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Space tech could have tracked missile that hit MH17 -- but will we hear the truth?

Ralph Vartabedian, W.J. Hennigan
LA Times
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 16:56 UTC
DSP
© fas.org
The Defense Support Program can provide early warning for ICBM launches by detecting heat and plume signatures.
Advanced U.S. satellites played a key role in the determination by intelligence officials that a surface-to-air missile shot down a Malaysian jetliner over Ukraine on Thursday.

The assessment was almost certainly based on a technical branch of spycraft known as measurement and signature intelligence, or MASINT, analysts said. The method detects, tracks and identifies a variety of electronic signatures, including radar.

The U.S. operates fleets of listening satellites and early warning satellites that could have identified the location of a missile launch site and its trajectory as it shot up to the 33,000-foot cruising altitude of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

The Pentagon would have detected the launch because of its heat signature, said Riki Ellison, founder and chairman of Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a group that lobbies for missile defense spending.

The U.S. Air Force has satellites in high-Earth orbit that use infrared sensors to detect heat from missile and booster plumes against Earth's background. Called the Defense Support Program, the system provides early warning for intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

The satellites are sensitive enough to sense hot spots in forest fires, according to the Air Force.


Comment: In other words, the U.S. could conceivably know what really happened. Conceivably, so could Russia. Realistically, however, the fact that the U.S. "could" or "would" know these details does not in any way imply that their intelligence will be correct (WMDs, anyone?). It will be whatever is politically expedient. Then again, they have to factor in what Russia may know. See Pepe Escobar's recent analysis for more on the subject: MH17: Putin's missile? Nope

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Telephone

UK wraps up 'farcical' hearing on mass surveillance - 'lightning strike on the privacy of everyone'


RT
Sat, 19 Jul 2014 16:43 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Eddie Keogh
A week long hearing exploring the extent of illegal UK government surveillance operations has ended with Amnesty International lambasting the government for making it descend into "the realms of farce and fantasy."

"It is a lightning strike on the privacy of everyone within the government's ever extending reach," said Amnesty International's Senior Director for Law and Policy, Michael Bochenek, on Friday.

"This week's hearing descended at times into the realms of farce and fantasy - thanks to the government's insistence they would neither confirm nor deny any of their surveillance activities."

The hearing has been exploring the allegations that the UK has been illegally intercepting millions of communications.

A GCHQ tribunal started to hear the legal challenges from Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, Privacy International and Liberty among others on Monday.

"This week's hearing will be the first time that these UK government agencies, including the notoriously shady GCHQ, have appeared in a public hearing to answer direct allegations and state their position on the mass surveillance operations as a whole," said Amnesty International in a statement at the beginning of the week.
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Propaganda

NYT propaganda alert: U.S. hallucinates 'evidence' of Russian links to jet crash

Peter Baker, Michael R. Gordon and Mark Mazzetti
New York Times
Sat, 19 Jul 2014 16:13 UTC
Alexander Hug
© Dominique Faget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Alexander Hug, second from left, a monitor with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, at the site of the crash in eastern Ukraine on Friday.
The United States government has concluded that the passenger jet felled over Ukraine was shot down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile launched from rebel-held territory and most likely provided by Russia to pro-Moscow separatists, officials said on Friday.

While American officials are still investigating the chain of events leading to the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Thursday, they pointed to a series of indicators of Russian involvement. Among other things, military and intelligence officials said there was mounting evidence that a Ukrainian military plane shot down three days earlier had been fired upon from inside Russian territory by the same sort of missile battery used to bring down the civilian jet.


Comment: Secret evidence is not evidence. Show us the evidence. Honestly, you guys in the intelligence community don't exactly have a sterling reputation for the quality of your 'evidence'. You can probably therefore understand why most thinking people think you're full of crap.


The intelligence persuaded President Obama to publicly lay responsibility at least indirectly at the door of the Kremlin. Speaking at the White House, he tried to channel international indignation toward Russia for what he called an "outrage of unspeakable proportions." Mr. Obama said the episode should be "a wake-up call for Europe" and "should snap everybody's heads to attention" about what is going on in Ukraine, where a pro-Russia insurgency has become an international crisis.


Comment: Obama must have had some brain circuits crossed. Yes, it should be a wake-up call for Europe: that Kiev and the U.S. are madmen and need to be stopped.


Comment: Peter Baker, Michael R. Gordon and Mark Mazzetti, did it seriously take all three of you to write this garbage? Either you're really bad propagandists, or really bad journalists. Probably both. Just come out and say it: "We really don't know the facts yet, but we're sure it was Putin."

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Card - VISA

Sanctions and airliners: Crisis in Ukraine

Paul Craig Roberts
Foreign Policy Journal
Fri, 18 Jul 2014 15:56 UTC
Paul Craig Roberts
© Unknown
Paul Craig Roberts
The unilateral US sanctions announced by Obama on July 16 blocking Russian weapons and energy companies access to US bank loans demonstrate Washington's impotence.

The rest of the world, including America's two largest business organizations, turned their backs on Obama. The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers placed ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post protesting US sanctions.

NAM said that the manufacturer's association is "disappointed that the US is extending sanctions in increasingly unilateral ways that will undermine US commercial engagement."

Bloomberg reported that "meeting in Brussels, leaders of the European Union refused to match the US measures."

In attempting to isolate Russia, the White House Fool has isolated Washington.

The sanctions will have no effect on the Russian companies. The Russian companies can get more bank loans than they need from China, or from France and Germany.

The three traits that define Washington - arrogance, hubris, and corruption - make Washington a slow learner. Arrogant people wallowing in hubris are incapable of learning. When they encounter resistance they respond with bribes, threats, and coercion. Diplomacy requires learning ability, but Washington left diplomacy years ago and relies on force.

Consequently, with its sanctions, Washington is undermining its own power and influence. Sanctions are encouraging countries to withdraw from the dollar payments system that is the foundation of US power. Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and a member of the European Central Bank's Governing Council, said that
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Question

MH17: Putin's missile? Nope

Pepe Escobar
RT
Sat, 19 Jul 2014 15:41 UTC
Putin
© AFP Photo / Alexei Nikolsky
Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
Here's the spin war verdict: the current Malaysian Airlines tragedy - the second in four months - is "terrorism" perpetrated by "pro-Russian separatists" armed by Russia and Putin is the main culprit. End of story. Anyone who believes otherwise, shut up.

Why? Because the CIA said so. Because Hillary 'We came, we saw, he died' Clinton said so. Because crazy Samantha 'R2P' Power said so - thundering at the UN, everything duly printed by the neo-con infested Washington Post.

Because Anglo-American corporate media - from CNN to Fox (who tried to buy Time Warner, which owns CNN) - said so. Because the President of the United States (POTUS) said so. And mostly because Kiev had vociferously said so in the first place.
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Dollar Gold

Unanimous vote by U.S. Senate passes resolution supporting Israeli slaughter in Gaza

Chris Carlson
IMEMC News
Fri, 18 Jul 2014 23:19 UTC
Ground troops in Gaza
© boltonbnp.blogspot.com
Netanyahu sends in ground troops to Gaza, paid for by the USA.
Following a similar resolution passed last week by the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate voted Thursday night to support Israel's ongoing invasion of the Gaza Strip. No dissenting vote was cast, and no mention was made of the hundreds of Palestinian civilians, most of whom are women and children, that have been killed by Israel in the past ten days.

Senate Resolution 498 was authored by Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), with additional support by Ben Cardin (D-MD) and son of former Republican party politician Ron Paul, Rand Paul (R-KY).

Paul is urging the Senate to pass his own bill, S. 2265, which would end all U.S. foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority until Hamas is barred from the new Palestinian unity government, among other stipulations.

The resolution was passed on the very same night Israel launched its current ground offensive into the Gaza Strip.

The United States and Israel, this past week, signed an agreement under which $429 million of American taxpayers' money "will be transferred immediately to Israel" to further fund the Iron Dome missile system, which has recently come under scrutiny by prize winning Israeli defense and aerospace engineering expert Dr. Moti Shefer.

Comment: You buy it...you own it.

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Newspaper

Malaysian jet tragedy propagandized, politicians jumping to conclusions - Ron Paul


RT
Sat, 19 Jul 2014 11:39 UTC
Ron Paul
© Reuters / Joel Page
Ron Paul
Referring to the tragic downing of a Malaysian Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine, former Texas congressman Ron Paul warned against jumping to conclusions over the culprits.

Drawing parallels between the potential for a Russian-made missile system's connection to the attack of the passenger jet on Thursday over the restive Donetsk region of Ukraine and the capture of US-made weapons by Islamist insurgents in Iraq, Paul pointed out that the missile's potential source of manufacture was largely immaterial.

"That may well be true, but guess what, ISIS has a lot of American weapons," said Paul. "We sent weapons into Syria to help the rebels and al-Qaida ends up getting it - it doesn't mean that our American government and Obama deliberately wanted ISIS to get American weapons."

"So who gets the weapons is a big difference between how they got them and what happened and what the motivations were," Paul added. "So even if it was a Russian weapon - doesn't mean a lot."

Speculation of direct involvement by the Kremlin, whether directly or through "proxies" in the form of pro-Russian militia in Ukraine, in particular seems propagandized, Paul told NewsMax on Friday.

Unverified video footage has been circulated as proof of involvement by Ukrainian militia members, though the aircraft's black boxes have yet to be retrieved, and there remain many questions unanswered as investigators have trickled into the crash site.

"Under these circumstances, it's very difficult to get the real information so everybody's angling to propagandize and make their position known," said Paul.

Comment: The same thing happened on 9/11. Then, the U.S. got its way and Al Qaeda was blamed. This time, it'll be interesting to see if the same dynamic plays out, or if the REAL culprits get exposed.

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Rocket

E. Ukraine militia did NOT have Russian anti-aircraft system -- but Kiev did


RT
Sat, 19 Jul 2014 11:15 UTC
Buk-2M
© RIA Novosti / Anton Denisov
A Buk-2M missile system
The Russian Defense Ministry has said that neither the Buk missile defense system, nor any other military equipment, has crossed the Russian border into Ukraine.

Such border crossings "can't be performed in secrecy," the official representative for the Russian Defense Ministry told journalists in Moscow.

Earlier, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) alleged that it has proof the self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine received a Buk anti-aircraft missile system with a crew from Russia.

Malaysian flight MH17 "was shot down by a missile from the Buk-M air defense system, which was transferred from the territory of Russia," said Valentin Nalivaychenko, SBU head, without elaborating on the evidence.


Comment: There is no evidence, because he's making it up.


Shortly after the Thursday's tragedy, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko addressed the nation, saying that what happened to the Malaysian MH17 flight was "a terrorist act."

The statement came before Kiev launched an investigation into the crash to determine what exactly happened to the Malaysian jet.


Comment: Providing ample demonstration that Poroshenko is a profound nitwit. There's a term for when a person habitually and irrationally jumps to conclusions in absolute terms with no evidence: mental illness.

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Cell Phone

Ukrainian intelligence releases faked 'leaked call' implicating militia in MH17 crash


RT
Fri, 18 Jul 2014 10:56 UTC
Malaysian wreckage
© AFP Photo / Dominique Faget
People stand, on July 17, 2014, amongst the wreckages of the Malaysian airliner carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk.
The Ukrainian Security Service has released what it calls "intercepted phone conversations," which are supposed to prove that Donetsk self-defense forces shot down Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight on Thursday - presumably, by mistake.

The 2:33 minute clip, which Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) posted on YouTube in Ukrainian, English, German, French, Spanish, Polish, Turkish and Japanese versions, consists of three separate "conversations."

The first "conversation" allegedly takes place between - according to SBU's titles - militia group commander nicknamed "Bes" ("Igor Bezler") and his alleged coordinator, "Vasily Geranin," who is titled in the video as "a colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces."

"Bes" and "Geranin" are speaking about a downing of a jet, without clarifying if it's a military or a civilian aircraft.

The second "conversation," which allegedly happens between anti-Kiev militia members - nicknamed "Major" and "Grek" - reveals that the crashed plane was "a 100 per cent passenger aircraft."

The third and final segment sets things straight as an unnamed "militia member" tells an alleged "Cossack commander" titled as "Nikolay Kozitsin," that there's 'Malaysia Airlines' marking on the downed plane.

The Western media has picked up the news, despite it being impossible to verify the authenticity of the leaked conversations.


Comment: RT doesn't mention that the video in question was uploaded the day before the crash even took place. Either the SBU have a time machine, or they knew the plane was going to be shot down -- implying they are the ones responsible.

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Take 2

YouTube clip "proving" pro-Russian rebels shot down Flight MH-17 full of holes

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 10:50 UTC
Image
Almost exactly one year ago, the world was nearly brought to the verge of a global war by proxy involving the US and Russia (and Europe and China) over a staged, false flag YouTube clip "proving" the Assad regime had used toxic gas (gas that was made in Britain as it was later revealed) to kill several hundred civilians in the country's ongoing war against what subsequently turned out to be al-Qaeda funded and trained rebels (and which now are fighting across the border with another former US-puppet state, Iraq). Luckily, back then an all out confrontation was averted in the last minute over what was ultimately nothing but a gambit by Qatar to have its gas pipeline enter Europe and leave Gazprom in the cold (literally and metaphorically).

A year later, it is deja vu all over again, when the same energy and geopolitical tensions (Europe, natural gas, etc) are once again at the frontline, and while the theater of combat may be different, the same key players - Russia and the US - are once again behind the proxy conflict in Ukraine, and where Gazprom is once again the fulcrum party. The only missing link was a YouTube clip which would bring the world to the edge of war again.

Moments ago Ukraine released what may be just that missing "YouTube" link, when it unveiled a 2:23 minute video supposedly proving that "militants of "Bes" group shot down with a Russian anti-aircraft missile a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 passenger jet heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur."
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