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Russians Have a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
New Republic ^ | 7/20/2014 | Julia Ioffe

Posted on 07/22/2014 9:40:35 AM PDT by nikos1121

Did you know Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was full of corpses when it took off from Amsterdam? Did you know that, for some darkly inexplicable reason, on July 17, MH17 moved off the standard flight path that it had taken every time before, and moved north, toward rebel-held areas outside Donetsk? Or that the dispatchers summoned the plane lower just before the crash? Or that the plane had been recently reinsured? Or that the Ukrainian army has air defense systems in the area? Or that it was the result of the Ukrainian military mistaking MH17 for Putin’s presidential plane, which looks strangely similar?

Did you know that the crash of MH17 was all part of an American conspiracy to provoke a big war with Russia?

Well, it’s all true—at least if you live in Russia, because this is the Malaysia Airlines crash story that you’d be seeing.

As the crisis surrounding the plane crash deepens and as calls for Vladimir Putin to act grow louder, it’s worth noting that they’re not really getting through to Putin’s subjects. The picture of the catastrophe that the Russian people are seeing on their television screens is very different from that on screens in much of the rest of the world, and the discrepancy does not bode well for a sane resolution to this stand-off.

Western media has been vacillating for days between calling Putin a murderer and peppering their coverage with allegedlys, telling the heart-rending tales of the victims, scrounging for anonymous leaks to link the Russians to the downed jet, and punditizing about exit ramps.

But in Russia, television—most of it owned or controlled by the Kremlin—is trying to muddy the water with various experts who insist that there is no way that an SA-11 missile system could possibly have downed a plane flying that high. And, mind you, this is not part of a larger debate of could they, or couldn’t they; this is all of Russian television and state-friendly papers pushing one line: The pro-Russian separatists we’ve been supporting all these months couldn’t have done this. Watching some of these Russian newscasts, one comes away with the impression of a desperate defense attorney scrounging for experts and angles, or a bad kid caught red-handed by the principal, trying to twist his way out of a situation in which he has no chance.

And that’s when they’re not simply peddling conspiracy theories, which have become a kind of symbiotic feedback loop between state TV and the most inventive corners of the Internet. The best of the bunch is, of course, an elaborate one: MH17 is actually MH370, that Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared into the Indian Ocean. According to this theory, the plane didn’t disappear at all, “it was taken to an American military base, Diego-Garcia.”

Then it was taken to Holland. On the necessary day and hour, it flew out, bound for Malaysia, but inside were not live people, but corpses. The plane was flown not by real pilots; it was on autopilot. Or take-off (a complicated procedure) was executed by live pilots, who then ejected on parachutes. Then the plane flew automatically. In the necessary spot, it was blown up, without even using a surface-to-air missile. Instead the plane was packed with a bomb, just like the CIA did on 9/11.

The theory also notes that the passports of victims at the crash site all look brand new even though there was an explosion and a fire. “That is, the passports were tossed in [after the crash].” And, most damningly, all the victims’ Facebook pages were created in one day and the media is not showing any of the victims’ families, just the crash site. Though this is not true of Western media, Russian television has not featured any of this. “There’s very little talk about the human cost of this catastrophe,” says independent television analyst Arina Borodina, formerly of the prominent Russian daily Kommersant. “Instead we’re seeing these unbelievable versions. For example, that someone had actually been hunting for the president or that some of the locals saw parachutists coming down from a height of 30,000 feet.”

But though it may look unconvincing to us in the West, that is because we have seen and read other things that contradict it. The Russian media space has become so uniform and independent voices so cowed and marginalized that there is no counterweight and, when there’s no counterweight, if you repeat a thing often enough, it becomes the truth.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: crash; malaysian; mh17; plane
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No other president in the history of our country would sit back and let this happen.
1 posted on 07/22/2014 9:40:35 AM PDT by nikos1121
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To: nikos1121

REad the entire article here

http://www.newrepublic.com/node/118782


2 posted on 07/22/2014 9:42:14 AM PDT by nikos1121
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To: nikos1121

The only thing I know for sure is that Bam & Vlad are both liars.


3 posted on 07/22/2014 9:43:06 AM PDT by Wilderness Conservative
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To: nikos1121

Personally, I’m skeptical of everything reported either officially or unofficially. Most of all I’m very skeptical when a claim is dismissed out of hand because it seems too wild before anyone has had a chance to review evidence.


4 posted on 07/22/2014 9:44:56 AM PDT by Raycpa
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To: nikos1121

Let what happen, an accidental shooting down of a passenger plane that directly overflew a warzone where military planes had recently been shot down?

The Donetsk/Luhansk warzone is a really tiny part of Ukraine. It would have been easy and common sense to fly around it. They are now, but why not before?
Most airlines avoided the small warzone by policy, and some Malaysian airlines flight crew protested the route knowing the danger. Some even swapped shifts specifically for this reason.

Ukraine accidentally shot down a passenger plane in 2001.

The US Navy accidentally shot down a passenger plane in 1988.

Why should whoever accidentally shot down this plane face tougher consequences than the Ukraine and USA did?


5 posted on 07/22/2014 9:45:59 AM PDT by Mount Athos (A Giant luxury mega-mansion for Gore, a Government Green EcoShack made of poo for you)
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To: nikos1121

The Russian word “pravda” means “truth”.
The Russian word “izvestia” means “news”.

Back in the Soviet era, the Russians used the names of these major news agencies to coin a motto that translates, “In the Truth there is no News, and in the News there is no Truth.”

While that certainly applies to American media today, I wonder if the Russians remain as cynical about their news as they were during the Soviet reign.


6 posted on 07/22/2014 9:47:57 AM PDT by Westbrook (Children do not divide your love, they multiply it.)
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To: Mount Athos

Well, that would depend on whether the weapons used were supplied by another power seeking to destabilize the entire area, wouldn’t it?


7 posted on 07/22/2014 9:48:29 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

I think I’m with you. Had Russia told the truth... apologized made it right financially, but said clearly, it was reckless to fly thru this war zone, the world would understand...

These people were surprised when they learned they had shot down a civilian plane.

Why lie?


8 posted on 07/22/2014 9:53:16 AM PDT by nikos1121
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To: nikos1121

Geez, the average Russian on the street is not that stupid.


9 posted on 07/22/2014 10:05:44 AM PDT by bgill
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To: nikos1121

In my opinion, coming clean about the whole matter (that I agree Russia should have done to minimize the fallout) would’ve required the Russians to admit that they were arming the separatists. They just couldn’t bring themselves to do it, it’s not in their DNA.


10 posted on 07/22/2014 10:13:36 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: nikos1121
Ahhhhh, conspiracy theories, the life's blood of the Internet and preconceptions.

Think your uncle Bubba is running around with your wife? Someone, somewhere on the web, will have a story that backs you up.

The WWW, tailor made to bury facts under grass fattened preconceptions.

JMHO

11 posted on 07/22/2014 10:13:49 AM PDT by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: nikos1121; no-to-illegals; All

I read the entire link and a number of comments. My main comment is that Putin for more than a decade has systematically destroyed an independent press in Russia. Here we complain about the MSM, but we have well-financed Fox, Savage, Rush, and others, so obviously Russian thinking that we are brainwashed in the US is not quite true. The statement that Russians are believing some of this because they want to probably has some truth.

Meanwhile here is a report on the latest fate of the bodies.
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/07/21/rebels-release-train-with-bodies-from-downed-jet/20934647/?ncid=webmail31


12 posted on 07/22/2014 10:16:40 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: Mount Athos

“Ukraine accidentally shot down a passenger plane in 2001.

The US Navy accidentally shot down a passenger plane in 1988.

Why should whoever accidentally shot down this plane face tougher consequences than the Ukraine and USA did?”

You conveniently forgot to mention that the Soviets shot down KAL 007. Oh, wait a minute. That was no “accident”.


13 posted on 07/22/2014 10:19:17 AM PDT by riverdawg
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To: nikos1121

“Russians Have a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17”

Yes...it is called abject propoganda. Osme of the theories they are putting forth (liek it is actually MH370, or that a land attack aircraft like a Ukrainian SU-25 shot it down, or that Ukraine intentionally shot it down) are way out there in tin foil land.

The fact though are these:

The Russians have this surface to air missile system. The Ukranians have this same missile system from their days as a part of the Soviet Union.

It is a capable system that can certainly down high flying airliners.

Did the Russians put one of their systems in eastern Ukraine for the separatists/rebels to use? Very possible.

Did the separatists/rebels capture a Ukrainian system and use it? Also possible.

Remember, many eastern Ukrainian citizens are also verterans of the Urkainian military. They could find people who know how to operate the Ukrainian missiles.

So, we do not know which of the systems the separatists/rebels used...but it was certainly that type of SA-11 surface to air missile system that downed the aircraft.

Another very important fact...IMHO, the major responsibility for this horrible disaster has to fall on Malaysian Airlines.

They should never have flown such an aircraft over eastern Ukraine which everyone knows is embroiled in a civil war.

A civil war where the nation divided has the capability to down such aircraft (which means the separatists/rebels could have gotten it), and where the principle supporter of the separatists/rebels (Russia), also has the capability down such aircraft (which also means the separatists/rebels could have gotten it from them).

Crazy to the point of criminal nelgigence IMHO to fly that defenseless aircraft with all of those people on board over such an area.

This doe not absolve the separatists/rebels of all responsibility. But it does place the real owness where it belongs.

I do not believe thr separatists/rebels meant to shoot down a civilian airliner. I think they thought it was a cargo aircraft or, more likely, a surveillance aircraft, from Ukraine. So they shot it down. They are at war.

Probably did not have the proper capabilities to identify or communicate with and discriminate a civilan airliner transponder from a military IFF.

Anyhow, Putin has got thr Russian people behind him, and they are very good at usingemotion and nationalistic fervor to gen up support of even some of these crasy theories.

For our patr, we have a President who is dedicated to weakening America at every level.

He is not crazy. He is not imcompetant. He is doing exxaclty as he has planned all along and using eery opportunity to advance that cause.

When you understand this about the man...the rest all falls into place.

It is true that he is not engaged in what you or I would typically expect a US President and Commander in Chief to do. but he never planned to do that. What he is engaged in is making the United States of America weaker.

Economically
Internationally
Morally
Militarily
Energy wise
Soverignty wise (ie the border)
Traditionally
Educationally
Health wise

In every pssible way imaginable. And..sadly, tragically...he is being VERY effective at it.


14 posted on 07/22/2014 10:27:29 AM PDT by Jeff Head
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To: nikos1121
at least if you live in Russia, because this is the Malaysia Airlines crash story that you’d be seeing.

The same could be said about how many, many stories are reported in the United States. Our media can be almost as bad.

15 posted on 07/22/2014 10:35:11 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: Mount Athos

“Why should whoever accidentally shot down this plane face tougher consequences than the Ukraine and USA did?”

Simple. The previous instances were truly mistakes, but committed by one party who had a rational explanation. Here we have the Russian seperatists (who should not exist), who had weapons of a certain kind (only because they were stolen or illegally provided by Russian), who apparently acted negligently and with the per and post incident help of the Russians. The Russians created this situation. The Ukrainians paid for what they did. The Americans paid for what they did. The Russians are denying they have any responsibility. Thus, they need to “face tougher consequences than the Ukraine and USA did”.

It’s just that simple.


16 posted on 07/22/2014 10:42:34 AM PDT by vladimir998
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To: nikos1121

This was written by a journalist who, more than likely, supported the Clown. Twice.

And the story about the plane being way off course? I saw that on British site.


17 posted on 07/22/2014 11:03:43 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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To: riverdawg

Also that the Iranian plane would not acknowledge the warnings that it needed to identify itself.


18 posted on 07/22/2014 11:09:06 AM PDT by beelzepug (You can't fix a broken washing machine by washing more expensive clothes in it.)
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To: bgill

Apparently they are. 80% of them gave Putin a mandate.


19 posted on 07/22/2014 11:28:26 AM PDT by Sam Gamgee (May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't. - Patton)
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To: bgill

They think every American is fat, missing teeth speaks bad English and is shooting up the neighborhood. Oh wait, that is the Chicago news.


20 posted on 07/22/2014 12:04:35 PM PDT by pfflier
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