From Consortium News
U.S.–Russian tensions are building in a precarious way over Ukraine, and we are far from certain that your advisers fully appreciate the danger of escalation. The New York Times and other media outlets are treating sensitive issues in dispute as flat-fact, taking their cue from U.S. government sources.
Twelve days after the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, your administration still has issued no coordinated intelligence assessment summarizing what evidence exists to determine who was responsible – much less to convincingly support repeated claims that the plane was downed by a Russian-supplied missile in the hands of Ukrainian separatists.
The United States has been constantly monitoring Russia's border with Ukraine, and regularly releases information about Russian military build up. There is no way they didn't have satellites in orbit that could detect the launch of the Buk missile launcher that destroyed Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. The failure to release any actual evidence beyond (debunked) signals intelligence and social media postings is a red flag, as is the failure to provide an actual intelligence assesment.
Additionally, leaks from the intelligence community reveal that satillite images do exist, and they implicate the Ukranian Army:
After last Thursday’s shoot-down, I was told that U.S. intelligence analysts were examining satellite imagery that showed the crew manning the suspected missile battery wearing what looked like Ukrainian army uniforms, but my source said the analysts were still struggling with whether that essentially destroyed the U.S. government’s case blaming the rebels.
The Los Angeles Times article on Tuesday’s briefing seemed to address the same information this way: “U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 [anti-aircraft missile] was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.”
That statement about a possible “defector” might explain why some analysts thought they saw soldiers in Ukrainian army uniforms tending to the missile battery in eastern Ukraine. But there is another obvious explanation that the U.S. intelligence community seems unwilling to accept: that the missile may have been launched by someone working for the Ukrainian military.
None of this has been reported in the mainstream media, which, just like in the run up to the Iraq war, has suppressed any evidence that goes against the White House's narrative of events.
Furthermore, the Ukranian army is engaged in a brutal campaign in East Ukraine, bombing civilian populations and causing over 100,000 ethnic Russians to flee the country. Indeed, one of the first acts of the new Svoboda dominated Ukranian government was to de-list Russian as one of the country's official languages.
This is barely covered, and even when it is, it's not given the name it should have: ethnic cleansing. Indeed, the phrase "pro-Russian" separatist is a part of this propaganda. The rebels are more than pro-Russian, they are ethnically Russian. But any mention of ethnicity in relation to Eastern Europe automatically brings to mind violence and genocide, so the more euphemistic phrase is used instead.
I/P is finally getting at least some equity, at least in the progressive media. But there isn't the same level of affinity between Palestine and the US. There are many active, involved Palestinian-Americans spreading the words about the barbarity of what Israel is doing to the Occupied Territories; the same is not true for Ukraine.
If this diary is deleted merely because I called a hasbara shill a shill and refused to accept the punishment laid out by this websites administration, Daily Kos will be confirming what is already becoming pretty clear: it is much more concerned with presenting the agenda of the United States Empire in a positive light then getting at the truth.
I want to close with this video of Ukranians in the western part of the country burning their draft cards and refusing to send their young men to die fighting a war that benefits no one except the oligarchs and fascists who have seized control of Ukraine, and neocons in the United States who are desperate to start a New Cold War: