On the Debates We Aren’t Having and Who Benefits

by William Skink

What if there is evidence that Obama knew, within hours of MH17 being shot down over Ukraine, that it wasn’t a BUK missile that took it out, killing 298 people? That is precisely what John Helmer is claiming:

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama have on file three pieces of evidence showing both of them knew what had caused the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17, and of the deaths of all 298 souls on board. They knew it little more than two hours after the crash had occurred in eastern Ukraine. They also knew each other knew it, because they discussed what had happened in a telephone call which took place before 19:45 Moscow time, 11:45 Washington time, on Thursday, July 17. MH17 was downed that day at 16:20 Ukraine time, 17:20 Moscow time, 09:20 Washington time.

The first piece of evidence is the agenda paper for the telephone call. This had been negotiated and formalized by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Russian Embassy in Washington, the State Department and the White House before July 17. The second piece of evidence is the tape of the Putin-Obama conversation, as recorded by the Kremlin. The third piece of evidence is the tape of the Obama-Putin conversation, as recorded by the White House.

Later in the article, some initial findings from the investigation have been reported to now be classified, but enough has come out to put the BUK missile theory into serious doubt:

Two additional pieces of evidence on what Putin and Obama said have taken a year to surface. One comes from the Dutch police officer and state prosecutor leading the MH17 case investigation, Fred Westerbeke.

A year ago, on September 12, 2014, Westerbeke announced publicly that 25 pieces of metal had been recovered. This count hasn’t improved In the 14-month long investigation of the crash, of the aircraft debris, and of the remains of those killed. For Westerbeke’s statements to Dutch, British and German press, read this.

Westerbeke’s testimony is, he admits himself, ambiguous. He acknowledges that he doesn’t (didn’t) know, or isn’t (wasn’t) certain, what the origin of the metal had been.

The second piece of evidence, which reveals what Westerbeke meant by his disclosure, came weeks later from the Coroners Court of Victoria, an active participant in the multinational post-mortem investigation of the MH17 victims.

Three Australians – pathology professor David Ranson; deputy Victorian state coroner Iain West, and Victorian state coroner Ian Gray – released the evidence they had gathered and verified with the Dutch and the five-state Joint Investigation Team at the Hilversum military base, near Amsterdam. This evidence became public in November and December of last year. It was classified secret last week. For the detailed documentation which has been preserved of this evidence, click to read here. A Coroners Court spokesman refuses to say when the evidence was officially classified, or on whose order.

According to the Australian coronial evidence, there was almost no metal in the bodies or body parts of the MH17 victims. According to Westerbeke, just 25 particles had been found. Before the Australian coroners had seen the metal assay evidence, they ruled that “causes of death from explosive decompression – similar to the pressure wave from a bomb – included hypothermia, hypoxia, massive internal organ injury, embolism and heart attack. Exposure to very low temperatures, airflow buffeting and low oxygen at 30,000 feet would also result in death in seconds.” Detonation, lethal explosion, and breakup of aircraft had occurred, the Australians have reported — but with insufficient traces of shrapnel to confirm that a Buk missile warhead had been cause.

Coroner Gray is responsible for the blackout of evidence he and his subordinates had painstakingly made public last year, for the benefit and comfort, they said at the time, of the families of the victims. Ranson, the most talkative of the Australian official investigators, has been obliged this week, not only to keep silent on what he has already published, but to contradict what he has already said. The Australian Federal Police (AFP), Westerbeke’s counterparts in the joint international investigation process, are withholding all evidence papers compiled by the pathologists, and the evidence summary file they continue to discuss with the investigators.

Are we to the point where an American President can just brazenly lie to the world about a serious war crime and get away with it? I guess so, but not without the help of corporate media, who collectively and dutifully provided the sound of crickets over this new, troubling evidence.

The Obama Administration isn’t being led by some Grandmaster of foreign policy. It’s being led by the kind of people who thought they had Assad’s number in 2012, so they ignored this deal from Russia that would have included Assad stepping down:

Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time.

Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal. Since it was made, in 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions uprooted, causing the world’s gravest refugee crisis since the second world war.

Ahtisaari held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in February 2012. He said that during those discussions, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Assad to cede power at some point after peace talks had started between the regime and the opposition.

But he said that the US, Britain and France were so convinced that the Syrian dictator was about to fall, they ignored the proposal.

Last month I wrote about how the Democrat political machine is trying to slither away from discussing foreign policy, but now, with Wasserman-Schultz getting her speech disrupted by party protestors demanding more debates, I’m wondering if the Democrat machine wants to talk about anything other than the coronation of Hillary Clinton. From the link:

As DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz spoke at a big Democratic rally this morning, protesters disrupted her speech, demanding more debates.

The Democratic presidential candidates are only having six debates, something that’s been criticized by the party’s own candidates and two of the DNC’s own vice chairs. But Wasserman-Schultz has been very insistent that six debates is sufficient.

There was a protest outside DNC headquarters this week, and today, protesters shouted “We want debates!” as the DNC chair spoke.

Wasserman-Schultz fired back and told Democrats shouldn’t be wasting time on fighting over debates when they could be spending that time fighting Republicans instead.

Nice leadership you got there, Democrats. More than a few Democrat supporters are unhappy there are not more opportunities to watch their preferred candidates talk about issues, and the response they get is essentially stop your whining and do what you’re told. It seems pretty obvious that protestors within the party will be ignored because more debates would hurt an already damaged Hillary Clinton.

Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Bernie Sanders took political advantage of this? He could start loudly and repeatedly calling for more debates, but he won’t.

So far Sanders has shown little interest in taking it to Hillary. The role Bernie is playing remains open to speculation, but I still think this piece from last June deserves consideration.

That article drew attention to pro-Bernie email blasts being sent out courtesy of the DNC. Citing that article, then furthering the speculation that Bernie Sanders is playing sheepdog for the DNC, was one of the main reasons Jay Stevens booted JC and myself off 4&20 Blackbirds.

There is the flip side of Wasserman-Schultz putting those protestors in their place. The anointed one is vulnerable, and they know it. Even better, maybe Bernie isn’t a good sheepdog, and is just biding his time for the right moment to bite the hand that feeds him.

About Travis Mateer

I'm an artist and citizen journalist living and writing in Montana. You can contact me here: willskink at yahoo dot com
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6 Responses to On the Debates We Aren’t Having and Who Benefits

  1. Big Swede says:

    Hill just tweeted that she’s an outsider.

    The magnitude of the Bullshit this soulless Hack spews is Krakatoa like.
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    • My reading of intelligence is of a shifty world where operations can never be traced to their source and “plausible” deniability is real deniability – that is, Obama knew nothing of the plans to shoot down the airliner. Both he and Putin are smart enough to know what really happened and to shut up about it. If it was done by American agents, there are enough intermediaries (“cut outs” as they are called) that it cannot be traced.

      The US either stands to benefit by blaming it on the Russians, or will suppress the investigation and its findings. There is no reason for it to drag on as it has except back room intrigue.

      Even more interesting, the airliner that supposedly up and disappeared in the Pacific (MH370) was also a Malaysian airlines jet. A man whose work I like, Richard Hall of Britain, calculated the odds of two tragedies hitting one small airline – infinitesimal. He speculated that the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, which found both Bush and Blair guilty of war crimes, was the reason why that airline company was singled out for two tragedies. The Malaysians had gotten uppity.

  2. steve kelly says:

    There was a third airline incident, which makes those odds much, much longer. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/29/us-indonesia-airplane-malaysia-idUSKBN0K70PH20141229

    • Holy s***! Nice link. thank you.

      I normally don’t respond to fear baiting – I would easily have gotten on any passenger airliner on 9/12/2001, but honestly, I would be concerned about flying Malaysian Airlines. They’ve been stigmatized by real terrorist incidents and hundreds have been murdered … and will probably have to fold. Creepy extreme.

  3. djinn&tonic says:

    The City Is Empty
    Анастасия Забродина
    The city is empty.

    Light posts, dying one after another,
    Are dipping the city into darkness,
    Until no one can see a candle-light.

    The city is empty.
    Midnight bus is carrying me through the forest,
    Going on the newly built yet bumpy road.

    Lightning reveals patches of grey cloudy skies
    Otherwise hidden in the thick darkness behind the trees.
    The city is empty.

    People are many, moving like robots, gathering in hives.
    They buzz and buzz everywhere they go,
    Aimlessly throwing in words, deprived of common sense.

    The city is empty.
    Glittery windows of the shops with brand new shoes are
    parasitizing the eyes by hundreds of high heels and leather glow.

    Casino lights flashing here and there
    On every corner of worn out multi-storied buildings.
    Yet there are no light posts.

    They are dead long ago,
    And the city is empty.
    No stray dogs, no cats, no birds.

    The nothingness of chatter in the streets, in the transport, in the shops.
    The uselessness of all.

    Another web post about the murders, beheaded corpses, bad Muslims, good Christians, bad politicians, good politicians, bad people, good people, wrong god, right god, right murder, wrong murder.
    It’s a never-ending story of human blind fixation.
    We are in a cobweb, a dozen butterflies, fluttering the wings, pulling each other in a more entangled ignorance, which is no longer a bliss, but a senseless violence.

    The city is empty.
    There is no light.
    The world is empty, like a drunk glass of wine.

    Daylight leeking through the thick curtain over my window.
    Another day, another news.
    I lie on the bed, under the pressing machine of my own thoughts.
    I see dreams, never ending dreams, with people alive and dead, known and unknown.
    They speak quietly, they whisper.
    I travel here and there only to wake up in the same prison I have been for years.
    The prison of my own inertia.

    The thought of any action makes me sink in deeper. As if in a bog of existence.
    The more you think of moving, the deeper you sink into depression.
    So I chose not to think.
    Keep my mind busy with something else. Something that keeps me alive.

    Another news – the chemical factory is blown up, the war continues. It’s is not here yet, but it is very close…..a step away. People are dying, hundreds, thousands.
    People have lost hope long ago, they are never satisfied, never happy.
    It’s not about money, even if they have plenty, its not about sex, even if they have a lot,
    it’s not about friends, even if they have many.

    They are never satisfied.
    They hate preachers, they hate sinners, they hate each other, they hate themselves.
    Then someone gives the 30 silver coins to those, who agreed to open the Pandora box.
    Nothing is forbidden anymore. Everything is freedom, everything is democracy, right is wrong and wrong is right. Now you can shoot, swear, kill, do anything you want. It’s a war, so your face has no identification. Just numbers. Numbers of the dead, numbers of the raging living, they are faceless.
    The raging ignorance is probably the scariest thing that exists on the Earth. You can’t argue with that. It’s like as if you tried to argue with a tornado, or a tsunami or an earthquake. You can use your best arguments against the volcano that is ready to explode, yet you are helpless. The inner forces are strong and decisive, the destructive forces. And the fuel is lit. It’s the propaganda, the endless visual row, slashing scars onto human memory, turning people into zombies.
    I think I’ve had enough of those. I detached myself from this reality long ago. Living like a crazy hermit. As soon as the dark approaches I go out and wander with dilated pupils and murmuring lines of the poems I would write, if I had a notebook in my hands.
    My hands….I look at them often. I remember my hands when I was a kid, I had hoped they would stay as small and gentle forever. I never thought of them as of something, that will change faster than my age.

    September, 2014.
    http://www.stihi.ru/2015/09/23/1105

  4. Steve W says:

    William, I challenge your untrue assertion about Bernie Sanders. In your piece above, you wrote, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Bernie Sanders took political advantage of this? He could start loudly and repeatedly calling for more debates, but he won’t.”

    https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/more-debates

    http://time.com/3903978/bernie-sanders-debates/

    http://www.latinpost.com/articles/75809/20150831/2016-presidential-debates-democrats-bernie-sanders-martin-omalley-criticize-dnc.htm

    The above links demonstrate that Bernie Sanders has repeatedly (since last June,) and forcefully, called for more debates. In fact he’s petitioning the DNC to hold more debates. Please sign the petition and add your name to the formal demand of the people on the DNC Chair.

    Bernie also protests the exclusion from debating Republicans, Greens, and others, that the DNC’s schedule contains.

    One thing I like about reading you is I usually learn something new. That must be why it annoys me so damn much when I see you write completely unsubstantiated assumptions.

    All humans do it. Some more than others, and I don’t think you are worse than most in fact I think you are better. But the information about Bernie’s stance on the DNC Debates is readily available. If you would only search it out before publicly making bad assumptions I doubt i’d be writing this.

    I’m amazed at how little you know about Sanders, Mr Skink. This campaign is almost exactly like every campaign Sanders has ever run. If you spent a little time studying the man, his voting record, his amendments, his past campaigns, you would exhibit far more awareness about the current political situation.

    Sanders is currently leading Hillary by double digits in both New Hampshire and Iowa and he’s cut his deficit in S. Carolina from about 40 to about 20 points and continues to close. He’s done that by following his long proven campaign strategy of not making personal attacks on his opponent. Now the fact that he tells people what his policies are and how they differ from Clintons policies might not be good enough for you, Mr Skink, but I can hardly see how you can argue with the results politically. What you call “…little interest in taking it to Hillary.” I call “kicking Hillary’s ass” by erasing her double digit leads in NH and IA and halving his deficit in SC.” All in about 3 months.

    I think you should consider this article http://www.thenation.com/article/what-the-us-left-and-bernie-sanders-supporters-can-learn-from-jeremy-corbyn/

    As for the Indonesian events, it’s all really hinky as far as the eye can see. It’s kind of 9 eleveny. n many of the ramifications and impacts.

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