First Class Victims
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Summary
On July 17th, a Malaysian Airlines flight carrying 298 passengers and crew was shot down over the rebel-held territory of eastern Ukraine, and all of the passengers were killed. What could be the cause of this tragedy? Is it the work of pro-Russians or pro-Ukrainian separatists? Or was the plane shot down by mistake or on purpose by the Kiev government? In this episode, we discuss the possibility that the plane was downed by mistake by pro-Russian separatists.
Transcript
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Manuel, thank you for being back on the program.
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Well, Manuel, I want to talk about the recent tragedy that occurred in Ukraine,
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and that is the downing of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 on July 17th of this year.
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And before we get into interpretation and get into some of the possibilities,
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why don't you just tell our listeners objectively what happened?
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Because here in America and in Western Europe, we've seen headlines like Putin's missile,
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which was put on some British tabloid between photos of Kim Kardashian's bikini body.
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And there's been a lot of misinformation going on.
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But again, before we get into interpretation, why don't you just say as objectively as possible what happened?
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Well, I think it's a very quick thing to tell what happened.
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A civilian airplane with almost 300 passengers was flying over the battle zone of eastern Ukraine,
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where the war is going on now since months, and was obviously shot down by something,
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by a rocket, by whatever, and crushed, and all the passengers died.
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You know, listening to the American media, when it first happened, there were a lot of insinuations
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that this was Putin's missile, as I mentioned earlier, that this was some malicious Russian plot.
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But I think there's been a more general consensus in the Western and American media
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that the plane was brought down most likely by mistake by what, in their words,
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are Russian-backed militants or Russian-backed separatists.
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These are the separatists in eastern Ukraine who don't want to be a part of the Kiev government
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and who are being viciously attacked by the Kiev government.
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And that they, by accident, shot down this plane with an air-to-surface defense system.
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Do you think that that is a probable or plausible scenario?
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I think we are right now in the situation that one of the most unlikely scenarios,
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and that is the scenario you told, that it was so-called pro-Russian separatists
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They are right now doing a war against the Ukrainian army
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and against paramilitary units who are connected to the Ukrainian army in that region.
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So to connect that to the so-called pro-Russian separatists
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both things are in the western mainstream media already mentioned, by the way,
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It is unlikely because the plane was flying more than 10,000 meters above the ground,
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and you need for this just certain weaponry systems.
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So what we hear always is this BUK weapon system.
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And at the beginning, the West accused those people's defense militias
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that they stole or that they captured one of those BUK weapon systems
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and that they shot down the plane with that weaponry system.
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Today we know, and we know this because of the Kiev government,
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the prosecutor general mentioned it himself in an interview,
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he said that not just one single BUK weaponry system of the Ukrainian army
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So we can say for sure it's very unlikely that these pro-Russian fighters
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They don't have an interest to down that airplane.
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And I even think we could exclude this from both sides
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because nobody has an interest to kill 300 civilians just so.
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it seems like the most unlikely conspiracy theory is presented as the truth.
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When we look back, for example, just last year in fall,
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where the West accused the Syrian army that they used chemical weapons
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that those weapons were really used by the Syrian government.
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And this was maybe the most unlikely conspiracy theory
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because also the Syrian government has no interest at all to do so.
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And the West, in particular, Barack Obama was calling chemical weapons
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So then the West has to interfere in a military way.
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So the Syrian government didn't have any interest to use those weapons,
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especially at the same time when that happened in Gauta.
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It was the time when inspectors, UN inspectors, were in the country,
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so right in front of the nose of those inspectors.
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especially the yellow press, is doing the same campaign.
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I think we both are used to that Western politicians
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Well, let's talk about cui bono, that is, who benefits.
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Because I think that is one of the most precise means
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And again, that's not a definitive answer to any question.
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But I think it can often really help us understand.
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do not benefit in the slightest by downing a civilian aircraft.
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might have thought that they could have benefited
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in the sense that it brings the Ukrainian conflict
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it brings it back onto the front page of papers and websites,
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and that this could be used as kind of a 9-11-like tragedy,
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Do you think that that is a plausible scenario?
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I think there are two important aspects when we discuss this.
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So aspect number one is that it is less unlikely
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that the Ukrainian military shot that plane down
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than that the so-called pro-Russian separatists shot it down.
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Now, without any interest, without any other things,
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So this is much more likely that the Ukrainians did it.
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that the Ukrainian government tries since months
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to get into a sort of open war against Ukraine.
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I mean, isn't that crazy when you have a Ukraine,
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you have a weak military, you have the Russian strong military.
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So what is very likely is that there are agreements
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in particular by NATO, but also by the European Union
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like the United States, but as well the United Kingdom.
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So when we see now that within the last four months
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of the Ukrainian-Russian border by the Ukrainian side,
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there were shellings coming to the Russian border.
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There were so many provocations to provoke the Russian army
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simply maybe to just to go a couple of kilometers
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But this would, of course, be the casus belli, officially.
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So Russia is in that situation that they don't let provoke themselves.
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At the same time, the fighters in eastern Ukraine,
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the pro-Russian fighters, call Moscow desperately for help.
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They say they should come, they should establish a non-flight zone
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the international reaction on the shooting against that plane,
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before the first observer, before the first investigator
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the western mainstream media and the western politics
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to provoke Russia, to demonize Russia, of course.
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To demonize Russia, it's the barbarian country.
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It's a country where civilian airplanes are shot down for no reason.
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And, of course, when we see this all in this context,
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it's the Ukrainian government which benefits of the campaign now
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and which would benefit as well if Russia is provoked enough
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No, and I'm not exactly certain that Washington and Barack Obama
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and NATO would actually directly intervene in a Ukrainian campaign.
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I think there are different factions within Washington.
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someone like Victoria Nuland being maybe the most obvious example
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that would really love to do to intervene in Ukraine
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that the president with his veto power would want to do that.
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I don't think it's about now an open war against Russia
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that if a Russian soldier would step his boot on Ukrainian soul
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that it would automatically cause a war between Russia and the West.
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we know very well that the Kiev government is completely bankrupt.
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I don't think that the American army would come
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like a giant geopolitical mousetrap for the Russians.
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So they want to step the Russians into that mousetrap.
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without the direct involvement of the United States.
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there would be an American politician like John Kerry
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where the country which is supporting very strong