In our society even those accused of heinous crimes have a right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Like all of our species with a heart and a mind, I was deeply saddened by the horror of MH17, particularly with two daughters and a grandchild in Europe, soon to return.
My sadness and revulsion has turned to anger at the instant blaming of the Ukrainian resistance and Russia by our leaders without presenting damning and conclusive evidence. Where is the presumption of innocence, the measured response of statesmen, the building of the weight of evidence? Are my emotional life, my heart-felt responses, my deepest beliefs and opinions now a central part of the battlefield? My pain; collateral damage?
It seems that our leaders now can say it is so, and it is so, given enough repetition and broad spectrum media re-enforcement of the message. A good dose of trauma, reinforced with pictures of dead babies and heart-rending tales of peer-group grief helps to lock in belief.
I have just come from the Local Government Association (LGAT) Conference, where the final presentation was on body language. Various photographic slides were used to exemplify dishonesty, including some of Vladimir Putin. The projection of his image elicited hushed murmurings of hate and disgust. This response was from assembled community leaders, an intelligent, informed and media savvy cohort.
In a little over a week, Putin has become the most reviled man on the planet. On what evidence? How does this work?
The message has been presented by people and agencies we trust. By now, most people have invested a great deal of emotion in a story that has become a belief for them, even if vaguely held. When I or others present other facts or an alternative belief, it becomes confronting, uncomfortable and vaguely treasonous. I suspect some TT readers will grok what I am saying and feeling, but even in this engaged forum, many will want to relegate my thoughts to conspiracy status without using them to test what we are hearing, seeing, feeling and being told. The mass control technique is simple, brilliant and devastatingly effective, backed as it is by rigorous data on human emotional responses and psychology.
I love this country, the land, the ancient solidity of it, the larrikin culture, the ease of being and relating. It hurts to be reminded of Norwegian collaboration with the Nazis in WWII, as our quisling government uses our grief to jump on the US bandwagon of unsubstantiated blame attribution.
I grew up with the ABC. It has been my first port of call for news, and in common with most Australians, for me it is a trusted institution. My trust had been shaken through the Iraq WMD deception but I still felt that, overall, one could find a close approximation to the truth. This was shattered in the last week, when I looked through the comments to an article on Julie Bishop at the UN. Of the thirty comments, none questioned whether anyone other than the Ukraine resistance had downed MH17 accidently or otherwise. While I accept my insistence on due process is a minority viewpoint, I would have thought one in thirty would have entertained the possibility that the Ukraine State forces were involved. My conclusion is that the ABC should be viewed as the APC (Australian Propaganda Commission) in matters relating to Australian duties as United States vassal.
First port of call in any investigation is cui bono – who benefits. Clearly, the Ukrainian resistance in the Russian speaking provinces do not benefit from this, either in military advantage or public relations. It is also a PR disaster for Russia. Of course, it is possible the resistance forces did it accidently or by ill-discipline.
The Ukraine government and their US/NATO military and intelligence backers gain by isolating the resistance and Russia, placing blame on them and moving Ukraine more firmly into the European economic and political sphere. The demonisation of Russia and Putin during the Crimea return to Russia, the placement of ballistic missiles in Czech Republic and Poland and the US/NATO support for the coup in Ukraine demonstrates an aggressive policy of isolation and harassment of Russia. The downing of MH17 is a public relations win for the isolation of Russia.
On the basis of cui bono, and the evidence to hand, the prime suspect in this atrocity is the Ukrainian State. The Russian defence forces have had a press conference presenting civilian radar records and military satellite. The radar images show a Ukrainian aircraft believed to be an SU-25 fighter climb rapidly from 5000 feet to take up a position about 5 km behind MH17, then stay in the area to observe MH17 falling out of the sky. The military satellites show a Ukrainian army BUK missile launcher in the area of the crash on the morning of the crash day, 17th July. The Russian military called on the US to release satellite images from the newly deployed missile early warning satellite which was directly over the crash area when MH17 came down. None of the Russian evidence was reported by the APC or other local media.
The response of US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has been to assert the ‘we have overwhelming evidence that the rebels were responsible..’. No evidence but apparently that is enough.
We can be sure that the Russians know exactly what happened. They released civilian radar, but their military radar would have much more detailed evidence. Likewise, the US knows exactly what happened with their sophisticated satellites and AWACs. Neither side is laying all the cards on the table. We can expect continued manipulation of media to create pockets of belief and an over-riding official narrative.
In honour of the innocent dead, I ask you all to put aside any personal discomfort at my words, and subject all you are told in the weeks and months ahead to a rigorous scepticism, in a unflinching determination to know the truth to the best of your ability.
Bart Wisse lives with partner Annie at Lorinna, North West Tasmania. Having moved from WA in 1973, they lived the back to the land ideal, building a home, home birthing and home educating 5 children. A focus on self sufficiency evolved into community sufficiency which led to Bart joining Annie on Kentish Council in 2009. An involvement in powering Lorinna’s totally off-grid community with renewables led Bart to operate a business as an industry-accredited renewables professional for the past 20 years.
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