EU Referendum


Ukraine: the plot thickens – Part IV


22/07/2014



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I really don't know what is more fatuous – the idea that Mr Putin was personally responsible for supplying the missiles that shot down MH17, or the idea that it doesn't matter – that as long as he is supporting the separatists, he bears the ultimate responsibility for the downing of the Malaysian airliner.

The reality, of course, is that Putin is playing a dangerous game, supporting the separatists to an extent, but only to an extent. He has no interest whatsoever in escalating the conflict to a level where it gets out of control, or in causing dangerous international incidents, which can have serious economic and political consequences.

Furthermore, it only takes a very slight knowledge of the situation in Russia and on its border to understand that Putin does not have full – and in some cases even partial – control of events. He must carry the "hard men" with him, and if he steps outside the bounds of the acceptable, his own power base comes under threat.

To a very great extent, therefore, Western leaders have greater control over their own machines than Putin, at least within their own domains. And in that context, people such as President Obama have in certain respects as much power to shape events in Ukraine as does the Russian President.

And it is here that we need to be looking, at whether the United States could have done anything to influence events, and  prevent the loss of MH17.

Here, we have already looked at Ukraine and whether it should have sounded the alarm about the existence of high-performance anti-aircraft missiles in the hands of the separatists. But what applies to the Ukrainians applies in spades to the United States and Mr Obama.

The crucial issue here is that downing of the An-26 on 14 July, and whether it was picked up by US satellite systems. It is now widely acknowledged that the shooting down of MH17 was witnessed by satellites, but there is no evidence that the US intelligence agencies were watching the area on 14 July.

Nevertheless, there is absolutely no question that the SBIRS network is capable of detecting, monitoring and recording the deployment of a surface-to-air missile, and there is also the Defence Support Programme, which launched 23 missile warning spacecraft between 1970 and 2007.

But, as this blog also tells us, several SIGINT and ELINT satellites cover this area, including various MENTOR (ORION) satellites and one MERCURY satellite in GEO, and USA 184, which is both a TRUMPET-FO SIGINT satellite and a SBIRS platform, in HEO.

One does not have to understand the jargon to appreciate the significance of all this. SIGINT satellites amongst others serve to detect and monitor signals from military radar and missile systems. Given the interest of the USA and NATO in closely watching military developments in the Ukraine conflict, it is almost certain that some of these are (and were) targeting the area.

With the flare-up of fighting in eastern Ukraine over June and early July, there is every reason to expect that the US would have deployed satellites to observe the area, and if they picked up the BUK launch which destroyed MH17, then it is entirely reasonable to assume they picked up the downing of the An-26 on 14 July. Furthermore, the equipment could have identified the launch of an SA-11 missile.

From what we know of the way the US administration works, it is also the case that the President is given a daily security briefing. The fact that Ukrainian separatists had acquired a missile system which could threaten commercial aviation, and the lives of US citizens, is surely something he would have been told during such a briefing.

Sadly though, with the media (and Western politicians) obsessed with Putin's role and his degree of responsibility for the actions of the separatists, they have been distracted from events of 14 July. No one is asking, therefore, whether it was possible as a result of satellite intelligence delivered to the US President  to have warned the world's airlines of a potential threat, taking measures to keep them out of harm's way.

Amongst a very few others, one journalist in particular is asking what the US satellites might have seen. Investigative reporter Robert Parry thus comments:
… here we are yet again with the MSM relying on unverified claims being made by the Kiev regime about something as sensitive as whether Russia provided sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles – capable of shooting down high-flying civilian aircraft – to poorly trained eastern Ukrainian rebels.

This charge is so serious that it could propel the world into a second Cold War and conceivably – if there are more such miscalculations – into a nuclear confrontation. These moments call for the utmost in journalistic professionalism, especially skepticism toward propaganda from biased parties.

Yet, what Americans have seen again is the major US news outlets, led by the Washington Post and the New York Times, publishing the most inflammatory of articles based largely on unreliable Ukrainian officials and on the US State Department which was a principal instigator of the Ukraine crisis.
The alarming thing is that, when we look at the State Department and John Kerry - responsible for many of the headlines yesterday, we find that he is very far from offering evidence of Russian complicity. Kerry is asked: "Are you bottom lining here that Russia provided the weapon?", whence he responds:
There's a story today confirming that. But we have not, within the administration, made a determination. But it's pretty clear, when, you know, there's a build-up of extraordinary circumstantial evidence. You know, I'm a former prosecutor. I've tried cases on circumstantial evidence. It's powerful here. But even more importantly, we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar. We also know, from voice identification, that the separatists were bragging about shooting it down afterwards.
But, when it comes actually to answering the question, all he can say is: "… there's a stacking up of evidence here, which Russia needs to help account for. We are not drawing the final conclusion here".

PressTV picks up this sleight of hand, calling the Kerry accusation a "hoax", remarking that nowhere has he made statements about the source of a missile, noting that dozens of journalists around the world have been "burned" by this type of story.

What has been called a "reckless rush to judgement", however, is more than a matter of shoddy journalism and gullible journalists. The role of US intelligence, its threat assessment of the events of the 14 July and the failure to give a warning to the world's airlines is part of the story. And it is being missed.

Peter Mckay in the Mail is one of those who is beginning to question the consensus and we see some sensible writing from Mary Dejevsky in the Spectator, who argues that the "blame game reflects badly on all of us".

That, though, is the least of it. There is a case to be made that there has been a major system failure here, with the US authorities every bit as culpable in their own way for the MH17 tragedy as the Russians - culpable in the sense that they could have stopped it from happening.

Thus, when Mr Cameron says, as he did yesterday, that the shooting down of MH17 was "a defining moment for Russia", he needs as much re-education as the journalists who report his words. The real story - the whole story - has yet to be told. What did satellite intelligence tell Mr Obama, and why didn't he insist on the world's airlines being warned of the emergent threat? 

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