The New Worker
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 25th July 2014
THE TRAGEDY of Malayan Airlines Flight 17 is awaiting a full investigation, which must take time if it is to produce credible answers. Nevertheless it instantly gave rise to a thousand- and-one conspiracy theories, rumours and accusations.
Most of the western media instantly blamed Russian President Putin for being the sinister hand behind the tragedy — even though it happened over Ukrainian territory and is based on the false illusion that Russia has some secret control over the anti-fascist separatists.
Donetsk and Lugansk, although they are Russian-speaking regions, were nevertheless content to be Ukrainian citizens — and Russia was happy to respect this — until their elected government was overthrown by western backed Nazi thugs with an agenda to drag Ukraine into Nato and the EU and to asset-strip the place and impose a more draconian austerity reduction in living standards on the Ukrainian people than they did to Greece.
The people of eastern Ukraine — and many in western Ukraine as well — were not happy to have this imposed on them. Those in the east were more able to fight back. Those in the west faced a modern Nazi terror regime that forces them to keep their heads down, for now.
Russia had nothing to do with this. Putin has no desire to acquire Donetsk and Lugansk and the inevitable clash with the Nato powers that would come with this. Even though he expressed sympathy to the rebels in the east he has done very little to help them except provide a place of refuge in Russia for those fleeing the fighting.
But some of the imperialist powers behind Nato are more than willing for a showdown with Russia. The power of the United States is waning — politically, militarily and economically. The Washington Hawks — and their media poodles like Fox News want a showdown sooner rather than later before they are too weak to try.
They have jumped at the chance the downing of this plane has given them to paint Russia as the brutal aggressor. They are lying and lying and lying and pressuring all their “allies” like Angela Merkel in Germany to support them. Merkel knows that a big conflict in the middle of Europe would be a disaster for Germany and wants nothing to do with it. Other allies are equally reluctant to get involved and even in America there is serious opposition to the hawks.
News footage has been doctored to tell the opposite of the truth. A Ukrainian rebel officer, showing the press around the scene of the crash, picked up a child’s toy to show the press that “they” — whoever was behind the shooting down of this plane — had murdered innocent children. He was angry, and as he laid the toy down again amid the wreckage he took off his hat and made the sign of the cross in respect to the dead. But western papers published a photo of him and described him as a looter, happily stealing trophies from the debris.
We don’t yet know who was behind this shooting or whether it was deliberate or a terrible mistake. Certainly there were Ukrainian army units in the area with weapons capable of bringing down Flight 17. And some reports believe it may have been hit by an air-to-air missile — there was a Ukrainian air force plane in the area. We do know that Malaysia Flight 17 was directed by Kiev air traffic control to fly right over the conflict zone where bombing was happening and it was told to fly at a lower than usual height. Why? And we do know the incident has already achieved what the Kiev Nazi junta want — which is more direct support from Nato and the hawks.
And, like the CIA frame-up of Abdul Megrahi over the Lockerbie crash, once again the lies are all around the world long before the truth has got its boots on.
And there are many who are concerned that Washington’s hawks are so ruthless and desperate they could trigger a third world war. That is why cool heads are needed. We need to isolate the madmen, the Dr Strangeloves, and win those who, though they may not be left wing, can be reasonable. And we won’t achieve this by indulging in unsupported conspiracy theories.
Like Stalin under pressure, we must hold our nerve and not give way to panic and remember that the Nazis and hatemongers rose up before and did a lot of damage but they were defeated and will be again.