Bellingcat claims Russia faked MH17 evidence to accuse Ukraine

[uhnope]

Source: UT

The Russian Defense Ministry used misdated and edited satellite images of the MH17 crash to put the responsibility for the Malaysian Airliner shootdown on Ukraine.

This is alleged by the independent investigation group Bellingcat in the new report "MH17 – The open source investigation, Two Years Later". The document was presented two days before the second anniversary of the catastrophe, which took place in the separatist-controlled parts of Eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2016.

Russia has numerously accused Ukraine of downing the plane and killing all 298 people on board. Moscow brought up several versions of Kyiv's involvement, gradually changing its allegations regarding the weapon behind the crash. At various times the Kremlin suggested MH17 had been shot down by a Ukraine's fighter jet, later replacing the story with a Ukrainian BUK anti-air system.

The Bellingcat's latest report, which provides analysis of the inquiry into the crash, claims the photos, released by the Russian Defense Ministry in support of its theories were "so heavily manipulated that they lack any credibility as evidence".

Read more: http://uatoday.tv/news/bellingcat-claims-russia-faked-mh17-evidences-to-accuse-ukraine-697515.html

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EXPOSING RUSSIAN LIES ABOUT THE DOWNING OF FLIGHT MH17
http://europe.newsweek.com/exposing-russian-lies-about-downing-flight-mh17-480782?rm=eu

[Duckhunter935]

1. Russia all but shot it down

[reorg]

2. Dumb propaganda

First: it's not "news" when someone repeats a false claim they made months, if not years ago already.

Second: it's not true that 'Russia' has 'accused Ukraine' of killing the passengers of that plane.

It is, however, absolutely true that 'independent investigators', who - in contrast to the 'group' referred to in the OP - actually have expertise in relevant fields, namely a German airline pilot (Peter Haisenko) and a former military officer with extensive expertise on Russian missile systems (Bernd Biedermann), have dismissed the Buk theory as inconsistent with the available evidence. They believe MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter plane.

But feel free to continue promoting the chubby little liar.

[uhnope]

3. so a screen grab of Kremlin talking points in a personal insulting attack

true to form, at least

[reorg]

6. I guess you meant this picture

Which I had already replaced with more appropriate imagery for the occasion.

But since you seem to love him so much, here it is again.

This asshole would love to play a role in promoting the next NATO war of aggression:

[uhnope]

7. Please post more from the stock of Kremlin agitprop images

as detailed in this article: http://www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guide-russian-trolling-trolls/26919999.html

[reorg]

8. Are you employed by the state propaganda channel RFE?

Haven't seen you posting anything else in recent times.

[AntiBank]

11. +100

[marble falls]

4. Cheap shot. He may have been an amatuer but he is well educated now and the rest of his group...

IS expert and demonstrably so.

Why should anyone take the opinions of your cherry picked experts who haven't been given full access to the the facts in evidence?

[reorg]

5. Not an expert in any way

but not only meddling in stuff way beyond his horizon, he is actively engaging in propaganda for war and destabilisation of Europe.

Are you saying there are others in his 'group'? Who would that be and in what respect are they 'experts', IYO?

Or did you just make that up?

[uhnope]

9. deny, deflect, distract....

tools of the trade

[AntiBank]

12. post neocon bilge, tools of the trade

[FBaggins]

13. So our only choices are a "chubby little liar" or some pilot and DIY "expert"?

Such a shame that there aren't any better sources. If only there were some governmental safety board independent of Russia and Ukraine that could take a look at this.

[reorg]

18. No these are not the only choices

but someone who instructed soldiers in the use of Buk missile systems and was involved in testing the effect of such missiles, or someone who flew airliners for thirty years - they may know a thing or two about airliner crashes supposedly caused by surface-to-air missiles. Much more than a chubby little twit who has been caught several times already making stuff up.

The only reason the latter is even mentioned in the press is that the NATO warmongers have nothing else.

[FBaggins]

29. Yet you seem desperate to ignore the DSB report

And no... "someone who flew airliners for 30 years" would have little to no relevant expertise on how a plane looks when downed by a missile... while also chubby (as if that's relevant) Biedermann has been thoroughly debunked by that same DSB report.

So there's no need to believe either one of them. Actual experts (which will now be spun as shilling for NATO) were crystal clear on what brought the plane down.

[reorg]

32. Desperate? I didn't even mention it.

The DSB concluded that 'None of the air-to-air misiles in use in the region have the distinctly formed bow-tie shaped fragments in their warhead' that were found on the scene.

I bet you don't even know what Mr Biedermann has opined on the matter.

But in your desperation to get a word in you apparently failed to notice that my comment was directed at something else, the false claim that the babyfaced chubby twit is supposedly 'independent'. You know, the asshole that features as a 'senior fellow' at some 'Atlantic' think tank governed by all sorts of neocons, as somebody else has pointed out here in this thread.

[FBaggins]

33. Actually... you tried really hard to avoid mentioning it

Because it would be hard to spin Biedermann as knowing what he was talking about if the report were part of the conversation.

The DSB concluded that 'None of the air-to-air misiles in use in the region have the distinctly formed bow-tie shaped fragments in their warhead' that were found on the scene.

So? The Buk isn't an air-to-air missile.

I bet you don't even know what Mr Biedermann has opined on the matter.

Actually, I'm well aware of his nonsense. How could I have pointed out that his notion was debunked if I didn't know what he claimed?

But in your desperation to get a word in you apparently failed to notice that my comment was directed at something else, the false claim that the babyfaced chubby twit is supposedly 'independent'.

You did claim that... but then offered these two sources as "independent experts" who actually have relevant expertise. That's why it became relevant to point out what the actual experts said.

But that isn't all you said. Let's review:

have dismissed the Buk theory as inconsistent with the available evidence. They believe MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter plane.

Your Russian spin is badly out of date. Their current claim is that it was a Buk, just not from a Russian or separatist source. The manufacturer (Almaz Antey) has identified not only the warhead model, but the year of manufacture (1982 or earlier) and when that model left Russian service (2011 IIRC).

You were supposed to have buried claims related to Biedermann's error nine months ago - now that even Russia admits that it was shot down with a Buk. Didn't you get the email?

[reorg]

34. Look, I'm not interested

to discuss airplane crashes with you -- or anybody else, for that matter.

The DSB report has not 'thoroughly debunked' anything, certainly not what the independent experts I mentioned say. As it happens, they don't agree with that report ... and not even with what you claim to be the 'Russian spin'! The world is a confusing place, I guess.

[FBaggins]

38. If I had embarassed myself that badly, I wouldn't be interested in continuing either...

... yet you can't give it up.

I'm not interested to discuss airplane crashes with you -- or anybody else, for that matter.

Your scores/hundreds of posts on the topic over the last couple years make that difficult to believe.

The DSB report has not 'thoroughly debunked' anything, certainly not what the independent experts I mentioned say

It's laughable to call them "independent experts" when the pilot is in no sense an expert and the supposed expert is in no sense independent (he was an officer in a Soviet client state's military) - and both are firmly pro-Russian (do you need a definition for "independent"???)... but he most certainly was entirely debunked. He claimed that it couldn't have been a Buk and they found pieces of a Buk warhead embedded in the plane and the manufacturer of the Buk (owned by the Russian government) has identified it as such. They also made clear that there was no way for a fighter's gunfire to create the pattern of damage that was discovered. You can't get any more debunked than that. There is no possible room for disagreement...

... not that it will stop you.

[reorg]

39. oh, is that so ... my 'scores' of posts 'over the last COUPLE OF YEARS'

they must have left a mark, LOL!

Look, on the one hand you ridicule the independent experts since they don't follow the instructions of their supposedly Russian masters, on the other hand you claim they are 'firmly pro-Russian', whatever that is supposed to mean.

I guess it is fair to claim they both don't bother to make pro-'Atlantic' friendship gestures. That's what makes them independent, my friend.

[uhnope]

35. this was a masterful takedown & dissection

of a spinner on behalf of Russia who is either a pro or an advanced volunteer. Though since you noted that they didn't get the latest email, I supposed they aren't actually pro. A hobbyist?

[AntiBank]

10. typical neocon claptrap posting , and to use thoroughly discredited Eliot Higgins? LOLOL

Media's Beloved "Expert" Eliot Higgins - Wrong Again And Again And Again

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/06/medias-beloved-expert-higgins-wrong-again-and-again-and-again.html

Eliot Higgins aka Brown Moses, the founder of Bellingcat "by and for citizen investigative journalists", is beloved by NATO media. Higgins is always able to "prove" by amateur "analysis" of open source data that the "bad guys", just as the U.S. or NATO claim, did indeed do the bad thing that happened. The problem is that Higgins is no expert of anything. He was an unemployed office worker who looked at Youtube videos from Syria and tried Internet searches to find out what weapons were visible in the videos. That is all that made him an "expert".

But Higgins claimed to prove that the Syrian government launched rockets with Sarin on Ghouta, an area south of Damascus. An MIT professor and real expert proved (pdf) that he was wrong. Higgins claimed to "prove" that rockets launched from Russia hit Ukraine by looking at aerial pictures of impact craters. But a real expert of the method said that crater analysis is “highly experimental and prone to inaccuracy” and warned against its use without further corroboration.

Now another "expert" of Bellingcat, who's source of "expertise" is unknown but likely also low, tries to prove that Russia manipulated some aerial pictures it published about the MH17 airline incident in Ukraine. That made some splash in the usual NATO media but is complete nonsense. Yes, the pictures were obviously "manipulated" as labels were added to them. But that the visual content of the pictures were changed, as the "expert" claimed to prove by a JPEG compression analysis, is clearly bullshit. The "expert" claims that "all image content should present roughly the same [compression] error levels if the photo has not been altered." That is nonsense. JPEG compresses a flat white surface with low error level and a rough multicolor part of a picture with a higher compression error level. That is digital compression 101 which I myself learned when I was doing a bit of math work on the early PNG format definition. So it turns out that the "expert" simply does not understand how JPEG compression works.

Out of three big "finds" that made it into the media Higgins and Bellingcat had three that were proven to be wrong by real experts. Any media who further quote "analysis" by the "experts" Higgins and Bellingcat should be regarded as propaganda outlet and not as a serious source of news.

snip






The Atlantic Council is a big time right wing Neocon think tank

look at one of their main centres

Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/brent-scowcroft-center

Brent Scowcroft was the United States National Security Advisor under U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. He also served as Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He served as Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.

look at some of the Atlantic Council directors


Richard L. Armitage
Henry A. Kissinger
Judith A. Miller
Susan Molinari
David H. Petraeus
Brent Scowcroft
James A. Baker, III
Frank C. Carlucci, III
Robert M. Gates
Leon E. Panetta
Colin L. Powell
Condoleezza Rice
George P. Shultz
William H. Webster
R. James Woolsey

neocon and CIA city

[uawchild]

23. "it makes my OPs look even better"

So, you don't have to substantiate your OP articles OR refute those arguments made against them?

All you have to do is call those that refute your posts "whacked apologists" and declare yourself looking even better?

OK... There must be a clinical term for such narcissistic behavior.

[uawchild]

20. Is Higgins being PAID to write this stuff?

Is that neo-con think tank, The Atlantic Council, that made Higgins a "Senior Non-Resident Fellow", PAYING HIM to right his bilge?

[uhnope]

22. omg--irony is so dead on the Internet

for you of all people to write this...

[bemildred]

14. Bellingcat is LBN like Nakedcapitalism is LBN, i.e. not LBN.

It is opinion. If you must post this crap put it in GD or the Lounge or someplace like that.

[AntiBank]

17. always is this neocon dregs in LBN and elsewhere

[uhnope]

19. yeah yeah yeah. Anything truthful about the Russia gov = "neocon"

to regressives and Putin worshippers

[uhnope]

21. um no, it's from a news site

here's another http://www.rferl.org/content/bellingcat-says-russia-used-fake-evidence-to-point-finger-at-kyiv-downing-of-mh17/27860838.html

and on edit another http://www.theweek.co.uk/mh17/59528/mh17-two-years-on-and-what-do-we-know

[bemildred]

24. RFEL is a government news site.

Bellingcat is some guys advocacy blog.

The Week is another, which I also avoid using for the same reason, it's biased and selective in its reporting.

I don't use Iranian sources much for the same reason, there is news there, but they make stuff up and leave things out.

RFEL generally publishes US gov't slant, but they don't just leave things out or make them up.

[uhnope]

25. so is the BBC if you want to get down to it

[bemildred]

26. Yeah, I like BBC too.

They are circumspect where UK government interests are involved, but otherwise do a good job, we should be so lucky here in the USA.

The US government media are not bad either, allowing for occasional PR assaults, in the same way as BBC, but underfunded so coverage is spotty, I use them when I can. They tend to be short and clear.

But most for-profit media is too tabloidy these days to take seriously, and lots of state propaganda organs are too constrained in what they report to be useful.

[uawchild]

27. Radio Free Europe is a known US propaganda site

It's not a state funded news source like the BBC or even the Voice of America. It has a stated AGENDA, originally it's purpose was to encourage "non-cooperation" in communist countries, but that has now been extended to target non-communist Russia and semi-communist China in the present day.

Don't believe me? Here's what Wikipedia's page on Radio Propaganda has to say:

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty[edit]
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the United States Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed".[63] RFE/RL is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, alongside Voice of America.

Founded as an anti-Communist propaganda source during the Cold War, RFE/RL was headquartered in Munich, Germany, from 1949 to 1995. In 1995, the headquarters were moved to Prague in the Czech Republic, where operations have been significantly reduced since the end of the Cold War. In addition to the headquarters, the service maintains 20 local bureaus in countries throughout their broadcast region, including a corporate office in Washington, D.C. RFE/RL broadcasts in 28 languages to 21 countries[64] including Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

RFE/RL was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means.[65] American policymakers such as George Kennan and John Foster Dulles acknowledged that the Cold War was essentially a “war of ideas”.[66] The United States, acting through the Central Intelligence Agency, funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal in Europe and the developing world.[67] The missions of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were separate from Voice of America in the sense that VOA was meant to be the voice of America, reflecting American foreign policy and disseminating world news from an official American viewpoint, whereas RFE/RL has the mission of captivating people and stimulating non-cooperation in Communist countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propaganda#Radio_Free_Europe.2FRadio_Liberty

OF COURSE THIS HAS BEEN POINTED OUT TO UHNOPE REPEATEDLY.

But he, apparently, chooses to continue insisting Radio Free Europe is an unbiased news source.

Today, he had the audacity to essentially equate Radio Free Europe to the BBC !!!

Such disingenuousness is simply stunning.

[bemildred]

28. There are no unbiased sites. Zippo, none. We are on our own out here. Nobody to trust.

They all want to sell you something.

[uawchild]

30. True, but SOME are more BIASED than others.

Radio Free Europe being one prime example of that. Its a self-professed propaganda site. It has an agenda, beyond factual reporting, that it wishes to drive.

Suggesting that all news sources are basically guilty of this to the same degree is simply not accurate.

[uhnope]

31. Gone West Again Young M?

you do not seem to know anything about what you post about, but keep posting on and on anyway.

[Blue_Tires]

36. I'd pointed out a few of them back in '14...

Nice to see there's a definitive list now...

[Blue_Tires]

37. and lest anyone forget:

Russian cyberspies targeted the MH17 crash investigation

http://www.csoonline.com/article/2996819/data-protection/russian-cyberspies-targeted-the-mh17-crash-investigation.html

If the U.S. had done anything half this brazen, Greenwald, Snowden and the rest of the pawns in Russia's information war would *STILL* be fucking crowing about it...