So where are the satellite images to support a claim that a BUK missile fired from rebel-held territory and by rebel forces downed that plane, killing all 298 people aboard?
As critics like award-winning journalist Robert Parry and retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern have pointed out, if the US had satellite imagery showing a BUK missile contrail -- and this large, fast-moving rocket leaves a dramatic contrail all the way from its launch site to its high-altitude target (see above image), making assessing of blame quite easy -- it would long since have been released or leaked to a US corporate media that have been quick to rub with anti-Russian assertions and propaganda put out by the US government.
This leaves us with two possibilities to ponder:
Either there simply are no satellite photos showing a BUK launched by Ukrainian rebels in Eastern Ukraine at Flight 17, or those photos that exist show something quite different, like a BUK being launched by Ukrainian government sources, or else, perhaps the current claim that satellite images show a heat signature around the Russian plane in Egypt are false (no image has been provided to back up the assertion of a heat signature).
Of course, there may eventually be evidence pointing to a bomb -- the Russians are now looking for signs of explosive residue on the wreckage. But until such evidence is found, why, one might ask, would the US jump to make a false claim of a bomb being responsible for the Russian plane crash over the Sinai Desert, when it could as easily have been a fuel tank or engine explosion that wrecked the plane?
Well, consider that at the moment, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been trumping the US in a number of conflict regions, stymying US plans to bring Ukraine into NATO, blocking a US plan to establish a no-fly zone over Syria by openly sending fighter-bombers and cruise-missile-equipped ships to Syria to attack President Bashar al-Assad's Islamic State and Al Nusra enemies at Assad's invitation, and backing Iran in its support of both Assad and the embattled Iraqi government. All the while, Putin's popularity at home has been soaring into the high 80-90percent range according to polls.
Perhaps the thinking at the White House is that by suggesting it was a bomb, and not a structural defect that brought down a Russian civilian aircraft, killing hundreds of Russian citizens, the Russian people might logically link that purported bombing to Putin's actions in Syria and his antagonism of IS and Al Nusra, and might then turn against him.
One thing is clear. If the US has satellites monitoring the Sinai, where there is no war going on, it most certainly had satellites monitoring Ukraine at the time of the downing of Flight 17, and if it's willing to announce that its satellite caught the moment of the explosion of Flight 9268 and is willing to talk about that, it should also be willing to show what its satellites saw when Flight 17 was downed.
The American people, and the people of the world, should demand this of the US government.
DAVE LINDORFF is a member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent, uncompromised, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative news site. His work, and that of colleagues JOHN GRANT, GARY LINDORFF, ALFREDO LOPEZ, LORI SPENCER, LINN WASHINGTON, and the late CHARLES M. YOUNG, can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
(Article changed on November 7, 2015 at 08:39)
(Article changed on November 7, 2015 at 08:51)
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