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The empire cries wolf: pipeline politics, the tragedy of MH17, and geo-strategic agenda bending

By Greg Maybury - posted Thursday, 31 July 2014


Along with being an tireless campaigner against official corruption and fraud in the United States up to the highest levels of government, bureaucratic and corporate life, amongst folks for whom things like this still matter, former WWII US Navy pilot Rod Stich is one of America's most highly respected commentators and researchers. He is also a former civil aviation accident investigator, and a prolific author on the subject of aviation disasters and the corruption, incompetence and criminal conspiracy that attends many of them.

Mr Stich is moreover someone with whom your correspondent has the privilege of being in contact with from time to time; this week I asked him for his thoughts on the MH17 disaster, and the following was his qualified response:

My thinking on that tragedy, based on information available to me is that the Russian dissidents in Ukraine accidentally shot down the airliner. [But] that Russia is complicit in having provided the missiles; launcher; training, etc., and is improperly subverting Ukraine. Of course, the United States politicians have been doing that constantly since the end of World War II. [My underlining].

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We will come back to Mr Stich later regarding his comments above, but at this point, when it comes to reflecting on the MH17 disaster, what actually happened and who was responsible, many could be forgiven for thinking the tragedy is a one of a kind event. Of course in its own unique way it is, not the least for those most affected by this disaster, the victims and their families.

Yet despite the glibly aroused umbrage of many world leaders, politicians and assorted Russo-phobes over the human tragedy, they are likely to become soon-forgotten in what is shaping up to be one of the most significant geo-strategic dramas not purportedly involving Islamic jihadi terrorists since the Fall of the Wall. One might opine their tragedy is someone else's opportunity, not unlike those people killed on 9/11. Collateral damage one suspects. Or that America does not have enough terrorists on its dance card anymore and is looking to tout new business for the ideological 'centurions' of the Project for the New American Century and insatiable profiteers of the National Security State.

To be sure there have been many commercial aircraft brought down by military misadventure over the years. America itself was directly responsible for a not dissimilar incident when in 1988 the missile cruiser USS Vincennes accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger airliner killing all 290 people on board including 66 children. According to Crispin Black, in his recent column in the UK's The Week Magazine, America has never officially apologised for this incident. In fact the captain was never held to account, and remained in command of the ship until 1989, after which he was-wait for it-honourably discharged and decorated by George HW Bush with the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service". Go figure!

One thing that does make the MH17 event so 'unique' is the breathtaking hypocrisy exemplified by the degree of righteous hand wringing, opportunistic finger pointing and gasping, moral indignation levelled at Russia by the international community and the Western media. In fact Black himself made mention of this in his column with the following, "when these awful incidents happen from time to time what we do not need is for the political temperature to be increased by the likes of David Cameron -one of those rare politicians who seems to have immatured [sic] in office". Given our own PM Tony Abbott's response (of whom more later), we could say much the same about him as well, both of whom of course are towing the Washington line, so no news there then.

What was most striking about this event was the preparedness from the off of numerous world leaders and their media apparatchiks to immediately assume Russia's hands-on complicity in the downing of the plane and the death of 298 innocent people. It seems as if the West stopped only a tad short of accusing Russia of actually planning the attack, or at the very least would've been happy for that perception to prevail.

Not surprisingly, most of this response has come from the United States with back up as indicated from other countries such as Australia and Britain. Interestingly, the Netherlands-having lost the most people-was arguably the most dignified and reserved of all countries in their response. Methinks that says something about the Dutch that we, the British or the Americans, cannot say about ourselves. In these kinds of situations, the US in particular does a fine line in umbrage.

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Even if we accept at this point that indeed the Russian separatists in the Ukraine were responsible for accidentally shooting down this plane-another point to which we will return shortly-and they had done it using Russian supplied materiel and weapons, the more sober amongst us might contemplate how a similar scenario would have played out had it involved a bunch of 'separatists' or 'freedom fighters' in another time and place who had been supported, armed and trained by the Americans. As Mr Stich's earlier comments indicate, this could well have been the case. The fact that it hasn't happened could hardly be attributed to good risk management upon the part of the US, this being the country that 'invented' the Law of Unintended Consequences (aka 'blowback').

Which is to say, given the official versus the unofficial history of US foreign policy, not excluding its well documented-if not well publicised or recorded in the history books-bloody, cynical saga of arming, funding, training and even protecting so-called 'freedom fighters', 'rebels', and 'separatists' of all sorts, shapes and colours in all corners of the Big Blue Ball, an MH17-type outcome was always an eminently plausible possibility not just throughout the Cold War period but beyond.

Before gaining an insight into this tragedy, and the response from the West to Russia and its 'proxy' war with the Ukraine, it is crucial for open-minded news consumers to understand the geopolitical backdrop driving the US's antagonism towards Russia. To say the emotive response is fuelled less by altruism and genuine sympathy for the victims and their families than by geopolitical expediency and maintaining hegemonic dominion in Europe is an understatement of heroic proportions.

In her excellent article on the WhoWhatWhy website, titled Gaspipe Diplomacy: How Ukraine Set Off a New U.S.-Russian Energy Fight, writer and commentator Sylvia Todorova observes at the outset that the real reasons surrounding the conflict are often buried under the headlines and rhetoric, of which there have been plenty of both.

"So it shouldn't come as any surprise", she says, "that, behind the scenes, oil and natural gas are driving a big piece of the U.S. response to Russian involvement in Ukraine." According to Todorova, if anyone wants to get a handle on "where the rubber meets the geopolitical road" in the Ukraine situation, they need to clue themselves up about the 1,480-mile South Stream natural gas pipeline. She states that the pipeline is, "core to the larger battle being fought over Europe between Moscow and Washington…. ..[if] there's a crack in the unified front between the U.S. and Europe over Russia's role in Ukraine, South Stream is it.

Interestingly, Todorova makes no reference in her piece to the downing of MH17 even though it was written after the event; but after reading it one gets the feeling there was no need. The tenet of the piece without spelling it out places Washington's moral showboating and 'Bear'-bashing over MH17-along with the highly punitive economic sanctions already in place over the Crimea situation and those that are planned against Russia in the wake of MH17-in a whole new context, and not one that places the Obama administration in a favourable light by any stretch. It does that is for those prepped to take a different view.

One is reminded here of America's righteous grandstanding over Saddam Hussein in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, wherein we were led to believe it was moral and right to intervene in Iraq and remove Hussein from power in order to bring democracy, freedom and the rule of law to the country in the interests of the Iraqi people and get rid of his 'smoking guns' and 'mushroom clouds' in one feel swoop. And we all know how that panned out.

As per usual, the MSM and the pollies in the US (and here in Australia it would appear) are engaging in imperially inspired, geopolitical posturing and point scoring without the hindrance of all of the facts related to this tragedy. I have a feeling that Putin either 'bitch-slapped' Australian PM Tony Abbott during their recent phone call or quietly provided him with another side of the story. Abbott's hard-on for Russia-which hitherto had been poking a hole through his budgie-smugglers over the incident-seems to have been latterly overcome with a case of the diplomatic equivalent of brewer's droop, which is to say his 'Bolshie' position towards The Bear has (marginally) moderated.

If so this is a welcome development. Inflaming the situation in the name of political expediency or diplomatic one-upmanship-or as appears more likely in this case, in the service of an as yet to be identified, but most likely, self serving agenda-is not helpful in these matters. It insults and demeans the memory of those who died. For those playing this reprehensible game, it marks you out an just another opportunistic, cynical, serf serving, irresponsible politician, the kind that thinking, considered and politically reflective folk just love to hate, and the kind that give even half-way decent, upstanding, more circumspect pollies-and yes we hope there are a few of these left-a bad rap.

And whilst an in depth discussion of such goes beyond the scope of this post, for those wanting to get some idea of the challenges ahead for anyone group of people genuinely attempting to get a handle on exactly what happened-including whether either way it was indeed an accident or not-the piece The Malaysian Airline MH17 Crash: Sixteen Central Issues Which Cannot be Ignored by Julie Lévesque, a journalist and researcher with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), is an eye opener. Even more importantly, as the title itself suggests, her article is a must read for anyone wanting to assess the facts and reality of the tragedy for themselves rather than rely on traditional news mediums and outlets, whose track record in accurately and objectively reporting on such events has for the most part been less than steadfast.

Moreover, along with being a brutal indictment on opportunistic, self-serving, political 'agenda benders', an equally compelling insight into the tragedy is presented by author, blogger and political commentator Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary to the Treasury in Ronald Reagan's administration. Roberts is no 'Bear-hugging', 'neo-Bolshie', self-loathing American looking to relinquish his citizenship on his way out the door. So I guess we all can breathe a sigh of relief there!

An insightful, measured commentator on affairs stateside at the best of times, Roberts' analysis of the fallout from MH17 is a reality check for those still inclined to believe our corporate media shills, whose basic adherence to the fundamentals of old school journalistic ethics and standards-public trust, integrity, independence, honesty, fairness, accountability etc.-is best exemplified by their "this is the news…we choose to give you today" approach.

From a recent post published on the Global Research website and unambiguously titled How American Propaganda Works: "Guilt By Insinuation", the following is just one of the most compelling of his observations:

The way the entire Western news cycle was orchestrated with blame instantly being placed on Russia..…suggests that the downing of the airliner was a Washington operation. It's…possible the well-trained 'presstitute' [sic] media needed no orchestration from Washington in order to lay the blame on Russia. On the other hand, some of the news performances seem too scripted not to have been prepared in advance.

As for Roberts himself, he is another refreshing example of a rock solid American-yes there are a few-who is eschewing simplistic left/right, East v West analyses and jingoistic, knee-jerk, neo-Cold War responses and saying enough is enough of the imperial overreach that has increasingly become identified with American foreign policy enactment since the Fall of the Wall, and maybe ever since the Fall of the City that later 'lent' said Wall its name.

Roberts seems to understand this approach further undermines America's already much sullied reputation for strong global leadership-preferably usingsoft power-along with its geopolitical prestige and moral authority. It is also 'white-anting' the very principles upon which this Sometimes Great Nation was built! Cue here the sound of Founding Fathers spinning furiously but forlornly in their eternally designated plots of land! Hard to see this is what they had in mind all those years ago.

As it turned out, Roberts had quite a bit to say about MH17 disaster and ensuing, contrived, over cooked umbrage in Washington. On his own website is an article titled "Washington is Escalating the Orchestrated "Crisis" to War", an opinion piece which - unlike America's fabled and much touted Constitution - does what it says on the box:

Despite the conclusion by US intelligence…there is no evidence of Russian involvement in the destruction of the Malaysian airliner and all lives on board, Washington is escalating the crisis and shepherding it toward war.

As if to underscore this, he followed it up with another piece called US Intelligence on Malaysian Flight MH17: Russia Didn't Do It. "US Satellite Photos do not Support Obama's Lies". In my view, there is not a wasted syllable in any of Roberts' op-ed pieces. But the following really brings home the bacon, in a much broader context and beyond that of any discussion regarding the fate of MH 17 and its cause.

Instead of declaring war on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, and Syria, why did Washington hide behind lies? If Washington wants war with Iran, Russia, and China, why not simply declare war? The reason that the US Constitution requires war to begin with a declaration of war by Congress is to prevent the executive branch from orchestrating wars in order to further hidden agendas. By abdicating its constitutional responsibility, the US Congress is complicit in the executive branch's war crimes. By approving Israel's premeditated murder of Palestinians, the US government is complicit in Israel's war crimes....Ask yourself this question: 'Would the world be a safer place with less death, destruction and displaced peoples and more truth and justice if the United States and Israel did not exist?' [My underlining]

As for Robert's views in the above pieces, they are exceedingly heady stuff, by any measure. Read them and then try and tell me America is still the good guy. Yet they are a welcome riposte to the Orwellian swill being force fed to us over this incident. He had this to say in response to the media's handling of the story:

As there are a number of possible explanations, let's keep open minds and resist Washington's propaganda until facts and evidence are in. In the very least [the US] is guilty of using the incident to blame Russia in advance of the evidence. All Washington has shown us so far is accusations and insinuations. If that is all Washington continues to show us, we will know where the blame resides. In the meantime, remember the story of the boy who cried 'wolf!' He lied so many times that when the wolf did come, no one believed him. Will this be Washington's ultimate fate?"[ My italics.]

And if Washington or anyone else for that matter want to talk about such things as "fabrication of evidence", "crimes and cover-ups", "evidence tampering" and "compromising crime scenes" and the like (and indeed the vexed, related issue of support for terrorists, separatists, rebels, the blowback from that support, and taking responsibility for that blowback), they may need to take a reality check and a cold shower and remember a Little Thing Called 9/11.

To paraphrase our own fearless PM Mr Abbott, it was with 9/11 that we witnessed "truly industrial scale" evidence tampering, removal, destruction and/or fabrication, cover-ups galore, and supreme master-classes in how to compromise a crime scene you don't want investigated too thoroughly or closely and be coverin' yo' ass at the same time. And whether by way of sheer, perhaps historically unprecedented, incompetence at best-or their own complicity or contrivance at worst-9/11 was their own crime scene, over which they, and they only, had total control!

It is apposite to finish off with an observation from Mr Stich, a man who defended his country during World War Two and yet has spent over half his long life investigating, chronicling, and reporting and writing on widespread, deep seated official corruption in his native country, and someone who has paid a very heavy price for the privilege of being able to exercise his right to freedom of expression under the Constitution in the country that purports to hold the patent on that "right". He had this to say about the status quo in general in the Home of the Brave.

I cannot find proper words to define the arrogance of the U.S [and its] politicians-and their shills-against their own people, and those of other nations….And the new generation [seems] so obsessed with trivia that I see no hope for change.

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About the Author

Greg Maybury is a Perth based freelance writer. His main areas of interest are American history and politics in general, with a special focus on economic, national security, military and geopolitical affairs, and both US domestic and foreign policy issues.

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