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The Downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 & the New Cold War with Russia

by Prof. Kees van der Pijl

On 17 July 2014, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down over eastern Ukraine, a few minutes before it would have crossed into Russian airspace on its journey from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The incident, killing all on board, occurred six months after Ukrainian ultra-nationalists had seized power in Kiev with Western support, triggering the secession of Crimea and a Russian-Ukrainian insurgency in the Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk provinces).

a piece of the destroyed MH17 lying in a filed in eastern Ukraine


In my forthcoming book Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War. Prism of Disaster (Manchester University Press, June), which will also come out in a German translation with PapyRossa in Cologne and a Portuguese one with Fino Traço publishers in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, I challenge the Western narrative on what happened that day.
Recent events, such as the alleged gas incident in Douma (Syria), the assault of father and daughter Skripal in Salisbury, as well as the accusations of systematic doping of Russian athletes, confirm one of the book’s basic conclusions: Moscow is being accused of misdeeds of all kinds and subjected to sanctions before any serious investigation has occurred to establish its culpability.
In the book I analyse the MH17 catastrophe as a prism that refracts the broader historical context in which it occurred. Its different strands include the capsizing of the European and world balance of power after the collapse of the USSR; the resurrection by the Putin leadership in Moscow of a Russian state and economy strong enough to resist Western direction; the Gazprom-EU energy connection; the civil war in Ukraine that followed the seizure of power of February 2014, and the attempt to turn Russia into an enemy again, legitimising NATO and EU forward pressure and the new Cold War.

source: Vice News


There is no way that the disaster can be understood as an isolated incident, a matter of identifying the immediate causes of the crash, or who gave the order to shoot it down if it was not an accident. The analysis must cast its net much wider, if only because many conclusive details are either missing or shrouded by the fog of the propaganda war that broke out immediately afterwards. Certainly an investigation of the catastrophe cannot remain confined to the forensics or rely on phone taps provided by the intelligence service of a regime in Kiev which, by any standard, should be considered a potential perpetrator.
The first, most comprehensive frame in which to understand the downing of MH17 is the challenge posed to Western global governance by a tentative bloc of large contender states led by China and Russia. Russia is at the heart of a Eurasian alternative to the neoliberal EU, whilst China is the obvious centre of the BRICS countries (the others being Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa). The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, established in 2001, is another of the bloc’s supporting structures.
In the days immediately preceding the downing, the BRICS heads of state, hosted by the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff (since removed by a soft coup staged in May 2016), signed the statute establishing a New Development Bank as a direct challenge to the US and Western-dominated World Bank and IMF. Still in Brazil before flying back to Moscow on the 17th, Russian president Vladimir Putin on the fringes of the football world cup finals also agreed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to pursue a comprehensive Land for Gas deal. Its tentative provisions included normalising the status of Crimea in exchange for a massive economic rehabilitation plan and a gas price rebate for Ukraine.
Russia’s energy resources were key to this deal and, more broadly, to forging a symbiosis with the EU, in particular with Germany and Italy. After the Nordstream pipeline across the Baltic, agreed in 2005 and linking Russia and Germany directly, a South Stream counterpart across the Black Sea was contracted with ENI of Italy in 2007, to be extended through a grid into southern Europe as far as Austria, with German companies involved too. This sort of German-Russian rapprochement goes back to the days of Bismarck and around the turn of the 20th century gave rise to the notion that Anglo-America, the heartland of liberal capitalism and the potentially excluded party from such a rapprochement, should consider its prevention the priority of its European diplomacy. For, by the sheer size of the Eurasian land mass (for which the term ‘heartland’ was coined originally), not to mention the formidable combination that European industry and Russian resources could constitute, unity among the Eurasian states had long appeared threatening to the supremacy of the Anglophone West.
Energy diplomacy likely explains the sanctions the US imposed on Russia following the coup in Kiev, and it may explain why Washington stepped up the level of punitive measures so drastically on 16 July, one day before MH17 was brought down, while the BRICS leaders were still in Brazil and Putin and Merkel agreed to work on a solution to the crisis. However, these sanctions were still to be underwritten by an EU summit and expectations were that this was not going to be smooth sailing, because several EU states balked at the prospect of a further disruption of their gas supply, agricultural exports and other economic links with Russia. These hesitations were only overcome after the catastrophe occurred the next day. The Land for Gas negotiations, too, were immediately terminated. South Stream, already being opposed for violations of EU competition rules, was finally abandoned on 1 December 2014. It was replaced by a tentative agreement with Turkey on an alternative route, but this too was disrupted by the shooting down of a Russian jet over Syria by an F-16 from the NATO air base at Inçirlik in southern Turkey in November 2015. It was only revived after the failed coup against the Erdoğan government in July 2016. Today a Nord Stream 2 pipeline is in the works, again fiercely contested by Washington.
The book situates these events in the context of a struggle of world-historical proportions between two conflicting social orders: the neoliberal capitalism of the West, locked in a crisis caused by speculative finance, yet still hostage to it; versus a state-directed, oligarchic capitalism, and with Europe in between. This struggle is being fought out in Russia’s ‘Near Abroad’, in the Middle East, in the South China Sea, and elsewhere. The downing of one Malaysian Airlines Boeing and the disappearance of another a few months before, both occurred on these front lines.
The MH17 crash over eastern Ukraine, then, is a focal point in how this struggle unfolded and continues to do so.
So what was ‘new’ about the New Cold War in which it occurred?
Here I argue that in the current stand-off with Putin’s Russia, the West operates from a perspective inspired by the mentality of extreme risk-taking that stems from the dominant role of speculative finance in contemporary capitalism. In fact, the post-Soviet space became a testing ground for predatory finance and for the uncompromising authoritarianism that we also see emerging in the West. The financial crisis of 2008 coincided with the first actual test of strength with Russia, when the Bush Jr. administration encouraged Georgia to try and recapture its breakaway province of South Ossetia by force. The European Union was simultaneously trying to commit former Soviet republics to an Eastern Partnership and EU Association, a barely disguised extension of the Euro-Atlantic bloc into the former Soviet space. More specifically it was directed against Moscow’s Eurasian Union project, in which Ukraine, one of the key heavy-industry nodes of the former Soviet Union, figured as well.
In fact Ukraine upon the 1991 break-up of the USSR found itself struggling with the legacy of the enlargement of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1922 and the addition of Crimea to it in 1954, that left the country divided in two different ethno-cultural halves. The Russian-Ukrainian population in the south and east favoured close ties with Russia; the Ukrainian population in the westernmost parts on the other hand had a history of resistance to it. This fault-line was reinforced by the formation of a rapacious, criminal oligarchy, of which the strongest fraction emerged in the south-east and favoured federalism, the constitutional arrangement best suited to accommodate the country’s fragile unity. By 2004, however, society grew restive over the endless plunder amid mass poverty and destitution. In the ‘Orange Revolution’ of that year, protest over election fraud was exploited by lesser oligarchs to try and wrest back control over gas and other economic assets from the billionaires associated with federalism.
The decision of federalist President Yanukovych not to sign the EU Association Agreement in November 2013 sparked another round of demonstrations. For Ukraine, the agreement would have had grave economic consequences, but in the eyes of many, especially the urban middle classes, Yanukovich’s readiness to accept a Russian counteroffer was a missed chance to stop the plunder by the oligarchy, by then including the president’s family.

Viktor Yanukovych


From mid-February 2014, the demonstrations descended into deadly violence, which was later found to have been the work of provocateurs associated with the ultra-nationalist and actual Ukrainian fascists serving as ‘self-defence’ units. When EU foreign ministers rushed to Kiev to mediate and avoid further bloodshed, US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt instead negotiated with the co-founder of the fascist party of independent Ukraine and commander of its militia, Andriy Parubiy, on the modalities of removing Yanukovych by force. After the coup provoked the secession of Crimea and the uprising in the Donbass, Parubiy, put in command of all military and intelligence operations as Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), played a crucial role in the ‘Anti Terrorist Operation’ to bring the rebellious provinces to heel and prevent key cities such as Odessa from joining the uprising.
The West committed itself to the coup regime in Kiev right away and actually identified who should lead the new government (as revealed in the notorious, leaked phone call between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt). The hacked e-mails of NATO commander General Breedlove furthermore reveal that US advisers were directly involved in getting the coup government to respond with maximum force to the uprising in the eastern provinces, on the express supposition that this was the time and place to confront Russia and China. Indeed here we find the documentary evidence of how the larger, geo-economic struggle between the West and the BRICS played out in Ukraine.
The civil war in the east was slow to erupt, but time and again, the forces of compromise, nationally and internationally, were cut off by a distinct war party made up of NATO hard-liners and Ukrainian ultras. Whether the downing of MH17 was a conscious move in this context cannot be established, but there is no doubt that the disaster swept aside all remaining hesitations in Europe to go along with the new round of sanctions on Russia imposed by the US the day before.
From the start, the civil war was portrayed in the West against the background of an alleged Russian intervention in Ukraine and the MH17 catastrophe was seamlessly woven into this narrative. However, the official investigations into the MH17 disaster, formally delegated to the Netherlands, were profoundly compromised by granting the coup government in Kiev a veto over any outcomes, a novelty in history of aviation disaster investigation that was considered shameful even in Ukraine.

Petro Poroshenko & Barack Obama


The immunity from criminal prosecution was granted on 7 August, the day Andriy Parubiy stepped down as NSDC Secretary. Since NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen paid a lightning visit to Kiev that very day, with tanks patrolling the streets, in the book I ask the question whether Rasmussen had come to express support for President Petro Poroshenko and the immunity was the price to ward off another coup.
The narrative of Russian responsibility had meanwhile been floated by the minister of the interior of the coup government in Kiev, Arsen Avakov, and his spokesman, Anton Gerashchenko, right after the downing and it has been confirmed in both the conclusions of the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the criminal investigation by a Joint Investigation Team (JIT). According to the DSB the plane had been downed by a Buk (SA-11) surface-to-air missile hit coming from rebel-held territory; the JIT progress report in September 2016 added that a Buk unit had in fact been transported from Russia, fired a missile and then was transported back.
In the book I contest these findings by pointing to obvious inconsistencies in both the official Buk, and the alternative fighter plane scenarios that have been put forward. Among others, the DSB conclusion that MH17 was brought down by a Russian missile, was based on two tell-tale, bowtie-shaped shrapnel particles found in the plane wreckage, out of the potential 2,500 contained by a missile warhead, of which in tests some 1,500 smash into the plane’s body.
Without claiming to know who, intentionally or by accident, finally pulled the trigger, I see the drama of MH17 as the outcome of Western, mostly US and NATO forward pressure into the former Soviet bloc and the actual USSR. From the Russian angle, the disaster is only one element in a much broader picture covering the coup and the civil war, its more than ten thousand dead and more than a million refugees. Nevertheless, throughout the entire process Moscow, too, has adopted a strange posture that does not inspire confidence. Excluded from both investigations, it has not come up with compelling evidence exculpating itself and/or the insurgents, either. Besides reticence about exposing the true reach and capacity of its satellite and radar intelligence, the explanation for these oblique hints and last-minute revelations can only be that for Moscow there are other priorities in Ukraine and even in its relations with the West than revealing the truth about MH17—just as for the United States and NATO, which have consistently failed to back up any of their claims concerning Russian or insurgent responsibility, geopolitical considerations come first.
Since finishing the book, the aforementioned instances in which Moscow was declared guilty before the facts are in, have further exacerbated an international situation already fraught with grave dangers. Investigating what we do know about these events, in this case the downing of Flight MH17, therefore constitutes a necessary step in trying to defuse what may explode into a far larger conflict.

Prof. Kees van der Pijl is fellow of the Centre for Global Political Economy and Emeritus Professor in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. His book Flight MH17, Ukraine and the new Cold War (Prism of disaster) can be pre-ordered here. This article first appeared on Global Research

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Filed under: empire watch, latest, mh17, Ukraine
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Hanna
Hanna
Jul 5, 2019 10:54 AM

Many thanks for your important work!

Old Pepper
Old Pepper
May 10, 2018 11:40 AM

If anyone remembers, the US military a few days after the incident published on one of their sites satellite image, which depicted the anti-aircraft missile launcher Buk, shot down the Boeing and the soldiers who served this installation. The Americans said that this image is the evidence of the Russia’s guilt.
But after some days one meticulous person determined that the soldiers in the picture are in the Ukrainian uniform and he made the corresponding comment on that military website. After that, the military quickly removed published photo.
Moreover, there is some information that the Ukrainian military shot down Boeing accidentally. They used this aircraft for training to accompany the target with a radar, and the rocket was launched because switch “launch lock” was not turn on before start training.

John Marks
John Marks
May 10, 2018 1:27 AM

Sherlock Holmes would ask who had the motive, means and opportunity?
The Ukraine had the motive, Russia had none.
The Ukraine had the means: air traffic control and the missile system.
The Ukraine had the opportunity as soon as it left Russian territory into airspace controlled from the Ukraine.
Elementary, my dear Watson.

Old Pepper
Old Pepper
May 10, 2018 2:21 PM
Reply to  John Marks

Motive, means and opportunity are essential to establishing the truth.
This type of thinking is in the the deep past.
In the world of George Orwell, where we live now for the Ministry of Truth is important to implant and maintain in the minds of the slaves of the Big Brother the picture, which he wants.

APOL
APOL
May 9, 2018 2:00 PM

A very clued-up former Russian Naval man who lives in the USA and writes on defense matters:
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.ca/
might usefully be read to flesh out some of the (rather flimsy) opinions here regarding current Russian military capability.

vexarb
vexarb
May 9, 2018 7:26 PM
Reply to  APOL

@APOL. Thanks for that

vexarb
vexarb
May 9, 2018 8:16 PM
Reply to  vexarb

@APOL. I mpst have read some of his pieces on the Saker, but to see themall together is a revelation of Russian capability. Especially the Kalibers fr,m the Caspian. I had noticed their effectiveness in Syria, and immediately impressed it on my grandchildren in the IDF, but the author reveals how revolutionary the system really is for naval warfare. He is not giving away Russian military secrets; merely pointing out the teeth of the creature which NATZO has a fancy to attack.

hotrod31
hotrod31
Aug 4, 2019 11:28 AM
Reply to  APOL

Whomever pays the piper, calls the tune …

rilme
rilme
May 9, 2018 1:58 AM

Does anyone remember MH370? Was it just a coincidence that it was this airline that got messed up twice? Which illegal entity is the enemy of Malaysia?

arcanecorvid
arcanecorvid
May 9, 2018 12:33 PM
Reply to  rilme

We did not appreciate the Royal Malaysian Airforce’s recent purchase of 18 state of the art Sukhoi Su-30 multirole combat fighters from our new, old, totally invented by us, enemy – Russia – you see after we out corrupted the Soviet machine late last century we’ve been working abominably hard to remove any geopolitical influence that one sixth of the worlds land mass has… Godammitt
Malaysia…what is that?? is that near the Phillipines or something ??

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 10, 2018 12:55 AM
Reply to  arcanecorvid

Local experts really pissed off our ‘intelligence’ and military elites, who are TOTAL stooges of Thanatopia, by observing that the F 35 Flying Turkeys that we are buying from the USA as a form of tribute to our Imperial Masters, would not really do very well in a conflict with the latest Sukhois.

Jen
Jen
May 10, 2018 3:27 AM
Reply to  rilme

Are you aware of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal and its 2013 decision finding Israel guilty of genocide against Palestinians?
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/tribunal-israel-genocide-key-precedent-711/

hotrod31
hotrod31
Aug 4, 2019 11:32 AM
Reply to  rilme

Perhaps it is ‘the self-appointed’ chosen ones, eh. By deception they wage war.

Big B
Big B
May 8, 2018 10:47 PM

BRIC (without the ‘S’) is less a cohesive bloc: more a cynical capitalist marketing ploy and stalking horse to advance globalisation. That is at least how it was conceived by Jim O’Neil (or Baron O’Neil of Gatley) – former CEO of Goldman Sachs: “In order for globalisation to advance, it had to be accepted by more people … but not by imposing the dominant American social and philosophical beliefs and structures.” The term was first coined in Global Economics Paper No: 66 – “The World Needs Better Economic BRICs”. It may have taken on a life of its own; but “anti-imperialist”, “anti-Rothschilds” it ain’t …neoliberal, extractive and exploitative it is. And all the people that stand vilified as the dark forces behind imperial capitalism are the same dark forces the also benefit from ‘anti-imperial’ (sub-imperial) capitalsim.
Nor do the internet CT’s and false dialectic hopium stand much scrutiny. Three of the bloc are under IMF ‘conditionalities’; so any capital venture they undertake will have to be signed off by the IMF. Two of the bloc had to break off from border clashes to sit down at the last Summit in Xiamen. Modi boycotted the BRI summit and there are inherent tensions over India, China and Pakistani relations. The deeper one drills down into it: idea that they form a serious alternative to imperialism is fair bunkum. No one is going to take it from me, so I urge people to do their own research. The idea that we would resist the advance of globalism in the Western hemisphere; only to welcome it as it rises in the East… I don’t get it. I urge everyone to critique sub-imperial Tianxia globalism from an anti-capitalist POV. For this I recommend http://www.jacana.co.za/downloads/submaterial/0.%202015/SUB_2_1_MARCH/AIs/D1_BRICS_AI.pdf.
Unless you actually want ‘Global Economic Governance’ and a ‘New Economic Order’ under the aegis of the IMF, World Bank, UN, and WTO ‘rules based international order’. To me, that would equate to the death of the human spirit …and pretty much everything else as well. 🙁
[As the fella said the other day, just add ‘http’]
s://www.corbettreport.com/phoney-opposition-the-truth-about-the-brics/
s://steemit.com/china/@corbettreport/the-petroyuan-was-born-this-week-here-s-what-it-means
s://www.globalresearch.ca/brics-and-the-fiction-of-de-dollarization/5441301
://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/04/c_136583396_2.htm
s://www.ft.com/content/112ca932-00ab-11df-ae8d-00144feabdc0
s://www.globalresearch.ca/divisive-geopolitics-brics-xiamen-summit-doomed-by-centrifugal-economics/5606475
s://www.globalresearch.ca/the-brics-new-development-bank-meets-in-delhi-to-dash-green-developmental-hopes/5582283

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:16 PM
Reply to  Big B

BRICS- Brazil back under US control thanks to ‘judges’ trained in the USA, no doubt CIA assets, and who confected charges against Lula out of thin air. Plus legislative corruption of fantastic proportions to bring down the ineffectual Dilmah, and open threats of a coup by military thugs trained-where else for potential death-squad Bosses?-the USA. Gone.
India, run by an open Hindutva fascist, Modi, controlled by the USA and Israel, pissing on the Palestinians after decades of firm Indian support, while kissing Bibi’s arse. Hindutva mobs are running amuk, killing Moslems, journalists, lower caste, including raped children, with impunity, but India is ‘on board’ with the coming war on China, so they’re ‘good guys’, now. GONE. South Africa. Just gone. Russia and China need to rely on each other, only.

vexarb
vexarb
May 9, 2018 5:27 AM

@BigB & Mulga. I agree with both of you. Meanwhile Russia, Syria, Lebanon, China and a few more are more on the side of Truth and Justice than against it. Just as Britain was more on the side of Truth and Justice during WW2 and for a few decades after.
In the end, God judges each one of us as a person not a country.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 9, 2018 5:43 AM
Reply to  vexarb

The UK was only the (slightly) lesser Evil during WW2. During the war, Churchill killed six to ten million Bengalis in a deliberate famine, while food was being exported from there to England, only slightly behind, or not, the death-toll in the Nazi camps.

Tony M
Tony M
May 9, 2018 11:45 AM

With a precedent in Ireland in the 19thC, where there was no famine as such, as meat, grain, dairy products and so on were being exported in bulk to England at unprecedented levels, whilst millions were literally starved to death.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 10, 2018 12:58 AM
Reply to  Tony M

Standard Operating Procedure. The English ravaged India with a series of Great Famines in the 18th and 19th centuries, and when the unnecessary suffering and death toll caused outrage among ‘do-gooders’ in England, the colonial authorities introduced a rations for labour scheme where the caloric content of the rations was LESS than the Nazis gave their slave workers at Belsen.

Jen
Jen
May 9, 2018 12:25 PM
Reply to  vexarb

“… Just as Britain was more on the side of Truth and Justice during WW2 and for a few decades after …”
Erm, just a decade or so after WW2, Britain was running concentration camps in Kenya to house and torture pro-independence activists and supporters during the Mau Mau Uprising.
Police officer Ian Henderson who served during the Mau Mau revolt and was rewarded by the British government for helping to suppress the uprising later became head of security in Bahrain, then a British colony, in 1966. Henderson held this position for over 30 years, during which time Bahrain became independent. During his time there, torture became part of the culture of the country’s security services.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10011292/Ian-Henderson.htm
Sorry to puncture your comment like this.

vexarb
vexarb
May 9, 2018 4:42 PM
Reply to  Jen

@Jen. On the contrary, I appreciate somebody telling me the the truth about something that I read about in my clueless youth. So frivolous that I remember only two items from my South African newspapers:

1. The Masai are brave warriors but the Kikuyu are cowardly.
2.  Daddy wouldn't buy me a Mau Mau / A Mau Mau / I've got a little cat / And I'm very fond of that / But I'd rather have a Mau Mau Mau.

So thank you. The truth now appears to be as Mulga says above; we were only a shade more on the side of right than the Germans. I met an Arab Jew who thought we were worse than the Germans: Britain destroyed his ancestral home (in Baghdad) and turned his family into exiles by setting up Israel and supporting its “aventures”. Being a young Christian Zionist I was aghast at his words; but I can now understand why this is a not uncommon view in the ME. As conquerors we have been, in the words of Catherine the Great, “been writing our Law on their flesh” from 1914 to the present day; the Germans may have been doing worse but they were doing it elsewhere.

USAma Bin Laden
USAma Bin Laden
May 9, 2018 7:58 PM
Reply to  Big B

You are beating a dead horse.
BRICS is dead in all but name. India, Brazil, and South Africa have been subjugated by the Anglo-Americans thanks to Anglo-instigated coup d’etats or geopolitical bribes.
Russia and China are next in the crosshairs of the Anglo American Empire and its so-called “globalist” (i.e. Anglo -Zionist) world order.
This has been a long-time coming dating back to Obama.
Obama prepares to smash BRICS during his last few years in office
https://www.strategic-culture.org/pview/2014/05/05/obama-prepares-smash-brics-during-his-last-few-years-office.html
The Anglo Americans and their Zionist allies will tolerate no opposition.
All nations must be brought to heel and assimilated into this Anglo Zionist World Order, either through military threats or slow subversion–all justified by the greatest of deceptions, freedom and democracy.

Schlüter
Schlüter
May 8, 2018 8:15 PM

And there might even be more to it. See the end of this article:
„Ebola: Pandora´s Box Opened Since Long?“ http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/ebola-pandoras-box-opened-since-long/
Regards

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:18 PM
Reply to  Schlüter

I’ve been waiting for the next Ebola (new and improved!) outbreak for quite some time. Bio-warfare will certainly be the Thanatopian devil regime’s choice for the ‘Great Culling’ to come. Soon.

John Gilberts
John Gilberts
May 8, 2018 6:46 PM

Some analysts who know much about Russia, such as John Helmer, don’t care for what seems to be occurring there now…
Russia’s New Government Puts Thinking Cap On To Make Breakthrough in Spinelessness
http://johnhelmer.net/russias-new-government-puts-thinking-cap-on-to-make-breakthrough-in-spinelessness/#more-19156

Catte
Catte
May 8, 2018 7:34 PM
Reply to  John Gilberts

As I’ve mentioned before, Helmer isn’t as plugged in to either the Kremlin or the Russian psyche as he seems to believe. A wholesale flip to accommodate the West is pretty much unthinkable without a palace coup and would mean the destruction of Russia in a very short time. Not sure Helmer really understands what the game is about any more.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 10:19 PM
Reply to  Catte

It’s not about “accomodating the West” – it’s about working with Israel against the West.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:23 PM

Why would Israel seek to destroy property that it controls?

rilme
rilme
May 9, 2018 1:44 AM

In some respects, the attitude of the “is” resembles that of the USer: “The Pacific Ocean? What the heck, let’s play safe and bomb it anyway.” (on a T-shirt).
Turbonegro elucidates:

summitflyer
summitflyer
May 8, 2018 5:30 PM

The very first test or question in any serious investigation is Cui Bono ,who benefits ? What or how would Russia possibly have benefited from such an act as shooting down an aircraft of civilians .Anyone out there care to give me some examples ? The next question would be who would benefit in East Ukraine or West Ukraine .Why have we not been informed properly is probably because it suits the West very much to keep blaming Russia for everything that can be painted negative in world events .It is really getting old already.

tomlondra
tomlondra
May 8, 2018 5:34 PM
Reply to  summitflyer

It seems likely that whoever shot the Buk missible at the aircraft didn’t know that it was a civilian aircraft travelling through (contested) Ukrainian airspace. I can’t believe for one minute that had they known what it was, they would have shot it down.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:29 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

It was knowingly destroyed by Nazi thugs who ENJOY killing. Have you been asleep the last seventy years or so?

Jen
Jen
May 8, 2018 11:57 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

Dear Tom,
The operators of the BUK missile delivery system who shot the SA-11 missile are organised in a structure of teams. One team tracks the target on radar and tells the other teams to lock on the target on their radars. Only when the other teams have locked onto the target on their radars can the launcher vehicle shoot the missile. The system is designed in such a way that, uh, a group of rogue soldiers cannot just steal the launcher vehicle with a battery of SA-11 missiles and operate it themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system
Assuming that Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down by an SA-11 missile launched by a BUK missile delivery system (note the careful wording – the missile is not a BUK missile), you would have to conclude that whoever shot the plane down knew what the target was and had been following it for quite a while. Bear in mind the target (a Boeing 777) was travelling at an altitude of 10,000 metres and would have been capable of cruising at 905 km/h at that height: not such an easy target to hit accidentally.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 6:08 PM
Reply to  summitflyer

Why do you presume that they knew it was a civilian aircraft?
If it was less organised Pro-Ukrainian or Pro-Russian “rebels” or “militia” then they would be unlikely to be able to know whether it was civilian or not due to the lack of surveillance or radar tech.
So in this case “cui bono?” Really misses the point. Accidents DO actually happen.

tomlondra
tomlondra
May 8, 2018 6:18 PM

You should have read my post more carefully. I said “It seems likely that (they) didn’t know that it was a civilian aircraft.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 6:33 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

I was replying to Summitflyer

summitflyer
summitflyer
May 13, 2018 12:43 PM

I don’t buy the accident scenario.If it was an accident ,why keep it from the public ? If it was an accident who made the mistake?
Why were there 2 jet fighters shown on the radar by the Russian air command ? Were they accidentally in the vicinity just having a joy ride ?

Admin
Admin
May 8, 2018 6:34 PM

The way a BUK system works you can’t just aim and fire. Nor can you use it without a great deal of prior training and co-ordination. If a BUK shot down MH17 it was done almost certainly intentionally by a squad of trained operatives who knew what their target was.

Thomas Peterson
Thomas Peterson
May 9, 2018 10:41 AM

The Buk comes with an electro optical sensor that can detect the engine signatures of civilian airliners

arcanecorvid
arcanecorvid
May 9, 2018 1:27 PM

It also comes with ‘call and response’ so it cannot shoot a friendly

sallysdad
sallysdad
May 13, 2018 8:40 PM

I don`t agree with you on that point. I can pull out my average 10×50 binoculars on any clear day and determine if a high flying plane is civilian or not. The large airliners leaving North America going to Europe are very obvious here flying over Newfoundland. Assuming it was a clear sky of course.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:27 PM
Reply to  summitflyer

The nature of the suspects comes into it, too. On one side you have serial killers who have committed one genocide, one aggression, and millions of individual murders, after another, over several centuries, and their latest favourites, Nazi thugs who seized power in a violent coup and immediately committed massacres at Odessa and in eastern Ukraine. On the other you have the victims of Western aggression since 1917. Easy choice, really, for everybody but a brainwashed Western prole.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 12:07 PM

There is no binary “good” or “bad” choice in politics. That’s just the blunt truth.
The people with money at the top control BOTH sides. As they always have.

John Marks
John Marks
May 10, 2018 12:47 AM

Yes, Google Program: when all else fails, muddy the waters.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 4:26 PM

Russia potentially helping Israel backdoor the SAM systems it sold the Syrian government?
https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Report-Iran-accuses-Russia-of-giving-Israel-codes-for-Syrian-air-defenses-484777

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:30 PM

Jpost, eh?

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 11:49 AM

The source is a Kuwati journalist’s conversation with a Iranian military man.
I wouldn’t take it as 100% confirmed or anything as it is 2nd hand information but the source is a Kuwati paper and not JPost journalists.

vexarb
vexarb
May 9, 2018 7:40 PM

Kuwait is like Saudi Arabia: a wholly owned Rothschild company masquerading as an Arab sheikdom.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 3:36 PM

https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/78372/bin-exclusive-sanhedrin-asks-putin-trump-build-third-temple-jerusalem/
Sanhedrin ask Putin and Trump to build the 3rd Temple in Jerusalem.
“Putin chose to look to Chabad as the Jewish leadership of Russia, not because he knew about them, but because they helped him in 2000…..It’s a strategic alliance — political and economic. The Kremlin has encouraged Jewish businessmen in Russia’s provinces to give funds to Chabad.”
Professor Michael Chlenov (Secretary-General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress) – https://www.timesofisrael.com/back-in-the-ussr/
So Putin was helped into power by Chabad in 2000 and still has strong links to Chabad – particularly Chabad associated oligarchs like Leviev.
This is the same Chabad that sends loads of money to far-right Israeli settlers and far-right parties like “Jewish Home” who make genocidal statements frequently…
http://www.collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=33661&alias=rohr-gutnick-back-politicians
What is Putin REALLY up to in the Middle East?

vexarb
vexarb
May 8, 2018 3:53 PM

@Talpiot: “What is Putin REALLY up to in the Middle East?”
Dunno. He plays chess; I can barely play draughts.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 4:00 PM
Reply to  vexarb

So 666D chess then?
So why is he so buddy with Netanyahu?

vexarb
vexarb
May 8, 2018 4:08 PM

Uncle $am is looking a bit skint; time to buddy up to Uncle Boris from the Old Country who is looking a bit flush?

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 4:33 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Russia isn’t really flush at all especially in comparison to the US.
I mean their GDP is still lower than Italy and GDP per capita lower than countries like Lebanon! The economic growth that Russia previously had is really waning under the sanctions applied.
Russia is a large and important market for Israeli military tech and security tech. With European and US sanctions on Russia (that Israel never has participated in) Israel has a great chance to take that market for itself.
Trade is going up significantly between the countries: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-trade-with-russia-leaps-by-25/
Basically Israel is doing this since it’s power in the US is so huge that it can almost do whatever it wants even if it goes against US interests.
With Russia you have Putin who is more of a co-conspirator or high-level gangster than a puppet. He makes sure he gets his direct cut no matter what.

kayaboosha
kayaboosha
May 8, 2018 6:55 PM

The US is flush? Yes, don’t worry about the 22 trillion dollars of debt, that’s inconsequential, right?

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 7:10 PM
Reply to  kayaboosha

The debt doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as GDP, GDP per capita or military budgets in terms of the current projection of power.

Admin
Admin
May 8, 2018 7:21 PM

Why is an inflated GDP based solely on debt and on fiat money preferable to a less inflated GDP based on manufacturing and export?

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 10:23 PM
Reply to  Admin

Because it allows you to buy power in the here and now. Far more advanced military and other tech in the here and now.
Especially since Russia’s GDP is many times lower than that of the US.
Also the US GDP is not based “solely on debt and on fiat money” – that’s hyperbole.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:38 PM

US GNP is inflated by the US petro-dollar. On PPP terms China’s economy is vastly bigger than the USA’s already. Moreover, debt does matter, and the USA is drowning in so much debt that it cannot raise interest rates at all, without detonating numerous asset bubbles blown up since 1987. Furthermore much of the US economy now is the rentier parasitism of the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate)apparatuses. And the social and material infrastructure of the USA is crumbling, male mortality is growing, male life expectancy falling, drug epidemics raging, suicide surpassing car accidents as the leading cause of adult middle-aged, premature deaths etc, etc, Nothing much more than a banana Republic but armed to the teeth to murder and intimidate the rest of humanity.

Toby
Toby
May 9, 2018 7:10 AM

It is economic growth that determines the lifespan of a fiat-money system. This means that any economy anywhere that runs debt-based money requires GDP growth ad infinitum. If we want an economics that knows how to run countries on steady-state-growth principles, we (humanity) need a very different money system. As BigB hints at above, the BRICS countries are joined at the hip to the West by their money systems. The reason they may seem more financially sound than the US is that they have more room for economic growth.

Big B
Big B
May 9, 2018 9:21 AM
Reply to  Toby

Actually, Toby, if you look at Patrick Bonds work: BRICS are tanking. Three of them are technically bust, China’s economic slowdown can only be remediated by exporting their various overproductions – moving to post-industrialisation and financialisation. There is really only Russia with the internal hinterland to allow economic expansion (plus, they just happen to have a surfeit of just about every material resource, including labour, that they could need …a form of economic neo-self sufficiency they have been forced by sanction to develop {away from Dutch Disease that was the Achilles Heel of the FSU}).
IMO, progressive thinking should be geared toward World Systems thinking, not the constituent countries. We have a self-organised networked global economy that is systemically fragile* and headed for a ‘Minsky Moment’ (supercrisis). The World System catastrophically failed and ended with the GFC. A few ‘dead cat bounces’ do not constitute a recovery. Re-investment in the cause (neoliberal globalisation) as the posited solution bankrupts the worldview of all who share it. Essentially, the ‘lifeworld’ (consensual belief system) of both the superclass, global elite, their administrators AND the ‘consensual collective constituency’ of the global bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie (AND much of the excluded global proletariat and lumpenproletariat) are ALL collectively hallucinating an increasingly synthesised worldview. The world of infinite exponential growth does not, and cannot exist.
The political economy we witness and comment on every day, is a world of fantasy politics. Rather than get drawn into the simulation (which by no means negates the fact that it is a fantasy that kills on a minute by minute basis …and may yet kill us all) progressive thought should maybe concentrate on building the much denigrated (by fantasists) reality based community; and positing the post-capitalism, post-carbon world we will soon inherit (when reality pops unrealities bubble). That is, if the fantasy leaves anything other than scorched earth or nuclear ash to inherit!
Jack Rasmus has just published a comprehensive book and five part series on systemic fragility:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/systemic-fragility-in-the-global-economy-2/5635479
Human scale recovery is the only survivability tactic there is: that or barbarism?

Toby
Toby
May 9, 2018 10:03 AM
Reply to  Toby

[Replying to BigB – his comment shows no “Reply” button to me.]
Thanks for those references, BigB!
My position is that economic growth is a neutral thing rather than an absolute good. There are situations where it is helpful and situations where it is unhelpful. Right now, and generally, we have to be extremely careful about where we think more economic growth is needed because we are burning through the planet’s capacity to cope with our collective rapacity faster than it can keep up. So yes, a systems view taking in the planet as a whole is sorely needed in economics generally. And I doubt that the definitions of value, profit and wealth that currently undergird orthodox economics will survive its subjection to systems thinking.
In other words, my comment was couched, very narrowly, within the parameters of Western GDP vs. BRICS GDP. From a broader perspective, why are we still using GDP as a barometer of health/wealth at all?

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 9, 2018 10:53 AM
Reply to  Toby

BigB (below) I’m afraid you seem not to understand The Law of Large Numbers. NO economy can grow at 10% forever, because the yearly increment would soon require all the world’s resources, as the base grows from year to year. So China’s economy MUST fall from 10% growth, and later from the current 6.5%. In any case, the Chinese are working on creating an ‘Ecological Civilization’ which will hopefully, not encompass the neoplastic obsession with infinite growth on a finite planet. Indeed Adam Smith, Ricardo and JS Mill all envisaged economic growth only until everyone enjoyed a decent sufficiency of material goods, after which humanity could concentrate on its ethical, cultural and spiritual development. Ain’t that quaint?

Toby
Toby
May 9, 2018 11:17 AM
Reply to  Toby

[@MulgaM.]
Indeed. Even 1% growth is unsustainable. If memory servers, 10% growth = 7-year doubling time, 1% = 70-year doubling time. I would be amazed if Big B didn’t know this.
For the record, are you a statist by orientation? You appear to be pro Russia and China in their current constitutions. Apologies if I am misreading some of your posts…

BigB
BigB
May 9, 2018 11:58 AM
Reply to  Toby

(Replying to Toby) we know exactly which countries need to grow, and which ones need to degrow …broadly on a global North/South divide. The developed OECD countries have a crisis of distribution that is only exacerbated by neo-colonialism and sub-imperialism. Professor Bond focuses on what imperial and sub-imperial exploitation actually looks like in the new “scramble for Africa” …something other than an “Ecological Civilisation” and reciprocal development.
So, yes: we need a new model of distributive justice; a new lexicon of ecological economic terms and definitions; a new focus on Gini Coefficient spiritual well-being …we need a whole new paradigm!
(Replying to Mulga ) China’s stall has lots of factors: not just numbers. Overproduction and internal overdevelopment are key, overindebtedness, biophysical restrictions – both home and abroad – affecting their debt-fuelled, export orientated growth. If you switch to a world systems view: and remove China’s fictitious growth – the world economy is dead. Only no one can admit it. Time for a new economy, one that includes an economy of human scale. I think we have already established that our visions of an “Ecological Civilisation” are in fact worlds apart?

BigB
BigB
May 9, 2018 12:05 PM
Reply to  Toby

Thanks Toby: maths is not my strongpoint …but I do understand the exponential function. A 3% growth is a 33 year doubling of the economy …and a 66 year re-doubling (4X original). I’m just amazed no political idelogue anywhere understands the ramifications… or pretends not to! 😉

BigB
BigB
May 9, 2018 1:03 PM
Reply to  Toby

Has anyone considered the 66 year re-doubling with only 40 years of oil? What about the 99 year eight times present consumption and materialism? Anyone got a couple of new planets we can cannibalise for the supreme surviving ubercapitalist overlord? Not a world I want for our great-grandchildren.

Toby
Toby
May 9, 2018 2:48 PM
Reply to  Toby

Actually, it’s worse than that, BigB:
https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Doubling-Time
3% growth: 70/3 = 23.333 years doubling time, so approx. 47 years re-doubling time with 40 years of goodish-EROEI oil left. If, that is, abiotic theory is incorrect, in which case it’s worse, really, as then exponential growth would continue to appear ‘possible’ for a lot longer …
Assuming climate change doesn’t wreck the illusion first.

BigB
BigB
May 9, 2018 11:51 PM

Toby: told you maths wasn’t my strong point! Abiotic oil is political fantasy as Ugo Bardi points out:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-10-03/abiotic-oil-science-or-politics/

archie1954
archie1954
May 8, 2018 9:32 PM

Evidence please! Everything Putin says in public points to a man who is Russian to the core and dedicated to seeing it back to good economic health without surrendering to American imperialism.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 10:57 PM
Reply to  archie1954

It’s not very smart to judge politicians by what they say rather than their actions.
Russia and Israel’s mutually beneficial actions of the last 8 or so years are enough to prove that they are working closely together.
However here are some statements from Putin himself:
“Russia and Israel have developed a special relationship primarily because 1.5 million Israeli citizens come from the former Soviet Union, they speak the Russian language, are the bearers of Russian culture, Russian mentality. They maintain relations with their relatives and friends in Russia, and this make the interstate relations very special.” – http://tass.com/politics/862850
“I support the struggle of Israel” – https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182754#.ViRL336rTIU
“Russia and Israel have special relations, I believe. The Soviet Union was one of the founders of the state of Israel, when as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, in the post-war period, it actively supported the creation of the state of Israel. Later, during the cold war, everyone knows how relations between the countries developed, and these relations were not to the benefit of Israel or the Soviet Union, in my opinion.
Israel has – I won’t try to give precise figures, you probably know this better than I do – but I think that 25% of its population is Russian-speaking. And in this sense, Israel is almost a Russian-speaking country. I have had the opportunity to see this for myself, when I visited your country. And what was mostly striking for me, and made quite a strong emotional impression on me, was that the Russian-speaking population of Israel, at least it seemed so to me, try in their vast majority to maintain their Russian culture and Russian language. This creates a special charm in relations between our countries and is a good basis for developing intergovernmental ties. We are watching very closely how the situation is developing in the region and in the country itself; we have enormous respect for the achievements of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
I have already said that when I visited Israel, I had a chance to travel around the country. I even spent the night at a kibbutz, and was able to feel how people live there, how they think and what worries them. I was particularly impressed by monuments to victims of the Holocaust. And this memory of the victims of the Second World War also unites us.” – http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/by-date/20.04.2005
Also when Putin mentions the backers of Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria he never actually mentions Israel does he?
It’s always the Gulf States or the US or “the West”. Even though Israel has been caught red-handed helping those groups a number of times.
Also when has Putin pubically called out Israel’s airstrikes on Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria?
He doesn’t as it is part of his deal with Netanyahu to allow Israel to do that if it feels threatened!

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:32 PM

Only six down votes for this disinfo tripe?

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 9:18 AM

What exactly is “disinfo” about this?
I’m quoting sources the whole way through.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 9, 2018 10:55 AM

Garbage sources, garbage conclusions therefrom-in my opinion only, of course.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 11:58 AM

That’s because you seem reflexively pro-Putin to an absurd extent and are clearly ignoring Putin’s Chabad connections or Russia’s alignment with Israel.
None of the sources are “garbage” really. I’m quoting publically available economic data and Putin’s own words.
You seem to be just focusing on the fact that this is in the Israeli press which is the whole point. You won’t get this information in the US press (because makes Israel look bad) or in the “alternative media” (since they want to make out that Russia is anti-Israel).

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 9, 2018 5:46 AM

Putin is a high-level gangster, says the very low level gangster.

Jen
Jen
May 9, 2018 7:29 AM

I suppose if Putin had visited Syria, met Bashar al Assad and made the same announcements (substituting the Syrian President’s name for Netanyahu’s name), and someone had posted those announcements here at Off-Guardian as proof of close relationships between Russia and Syria, our friend Google Talpiot Program would have dismissed them all as cherry-picking.
Plus that comment GTP makes is contradictory: s/he claims we are not smart to judge politicians by their statements, yet proceeds to do precisely that.
That Russia and Israel may have engaged in mutually beneficial actions in some spheres (trade, cultural) for a number of years is not in itself evidence of a close working relationship in others.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 9:24 AM
Reply to  Jen

“I suppose if Putin had visited Syria, met Bashar al Assad and made the same announcements (substituting the Syrian President’s name for Netanyahu’s name), and someone had posted those announcements here at Off-Guardian as proof of close relationships between Russia and Syria, our friend Google Talpiot Program would have dismissed them all as cherry-picking.”
No, I wouldn’t. You are misunderstanding what I am saying here. I’m not saying Russia doesn’t work with the Syrian government. Of course they do they have multiple strategic reasons for doing so such as their navy base or potential oil/gas pipeline logistics.
What I am saying is that Russia clearly works with Israel as well and in the realm of military tech. In many ways Russias’ relationship with Israel is more important to it than it’s relationship with Syria. Russia-Israel relations are more even as Israel is a much stronger country than Syria. Russia-Syria relations are more one-sided with Russia wielding all the meaningful power.
“Plus that comment GTP makes is contradictory: s/he claims we are not smart to judge politicians by their statements, yet proceeds to do precisely that.”
No, it’s not. My position is just politicians by their actions BUT if you are already going to judge Putin by his statements then be made aware that his statements are often highly pro-Israel – you just don’t see those kind of statements in the “alternative” media as they have a desire to push the “Putin is fighting against the NWO” disinfo.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 9, 2018 10:59 AM
Reply to  Jen

Maybe Putin prefers peaceful relations with as many states as possible, particularly one with so many Russian born citizens. I know its more ‘moral’ to threaten, bully, subvert, sanction or invade other states, as the US is so very expert in doing, but perhaps Putin is cut from a different cloth. I believe his refusal, a while ago, to give in to demands from Nutty yahoo, during a meeting in Sochi, sent Bibi into a carpet-chewing funk.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 12:04 PM

There is no evidence that Putin and Netanyahu had a huge disagreement at Sochi.
All of Russia’s actions in Syria since then such as letting Israel continually hit Hezbollah and Iranian targets (even Syrian government ones too) without saying or doing anything about that proves that wrong really.
Also the Russian-Jewish oligarchs that Putin aligned himself with (since the start of this rule) are almost to a man Chabad lovers i.e. big funders and fans of an ultra-racist minority Jewish cult that’s heavily involved in organised crime.
Chabad (and Putin’s buddies) are some of the biggest funders of Israeli settlers, political parties to the right of Likud and the Technion where Israel is attempting to become the masters of the internet, AI, robotics, etc.

Jen
Jen
May 10, 2018 12:27 AM

If Russia and Israel work together and appear to have a good working relationship, that would be no more and no less than what would be expected of nations in dealing with one another in a world where international laws and conventions are respected and adhered to. Alas, we do not live in such a world.
Quoting Israel news media sources and selected articles from sources such as TASS is of no help in your argument. As an Australian, I know that Australian news media like to exaggerate the extent of Australia’s importance to the US to make Australians feel good and think Australia punches above its weight in global affairs. Why would Israeli news media not resort to exaggerating the extent of Israel’s importance to the US, to Russia or to any other major global power, to get people’s attention and lure them to their advertising sponsors, and at the same time encourage Israelis to feel secure and good about their nation’s future? Likewise, only quoting those official statements of Putin’s that suggest a warm personal relationship with Netanyahu or the Israeli government is just cherry-picking.

vexarb
vexarb
May 9, 2018 5:09 PM

@Mulga. I share your view that Pres.Putin is a builder and a constructive peacemaker — hence his maddeningly calm reference to FUKZUSA as “our partners”. I wish there were more of that gentlemanly attitude in today’s world; like the old English Parliamentary “Honourable gentleman of the Opposition”. But Talpiot makes some good points, and I have made the same points to my pro-Syrian friends: Putin is a good man, you can trust him when he says he will help you — but he cannot fight your battles for you; and he will not come to your help until he has seen that you can help help yourself.

vexarb
vexarb
May 9, 2018 8:47 PM

@APOL. I mpst have read some of his pieces on the Saker, but to see themall together is a revelation of Russian capability. Especially the Kalibers fr,m the Caspian. I had noticed their effectiveness in Syria, and immediately impressed it on my grandchildren in the IDF, but the author reveals how revolutionary the system really is for naval warfare. He is not giving away Russian military secrets; merely pointing out the teeth of the creature which NATZO has a fancy to attack.

vexarb
vexarb
May 9, 2018 9:03 PM

Talpiot: “”Russia is a large and important market for Israel….”
In other words Russia is flush and Israel is selling. Like I said. And like you said, there is a top gangster gets his cut of the money coming in — probably has his 10% redirected to a foreign bank account before it reaches Ha’Aretz.

Jen
Jen
May 10, 2018 12:32 AM
Reply to  vexarb

I’m beginning to suspect that GTP shares an IP address with a Venezuelan guy who used to visit Off-Guardian quite a lot and whose Reddit tag is #DownWithAssad?

vexarb
vexarb
May 8, 2018 7:50 PM

Also Talpiot supplied another good reason to be best buddies: “Russia buys all its drones from Israel”.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 8, 2018 10:25 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Yeah, that’s one of many reasons that Russia is so close to Israel now.
Russian drones they were using in 2008/9 were a total joke probably worse than Swedish drones.
They buy almost all of it from Israel now.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:41 PM

2008 was ten years ago, buddy. Russians too dumb to learn from experience, are they?

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 9:41 AM

If they were miles behind the US in 2008 then the chances are they still will be miles behind. Especially with the huge amount of money the US has in Pentagon tech development budgets and the massive private sector tech development budgets with Lockheed etc.
It looks like this is the case as the Russians decided to just buy Israeli drones anyway.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 9, 2018 11:02 AM

The US MIC is simply a gigantic racket for rent extraction, theft and bribery. The waste is astronomical. If you think that US R & D is superior to that of Russia and, in particular, China, then you may get a surprise or several.

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 11:37 AM

You genuinely believe that US R&D is worse than Russian?
So why can’t the Russian’s make a drone that actually matches up?
Instead buying Israeli drones based almost entirely on (stolen) US tech?

Admin
Admin
May 9, 2018 1:11 PM

Should we not get this in perspective? Russia makes and exports a great deal of military hardware. The fact it bought ten Israeli drones a few years ago hardly negates this. Countries buy and sell military hardware from one another and have different areas of expertise.
Implicit in your remarks is the belief all the recent Russian claims for extraordinary high tech advances in weaponry, and the persistent, though unverified, rumours it has some form of secret jamming capability that disables radar and electronics, are complete fables. Can you explain your reasoning here?

Jen
Jen
May 10, 2018 12:35 AM

Hello Matt!

Google Talpiot Program
Google Talpiot Program
May 9, 2018 9:42 AM

Also there has been a huge brain drain in Russia stemming back from the Soviet era and the Yeltsin economic mess.
Lots of those Russian engineers are living in Israel right now!

JudyJ
JudyJ
May 8, 2018 11:23 PM

Another way of looking at it is to ask whether there is any world leader that Putin expressly and openly despises or scorns. Putin is a supreme statesman/diplomat and he sees the benefits to be gained from making friends rather than enemies. I have no doubt there are some dignitaries whom he privately regards as trouble makers and imbeciles. But even people who deserve nothing but Putin’s contempt are publicly treated with respect by him and his team.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:46 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

Exactly. Why have bad relations with Israel if avoidable?. One can live in hope that friendly foreign relations with non-slave states might aid the emergence and strengthening of non clerico-fascist forces in Israel. I see that as a long shot, but it’s better than aggro. And the large Israeli Russian population, many not actually Jewish, does bind the countries together. Perhaps Putin envisages a time when Israel evolves from its current terrorist, racist, fascist state. It’s that or total devastation for the region, INCLUDING Israel.

tomiejones
tomiejones
May 8, 2018 3:15 PM

Reblogged this on circusbuoy and commented:
boom the end

johnplatinumgoss
johnplatinumgoss
May 8, 2018 2:48 PM

This appears to be another false-flag event to blame Russia. Geoffrey Pyatt, from the US embassy in Kiev, was the organiser of the coup. The US claims to have evidence that the Novorossiyans shot down MH17 but has never produced this evidence. It probably comes from Bellingcat. Like the Skripal poisonings and the alleged Douma chemical attack US ‘evidence’ is not very trustworthy.

Paul Carline
Paul Carline
May 8, 2018 5:16 PM

Agreed. There’s no evidence to implicate Novorussia and no means and no motive for them to do this. Remember that the flight path and altitude of the plane were changed – on the orders of the Ukrainian flight control centre at Dnjepropetrovsk airport, which just happens to be owned by the oligarch Kolomoisky. The air traffic controller who gave the orders left her post immediately after giving the orders and did not return.

tomlondra
tomlondra
May 8, 2018 5:22 PM
Reply to  Paul Carline

And your evidence for that is..?

james bate
james bate
May 8, 2018 6:08 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

Was online shortly after the plane was reported missing and followed a link to Flightaware, a flight tracking service that clearly showed the plane’s route and where it ended.
You could compare the flight path to earlier traces and it followed the same route until it didn’t and deviated into a warzone, all the others headed south east over the sea to the east of Crimea, MH17 turned sharply north in the morning MH17’s trace had changed to straighten out the route. I’ve no expertise just another disappointed Graun reader but it happened.

tomlondra
tomlondra
May 8, 2018 6:20 PM
Reply to  james bate

So you have no evidence that
(a) the flight path and altitude were changed on the orders of the Ukrainian flight control centre at Dnjepropetrovsk airport
(b) that this airport is owned by the oligarch Kolomoisky.
(c) that the air traffic controller who gave the orders left her post immediately after giving the orders and did not return.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:54 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

‘Glory to Ukrainia!”eh, ‘tom’.

Admin
Admin
May 8, 2018 9:06 PM
Reply to  james bate

We understand there are screen caps of this before it was inexplicably altered to move MH17 back inside the usual flight path?

Paul Carline
Paul Carline
May 8, 2018 6:30 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

Everything I wrote can be checked. Why not try doing some real investigation yourself – like I did years ago (several books, hundreds of articles and videos)? You could try the Veterans Today website. It has dozens of articles. You might learn something useful.

tomlondra
tomlondra
May 8, 2018 2:40 PM

OK so who shot down MH17?

Admin
Admin
May 8, 2018 3:17 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

Just as with 9/11 there has never been an objective, satisfactory or thorough investigation/inquiry.

james bate
james bate
May 8, 2018 6:34 PM
Reply to  Admin

And as with 9/11 the BBC inadvertently blew the gaff- “the military planes flying alongside, everybody saw them” oops.

vexarb
vexarb
May 12, 2018 6:43 PM
Reply to  james bate

@j’mes bate. I buy that, because just now I read this on the Saker Vineyard:
B.F. on May 12, 2018 ž at 10:01 am in reply to Patricia Ormsby
That Malaysian airliner was shot down by a Ukranian SU-24 light bomber using an air-to-air missile, which has a range of 10 km. The missile struck the airliners port engine. As the airliner started to fall, the SU-24 fired armor piercing cannon shells at the cockpit, killing the pilots. There is a possibility that it was joined by another SU-24. On the Internet there were photographs of the cockpit. You could see both entry and exit holes of the cannon shells, and on both sides of the cockpit. This automatically disqualifies the BUK as the weapon that as used.
The shooting down of the Malaysian airliner was an assassination attempt that went horribly wrong. That Ukrainian pilot (who died recently – convenient for some) mistook the Malaysian airliner for President Putin’s plane, as both planes had almost identical logo colors. The target was President Putin, whose plane was flying close by. Over here where I live, there is a story that the entire operation was directed by a NATO electronics unit posted in Kiev.

vierotchka
vierotchka
May 12, 2018 7:20 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Excerpt:
As a source told Gazeta.ru online news portal, Putin’s plane does take off from Vnukovo-3 [the terminal that accepts business jets], but the president does not fly over the conflict-gripped neighboring country.
“Putin has only one jet – Board One, he does not fly other planes. This plane always takes off from Vnukovo-3, but the presidential plane have not been flying over Ukraine for a while,” the source at Vnukovo-3 terminal said.
https://www.rt.com/news/173672-malaysia-plane-crash-putin/
So Putin’s plane was nowhere near, but the Ukrainian authorities possibly expected that it would fly that route.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 12, 2018 7:23 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Entirely agreed.
The scatter-pattern of wreckage of the plane indicates that it was still more or less whole when it hit the ground. Dead passengers were found with their oxygen-masks still tied to their faces.
A modern airliner is basically a tin-can full of aviation fuel. Setting off on an intercontinental toure to Malaysia, if the plane had been hit by a BUK, it would have disintegrated in a massive fireball mid-air. The idea that passengers would have had time to fit their oxygen masks is absurd if we accept this theory
The scatter-pattern clearly shows that the plane didn’t explode mid-air, but instead was shot down, with the pilots trying to keep control of the stricken plane until the last moment, or until they burnt alive in the cockpit.
The relay transmissions of the aircraft’s communications with Ukrainian ATC were recorded. But the Ukrainian Government refused to make them available to the Inquiry at any stage – and mysteriously, nobody thought that was at all suspicious. Nor has the Spanish ATC operator (working in Kiev) who was the last to speak to the captain ever been traced. He has just ‘disappeared’.
Bellingcat has no answers about any of this (other then snarling denials)

JudyJ
JudyJ
May 12, 2018 8:16 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Another factor which those supporting the BUK scenario have never explained is that military experts described how a BUK missile fired from ground level to a significant height and trajectory of several kilometres length on what was a clear cloudless day would have left a smoke trail clearly visible to a widespread radius for at least 10 to 15 minutes. Yet not one person on either side of the conflict or in the area as professional photographers captured a picture of such a trail.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 12, 2018 8:37 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

Exactly so.
A BUK is a guided missile. which means that something guides. In other words, it needs the presence of a radar guidance network in the area where it is deployed. There is only one such network in the area where the incident occurred – the one operated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Needless to say, extreme levels of password-access coding are in use – so there is no possibility that an outside organisation could hack into the system to make use of it.
The very same people who claim that the aircraft was blown up mid-air by a missile refuse to discuss how the unscorched bodies of the passengers were found still strapped into their seats in the wreckage

vierotchka
vierotchka
May 12, 2018 11:57 PM
Reply to  reinertorheit

The bodies were scattered all over the place and not strapped to their seats. A journalist friend of mine, Roman Kosarev, was one of the very first journalists there and he described the scene.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 13, 2018 12:17 AM
Reply to  vierotchka

But the bodies were mainly whole and complete – whether strapped, or not. If the plane had been blown-up in mid-air by a missle, the debris would have been scattered over a huge area of several miles, and the bodies would have been in pieces.

vierotchka
vierotchka
May 13, 2018 12:48 AM
Reply to  reinertorheit

There were a lot of scattered body parts.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 13, 2018 1:03 AM
Reply to  vierotchka

Frankly I wouldn’t ever use the Daily Wail as a serious factual source, Viera :-)) In fact, I’d go as far as disbelieving anything reported in the Mail 😉

vierotchka
vierotchka
May 13, 2018 10:31 AM
Reply to  reinertorheit

I know, but depending on the journalist, some article in the Daily Mail actually are right, believe it or not!

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 13, 2018 11:28 AM
Reply to  vierotchka

Even a broken clock is right twice a day 🙂

vexarb
vexarb
May 8, 2018 3:59 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

@tomo’london. Same AZC that blew up the WTC in NYC.

bevin
bevin
May 8, 2018 4:35 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

The Ukrainian fascist regime is the most obvious suspect since it has been the beneficiary of the ensuing propaganda smokescreen-behind which it has committed every kind of crime. It is in their interest and the interest of NATO-an organisation dun by a series of Nordic chancers in recent years- to maintain the Cold war myth of an impending Russian invasion. And, as the author wisely notes ” …in the current stand-off with Putin’s Russia, the West operates from a perspective inspired by the mentality of extreme risk-taking that stems from the dominant role of speculative finance in contemporary capitalism. ”
The Fascists in eastern Europe, like those in Israel want war-they know that under the conditions of peaceful development fearful populations calm down and the rationality of class politics (as opposed to fear of the other and the desire for protection by the powerful), returns.

vierotchka
vierotchka
May 8, 2018 8:31 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

The Ukrainians, of course.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 8, 2018 11:56 PM
Reply to  tomlondra

Almost certainly Ukronazi death-squad forces allied to your idol, the kleptocrat Kolomoisky.