U.S. Case Against Russia in Downing of MH17 Collapses

I think the biggest story pertaining to the Ukraine yesterday did not come from Kiev or Donetsk but Washington D.C. and Brussels. First, in the U.S., unnamed intelligence officials provided a briefing to reporters where they basically walked back all the strident accusations by the Obama administration blaming Russia for the destruction of Malaysia Airlines MH17. Ken Dilanian of the Associated Press reports in "US: No link to Russian gov't in plane downing" that

Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia was responsible for "creating the conditions" that led to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but they offered no evidence of direct Russian government involvement.

The intelligence officials were cautious in their assessment, noting that while the Russians have been arming separatists in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. had no direct evidence that the missile used to shoot down the passenger jet came from Russia. 

The officials briefed reporters Tuesday under ground rules that their names not be used in discussing intelligence related to last week's air disaster, which killed 298 people. 

The plane was likely shot down by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the intelligence officials said, citing intercepts, satellite photos and social media postings by separatists, some of which have been authenticated by U.S. experts. 

But the officials said they did not know who fired the missile or whether any Russian operatives were present at the missile launch. They were not certain that the missile crew was trained in Russia, although they described a stepped-up campaign in recent weeks by Russia to arm and train the rebels, which they say has continued even after the downing of the commercial jetliner.

Robert Parry posted yesterday in "The Mystery of a Ukrainian Army ‘Defector’" that his Sunday bombshell, that a source within the intelligence community told him that U.S. satellite imagery exists showing Ukrainian troops operating a missile battery at the time that MH17 went down, was obliquely addressed during the briefing when officials opined that the SA-11 could have been operated by a defector:

After last Thursday’s shoot-down, I was told that U.S. intelligence analysts were examining satellite imagery that showed the crew manning the suspected missile battery wearing what looked like Ukrainian army uniforms, but my source said the analysts were still struggling with whether that essentially destroyed the U.S. government’s case blaming the rebels. 

The Los Angeles Times article on Tuesday’s briefing seemed to address the same information this way: “U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 [anti-aircraft missile] was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.” 

That statement about a possible “defector” might explain why some analysts thought they saw soldiers in Ukrainian army uniforms tending to the missile battery in eastern Ukraine. But there is another obvious explanation that the U.S. intelligence community seems unwilling to accept: that the missile may have been launched by someone working for the Ukrainian military. 

In other words, we may be seeing another case of the U.S. government “fixing the intelligence” around a desired policy outcome, as occurred in the run-up to war with Iraq.

Then there was the decision in Brussels at a meeting of European foreign ministers to draw up a new list of sanctions without actually imposing any. Thomas Erdbrink reports in "Despite Anger Over Downed Jetliner, Europe Shies Away From Sanctions on Russia" that

At Tuesday’s meeting, the foreign ministers agreed to draw up a new, broader list of targets for sanctions, including Russian individuals and entities, said Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief. 

But no new additional measures were imposed, reflecting fears among some Europeans that tougher sanctions would invite reprisals by Russia against countries dependent on its energy supplies, harming the Continent’s economic growth.

With the exception of ghoulish updates, seemingly every 45 minutes, on the location of the MH17 passenger corpses as they are returned to Holland, the U.S. sponsored information war that began last Thursday when the Boeing 777 was shot down over Donbass has fizzled.

David Herszenhorn's "Ukrainians, Awaiting International Action After Crash, Fear Complacency" gives vent to the junta's anger that its attempt to pin the blame on Russia and Novorossiya have so far fallen flat:

Even President Petro O. Poroshenko, reluctant to offend allies in the West, has subtly expressed growing exasperation in recent days. He has urged the United States Congress to designate the main separatist groups in eastern Ukraine as terrorist groups, a step he took without first seeking approval from the White House. 

And after a call on Tuesday with the prime minister of Finland, Alexander Stubb, Mr. Poroshenko urged an additional international response. “The Ukrainian president emphasizes that further efforts must be focused on preventing Russia from supporting terrorists,” Mr. Poroshenko’s office said in a statement, adding that he “hopes for international contribution.”

The junta's petulance is nearly identical to the reaction displayed by the Syrian National Coalition when Obama decided at the last moment not to bomb Damascus, choosing instead to go with the Russian-brokered deal to rid Syria of her chemical weapons in the wake of the Ghouta sarin attack.

Then, the Ghouta sarin attack was almost certainly orchestrated by jihadis operating with the support of foreign governments with the intention of blaming the Syrian government and thereby justifying direct Western military intervention. Now, with the destruction of MH17, a similar attempt is being made. The junta has orchestrated an atrocity that it is attempting to blame on Russia in order to elicit greater Western intervention. And the junta is failing.