{"id":7484,"date":"2018-05-25T08:33:10","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T06:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7484"},"modified":"2018-05-25T08:33:10","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T06:33:10","slug":"not-just-corrupt-impotent-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/7484\/","title":{"rendered":"Not just corrupt, impotent too"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now there’s a surprise<\/a>, eh?<\/p>\n

\n

The missile that downed a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 belonged to a Russian brigade, international investigators say.<\/p>\n

For the first time, the Dutch-led team said the missile had come from a unit based in western Russia.<\/p>\n

All 298 people on board the Boeing 777 died when it broke apart in mid-air flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n

It was hit by a missile fired from rebel-held territory in Ukraine. Russia says none of its weapons was used.<\/p>\n

But on Thursday Wilbert Paulissen, a Dutch official from the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), told reporters: “All the vehicles in a convoy carrying the missile were part of the Russian armed forces.”<\/p>\n

He restated the JIT’s conclusion that the plane had been destroyed by a Russian-made Buk missile, adding that it had been supplied by the country’s 53rd anti-aircraft brigade in Kursk.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The bulk of this was known at the time of the incident. There were only three possibilities as to the origins of the missile:<\/p>\n

1. Russian forces<\/p>\n

2. Russian-backed militias in Ukraine<\/p>\n

3. Ukrainian forces<\/p>\n

The Ukrainians quickly stated they don’t possess this missile system, ruling out their culpability. My guess was the Russians had, with staggering irresponsibility, given the business end of a Buk anti-aircraft system to some poorly trained militia operating on Ukrainian territory who’d shot down the plane by mistake. However, I believed part of the system was still controlled by Russian forces, who would give the militia the nod to engage any targets. As it turns out, it was operated by Russian forces all along, and it was they who shot the plane down.<\/p>\n

\n

At a news conference in the Dutch city of Utrecht, the investigators also showed social media pictures which they said traced the route the missile convoy had taken to reach eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Shortly after the incident some investigators online worked out using mobile phone footage and satellite images exactly where the missile had been fired from. Nobody showed any interest, and the silence from what passes for western leadership over this incident was deafening. The Oilfield Expat explains why<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Considering the magnitude of the event, it is remarkable how quickly the world brushed it under the carpet and moved on, particularly the Dutch who lost the greatest number of citizens in the incident. But there are good reasons for this: it suited the interests of European and American politicians to do so.<\/p>\n

For those who thought the shooting down of MH17 would prove to be a Lusitania event in the crisis in east Ukraine, proving beyond doubt the nature of the Russian government which the west is facing, it would have seemed unbelievable at the time that barely 6 weeks later Russian armour would be moving en masse into Ukraine whilst EU and American leaders repeat the same empty, lame, and downright pathetic bleating about \u201cde-escalation\u201d that has done nothing but embolden Putin thus far.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

It is blatantly obvious in whose interests Obama, Merkel, Hollande, etc. are acting over this Ukraine crisis: their own. And I don\u2019t mean their citizens, or their country, I mean their own personal interests. Any support they may receive from their citizens or corporations is purely coincidental, although in the case of Germany it is clear that Merkel\u2019s interests have been identical to those of certain favoured German companies with large operations in Russia all along. She damned near admitted as much.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is wholly consistent with these same individuals sucking up to Iran, and now even cosying up to Putin<\/a> in the aftermath of Trump’s nixing the deal. So much for solidarity with Britain over the Skripal poisoning, eh? But it’s not just cynical commercial interests that caused the disgraceful silence over the shooting down of MH-17, it was also cowardice. There were reports doing the rounds that Putin was visibly shaken when news reached him of MH-17 being shot down, no doubt fearing a serious backlash. However, within a day or two he was back to his usual swaggering self, confident no response would be forthcoming, and the tidal wave of disinformation began. Quite simply, the feckless leaders in the west didn’t want to make any tough decisions. Here’s The Oilfield Expat once more:<\/p>\n

In reality, the EU leaders are a bunch of shyster politicians who give a shit about one thing: their political position, and by extension the powers they wield and the personal fortune they amass. Like all politicians, they are a bunch of backstabbing, duplicitous, untrustworthy c*nts who you wouldn\u2019t trust to look after a wet breeze block, let alone guarantee the safety and security of a nation of people they don\u2019t know and give less of a shit about. The Ukrainians have probably worked this out by now, only it\u2019s too late. The Baltic States should also be waking up to reality and realising that they are on their own and always were. There were times when this fecklessness wouldn\u2019t matter so much as the US could be relied upon to step in when required (as they eventually did in the Balkans), but the current occupant of the White House is so out of his depth and so wrapped up in preserving his image that he makes the EU leadership look Napoleonic by comparison. The collective language of this gaggle of incompetents over the Ukraine crisis screams\u00a0\u201cOh why did this have to happen on my watch? Why won\u2019t the problem just go away?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

They want the status, salary, and trappings of power that come with the position but don\u2019t want to take the decisions and carry the responsibility that comes with it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the time of the incident – and not much has changed, at least on one side of the Atlantic – the western leadership was not only corrupt, but impotent too. The results of the investigation will only serve to illustrate this fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now there’s a surprise, eh? The missile that downed a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 belonged to a Russian brigade, international investigators say. For the first time, the Dutch-led team said the missile had come from a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,3,40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7484"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7485,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7484\/revisions\/7485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}