Obama pushing false narrative on Flight 17?

From the earliest reports breaking the news that Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 had been shot down over Eastern Ukraine, my suspicions were aroused. In fact, the very first report I read clearly stated that the Boeing 777 had been brought down with a Russian-made SA-11 Buk missile.

One does not have to be a communications nor a weapons expert to know that in keeping with this timetable, the press would have practically needed correspondents standing next to the missile battery when the fatal missile was fired in order to report this information with any reliability.

I refuse to fall into the convenient trap being set for us by our government and the press wherein the Ukrainian government is "good" and the Russian government is "evil." In my estimation, there are really no "good guys" in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

We know that Russia's government, under former KGB Lt. Col. Vladimir Putin, is ruthless and has expansionist ambitions. Less known, for reasons of political expediency on the part of our government, is that the new uber-nationalist regime in Ukraine (which has the Obama White House in part to thank for its ascendancy) is comprised of equally ruthless men who are the ideological heirs of the Ukrainian militias that collaborated with the Third Reich during World War II.

Immediately after MH17 was downed, what one reporter called "a torrent of deafening propaganda" burst forth from the Ukrainian government, the Obama administration and its surrogates; this, before any evidence whatsoever emerged definitively implicating anyone. News consumers were treated to reports of everything from Russian separatists allegedly gloating on social media that they'd shot the plane down, to Vladimir Putin having ordered the strike just for kicks.

All in all, it seemed quite the over-reaction to something that might have simply been a tragic byproduct of war.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko compared the tragedy to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States. Then, on Monday, President Obama accused Russian separatists controlling the crash site of tampering with evidence and intimidating international investigators by firing their weapons into the air. He said that this "begs the question, 'what exactly are they trying to hide?'" Considering the Alinskyite penchant for projection so often employed by this White House, for me the question immediately became one of what Washington and Kiev might be trying to hide.

Leaving aside the notion that the president is in full flight from reality (a possibility I have not entirely discounted), we must now analyze his remarks as objectively as possible.

While Obama, Poroshenko and their minions were making their accusations, the evidence coming out of the international press, objective observers, and the Malaysian and Dutch authorities was diametrically opposed to the so-called intelligence Washington and Kiev claimed to have implicating Russian separatists. According to these sources, separatist leader Aleksander Borodai and his forces were eminently obliging regarding the retrieval of the aircraft's black boxes and bodies at the crash scene.

While most intelligent people found it easy to surmise that the pro-Moscow forces might have inadvertently shot down the Boeing 777, thinking it a military aircraft, the aggregate of objective reporting that has emerged, juxtaposed against the West's strident accusations, suggests alternative possibilities.

Given the geopolitical climate and the duplicity of the Obama administration, we may never know the whole truth, but the fact is that Washington and Kiev would have had quite a bit to gain politically in the intentional downing of this jet and the implication of pro-Russian militias. With the world chafing at the cruel and criminal acts of Russia's proxies in Ukraine, it would be far easier for the West to justify an escalation of the diplomatic and economic offensive against Russia. It would also not be the first time Ukrainian forces had employed "false flag" attacks to secure their political objectives, as they did during the street-fighting phase of their civil war and in the intimidation of Ukrainian Jews.

Oh, yes – I realize that this will be viewed by many as another anti-Obama far-right conspiracy theory, but I believe that it is at least as viable a proposition as the administration's narrative.

In support of this, there has been far more empirical evidence potentially exonerating the Russian separatists – or at least supporting the "inadvertent downing" theory – than there is for a case of malicious disregard on their part, or of Russian aggression. The New York Post reported on Tuesday that "[T]he United States hasn't found proof of direct Russian government involvement in shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17," while Washington intelligence officials and "sources" continue to blame Moscow for supplying weapons to the pro-Moscow forces, thereby creating the conditions that led to the deadly attack.

I'm sure that the irony of the innumerable instances in which the Obama administration created conditions that led to far more chaos and death is not wasted on the reader; but I digress.

In addition to the lack of evidence implicating Russia, there is even evidence emerging that calls into question the likelihood that the 777 was inadvertently downed by the pro-Moscow forces. Russia has claimed that U.S. and Russian satellite images not only show it to be unlikely that the separatist forces down the plane, but tend to implicate the Ukrainian army. Other reports out of the European press have suggested that MH17's flight path was altered by Ukrainian air traffic control, placing it closer to the war zone than prudence would dictate, and that the flight had been shadowed by Ukrainian fighter planes shortly prior to its being shot down.

Much or all of this could be disinformation, but given the character and actions of this White House, the Svoboda Party in Ukraine and their collaborative acts in particular, failing to seriously consider it would be imprudent indeed. Even if this tragedy was an intentional act and the brainchild of parties within the Ukrainian government, apart from the direct involvement of Washington, the fact that the Obama administration might enthusiastically advance a false narrative in a case like this would speak for itself.

Media wishing to interview Erik Rush, please contact [email protected].