[Peace-discuss] After Plane Shot Down, Escalation Of Bombing In E. Ukraine

Tue Jul 22 09:47:06 EDT 2014

  After Plane Shot Down, Escalation Of Bombing In E. Ukraine

Ukraine crash of Malaysian aircraft by Reuters
Educate! <http://www.popularresistance.org/category/educate/> Russia 
<http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/russia/>, Ukraine 
<http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/ukraine/>, Wars and Militarism 
<http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/wars-and-militarism/>
By Roger Annis, www.rabble.ca 
<http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/roger-annis/2014/07/escalation-shelling-eastern-ukraine-kyiv-govt-after-tragic-crash->
July 21st, 2014
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/Above: An Emergencies Ministry member walks at the site of a Malaysia 
Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the 
Donetsk region, July 17, 2014. The Malaysian airliner Flight MH17 was 
brought down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people 
aboard. (Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)./

/As we publish this article events are developing rapidly in Ukraine. 
The international investigatory team has now had full access to the 
crash area and the black boxes have been found and given to them. There 
is no word yet on whether Kiev will release the air traffic control 
record. The Kiev attack on Eastern Ukraine is continuing, indeed 
escalating as the investigation moves forward. We are publishing views 
different from the dominant corporate media narrative which is echoing 
the  voices of people in the government because we believe that 
accusations should not be made until the evidence has been reviewed. 
There should not be a rush to judgment based on virtually no evidence. KZ/

July 19, 2014--I learned of the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 
when my plane landed in Montreal the same day, July 17, on my way home 
from Moscow. The Moscow-Munich leg of my flight departed one hour before 
the (delayed) departure of Flight MH17 from Amsterdam at 12:30 pm local 
time. I reckon the respective flight paths crossed each other somewhere 
just west of Ukraine.

Flight MH17 went down 
<http://www.salon.com/2014/07/17/heres_what_we_know_about_todays_ukraine_disaster/> over 
territory controlled by self defense forces of the autonomous regions of 
southeast Ukraine, near the village of Grabovo (Hrabove), halfway 
between Donetsk and Luhansk cities, 50 km north and 100 km west of the 
Russian border. There are 298 reported victims. Here is the fateful 
flight's route map 
<http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS17/history/20140717/1000Z/EHAM/WMKK>.

A typical western media headline graced the front page of the Vancouver 
Sun the day after. It read, 'Malaysian plane shot down by rebels'. Case 
closed. Guilty as charged.

Paul Koring of the Globe and Mail writes, "What brought down Malaysia 
Airlines Flight 17 is already known. A Soviet-era surface-to-air missile 
fired from separatist held territory in eastern Ukraine tore the Boeing 
777 apart as it cruised more than 10 kilometers above the Donetsk region."

The Guardian headlines a July 19 story with, 'MH17: rebels block access 
to part of site of crash as evidence against them grows'. But the 
article doesn't contain a word of the claimed evidence.

Toronto Star columnist Mitch Potter blames what he calls "nihilistic 
rebels" and "Putin's monster" in eastern Ukraine, then proceeds to 
acknowledge that evidence they downed the aircraft is "circumstantial". 
He cites a Washington Post writer who says the disaster is all a result 
of "Putin's messy disaster he created in Ukraine".

In an editorial today, Toronto Star editors cite Stephen Harper in 
fixing blame: "Russia's military aggression and illegal occupation of 
Ukraine (sic) . . . is at the root of the ongoing conflict in the 
region." Russian President Vladimir Putin, say the editors, should 
"shackle his dogs of war".

CBC radio and television reporters have rushed to the scene for yet 
another stint of fly in, fly out disaster reporting à la the 2010 Haiti 
earthquake and the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) that struck the 
Philippines. They already know the story. Their questions are not, 'Who 
shot down the plane and why?', but, "How did Russia provide the rebels 
in eastern Ukraine with the know-how to shoot down the plane, and why 
would it do that?"

British tabloids are universal is blaring on their front pages that 
'Putin' or his hirelings in Ukraine are mass murderers

Ukraine's president knows. Within hours of the disaster, he declared, 
"Today, terrorists killed three hundred people with one shot. Among them 
innocent children, people of many countries of the world." When the Kyiv 
regime speaks of eastern Ukraine, the term "terrorists" is synonymous 
with "the people who live there".

*Airplane disaster as pretext for war*

Never mind that assertions of what happened to Flight MH17 are 
speculative and an investigation has hardly begun. The post-crash 
political assessment is all about something entirely different than 
finding truth---it is being seized as an opening for a political 
witch-hunt and more violent war against the people of eastern Ukraine. 
For months, they have been refusing and resisting a brutal, economic 
austerity turn to Europe and accompanying military violence by the 
governing regime in Kyiv and its NATO backers. Kyiv's ground war against 
them has stalled because its foot soldiers are unconvinced of the cause 
or ill-prepared for what is required of them.

In the two days since the crash, the regime's violence has reached new 
heights of brutality. Artillery and mortars are raining death and 
destruction upon people and communities throughout the rebellious 
region. In Luhansk, a city of 425,000, at least 20 people died 
<http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28363086> from shelling on the day 
of the crash. The shells have cut electricity and water supply. Much of 
communication is also cut.

The press service of the Luhansk People's Republic said on July 18, "The 
shells are bombarding practically all the residential districts of the 
city, including its centre. The number of killed and wounded is not 
immediately known." (See videos here 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKZ_S6w7-B0&list=UUdnB82ob_V7EXwwcCtB1vUg&index=9&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DWKZ_S6w7-B0%26list%3DUUdnB82ob_V7EXwwcCtB1vUg%26index%3D9&has_verified=1>  and 
here 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXGcdQqbntk&index=8&list=UUdnB82ob_V7EXwwcCtB1vUg&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAXGcdQqbntk%26index%3D8%26list%3DUUdnB82ob_V7EXwwcCtB1vUg&has_verified=1> of 
the aftermaths of inner city shelling on July 18--warning, shocking images.)

The Lisichansk oil refinery in the city, owned by Russia's Rosneft 
conglomerate, has been targeted and is burning fiercely (videos here 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHUbvUB1cU> and here 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTBPJycf-LU>).

Already on July 16, an observer with the Special Monitoring Mission of 
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported 
that one third of the buildings in the center of Luhansk were damaged by 
shelling and the proportions of damage are higher on the city outskirts 
(ten minute video interview here 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q7F8P15eF0&app=desktop>). A July 18 
bulletin <http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/121431> of the monitoring 
mission cites reports from local doctors that in June and July, 250 
civilians in the Luhansk region were killed by bombings and shellings 
and 850 are injured.

*Investigation needed*

The accusations against self-defense fighters in eastern Ukraine are not 
only unproven, they are circumstantial. Did rebels in southeastern 
Ukraine capture at some time a battery of the advanced missile system 
alleged to have shot down the plane? We do not know. If they did, 
analysts say, they lacked the very sophisticated training required to 
operate it.

 From where was the missile fired? We don't know. The lengthy debris 
field of the crash (six kilometers long, according to one report) and 
its west-to-east direction may raise doubts about the claims of a 
missile hit from the east (ie from Russia or its border region).

Flight MH17 was hundreds of kilometers north of its normal course 
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10975524/Crashed-MH17-flight-was-300-miles-off-typical-course.html>. 
Why did flight controllers in Ukraine direct the plane there, across a 
war zone over which many warplanes have been shot down by self-defense 
forces (at much lower altitudes) in the past several months and which 
airlines have been avoiding? Way back in April, for example, the U.S. 
Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. airlines from flying 
where Flight 17 went down. Its directive said, "Due to the potential for 
conflicting air traffic control instructions from Ukrainian and Russian 
authorities and for the related potential misidentification of civil 
aircraft, United States flight operations are prohibited until further 
notice in the airspace over Crimea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov".

Answers are needed as to who in the chaotic command structure of the 
Ukraine armed forces possesses the authority to fire missiles and how 
tightly this is controlled. What role and access to missiles might 
commanders of fascist and rightist militias have? The militias are 
playing leading roles in the murderous shellings and attempted ground 
assaults in the east of the country.

Self-defense forces deny firing a missile at the plane. This article 
<http://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5913089/did-this-ukrainian-rebel-commander-take-credit-for-shooting-down-the/in/5677250> in 
Vox details the internet hoax by which the rebels were said to have made 
such an admission. Lazy or biased news editors in mainstream media have 
widely reported the hoax, and U.S. government officials are repeating it 
as good coin, including U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power before the UN 
Security Council on July 18.

Self-defense forces are cooperating in bringing an investigative team 
<http://en.itar-tass.com/world/741225> of the Organization for Security 
and Cooperation in Europe to the site. Local residents, including coal 
miners, are taking part in the search for wreckage and bodies.

Both the Ukraine government in Kyiv and the Russian government deny that 
their forces fired missiles. U.S. Professor Stephen Cohen told Democracy 
Now in a June 18 interview 
<http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/18/stephen_cohen_downed_malaysian_plane_raises>, 
"There's the possibility that the Russians aided and abetted them 
[self-defense forces], possibly from Russian territory, but I rule that 
out because, in the end, when you don't know who has committed a crime, 
the first question a professional investigator asks is, "Did anybody 
have a motive?" and the Russians certainly had no motive here."

Cohen calls the people who died in the plane, "the first victims of the 
new Cold War", referring to the longstanding military threats against 
Russia by NATO countries that have escalated since last year over 
Ukraine. He has written frequently about the escalation, including in 
this June 30 article, 'The silence of American hawks about Kiev's 
atrocities 
<http://www.thenation.com/article/180466/silence-american-hawks-about-kievs-atrocities>'.

Maybe, just maybe, an official investigation will reveal the truth, or 
enough of the truth to make decision makers in NATO pause before upping 
their military intervention. But there are serious reasons to doubt 
that. The stakes for NATO countries in the war being prosecuted in 
eastern Ukraine by the government and its allied, fascist militias are 
just too high to let an inconvenient investigation get in the way.

The degree to which Canadian and international mainstream media are 
ignoring the rampaging and war of the Kyiv regime and militias in 
eastern Ukraine is scandalous. It gets little more than brief mention as 
undefined "fighting". The Guardian has 14 articles on its Ukraine news 
page today dealing with the aftermath of the air disaster; not a single 
one reports on the shellings by the Ukraine army. A member of the 
self-defense forces tells the BBC at the crash site, "You are only here 
because foreigners are dead".

Ominously, while the media broadcasts tears for the victims of the 
crash, it has none for the victims of shelling and bombing. Indeed, it 
seems even more war is required because "something" must apparently be 
done to save defenseless air travelers from the likes of "Putin" and 
unkempt self defense fighters in eastern Ukraine.

It all sets the stage for an escalation of the military intervention 
that NATO is already providing to Kyiv. It is so scripted that it tempts 
the observer to believe that people in Washington and Brussels pushed 
buttons to unleash it all. But no, that would be speculation, and that's 
the last thing needed right now.

Here are some additional excerpts from the July 18 interview with 
Professor Stephen Cohen on Democracy Now:

    By the way, the Ukrainian government shot down a Russian passenger
    jet, I think in 2001 [Siberia Airlines Flight 1812, Oct 4, 2001, 76
    dead]. It was flying from Tel Aviv to Siberia [actually, Siberia to
    Tel Aviv]. It was an accident. Competence is always a factor when
    you have these weapons...

    Another possibility is that the rebels---we call them separatists,
    but they weren't separatists in the beginning, they just wanted home
    rule in Ukraine---had the capability. But there's a debate, because
    this plane was flying at commercial levels, normally beyond the
    reach of what they can carry on their shoulders.

    Let me mention, because I think it's relevant to what you're
    covering here, your very, very powerful segments before I came on
    today about what's going on in Gaza, the pounding of these cities,
    the defenselessness of ordinary people. The same thing has been
    happening in East Ukrainian cities---bombing, shelling, mortaring by
    the Kiev government---whatever we think of that government. But that
    government is backed 150 percent by the White House.

The statement issued by the antiwar conference held in Yalta, Crimea 
<http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/roger-annis/2014/07/no-to-war-eastern-ukraine-declaration-yalta-crimea-anti-war-confe> earlier 
this month makes a nine-point call for an end to Kyiv's war in eastern 
Ukraine. One of the points is "For an international inquiry headed by 
jurists and human rights advocates into the human rights violations and 
war crimes that have been committed in the course of this war". 
Campaigns and solidarity mobilizations around these points are now more 
urgent than ever.

/Roger Annis recently returned to Canada from a two-week visit to Crimea 
and Moscow. He attended the antiwar conference that took place in Yalta, 
Crimea on July 6, 7. He can be reached at rogerannis at hotmail.com 
<mailto:rogerannis at hotmail.com>. You can sign onto the conference 
statement at this online petition website 
<http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/yalta-declaration>. /Background of 
the conflict in Ukraine is contained in the /July 16 article 
<http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/roger-annis/2014/07/its-war-eastern-ukraine-kyiv-govt-bombards-cities-and-towns>/ by 
Roger Annis, 'It's war in eastern Ukraine as Kyiv gov't bombards cities 
and towns'//

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