A year on, official MH17 report adds nothing to the speculation of the first 12 hours

In July of 2014, all major media in the West were speculating that MH17 was brought down by a Russian missile. More than a year later, we have the so-called "official report" into the incident, and guess what?

Every "conclusion" remains speculative.

Since both sides in the Eastern Ukraine conflict use Russian missiles, inveighing that a Russian missile took down MH17 tells us absolutely nothing.

But what the report does tell us is this; that were the highest echelons of the US/NATO intelligence apparatus in possession of any scintilla of evidence whatsoever that Russian forces were behind this tragedy, such a fact would be trumpeted all over the headlines of every media platform in the West.

In fact, if such evidence existed it would have been trumpeted all over those news platforms a year ago.

The only thing this report proves is that NATO has no such evidence.

Now that we have successfully democratized Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, let us bestow our blessings on Ukraine

Even the skeptics must admit that over-throwing a democratically elected government is a curious way of introducing democracy to a benighted land.

That's been the Nuland-Pyatt-Harper-Baird approach to Ukraine since well before the February Putsch.

The primary propaganda mills (WaPo, NYT, Globe & Mail etc.) have been keeping the pedal to the floor in the non-stop bullshit blitz to blame Putin and bury Western responsibility for the horrors unfolding in Ukraine.

The latest faux outrage is the MH17 debacle, which is the result of Putin himself personally shooting down that Boeing 777, a reasonable conclusion after following Western media coverage of the incident.

And if he didn't pull the trigger personally, it's still Putin's fault, because it happened near Russia.

Oddly enough, it is Putin who has consistently called for an independent investigation of the MH17 tragedy.

And even oddlier, just as a multinational Dutch-Australian-Malaysian investigative team is ready to deploy to Ukraine, after securing the permission of the rebels in the area, Poroshenko commences a ground war that renders the crash site out of bounds.

Coincidence?

And where are those air traffic control recordings that the Kiev government seized in the hours after the downing of MH17?

Still being "investigated" by the Poroshenko team, apparently.

Hmm... deliberately preventing international investigators from reaching the crash site, suppressing the air traffic control records... you don't think the Poroshenko regime could have something to hide, do you?

Usual Putin-haters have field day politicizing MH17 tragedy

The bodies of those 298 unfortunates had hardly hit the ground before Canadian PM Harper issued a statement blaming Russia. No evidence? No problem!... using 298 tragic deaths as a cudgel to bash Putin doesn't require evidence, merely an appalling level of cynical opportunism.

By Saturday the pretend "punk rocker" and professional Putin critic Masha Alekhina had an article in The Guardian likewise holding Putin to account using the same evidence Harper had, which is to say none.

And in a brazen feat of journalistic one-up-man-ship, The New Yorker was able to reveal today that no less an authority than U.S. VP Biden concluded that Putin has no soul!

In these days of hypocritical moral outrage we would do well to recall another moral outrage, the shooting down of Iran Air 655 by the US Navy in 1988.

That wasn't a mistake by ill-trained hooligan militiamen or semi-literate hastily conscripted regulars, it was a deliberate attack on a civilian airliner by the most powerful military in the world.

The U.S. VP of the time, one George Bush, remarked that he would never apologize, and no senior American politician ever has.

Putin has been downright civil and gracious in comparison.

Ukraine horror deepens as Gaza horror remains invisible

Reuters is informing me that the US is pressing the case against Russia as the Ukraine horror deepens.

The "Ukraine horror" refers to those 298 unlucky souls who boarded a passenger jet that they had no idea would be flying through a war zone. That horror is the result of a civil war ceaselessly fomented by the "democracy promoters" in Washington.

The Gaza horror (400 plus killed, many thousands wounded, billions of damage to civilian infrastructure, tens of thousands displaced) is nowhere in Western media referred to as "horror", rather it is about Israel's "right to self-defence."

Apparently the wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure and wholesale murder of civilians is not in any way a horror.

Rather, it is the benign manifestation of an ethos that "values life."

And if you have any problems with that, you're obviously an anti-Semite.

Canada PM Harper solves Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine

Yup, Big Steve knows the score.

With no evidence whatsoever, PM Harper went public with what really happened to MH17.

It was Russian aggression.

Putin!

While we must give Mr. Harper credit for showing enough self-restraint to not name Putin personally, I think we all get the drift of what is meant by "Russian aggression".

Harper and his Tonto, the always blustery Foreign Minister John Baird, have done more to besmirch Canada's image on the world stage than the last 100 years worth of bureaucrats from the Deep North.

From being a genteel "middle-power" in the Pearson era, Canada has morphed into the loudest cheerleader for the fascist, racist, state of Israel, and the neo-fascist putschists in Kyiv.

All for the sake of scoring a few votes from right-wing Jews and right-wing Ukrainians in the next election.

Shame!