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What are you wittering on about?Comment
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That you're a big baby ??Comment
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Dude, this place will completely dry up when I'm gone...
I'm the Man...
I'm the entertainment...
Without me, all that's left is a handful of people who continue to worship the 3/4 shadow of Van Halen, of whom have never set foot in this place...
So, whatever...
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You're not only sounding like Warf, but you've adopted his practice of ending each sentence...?Comment
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MH17: five of the most bizarre conspiracy theories
From Zionist plots to the Illuminati, some wildly imaginative alternatives are being promoted by the likes of Russian TV
Padraig Reidy
theguardian.com, Tuesday 22 July 2014 16.41 BST
There are several versions of the phrase: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” While the sentiment is not entirely applicable to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines’ flight MH17 over Ukraine – it seems impossible that there was no malice involved in bringing down a passenger plane carrying close to 300 people who had nothing to do with anyone’s conflict – it’s still worth holding in our thoughts as we try to get to grips with exactly what happened. Was this a cock-up or a conspiracy?
First, the cock-up. Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists gained access to a sophisticated Buk ground-to-air missile system, most likely via Russian channels. They were keen to shoot down Ukrainian planes. Unfortunately, they did not have the equipment or expertise to differentiate between civilian and military aircraft, and the result was the horrific death of MH17’s 298 innocent passengers.
This is still a crime, no doubt. But for some this is not enough. For various reasons, ranging from fear, to vanity, to hatred, people need an overarching theory. There must always be more to matters than meets the eye.
Here are five of the “alternative” explanations for the downing of MH17, in order of diminishing plausibility (not to suggest that any one of them is really plausible – but some are weirder than others).
1. The Ukrainians did it
Straightforward argument: The Ukrainian army should be the best-equipped force in Ukraine. It definitely has Buks, which Russia says it deployed near the separatist militia areas in advance of the attack. It shot down MH17 because…? That’s where this theory falls down. There is no reason why Ukraine, which already has significant sympathy from the international community, would jeopardise its position by senselessly attacking a civilian flight and hoping the blame would stick to Russia. But this is what the Russian military is hinting at with its series of questions to Kiev and Washington released this week.
2. It was the Ukrainians, attempting to shoot down Vladimir Putin
Russia’s Interfax agency reported excitedly after the attack that MH17 and Vladimir Putin’s presidential jet had been flying roughly the same trajectory. What’s more, the planes bore strikingly similar markings, with red and blue horizontal stripes on a white fuselage. Could it be the missile was intended for the Russian president?
Seems unlikely. Putin’s plane, flying home from a conference in Rio, was not scheduled to fly over Ukraine. Though the paths of the planes did briefly cross, that was apparently near Warsaw. Also, see 1. Unless Ukraine was hellbent on all-out war with Russia, there would be no reason to do this.
3. MH17 was shot down to conceal the truth about HIV/Aids
MH17: Flowers laid at sign for 20th International Aids conference in Melbourne
Flowers are laid as tributes to the Aids researchers killed in the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, at the base of a large sign for the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters
This is the point where the theories go from “interesting but unlikely” into “Oh. Right.”
Early reports of the disaster suggested over 100 people working in the field of HIV/Aids research, en route to a major international conference in Melbourne, had perished. When a clearer picture emerged, this was revised down to seven. No less horrific for those who perished or their friends and family, but perhaps less grist to the mill of those who speculated that the plane had been shot down to prevent a cure for Aids being revealed. Apparently, the “global elite” is keen to stop us learning about the cure for Aids, as it wants to depopulate the Earth. It seems fair to say that the global elite is not doing a very good job at this.
4. It was Israel
Speaking of “global elites”, if one delves far enough (ie not very far at all) into the conspiracy pool, one will quickly find talk of “globalists”, “internationalists”, “banksters” and “Zionists”.
The coincidence of the MH17 shooting with the latest outbreak of conflict in Israel/Palestine has provided perfect explanations for many who see the puppetmaster Zionist running everything. Curiously, they never say “Jews run the world” anymore. It is always couched in euphemism. Perhaps this is progress of a sort. But it still means you get to blame Israel for any event anywhere ever.
One theory, put forward by James Henry Fetzer of Veterans Today in an interview on Iran’s Press TV, is that Benjamin Netanyahu was behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March. That plane was then hidden, possibly in Diego Garcia. When the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began, the plane was given new identification numbers and then flown over Ukraine, to be shot down by Ukrainian forces, backed by Nato, which backs Israel, which controls the world and is attempting to undermine Russia, the “last bastion” of the white race against the neocons and Zionists, as former BNP leader Nick Griffin called it in his recent resignation statement.
5. The “Illuminati” did it
Symbol of the The Bavarian Illuminati secret society. Photograph: Apic/Getty Images
The Illuminati, who have apparently been secretly running the world since the 18th century, usually in association with the globalists, the neocons, the Rothschild-Zionists etc shot down the plane. For all sorts of reasons. The useful thing about the Illuminati is that, despite being supposedly highly secretive, they leave clues absolutely everywhere all the time, from the symbolism on US bank notes to Rihanna (apparently Illuminati herself) throwing Illuminati hand gestures in videos. That is the other great thing about the Illuminati. Almost everyone you’ve ever heard of is in on it.
The Illuminati apparently have a thing for the number seven. So is it any coincidence that MH17, a Boeing 777 was shot down in the seventh month of 2014? Look at all the sevens and multiples thereof! It’s obvious!
We may laugh at these theories, but it’s worth remembering that they are being pushed by the likes of Press TV and Russia’s RT, both government-run channels for serious international players. It is easy at first glance to see why Russia has an interest in obscuring the truth about the horror of MH17 with a barrage of nonsense: Moscow has lost control of the situation in east Ukraine, and the last thing an autocrat such as Putin can admit to is that the monster of his making is not at his command.
But the formulation of conspiracy theories about MH17 is not isolated. Some of us like to believe these theories because the alternative is the terrifying idea that no one really knows what they’re doing; some because it lets us feel superior to others who have never even thought to gaze behind the curtain; some believe conspiracy theories give them a revolutionary edge, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of them come from profoundly reactionary places. And some theories on “Zionists”, “globalists” et al, come from a place of hatred and violence.
It is no good to say they are merely “alternative” ways of looking at the world, as some of their defenders will counter. There is reality and there is fantasy. We cannot engage with the world, or hope to improve it, without first knowing the true state of things. Conspiracy theories destroy any hope of that.Comment
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The Suns of August
Flight 17: Ukraine’s War and Europe’s Passivity
JULY 21, 2014 (posted in the NY Times)
Roger Cohen
LONDON — A century on from World War I, nobody wants the guns of August.
Yet it must be asked if waiting years for the evasive conclusions of an official investigation into the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is better than acting now on what we already know: That the Boeing 777 with 298 people on board was shot down by a missile from a Russian-made SA-11 antiaircraft system fired from an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists, Russian mercenaries and Russian agents. A half-drunk Ukrainian peasant with a 1950s-era rifle doesn’t shoot down a plane at 33,000 feet.
An “enormous amount of evidence,” in Secretary of State John Kerry’s words, points to Russian provision of SA-11 systems and training. The Ukrainian government has damning audio and images that capture the crime. In June, a Ukrainian cargo plane landing in the area was hit with shoulder-fired missiles, killing 49 people. This month, another cargo plane flying at 22,000 feet was hit by a missile. Rocket science is not required.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has been playing with fire. His irredentism has made him a hero in Russia. It has endangered the world. Crimea was the swaggering precedent to this crime. The shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 amounts to an act of war. It was impromptu perhaps, but still. Dutch corpses have rained down on the sunflowers and cornfields of eastern Ukraine, to be defiled even in death, 193 innocent Dutch souls dishonored by the thugs of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
“This is murder, mass murder. Let’s call it what it is,” said Julian Lindley-French, a defense analyst who lives in the small Dutch village of Alphen. “Shock is turning to anger here,” he told me, “and that anger will resonate in the coming weeks. This is the beginning of a period of complex torture for the Netherlands.”
The Dutch response has been of tip-toeing deference to Moscow. As for the European Union, it has been near-nonexistent. When crisis comes, Europe vanishes — the ghost that slithers away. The West has become an empty notion. The Dutch trade a lot with Russia. Europe floats along in a bubble of quasi pacifism. Better to be bullied than belligerent. Nobody wants the guns of August.
“Swift recovery of the victims’ remains is now an absolute necessity and our highest priority,” Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said in a statement. “I am shocked by the images of completely disrespectful behavior at this tragic place.” He spoke to Putin to express his outrage.
That was pretty much it. Bodies rot in the sun for four days. They are stashed in plastic bags in refrigerated railroad cars at a fly-infested station before finally moving. The black box is a fungible bargaining chip. Louts go looting. It’s a free-for-all! Official investigation teams are barred at the perimeter. Putin spins implausible yarns robed in ghastly official formulas. His plausible deniability is utterly implausible.
A Dutch writer, Sidney Vollmer, addressed a bitter letter to Rutte thanking him for preserving the moral high ground of the Dutch, for “not rushing in for a bunch of rotting corpses” as “their wallets and iPhones make it all the way” to Moscow. The corpses, anyway, “will vanish into the fog of war” and, as everyone knows, “we need Gazprom.”
Dutch passivity has a name: the Srebrenica syndrome. It is becoming the Europe syndrome.
This mass murder is an outrage that should not stand. Falling military budgets have reduced the Dutch special forces to a paltry remnant. Russia would veto any United Nations Security Council Resolution authorizing force for a limited mission to recover the bodies and the evidence. But Ukraine, on whose territory the debris and dead lie, would support it. The American, British, Dutch and Australian governments should set an ultimatum backed by the credible threat of force demanding unfettered access to the site. Putin’s Russia must not be permitted to host the 2018 World Cup. A Western priority must be to transform the Ukrainian army into a credible force.
It won’t happen. Europe is weak. Obama’s America is about retrenchment, not resolve. Putin must be appeased. Nobody is about to call his bluff. The Putin-pacifiers have many arguments. Send forces into Ukraine and you prove the Russian argument that the West has designs on it. Besides, who wants World War III?
The self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic stares down Mark Rutte. The deathly poppy fields of 1914 give way to the deathly sunflower fields of 2014. Dutch flowers wing around the globe, still, a thriving trade.
A reader, Katherine Holden, sent me a poem called “The Flowering of Death.” She writes: “Velvet leaves and sturdy stems transient graves for children mothers lovers doctors teachers fathers students artists siblings seekers fallen from the darkening sky. Flesh-fed rain.”
Everyone wants the suns of August. Summer vacations rule. Nobody wants the guns — and damn the bigger guns appeasement may bring.Comment
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