Former Congressman Ron Paul said the US knows ‘more than it is telling’ about the Malaysian aircraft that crashed in eastern Ukraine last month, killing 298 people on board and seriously damaging US-Russian relations in the process.
In an effort to inject some balance of opinion, not to mention
pure sanity, into the ongoing debate over what happened to
Malaysian Flight MH17, Ron Paul is convinced the US government is
withholding information on the catastrophe.
"The US government has grown strangely quiet on the
accusation that it was Russia or her allies that brought down the
Malaysian airliner with a Buk anti-aircraft missile," Paul
said on his news website on Thursday.
Ron Paul to Obama: Let’s just leave Ukraine alone!
Paul’s comments are in sharp contrast to the echo chamber of
one-sided opinion inside Western mainstream media, which has
almost unanimously blamed anti-Kiev militia for bringing down the
commercial airline. Incredibly, in many cases Washington had
nothing to show as evidence to incriminate pro-Russian rebels
aside from tenuous references to social media.
“We’ve seen that there were heavy weapons moved from Russia
to Ukraine, that they have moved into the hands of separatist
leaders,”said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. “And
according to social media reports, those weapons include the
SA-11 [Buk missile] system.”
In another instance, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf
told reporters“the Russians intend to
deliver heavier and more powerful rocket launchers to the
separatist forces in Ukraine, and have evidence that Russia is
firing artillery from within Russia to attack Ukrainian military
positions.” When veteran AP reporter Matthew Lee asked for
proof, he was to be disappointed.
“I can’t get into the sources and methods behind it,”
Harf responded. “I can’t tell you what the information is
based on.” Lee said the allegations made by the State
Department on Ukraine have fallen far short of “definitive
proof.”
Just days after US intelligence officials admitted they had no conclusive evidence to
prove Russia was behind the downing of the airliner, Kiev
published satellite images as ‘proof’ it didn’t deploy
anti-aircraft batteries around the MH17 crash site. However,
these images have altered time-stamps and are from the days after
the MH17 tragedy, the Russian Defense Ministry revealed, fully discrediting the Ukrainian
claims.
In yet another inexplicable occurrence, Russian military detected a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter
jet approaching the MH17 Boeing on the day of the catastrophe. No
acceptable explanation has ever been given by Kiev as to why this
fighter aircraft was so close to the doomed passenger jet moments
before it was brought down.
“[We] would like to get an explanation as to why the military
jet was flying along a civil aviation corridor at almost the same
time and at the same level as a passenger plane,” Russian
Lieutenant-General Andrey Kartopolov demanded days after the
crash.
Paul has slammed the Obama administration, despite its arsenal of
surveillance technologies at its disposal, for its failure to
provide a single grain of evidence to solve the mystery of the
Malaysian airliner.
"It’s hard to believe that the US, with all of its spy
satellites available for monitoring everything in Ukraine, that
precise proof of who did what and when is not available,"
the two-time presidential candidate said.
"Too bad we can’t count on our government to just tell us the
truth and show us the evidence," Paul added. "I’m
convinced that it knows a lot more than it’s telling us."
Questions remain regarding the downed Malaysia Airlines plane. Too bad our gov't won't paint the full picture: http://t.co/oxM2eeCjRA
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) August 8, 2014
Although no sufficient evidence has been presented to prove that the anti-Kiev militia was responsible for the downing of the international flight, such an inconvenient oversight has not stopped the United States and Europe from slapping economic sanctions and travel bans against Russia.
Moscow hit back, saying it would place a ban on agricultural imports from the
United States and the European Union. Russia’s tit-for-tat ban
will certainly be felt, as food and agricultural imports from the
US amounted to $1.3 billion last year, according to the US
Department of Agriculture. In 2013, meanwhile, the EU’s
agricultural exports to Russia totaled 11.8 billion euros ($15.8
billion).
After the crash, Ron Paul was one of a few voices calling for
calm as US officials were pointing fingers without a shred of
evidence to support their claims. Paul has not been afraid to say
the painfully obvious things the US media, for any number of
reasons, cannot find the courage to articulate.
“They will not report that the crisis in Ukraine started late
last year, when EU and US-supported protesters plotted the
overthrow of the elected Ukrainian president, Viktor
Yanukovych,” Paul said. “Without US-sponsored ‘regime
change,’ it is unlikely that hundreds would have been killed in
the unrest that followed. Nor would the Malaysian Airlines crash
have happened.”
Paul also found it outrageous that Western media, parroting the
government line, has reported that the Malaysian flight must have
been downed by “Russian-backed separatists,” because the
BUK missile that reportedly brought down the aircraft was Russian
made.
“They will not report that the Ukrainian government also uses
the exact same Russian-made weapons,” he emphasized.