"This Country's Going to War" - TTG

Regarding the shoot-down of the Malaysian jetliner on Thursday, I’m [Robert Parry] told that some CIA analysts cite U.S. satellite reconnaissance photos suggesting that the anti-aircraft missile that brought down Flight 17 was fired by Ukrainian troops from a government battery, not by ethnic Russian rebels who have been resisting the regime in Kiev since elected President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown on Feb. 22.

According to a source briefed on the tentative findings, the soldiers manning the battery appeared to be wearing Ukrainian uniforms and may have been drinking, since what looked like beer bottles were scattered around the site. But the source added that the information was still incomplete and the analysts did not rule out the possibility of rebel responsibility. (Consortium News)

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If these serious doubts exist in the IC, why are Obama, Biden, Power and the other usual suspects so cocksure that MH17 was “blown out of the sky” by that devil Putin and the equally evil Novorossiyan rebels? Obviously they are fixing the facts and intelligence around the policy. Where have we heard that before?

For god’s sake, we have five billion invested in this project. We can’t walk away from Nuland’s neocon dream for Ukraine. Can you imagine some poor young imagery analyst being badgered by the R2P harpies to come to the “correct” interpretation of the aerial photos?

Those analysts need top cover from powerful men of honor in our government. They may be few and far between, but it doesn’t take many to make a difference. One or two will do. We haven’t heard from General Martin Dempsey yet. He’s saved us before. General Michael Flynn is short. He might as well go out in a brilliant blaze of honor and glory. Gentlemen, stop the rush to an unnecessary and dangerous war. Make this old soldier proud.

TTG

Comments

[kao_hsien_chih]

Naturally, these madmen (and women) will throw away five billion (lives) for five billion (dollars). All for "democracy" (tm). Some "responsibility to protect."

[trooper]

I agree that it is madness to march towards war with a nuclear superpower over such issues and under such circumstances. Far more realism and pragmatism is warranted for the sake of the average american.

[walrus]

Amen Sir.

[Haralambos]

This might be of interest to some: http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/77282/horrific-video-of-malaysian-air/

[turcopolier]

TTG

Make THESE old soldiers proud. pl

[Anna-Marina]

The conflict is just an unfolding of a profitable plan of "total war." The names of the authors and pushers of the plan are painfully familiar. I tremble for the eventual wave of anti-Zionism; the bloody cowards, these Israel-firsters had crossed all lines.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/18/planned-chaos-in-the-middle-east-and-beyond/

[MRW]

I am speechless.

[Charles Dekle]

Col Lang,
Thank you,sir.
Regards

[Valissa]

"This Country's Going to War"- Duck Soup sequence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyeKYQdYISg

[John Minnerath]

We were at the brink in 62, now here we are, 52 years later with an administration and political extremists pushing us and the world to that line again.
It's beyond comprehension and leaves me numb.

[Charles Dekle]

Col Lang,
Col Jack Jacobs is on MSNBC this morning demanding stronger action from BOH. MHP convientlly left out NATO's march eastward and the NeoCon coupe in Kiev in her preamble to the discussion.
Regards,

[Fred]

TTG,

I second the sentiment sir. Obama, Kerry and the usual suspects aren't the only one's fanning the flames.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/malaysia-airlines-mh17-crash-russia-victims-ukraine

To quote some of the players: "Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said that Putin had "one last chance to show he means to help ...."

"David Cameron called for the EU and the west to change its approach to Russia if Putin does not alter course on Ukraine following the tragedy. The prime minister said: "This is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias, and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action.""

Good thing to know that decade and $5 billion the West spent didn't violate state sovereignty or train any thuggish militia. The rest of the article shows leadership thinking that is even worse. I'm sure if we had an 'expert' investigation team on site they would come up with a bit of metal with "fired by Vladimar Putin" on its side.

Meanwhile in Ann Arbor Michigan tens of thousands of Americans took to the streets.... and not one of them was protesting Russian action in Ukraine or demanding intervention. There was an art show. People went about their weekend oblivious to what is being done in their name. I'm sure they will be glad to wake up Monday knowing we have another war based on slam dunk evidence so we can realize the neocon dream.

[JohnH]

Does anyone remember John Kerry's absolute certainty that Assad gassed his own people eleven months ago?

These fits of hysteria are becoming an annual occurrence among Washington's cocksure chicken hawks.

Or, to use another analogy, it seems that every summer they get bitten by a bat, go mad, foam at the mouth and try to bite everything around them.

[Babak Makkinejad]

TTG

What personally astonished me is the way enemies are picked and declared so publicly in the United States:

Syria, Russia, Iran, China

The cavalier way it is done, with almost zero attention to what war means - it is like France under Bonaparte with a population addicted to victory - it seems.

[Babak Makkinejad]

The Republicans are not any different.

They seem to itch for war as well.

[LUIS]

The data video is 6/6/2014 no Mh17

[Madhu]

I think much of this DC drama is the White House wanting to pressure Europe in to stronger sanctions. They are taking advantage of the terrible airliner incident to create an atmosphere where certain European nations feel pressured. And, like their continued harping on this subject, it has only led to increase militarization and unpredictably dangerous events. The reason to hurry and pin blame is to bring more into the fold. The President has some interesting academic advisors on partial sanctions and pressuring regimes.

[Stanley Henning]

Let’s step back and use a little more reason. This was a horrible incident but Malaysian Air really should have redirected their flight route based on what is going on in the Ukraine. That haveing been said, starting a war among the world’s big boys as a result of this will only result in utter disaster for all on this earth - rather than allowing this to escalate we should step back and focus on improving our emphasis on finding ways to reduce conflict. The Ukraine is a sad little mess and not really worth destroying the world over regardless of who shot the missile.

[r whitman]

All;
We need, on this blog, to seriously examine who the real beneficiaries of these policies are on both sides(I would like to capitalize the word "both" but I know the host of this blog does not care for caps).

I sense a reluctance on the part of the conventional militaries on either side to get involved.

Qui Bono???

[Valissa]

M K Bhadrakumaron makes some interesting observations on the propaganda war regarding the downed Malaysian plane, and on Russian and Iran’s burgeoning relations…

Putin, it’s your payback time http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2014/07/20/putin-its-your-payback-time/

[pbj]

This video is popping up everywhere.

The caption of the video says, in Russian "Above Slavyansk, shot-down AN-30". I.e., different type of plane.

Also if you look closely in the few frames that are in-focus, the wing shape is, arguably, perpendicular from the fuselage, unlike a Boeing 777.

[Babak Makkinejad]

The 2 winners of World War I were: Serbia and Japan.

I do not think we can tell until the dust settles.

[Valissa]

Pepe Escobar shares some damning tweets…

Was it Putin’s Missile? http://rt.com/op-edge/174088-was-it-putin-missile/
A simple search reveals that MH17 was in fact diverted 200km north from the usual flight path taken by Malaysian Airlines in the previous days – and plunged right in the middle of a war zone. Why? What sort of communication had MH17 received from the Kiev air control tower? ...

And then there’s the curiouser and curiouser story of Carlos, the Spanish air traffic controller working at Kiev’s tower, who was following MH17 in real time. For some Carlos is legit - not a cipher; for others, he’s never even worked in Ukraine. Anyway he tweeted like mad. His account – not accidentally – has been shut down and he has disappeared. His friends are now desperately looking for him. I managed to read all his tweets in Spanish when the account was still online. And now copies and an English translation are available.

These are some of his crucial tweets:
“The B777 was escorted by 2 Ukrainian fighter jets minutes before disappearing from radar (5.48pm)”
“If the Kiev authorities want to admit the truth 2 fighter jets were flying very close a few minutes before the incident but did not shoot down the airliner (5.54)”
“As soon as the Malaysia Airlines B777 disappeared the Kiev military authority informed us of the shooting down. How did they know? (6.00)”
"Everything has been recorded on radar. For those that don’t believe it, it was taken down by Kiev; we know that here (in traffic control) and the military air traffic control know it too (7.14)”

From the article above, this link (a technical analysis)…

FINAL – Part II: Evidence Continues to Emerge #MH17 Is a False Flag Operation http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/breaking-part-ii-evidence-continues-to-emerge-mh17-is-a-false-flag-operation/

[Tyler]

One of the monstrous intellectual failings of mainstream conservatism is the inability to conceive as America as anything but "the golden guardian of good".

Its why whenever I see someone going off on a tirade about "Russian media propaganda" I have a laugh. Pat Buchanan pointed out that Putin has more in common with conservative values than anyone in the American Left and got pilloried for it.

[David Habakkuk]

Valissa,

We seem to have been looking at the same places. However, rather than amending the comment I was about to post in the light of yours, it seems sensible simply to post it.

So, here it is:

At the time that the Ghouta atrocity was being generally attributed to the Syrian government, I strongly suspected this was a false flag operation. This was not simply because of the ‘cui bono’ argument pointed in an unambiguous direction, but because claims made by British intelligence sources had an unmistakable whiff of bad fiction about them.

(See http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/425981/Senior-Syrian-military-chiefs-tell-captain-fire-chemicals-or-be-shot .)

As to the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner, it seem to me absolutely clear that at the moment the publicly available evidence does not provide good grounds for accepting any interpretation. It is possible that the actual explanation may not be among those put forward as obvious, but at the moment the frontrunners are clearly

1. that the insurgents had acquired a Buk missile system or systems, either by capturing them from the Ukrainian forces, or because they were supplied by the Russians, successfully used to shoot down a Ukrainian Antonov military transport plane, and then mistook the Malaysian airliner for another Antonov;

2. that this was a ‘false flag’ operation – as the Ghouta atrocity clearly was, and the sniper shootings on the Maidan most probably were. If this was so, it would probably have been organised on the basis of the assumption that the U.S. and European authorities, and the MSM on both continents, have displayed the complete lack of analytical ability and intellectual integrity they have displayed on previous occasions.

My own instinctive inclination is certainly to prefer the second version. However, long experience has taught me to be cautious about believing what one is instinctively predisposed to believe.

That said, the arguments made by Pepe Escobar on ‘Asia Times’ do clearly need an answer:

These are:

1. Why was MH17 diverted 200 kilometers further north from the slight path taken by Malaysian airlines during the previous days – so that it ended up overflying a war zone where a number of planes had been shot down in recent days? Moreover the question becomes more pressing if in fact Western intelligence agencies had information about systems capable of operating at very high altitudes were being supplied by the Russians to the insurgents.

2. Is it correct that the Kiev authorities have not released the Air Traffic Control recording of the tower talking to flight MH17? It is claimed that Malaysia did it after flight MH370 disappeared. Is this claim true? If it is, why is the parallel data not released in relation to flight MH17? Should not anyone with any ounce of intellectual integrity be campaigning for its immediate release?

3. As Escobar brings out, some rather dramatic claims were made in ‘tweets’ by someone claiming to be a Spanish air traffic controller named ‘Carlos’, who it is claimed was working in Kiev at the time.

I am extremely interested in these claims, not because I take for granted that ‘Carlos’ was a real person. It seems to me that there are all kinds of possible explanations. Among these, one which strikes me as not altogether implausible is that ‘Carlos’ may be a conduit for the dissemination of information which is accurate, but was obtained by Russian intelligence by other means.

(For the Escobar article, see http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-190714.htmlv ).