Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Thursday, 20 October 2016

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au

MH17 investigation proves a blatant stitch-up

This week’s issue of the Citizens Electoral Council’s magazine, the Australian Alert Service, exposes the bias and agenda that predetermined the findings of the latest official report on the MH17 disaster, whose purpose is not to deliver justice and closure for the families of the victims, but to fuel the dangerous disinformation war currently raging against Russia. The AAS report opens:

“Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea.” “Syrian government forces and/or the Russians bombed a UN humanitarian convoy on the road to Aleppo.” “Assad is using chemical weapons against the Syrian people.” “Putin ordered the hacking of the US Democratic Party’s emails in order to make Donald Trump President.” “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.” “Russian-backed ‘separatist’ fighters in Ukraine’s Donbass shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on 17 July 2014.”

How many of those assertions have you heard stated as fact, or with a slight qualification like “intelligence agencies are confident that…”, back in 2003, or in 2013, or 2014, or last month? Some of them have been painstakingly proven false already, like the falsified evidence used to justify the Anglo-American-led invasion of Iraq 13 years ago. Others have been challenged with strong contrary evidence, yet you may still believe they are true, because the media keep saying so and intelligence agencies keep signalling their “confidence”.

The interim report of the international Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on the downing of MH17, presented at a 28 September press conference in the Netherlands, is a case in point. It proclaimed the “preliminary” conclusion that “MH17 was shot down on 17 July 2014 by a missile of the 9M38 series, launched by a Buk TELAR, from farmland in the vicinity of Pervomaiskiy [village]. At the time, the area was controlled by pro-Russian fighters. Furthermore, the investigation also shows that the Buk TELAR was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and subsequently, after having shot down flight MH17, was taken back to the Russian Federation.”

Seizing the “blame Russia” message, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on 2 October demanded that “those responsible, the chain of command within the Russian military and all those who were involved in making the decision and actually operating that missile” be identified and face a “Lockerbie-style prosecution”. Thus she made out the downing of MH17—which hitherto even those who rushed to blame the Donbass militias had treated as a case of mistaken identity in a war zone—as a conscious act, equating it to the planned terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. This was quite in line with the language and tone of the JIT presentation.

The JIT’s “Presentation Preliminary Results Criminal Investigation MH17” leaves unresolved, or not even addressed, many of the discrepancies in earlier statements by JIT members, pointed out by intelligence-minded journalists over the past 27 months. It also has overridden, without explanation, evidence and facts stated by Dutch Intelligence and Australian police officers and coroners during those two and a quarter years since the crash. We cite analysts John Helmer and Annie Machon on some of these contradictions.

The most striking new element in the report, meanwhile, is an intensified anti-Russian line. This fits with the JIT’s admitted primary reliance on the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the non-governmental, British-based Internet sleuthing outfit Bellingcat. JIT credits the latter right alongside the Dutch Safety Board (OVV), as the only two investigating entities mentioned by name in the report. The head of Bellingcat now works for the Atlantic Council, the US think tank implicated more than any other—before, during and after the February 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s legitimately elected President through street actions led by armed neo-Nazi bands—in propaganda and support for the new Kiev regime and its virulently anti-Russian course.

For the full report, click here for a free printed or electronic copy of this week’s issue of the AAS. The issue also features detailed analysis of how the propaganda war that the USA, UK and their Western allies, including Australia, are waging against Russia, especially over Russia’s efforts to defeat Western-backed terrorists in Syria, has pushed the world to a dangerous point, where even a small miscalculation could trigger an escalation into a global nuclear showdown. The latest AAS includes:

What Australia must do to stop nuclear world war
Warnings about world war: do not ignore them!
Washington Insider: A primer on the national security process
Ex-DIA chief: Hillary knowingly armed Libyan terrorists
British Crown’s End-game: Financial Crash and Nuclear War—a full-colour reprint of a 2012 New Citizen special report which documented the acute danger of nuclear war with Russia and China, featured in this week’s AAS because the USA’s and UK’s present escalation against Russia has pushed the danger to a new flashpoint. It includes detailed maps that reveal the array of Western military force aimed at those nations, which is the main driver of the escalating war danger.

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