Ukraine, Syria and MH 17

Firstly, John Médaille has recently shared a most remarkable story from Sputnik News regarding the possible motivations behind the American-backed coup in Ukraine which unseated Yanukovych. George Friedman, the CEO and founder of intelligence contractor Strategic Forecasting (also called Stratfor, a corporation which does a lot of contracting work with the CIA), has admitted that American involvement in the coup in Ukraine was an attempt to distract Russia from its successful involvement in keeping the Syrian situation reasonably stable, where indeed a last-minute Russian-brokered deal managed to avoid a direct shooting war of the US against the Assad government.

Secondly, Investigative journalist Anatoly Sharij interviews a former Ukrainian soldier, who claims that a.) BUK 312 was under the control of the Ukrainian Army at the time MH 17 went down (and he had been a member of the operating unit); and b.) that BUK 312 did not shoot down MH 17. Also, since the story went public, according to OpEdNews contributor Michael Collins, the Ukrainian government has retracted the ‘damning’ picture of BUK 312, and Anatoly Sharij has been forced by the Ukrainian authorities to flee the country.

This is being reported by some alt news outlets (including Global Research above) basically as Ukraine confessing to having shot down the plane itself. It is true that the Ukrainian government has been caught in a lie here. A fairly big lie at that. And its subsequent behaviour, throwing its own press releases down the memory hole and going after journalists, is incredibly suspicious. That the Ukrainian government is responsible for shooting down MH 17 might turn out to be the reason why, but we should probably still reserve judgement there. Still – to quote Alice in Wonderland – curiouser and curiouser.

I certainly hope that real and impartial investigations into both claims can be successfully mounted (or, in MH 17’s case, continued). If there is some decent corroboration on both stories, it could open up a profound basis for critique of the dominant State Department line. In the meanwhile, my heart and prayers go out to the innocent people of the Donetsk Basin who are continuing to pay the price, being trapped by their loyalties and by a government which no longer values them.