MH17 So Far: Guided or Unguided Presidential Missiles?

When you awoke this morning, did you half expect World War III on your morning news? If you’ve followed the rhetoric and blame game surrounding the downing of Malaysian flight MH17, you’d probably not be very surprised. Here’s one dissenting view on what we’ve seen so far.

Our digital version of the bombardment which many dissenters around the world feel via real, live, ammunition from Gaza to Ukraine, and Benghazi to Damascus, is nothing compared to the live ammunition ending lives in the physical world. But what’s worse than the constant media hammering we Americans receive in the real day to day, the unknowing that gnaws at us. Regardless how we classify and arrange all we’ve “received” on a Malaysian passenger liner “blown out of the sky”, a larger calamity (if that’s possible) is before us. “What if we almost went to war over hasty, irresponsible misinformation?”

The burning question here is; “what if a Vladimir Putin’s Missile headline turns out to be Barack Obama’s Missile?” The MH17 mystery mini-series boils down to “same day” MH17 gossip and America’s leadership leaping to potentially calamitous conclusions.

If circumstantial evidence suffices, then we may need look no further than a Charlie Rose Show segment (video below) with presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Even before the wreckage and human victims of flight MH17 stopped smoldering, the former Secretary of State was at Bloomberg LP’s headquarters in New York City to tape a two segment series entitled; An hour with Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State. What’s most interesting about her interview is the timeliness, and some of the rhetoric Clinton engages with.

As for the timing, it’s unseemly that a segment previewed for public consumption, actually went life before the 11 PM EST PBS airings. And here’s the rub on that. MH17 disappeared from radar and from all contact at 14:15 GMT (10:15 EST New York time). In the ensuing hours Clinton and other notables had the presence of mind to surmise a great deal about the event. But it’s the exactitudes and the timeline here that interest many people.

If we assume Mrs. Clinton had somehow been previously briefed about BUK missile systems and Gadfly anti-aircraft weaponry in Ukraine before hand, then her assertions as to their importance in a preliminary early assessment is meritorious. Saying it’s “obvious” MH17 was downed by a surface-to-air missile though, this is at best irresponsible unless she knew categorically the answer. Not to split hairs and overanalyze here, but Clinton is “hasty”, to say the least. A report by Matt Wilstein was posted (not drafted mind you) at 4:45 PM US time on the 17th. By that time Clinton’s remarks on the downing of MH17 had already made it to media. Maybe Clinton was informed from the Pentagon at 10:16 AM in her bathrobe somewhere in NYC? Maybe the Charlie Rose Show called for an early taping given this dire event? Maybe timing is just coincidence here? But you’ve seen lots of coincidences these last months, now haven’t you?

Looking at the Hillary Clinton statements on the day of flight MH17’s destruction, some other interesting tidbits surface, the most chilling of which (potentially) is a passing comment about having seen Russian stock indications on that day, just prior to her appearance on Rose’s show, and presumably after being informed MH17 went down. Clinton also seems somehow versed on factors like the altitude at which MH17 entered Ukraine airspace, and so on. Factors, I might add, which illustrate a mode of thinking, if nothing else. “The equipment had to have come from Russia”, this statement of presumed fact betrays what I see as an agenda from Clinton. The statement takes advantage of any viewer’s lack of knowledge of Ukraine, Russia, and USSR satellite states. Every country in that sphere uses Russia hardware still. This is a misdirect, at the very least.

Finally, if we examine what Hillary Clinton told Charlie Rose, and America, that evening of 17 July, we might as easily praise the former Secretary of State as a soothsayer, as an irresponsible public figure.
Clinton uses some kind of crystal ball to predict the following if Russia “was” proven complicit in any way in the downing of the aircraft:

1. The EU must hit Russia w/sanctions “if” it’s proven they were involved (sanctions hit – no proof)
2. Immediately announce alternatives to Gazprom (this began before the plane went down)
3. There should be outrage in European capitals over MH17 (there is, but with proven perpetrator)

Forget Vice President Biden proclaiming within minutes MH17 was “blown from the sky” by pro-Russian insurgents. Maybe he had satellite and listening intel from Fort Meade? Don’t argue over Secretary of State John Kerry going live on CBS Face the Nation and elsewhere accusing Russia and separatists as if Vladimir Putin himself pushed the button to down MH17. Those headlines talking about “Enormous amounts of evidence” are less damning than a presidential hopeful looking at the Russian stock market on the way to offer up an agenda. And notably, even before the victims of a tragedy are even given a decent burial.

You may agree or disagree on the politics and outcome of the new US-Russia divide, But discerning the rhetoric, the underlying strategies doing on, this too has to be a fully “American” argument, a discovery of the truth. This interview was the same day. It reeks of an agenda, and is ever increasingly looking like a formulated plan, some would say an “energy” or “stock market” one.

Either that, or there is really a crystal ball in Mrs. Clinton’s geo-strategic makeup kit.