting down a passenger liner full of civilians.

They will not report that the Ukrainian government has much to gain by pinning the attack on Russia, and that the Ukrainian prime minister has already expressed his pleasure that Russia is being blamed for the attack.

They will not report that the missile that apparently shot down the plane was from a sophisticated surface-to-air missile system that requires a good deal of training that the separatists do not have.

They will not report that the separatists in eastern Ukraine have inflicted considerable losses on the Ukrainian government in the week before the plane was downed.

They will not report how similar this is to last summer’s US claim that the Assad government in Syria had used poison gas against civilians in Ghouta. Assad was also gaining the upper hand in his struggle with US-backed rebels and the US claimed that the attack came from Syrian government positions. Then, US claims led us to the brink of another war in the Middle East. At the last minute public opposition forced Obama to back down – and we have learned since then that US claims about the gas attack were false.

Of course it is entirely possible that the Obama administration and the US media has it right this time, and Russia or the separatists in eastern Ukraine either purposely or inadvertently shot down this aircraft. The real point is, it's very difficult to get accurate information so everybody engages in propaganda. At this point it would be unwise to say the Russians did it, the Ukrainian government did it, or the rebels did it. Is it so hard to simply demand a real investigation?

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But he added: "The more they help each other, the more isolated they become and therefore the more they need to help each other."

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solarz said:

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Wasn't sure whether this belonged here or in the Chinese Geopolitics thread. Decided to put it here because of the article title.

Just a couple of months ago, western media was trying to downplay the China-Russia rapprochement, hyping China's muted response to the Ukraine crisis as a sign of Russia isolation, claiming that Russia was forced into a bad deal on the gas contract (totally false), or even claiming that China was going to annex Siberia (lol!).

Now it seems they can no longer ignore the reality. Still, they can't help but add little gems like these:



ROFL! Oh noes, the first and 3rd largest countries in the world, the 2nd and 8th largest economies, and the greatest military powers after the US, are in danger of becoming isolated by working with each other.

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Russian Military Says Detected Ukrainian Su-25 Fighter Plane Close to MH17 Before Crash
Topic: Malaysia Airlines Boeing Crashes in Ukraine

18:34 21/07/2014
Tags: investigation, Su-25, casualties, MH17, death toll, Malaysia, Ukraine, Russia
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MOSCOW, July 21 (RIA Novosti) - An Ukrainian combat jet was detected in close approach to the Malaysian passenger plane shortly before it crashed in eastern Ukraine killing all 298 people on board, the Russian military said Monday.
“An altitude gain was detected for a Ukrainian combat jet, supposedly a Su-25, flying at a distance of 3-5 kilometers [1.8-3.1 miles] from the Boeing,” Lt. Gen. Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the HQ of Russia’s military forces, told a media conference in Moscow.
The presence of the Ukrainian combat jet can be confirmed by video shots made by the Rostov monitoring center, Kartopolov stated.
The Su-25 (NATO reporting name Frogfoot) ground attack aircraft can hit a target at a distance of five kilometers (3.1 miles) as it’s equipped with air-to-air missiles, the head of the Main Operations Directorate said.
“We would like Kiev to explain why a combat jet was flying almost at the same altitude and the same time with a passenger plane along the route dedicated for civilian air traffic,” the general underlined.
In addition, MH17 crashed within the operating zone of the Ukrainian army’s self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air Buk missile systems, Kartopolov added.
Malaysia Airlines' Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on July 17 near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers on board the airliner died, including 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
Ukrainian government and militia have been trading blame for the alleged downing of the airliner ever since reports suggested foul play, with independence supporters saying they have no required technology to shoot a target at altitude of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).
Commenting on the crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was vital to abstain from hasty conclusions on the case before the international investigation was over.
The UN Security Council late on Sunday night completed the text of its resolution regarding the Malaysia Airlines crash. Russia introduced its own draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for an impartial investigation into the circumstances of the crash.

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Ukraine rebuts Russia, says no warplanes near Malaysian flight: CNN
4:37pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday denied Russia's assertion that a Ukrainian warplane was flying near the downed Malaysian airliner last week, saying Ukrainian planes in the area were on the ground at the time of the crash.
In response to Russian Defense Ministry's statement earlier on Monday that a Ukrainian military plane flew within 3 to 5 km of the Malaysian plane at the time it was downed, Poroshenko told CNN: "My immediate reaction - this is not true."
He said Ukraine was open to any investigation about its planes and that the Russians should provide evidence for such a statement.
Poroshenko also said that at the time of the incident the air space over eastern Ukraine was being monitored by various surveillance systems.
"Everybody knows that in this period of time when the tragedy happened all Ukrainian planes were on the ground (in the area)," he told CNN in an interview.
According to a transcript of the interview posted on his website, Poroshenko also aired the idea of asking the United States to grant Ukraine a special status as a so-called Major Non-NATO Ally, the same status now enjoyed by Israel, Egypt and Australia.
Any beefing up of ties between Kiev and Washington is all but certain to upset Moscow, which sees the former Soviet bloc as its special sphere of influence.
(This story was refiled to fix typo in second paragraph)
(Reporting by David Storey, additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Kiev,; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Larry King)

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