John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO ARTICLES IN BOTH THE GUARDIAN AND RUSSIA TODAY

The fact is that most of the solid information we have and many suggestive bits point directly to Ukraine as responsible for downing the airliner. We do know to a certainty that some very important evidence has been suppressed.

Clearly, we all knew from day one that some form of anti-aircraft missile was used, so this discovery, vaguely described in the press, is not much of a discovery.

We need to know which kind of missile was used and from which source it came. The Russians have some pretty good leads suggesting a Ukrainian fighter was near the airliner. They also have the statement of a ground serviceman that a fighter took off loaded with air-to-air missiles – not an everyday event – and returned without them. We even have the name and a photo of the pilot said to be involved.

The Russian BUK ground-to-air missile system, an older version of it, was in the hands of the Ukrainian armed forces, and the design is significantly different to the design of the current BUK system.

But there are many good reasons to believe it was not this kind of missile that was used. There is a very revealing photograph of the pilot’s seat, only the metal frame left, on the ground after the crash. That photo clearly shows a couple of almost precisely round holes in the metal, not the kind that can be made by an exploding missile warhead, but the kind made from the standard cannon on a fighter jet. Importantly, the holes were roughly perpendicular to the seat’s side frame.

Of course, there are also many pictures of missile fragment rips in the plane’s body, so the strong hypothesis emerges of a fighter attack, using both canon and air-to-air missiles. By the way, the Dutch kept the Malaysian pilot’s body an unnecessarily long time, and when it was released to his family for burial, the widow was ordered by Malaysian authorities not to open the coffin. Why? Was the body full of bullet holes?

The Dutch investigators are lax beyond description. There are dozens of pieces from the crash still on the ground today, some being found quite regularly by locals. Yet the Dutch have shown virtually no interest in them when informed of them. Why, you have to ask?

The original site clean-up was positively careless, absolutely nothing like what we’ve come to expect in such investigations. Remember the infinitely patient search for the tiniest bits in Scotland? Remember the recent crash in the French Alps with stuff littered for a huge area, and it was patiently picked up.

The Dutch methods of operation suggest to me perhaps they already knew what happened and knew they had little to investigate. Indeed, this announcement of vague missile parts is highly unprofessional. Are such matters to be settled in the press? A trip to Russia’s manufacturer of BUK systems, a company which indicated its readiness to help, is what was called for. At least one of the things because a visit to Ukraine’s air force is also required and examination of pilot logs and armaments records, but, no, we have none of these.

But the Dutch sure have used an extraordinary amount of time so far, announcing virtually nothing of consequence yet. In such matters typically, especially where the black boxes have been found, it is a matter of a few weeks to come to a conclusion. At most, a few months. Why not in this case which actually seems fairly straightforward?

I am sure the Dutch are deliberately delaying, and they are doing so under the hot breath of the United States which has a lot it is hiding here. The United States is hoping that if enough time passes, people will forget their interest.

The United States has never produced its radar data for the area, radar data which must certainly exist in a region of such intense strategic interest to America. After all, here they are accusing the Russians of aggression and they do not even keep watch on them? Impossible.

Also, the United States has never produced any data from its Keyhole spy satellites, each of which has many sophisticated imaging capabilities, including cameras not unlike the Hubble Space Telescope. We know to a certainty that one of these was overhead at the time since the Russians naturally enough track them all and they have said that was the case.

Finally, Ukraine itself has made public none of its data from its own radars, and the same with recordings of conversations of aircraft control.

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FOOTNOTE: A MUCH LATER STATEMENT FROM THE MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER AS QUOTED IN “SOUTHFRONT”

 

“WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?”: MALAYSIAN PM SLAMS MH17 INVESTIGATION AS NOT IMPARTIAL AND POLITICALLY MOTIVATED

 

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that the investigation into the 2014 crash of the Malaysia Airlines-operated Boeing in Ukraine was not conducted in an impartial manner, but was rather focused on simply pinning the blame on Russia for political reasons.

“For some reasons, Malaysia was not allowed to check the black box to see what happened. We don’t know why we are excluded from the examination but from the very beginning, we see too much politics in it and the idea was not to find out how this happened but seems to be concentrated on trying to pin it to the Russians. This is not a neutral kind of examination,“ the prime minister said, as quoted by the Malaysian National News Agency.

“They are accusing Russia but where is the evidence? We know the missile that brought down the plane is a Russian type missile, but it could also be made in Ukraine. You need strong evidence to show it was fired by the Russians, it could be by the rebels in Ukraine, it could be Ukrainian government because they too have the same missile”.

Both Malaysia and Russia were excluded from partaking in the investigation.

If one translates the recent remarks by the Malaysian prime minister from diplomatic language to direct speech, we see that he stated that Malaysia has little doubts that the MH17 was intentionally shot down by the Ukrainian government. He also points out that the side controlling the JIT and thus the investigation is concealing the criminals, hiding data, and limiting the participation of third parties in the ‘international’ investigation.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TORONTO STAR

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that reason won the day.

Harper’s position – a pathetic echo of vicious American policy – was ridiculous.

There is not an ounce of proof that Syria has used chemical weapons, although there is clear evidence that the rag-tag Free Syrian Army used a small amount of Sarin nerve gas in a couple of instances.

How did they get that horrible stuff? Supplied either by Israel or the US – both have stockpiles – to create an event excusing further intrusion into the affairs of others. Likely it was sent via one of America’s silent partners in Mideast mayhem, Saudi Arabia or Turkey.

Harper – in addition to his un-statesmanlike bullying of Russia – simply lied when he said that only Russia was against intervention. The Germans are also opposed, and others of the G-8 sit on the fence. Only the cowardly post-Blair British government eagerly wags its tail every time America looks their way.

Thank God, American efforts to create a “Gulf of Tonkin” incident for Syria failed, but still its destructive, underhanded efforts, and those of Israel with Turkish and Saudi cooperation, keep the Syrian people in misery.

A dirty shame, just like our prime minister, who incidentally also failed on trade talks with the EU.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY DOUG SAUNDERS IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

“Mr. Putin’s Potemkin-village politics…”

Sorry, there’s almost no thought or analysis in this column.

Just how, in any way, do Putin’s photo-ops differ from what we experience?

Virtually every headline in our major news sources is synthetic.

And our leaders turn virtually one-hundred-and-eighty degrees once they’re in office after an election, often doing precisely what they condemned.

The truth is that Putin is exceptionally intelligent and energetic, and that alone marks him out from many of our leaders.

He has flaws, but are you telling me that our PM, who was held in contempt of Parliament and has lied to us countless times about large or small things and is known for a furious private temper, does not?

And if you want photo-ops even more faked up than Putin’s look to Harper in a parka up north.

He puts on periodic shows to earn nationalist credentials even while he’s busy negotiating away a great deal of Canada’s sovereignty to Americans, the only people who are a serious threat to both northern sovereignty and the Great Lakes.

And the stuff about revolutions is utter nonsense.

Genuine revolutions, like the French or the Russian, virtually never succeed over time. The French had the monarchy back in no time, as did the Russians under a different name.

Revolutions like that in America are often successful, but then they aren’t correctly called revolutions at all. The so-called American Revolution was only a revolt of the locals against foreign lordship and indeed a very conservative event, leaving such godawful institutions as slavery a thriving concern. It basically saw a small group of petty American aristocrats – Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, slaveholders all – replace a group of foreign aristocrats.

And it is a fact that America wasn’t anything like a democracy after its “revolution.” The Senate was appointed until 1913. The President was not elected by the popular vote, but by the propertied aristocrats admitted to the Electoral College. The Supreme made no effort at all to enforce the Bill of Rights – for a very long time, it was only a high-sounding and empty statement of principles, what you might call green-wash.

Blacks, of course, could not vote (effectively not until the 1960s). Women could not vote (not until 1921). Most white males could not vote because they did not own enough property to qualify.

America took about two centuries to become something vaguely resembling a democracy, and even now it has a government within the government – the military, intelligence, security establishment serving giant corporate interests.

Look at America’s recent experience to understand the role of the government within a government.

Bush was likely the most ill-informed and bad-intentioned person ever to be president, and he wasn’t even cleanly elected. Then the people elected a man who sometimes wore sandals, didn’t immediately wear an American-flag pin on his lapel, and taught Constitutional law. After less than three years, you would not know in almost any important detail that Bush was not still president.
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All genuine democracies develop slowly – that is a salient fact of European and North American history.

Always, we first have aristocrats or lords or family compacts – always.

Then through the gradual growth of the middle class under steady economic growth, a large class with substantial resources emerges who do not see their interests being represented by the aristocrats or family compact members.

Then we see a gradual change in political institutions to accommodate the new sizable and growing middle class. The process takes different forms in different countries, owing to cultural and historical circumstances, but it always takes this general pattern.

The same is underway in Russia. At least Putin represents a rather enlightened aristocrat to guide the nation through some of its most tender years. Yeltsin, who blubbered about democracy, was a helpless buffoon and a constant drunk.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A BOOK REVIEW IN THE TELEGRAPH

Hitler suffered several setbacks to his invasion, including the Greek situation. These were important, and might have made the difference, but there were other essential ingredients to the failure of Operation Barbarossa.Hitler unquestionably believed that his army would wrap up the campaign in three months, and he might have been right under ideal conditions. After all, his victories in the West had stunned the world, and he genuinely believed the Russians were untermensch, incapable of competing with Germans. And, as it proved, Stalin went into a drunken stupor after the initial success of the Germans, and no Russian general dared make a major move not approved by Stalin.

Hitler started the invasion believing in a fantasy idea of the abilities of Russians, and anyone who undertakes a great destructive task motivated by fantasy usually fails, just as the Crusaders centuries before. But it is important to keep in mind that Hitler’s racial fantasies were perhaps no sillier or less factual than the religious beliefs of many: he was not mad – several psychiatric studies have said so – but he had a foolish, superstitious, and destructive faith.

Germany’s taking over the best Russian lands – without their people or with the people reduced to slaves – was unquestionably Hitler’s great mission in life. All else was prologue. He believed he was a kind of savior for the German people in achieving their destiny.

Germany’s destiny, as he saw it, was to be able to do what America had done in building a vast empire that ultimately created the kind of economies of scale in its markets to be a great economic force in the world. Hitler understood these principles, and he knew America had had a relatively easy time of it, facing weak opponents like native people and Spanish settlers.

That is why he insisted on absolute ruthlessness in the Russian invasion: while he had contempt for Russians as people, he knew the numbers were not on his side.

He knew the invasion would be very bloody, and that is why he used it as a cover for the beginning of the Holocaust. He not only believed that the death camps would be lost in the noise and horror of the greatest battle of all time, but his strange religion caused him to believe that, with young Germans dying in the East, it was somehow right that the Jews’ numbers should be reduced.

Hitler’s underrating of the Russians included military technology, but, while Germany was in many areas more advanced, the Russians produced some very effective weapons, including perhaps most importantly the T-34 tank. Stalin also kept vast armored reserves hidden in the East, reserves of which Hitler was not fully aware. They proved decisive when the Germans had expended their first great energy.

Winter played a role in Hitler’s defeat of course, but the fierce heroism of the Russians stunned the world as well as Hitler.