Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

[Polish_Silver]

border states

It's a bit late now that's for sure.
. . .

Switzerland has managed VERY well over the years via consistent national effort and easily defensible terrain.

. . .

And so have Sweden and Finland.

. . .

They have both performed very well living in the middle ground.
. . .
.

Finalnd was not so fortunate at the beginning of WW II, and neither were the Baltics and Poland.

Although Poland had been dominated by Austria, Germany and Russia for centuries, hardly anyone there fears the first two of these.

I think there is a reason for that !

Does Russia have a rational fear of attack from Poland?


It is not practical to craft policy around irrational fears.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

Given the historic and recent behavior or Russia, I don't see how anything short of Nato forces within the country would make these countries feel safe.

It's a bit late now that's for sure.

Switzerland has managed VERY well over the years via consistent national effort and easily defensible terrain.

And so have Sweden and Finland.

They have both performed very well living in the middle ground.

Sweden went so far as to develop a largely domestic/indigenous developed weapons program that can only be described as world class(although back channel support from NATO countries for things like jet turbines is noted). An incredible(and incredibly expensive) achievement for such a small population base country.

Finland struck an interesting balance with little domestic/indigenous Defense industry by simply mixing it's military procurement between NATO/western and Russian equipment.

The Baltics(Latvia, Lithuanian, Estonia) are all NATO member states.

After the 2007 massive cyber attack on Estonia(the "world's most connected country"), and the very interesting "mash up" civilian led defense by Estonians(I have had contact with the ringleader now heading the official Estonian cyber Defense effort) NATO set up the Cyber Center of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia.

More recently, US led NATO has been bulking up the Baltics in a way that can only be described as the sovereign state equivalent of a 1980's counter corporate takeover "poison pill" strategy.

Highly portable Javelin anti tank missiles, highly portable shoulder launched anti aircraft missiles, highly mobile self propelled artillery, highly dispersed and decentralised defense in depth, a highly resilient command, control, and communications capability, matched with doctrine that is adaptive to rapid response against 5th columnists and pockets of "little green men".

Even a national civil defense test relying on it's "singing revolution" past would have great value.

The Baltics couldn't possibly prevent a Russian kinetic invasion, but can certainly enhance deterrence thru the belief that doing so would prove incredibly costly.

It could all be for nought though.

I believe the risk of conventional Russian invasion of the Baltics is very low.

But when you consider the quite high minority % of ethnic Russians in the Baltics(capable of being activated as 5th columnists, protesters, useful idiots, and monkeywrenchers) combined with the Baltics' total reliance on Russia for energy and the Baltics' tenuous main supply routes(Moldova in the Russian camp also totally reliant on Russia for energy, and Russian enclave Kaliningrad) I don't think there is a need for conventional invasion.

A lot of things can happen in the 3 month Baltic winter lame duck period between the US Presidential vote and inauguration, and they don't have to be kinetic.

The Baltics are quite vulnerable:

http://www.naturalgaseurope.com/balt...rity-shale-gas

Aggressive energy politics combined with some Baltics energy infrastructure sabotage could be a low to medium risk, medium to high reward for Russia to attempt to roll back US/NATO influence in the Baltics.

[jk]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

Given the historic and recent behavior or Russia, I don't see how anything short of Nato forces within the country would make these countries feel safe.

the goal wouldn't be to maximize the feeling of safety in those countries. it would be to produce a reasonable feeling of safety in russia.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

I have been researching the lead up to the 1989 revolutions starting with Poland at the core, and immediately spiralling out to include Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and East Germany.

Then the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia with their joint Singing Revolution.

. . .

With how Poland was sandwiched and liquidated by both sides(Nazis and Soviets) it is perfectly within reason for Poland to choose NATO to mitigate the risk of being the victim of two concurrent invading genocide machines again.

But I also think the Partnership for Peace in the post Warsaw Pact and post Soviet era should have been better articulated and limited.

Instead of being a backdoor to NATO membership it would have been a better solution to have defined a Swiss/Finnish type of non alignment(with an option to shift towards a non aligned but clearly western leaning but militarily independent Sweden) for buffer states like Ukraine and the Baltics that are arguably viewed from a Russian perspective as encroachment.

' . . .

Given the historic and recent behavior or Russia, I don't see how anything short of Nato forces within the country would make these countries feel safe.

[Woodsman]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

It's like I said, it's my bias. I'd give more veracity and gravitas to the first 100 names in the Little Rock AR white pages, you know what I'm saying bubba?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

What is the strongest evidence one way or the other?

The instantaneous, catastrophic kill. No coms from cockpit as the flight crew were killed instantaneously and the coms gear was shredded.

The missile motor kinematics, the warhead size, the prefragmented and very unique SA11 warhead shrapnel embedded in the flight crew and cockpit, and the "face shot" direction of attack.

The Russian SU25 story was not just laughable, it was(and is) simply impossible.

The SU25 story as a "possible" alternative explanation is raw noise jamming the signal.

When something is simply and physically impossible, beyond any basic(and failed) sniff test, it's not a competing possibility. It's a lie.

It's intentional transmission of noise to ensure many can't quite hear the signal.

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

Even the Russians are admitting it was done with an SA11/BUK:

http://ria.ru/mh17/20140910/1023539819.html

What is the strongest evidence one way or the other?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

Here's another link:

http://warontherocks.com/2016/09/can...sian-info-ops/

It does a solid job articulating and substantiating Russian information operations disrupting the quite simple MH17 root cause as well as the neon sign indicators of Russian active measures to shape/disrupt the US elections.

War on the Rocks has got pretty balanced analysis.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

i have felt since the fall of the ussr that moving nato up to russia's boundary was a long term mistake, a provocation that was bound to produce an unpleasant reaction from russia. it was an act of triumphalism and hubris.

I have been researching the lead up to the 1989 revolutions starting with Poland at the core, and immediately spiralling out to include Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and East Germany.

Then the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia with their joint Singing Revolution.

All non violent I might add, bar the unfortunate, but relatively limited losses in Romania(including the impromptu and embarrassing kangaroo drive thru court and execution of the Ceauscecu's.

With how Poland was sandwiched and liquidated by both sides(Nazis and Soviets) it is perfectly within reason for Poland to choose NATO to mitigate the risk of being the victim of two concurrent invading genocide machines again.

But I also think the Partnership for Peace in the post Warsaw Pact and post Soviet era should have been better articulated and limited.

Instead of being a backdoor to NATO membership it would have been a better solution to have defined a Swiss/Finnish type of non alignment(with an option to shift towards a non aligned but clearly western leaning but militarily independent Sweden) for buffer states like Ukraine and the Baltics that are arguably viewed from a Russian perspective as encroachment.

''I reckon too much celebrating victory over communism and not enough time thinking thru a sustainable long term solution that actually included Russia in the conversation and decision making process.

Because while Russia may be incapable of building a sustainable security/economic block of nations, it is more than capable of breaking an adjacent one it strongly opposes.

Having said that, the Ukrainian people had every right to pull down their insanely corrupt oligarch former president who unsurprisingly fled to Russia. The collapse of a pathetic failure of governance isn't always a CIA plot.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

Who fell for what, bubba?

With this thread.....where should we start? Seriously.....

What exactly did we do that we need to learn not to repeat?

Maybe we can start with turning the hubris knob down from a 12 to maybe an 8?

I know that sounds a bit sarcastic, but it's entirely relevant here.

I'd like to think I have a broad experience set of varying degrees of depth as well as other interests. If a topic about controversial brain surgery malpractice came up I'd potentially be interested in learning more, but it's unlikely I'd be commenting about the the relative efficacy of different surgical tools as it would be well outside my scope of experience.

Asking questions? Certainly.

iTulip members discussing the relative efficacy of specific "surgical tools" proven or alleged to have brought down MH17 differs little from a bunch of economists discussing the relative efficacy of tools lying on the surgical tray in a medical malpractice case.

It was silly and embarrassing for the community...and hubris filled.

How many times have you seen and how many times have we discussed here on iTulip those who are incredibly successful in one realm embarrassingly pontificating in another?

Are you asking us which of the MH17 propaganda and information war campaigns we liked best?

No.

I'm simply telling you this is a crystal clear example of this community being seriously disrupted by disinformation and disruption; watching too many action movies; and having a very poor understanding of physics and basic common sense.

If the community doesn't recognise that, then it's a community failure.

Mistakes are made and are only failures if nothing is learned from them.

If not, then the poisoning of this "wisdom of crowds well" results in this place being no better than any other biased rant factory forum on the net.

Well of course, the one that was closest to our bias.

Mine is distrust of any of the official sources. I respect the people doing the actual messaging, but take as default a presumption of deceptive intent from almost every one of their communiques or official statements regardless if the source is of the political, military, intelligence or diplomatic variety. And that includes those sources suspected to be agents of those official entities.

This is especially the case where Russia, NATO and the US are tangling geo-politically. And most especially of late when Ukraine is in the mix. And absolutely, positively, what are you kidding me, when it comes to anything having to do with MH17.

I should trust intercepted recordings of unspecified provenance and unidentified persons? I should trust testimony from invisible witnesses with no names? Tightly edited video clips and a fancy computer rendering? I see this report as just another skirmish in the information warfare, so while it may give the impression of a legitimate air crash investigation it seems it had one purpose - pin the blame on the Russian Federation.

I agree we should note the power of experienced and effective disinformation campaigns. Only how effective such campaigns might be judged when they are so obviously telegraphed in the first place is another question. In that respect it seems to me a mark of inexperience to cite Russia as the sole culprit on the basis of such thin gruel. I'm looking to learn lessons wherever I can from all sides in this operation and outside of the "zombies" you note, I don't imagine most people in Europe, Russia or America take the conclusion seriously.

I'm not sure what we mean when we say "even iTulip members," as we're all flesh and blood here. So not only must account for human frailty degrading our community's skill at differentiating the possible from the probable, we have to do it in an environment where we are the prize; our very cognition is the "territory" to be won and lost in an information war. And as all 20th Century people know, in the case of Russia, we have been conditioned since childhood to see them as an enemy, alien and malignant force for evil, instead of a nation-state rationally pursuing its interests in maintaining effective control over the Eurasian center.

In the case of MH17, a "Russia did it" faction set up shop within hours of the first news report, dismissing any of the possible reasons - never mind probable - that did not put the blame squarely on Putin and Russia. Anyone who expressed doubt or a desire to hold making judgement until the facts were gathered - the bodies were still strewn among the wreckage as I recall - was immediately slimed as a "Putin apologist." I recall folks evidencing longstanding personal bias that Russia is the source of all the world's evil and that Putin is Hitler (when Trump isn't using the mustache). I also remember folks evidencing professional bias acquired in organizations not generally known for their forthrightness and commitment to clarity and transparency.

I wonder if these interfered with our community's ability to form an effective argument, never mind an effective picture of what was then known? Being the suspicious sort myself, I wonder if that isn't the point even here at home on the farm? The wisdom of crowds is all fine and good, but when it's peppered with the work product of professional liars representing their personal and class interests - which they understand as indistinguishable from the national interest - then I agree that we'd be right to suspect it too.



Anyway, that's the thing about disinformation that gives the cloak and dagger boys from every service an edge that's hard for the rest of us working in the sunshine to beat. They don't have to prove anything, only just generate enough doubt and suspicion to confuse and befuddle any wisdom anyone might develop, alone or in a crowd, through honest intellectual effort. Here we're not supposed to think, just express the right patriotic feeling. In terms of MH-17, the positions were set within minutes of learning about the disaster and so I have to doubt that this skirmish in the information war changes much at all. Not everybody is falling for it.

Since we must agree the details of the event are intentionally obscured and distorted so as to make knowing practically impossible, maybe a more productive discussion would have us step back a bit to see a larger picture?

In that spirit, I want to ask you Lake if you have an opinion on the strategic wisdom of the west's attempt at regime change in Russia? Is there no bad consequence or downside in the effort to make Russia a pariah state or its president beyond the pale of say a Rafael Trujillo or Mobutu Sese Seko? Is deploying deep penetration weapons and conducting military exercises on the border of the Russian state really in the best interests of European peace and stability?

[EDIT: Happy to talk further about the rest, after this is put to rest]

Can we please stay on topic and not drift into Africa, Latin America, etc?

Rather than posting a diatribe in response to your diatribe I'll keep it simple:

Forum members, yourself included, were posting about "possibilities".

Roughly analogous to it being "possible" to win Lotto. As in legitimately possible when it simple wasn't.

When that same "possibility" was cogently and accurately countered, it wasn't considered....it was simply opposed and ignored.

While there's no such thing as a bad question, there are certainly plenty of silly questions when those questions come from a position of virtual impossibility and directed at high probability.

Forum members, yourself included, continued to promote the "possibility" of root causes that simply blew past reasonable possibility and within striking distance of absolute impossibility(silly really).

Root cause analysis would best be described as dangerous.

If you refuse to consider official messaging from either side maybe you would consider Bellingcat, the open source intelligence mashup that has tracked MH17 evidence since the shoot down.

https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/mh17/

If Bellingcat fails to meet your minimum standard in evidence/substantiation/bias, then I would suggest that it offers far more support than many of your own current/Cold War era deep state accusations/arguments that I myself often agree with.

Not everyone is a CIA shill or FSB useful idiot.

[jk]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

a more cynical view would be that it's a perfect opportunity to get NATO vassal states to direct more military spending on goods produced by the MIC.

that, too, i agree

[FrankL]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

i have felt since the fall of the ussr that moving nato up to russia's boundary was a long term mistake, a provocation that was bound to produce an unpleasant reaction from russia. it was an act of triumphalism and hubris.

a more cynical view would be that it's a perfect opportunity to get NATO vassal states to direct more military spending on goods produced by the MIC.

[jk]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

Is deploying deep penetration weapons and conducting military exercises on the border of the Russian state really in the best interests of European peace and stability?

i have felt since the fall of the ussr that moving nato up to russia's boundary was a long term mistake, a provocation that was bound to produce an unpleasant reaction from russia. it was an act of triumphalism and hubris.

[Woodsman]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

...How do these two intersect?

The iTulip community fell for the first one and it needs to learn how not to repeat it, otherwise we have no competitive advantage compared to all the other easily infected and influenced "zombies" who fell for both.

Who fell for what, bubba? What exactly did we do that we need to learn not to repeat? Are you asking us which of the MH17 propaganda and information war campaigns we liked best? Well of course, the one that was closest to our bias.

Mine is distrust of any of the official sources. I respect the people doing the actual messaging, but take as default a presumption of deceptive intent from almost every one of their communiques or official statements regardless if the source is of the political, military, intelligence or diplomatic variety. And that includes those sources suspected to be agents of those official entities.

This is especially the case where Russia, NATO and the US are tangling geo-politically. And most especially of late when Ukraine is in the mix. And absolutely, positively, what are you kidding me, when it comes to anything having to do with MH17.

I should trust intercepted recordings of unspecified provenance and unidentified persons? I should trust testimony from invisible witnesses with no names? Tightly edited video clips and a fancy computer rendering? I see this report as just another skirmish in the information warfare, so while it may give the impression of a legitimate air crash investigation it seems it had one purpose - pin the blame on the Russian Federation.

I agree we should note the power of experienced and effective disinformation campaigns. Only how effective such campaigns might be judged when they are so obviously telegraphed in the first place is another question. In that respect it seems to me a mark of inexperience to cite Russia as the sole culprit on the basis of such thin gruel. I'm looking to learn lessons wherever I can from all sides in this operation and outside of the "zombies" you note, I don't imagine most people in Europe, Russia or America take the conclusion seriously.

I'm not sure what we mean when we say "even iTulip members," as we're all flesh and blood here. So not only must account for human frailty degrading our community's skill at differentiating the possible from the probable, we have to do it in an environment where we are the prize; our very cognition is the "territory" to be won and lost in an information war. And as all 20th Century people know, in the case of Russia, we have been conditioned since childhood to see them as an enemy, alien and malignant force for evil, instead of a nation-state rationally pursuing its interests in maintaining effective control over the Eurasian center.

In the case of MH17, a "Russia did it" faction set up shop within hours of the first news report, dismissing any of the possible reasons - never mind probable - that did not put the blame squarely on Putin and Russia. Anyone who expressed doubt or a desire to hold making judgement until the facts were gathered - the bodies were still strewn among the wreckage as I recall - was immediately slimed as a "Putin apologist." I recall folks evidencing longstanding personal bias that Russia is the source of all the world's evil and that Putin is Hitler (when Trump isn't using the mustache). I also remember folks evidencing professional bias acquired in organizations not generally known for their forthrightness and commitment to clarity and transparency.

I wonder if these interfered with our community's ability to form an effective argument, never mind an effective picture of what was then known? Being the suspicious sort myself, I wonder if that isn't the point even here at home on the farm? The wisdom of crowds is all fine and good, but when it's peppered with the work product of professional liars representing their personal and class interests - which they understand as indistinguishable from the national interest - then I agree that we'd be right to suspect it too.

Within the confines of (Angleton’s) remarkable life were most of America’s secrets. “You know how I got to be in charge of counterintelligence? I agreed not to polygraph or require detailed background checks on Allen Dulles and 60 of his closest friends... They were afraid that their own business dealings with Hitler’s pals would come out. They were too arrogant to believe that the Russians would discover it all... You know, the CIA got tens of thousands of brave people killed... We played with lives as if we owned them. We gave false hope. We - I - so misjudged what happened."

I asked the dying man how it all went so wrong.

With no emotion in his voice, but with his hand trembling, Angleton replied: “Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars. The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you would be promoted. These people attracted and promoted each other. Outside of their duplicity, the only thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. I did things that, in looking back on my life, I regret. But I was part of it and I loved being in it... Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Carmel Offie, and Frank Wisner were the grand masters. If you were in a room with them you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell.” Angleton slowly sipped his tea and then said, “I guess I will see them there soon.”

Joseph Trento, “The Secret History of the CIA,” (2001) pp. 478-479

Anyway, that's the thing about disinformation that gives the cloak and dagger boys from every service an edge that's hard for the rest of us working in the sunshine to beat. They don't have to prove anything, only just generate enough doubt and suspicion to confuse and befuddle any wisdom anyone might develop, alone or in a crowd, through honest intellectual effort. Here we're not supposed to think, just express the right patriotic feeling. In terms of MH-17, the positions were set within minutes of learning about the disaster and so I have to doubt that this skirmish in the information war changes much at all. Not everybody is falling for it.

Since we must agree the details of the event are intentionally obscured and distorted so as to make knowing practically impossible, maybe a more productive discussion would have us step back a bit to see a larger picture?

In that spirit, I want to ask you Lake if you have an opinion on the strategic wisdom of the west's attempt at regime change in Russia? Is there no bad consequence or downside in the effort to make Russia a pariah state or its president beyond the pale of say a Rafael Trujillo or Mobutu Sese Seko? Is deploying deep penetration weapons and conducting military exercises on the border of the Russian state really in the best interests of European peace and stability?

[jk]

Re: Did the allies bring down Malaysian Airline MH17?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news...ectid=11718931

The three lessons I learned thru this mass media dog's breakfast are:

1) Once again the power of highly experienced and effective disruption/disinformation campaigns(this time Russia) with particular emphasis on the vulnerability of a community that considers itself resilient to influence/messaging.

2) Even iTulip members suffer from hubris and the inability/unwillingness to differentiate the possible from the probable.

3) This thread also exemplifies personal biases we all have that significantly interfere with forming an effective argument. In a nutshell, I think this thread exemplifies the opposite of "wisdom of crowds" that I thought iTulip might represent.

But no one cares anymore(about MH17). So it doesn't really matter and effectively no longer exists.

-----

And in the last 2+ years the velocity of disruption/disinformation/subversion content has continued to accelerate, so much so that it doesn't have to survive 2 years......only 2 social media hours:

http://thebostontribune.com/boston-p...ana-cigarette/

Boston Tribune?

Doesn't exist.

And doesn't pass the "1minute sniff test"(domain just created 2 weeks ago, names not real, places not real, confirmed artificial story, newspaper not real).

But people will share it to achieve the intended effect, and infect others, adding artificial fuel to the social justice warrior fire.

From a Machiavellian perspective, it can be applauded for the ingenuity of the potentisl for it to be a self-funding(click baiting) disruption/disinformation/subversion campaign slice.

This highly corrosive stuff is increasing in regularity and sophistication across the net, undermining and complicating value discovery.

-----

How do these two intersect?

The iTulip community fell for the first one and it needs to learn how not to repeat it, otherwise we have no competitive advantage compared to all the other easily infected and influenced "zombies" who fell for both.

very interesting catch. thanks for posting.