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    Shaun Walker with MH17 "Analysis" Archived Message

    Posted by Raskolnikov on June 19, 2019, 7:36 pm, in reply to "Re: Bellingcat and the lickspittle Dutch at it again re:MH17"

    https://www.dumptheguardian.com/world/2019/jun/19/mh17-court-case-will-finally-set-truth-on-record


    From the start he's hedging and trying not to get himself to far "on the record".

    Ever since 17 July 2014, the Kremlin and its supporters have obfuscated and lied about what might have happened to MH17, and howled about a lack of evidence for separatist or Russian complicity. Now, investigators are confident they have enough evidence – at least in the case of the four men named on Wednesday – to secure a conviction in a Dutch court.

    That decision is far from a “case closed” moment. The trial will not start until March, and almost certainly without the defendants taking part. There remain many unanswered questions about others who may have been involved and about the level of complicity of the regular Russian army. But it is a start.

    But then he warms up and starts playing the "This assertion is true because...here's a link to something we claimed before" game.

    In the days after the crash, in towns near the spot from where it was suspected the missile had been launched, some people whispered to me that they had seen an unusual piece of equipment, matching the description of a BUK system, drive past that day.

    It was not hard evidence but even back then, all the circumstantial evidence pointed to a separatist or Russian missile, and there was never anything convincing to indicate a Ukrainian attack.

    That links to this:

    https://www.dumptheguardian.com/world/2014/jul/22/ukraine-sightings-missile-launcher-mh17

    which is essentially a bunch of unattributed random people saying "Yeh we saw a Buk missile launcher" while waiting to buy bread. Such stellar evidence as this:

    "We were inside and heard a noise much louder than usual," said one shopkeeper, who did not want to be identified. "We came running out and saw a jeep disappearing into the distance with something much larger in front of it. Later, customers said it had been a missile carrier."

    Also this laughable line:

    There have been suggestions that the missile was fired from fields on the outskirts of Snizhne. Many in Torez did not want to speak about the Buk or claimed not to have heard anything about it.

    Missile launcher? No never heard of it....HA SO YOU CLAIM!!! What a joke he is.

    Back to the main article and Walker then pulls the Bellingcat gambit:

    Later, as journalists and open-source investigators pieced together evidence linking separatists with a BUK missile system brought across the border, Russian defence officials and media outlets launched version after implausible version of how the Ukrainians might have shot down the plane, changing the story each time their previous one was disproved.

    Sometimes they came with maps, pie charts and satellite imagery that looked convincing but on closer inspection proved dubious or even fake. Other times, the attempts were laughably clumsy. One Russian tabloid ran an obviously fake “leaked recording” purporting to be a CIA agent operating under cover as a BBC journalist, arranging with another CIA agent to have the plane shot down. The Kremlin’s English-language station RT ran programme after programme accusing the western media of spin and lies over MH17.

    The bolded quote links to:

    https://mashable.com/2015/05/31/russia-fake-mh17-report/?europe=true

    But that report appears to have been a sham, according to detailed forensic analysis conducted by Eliot Higgins, a visiting research associate at King's College London's war studies department, and his team of digital investigators at Bellingcat, the organization behind the new report.

    Giving him an academic sounding title doesn't make him less of a lying stooge.

    The investigation comes on the heels of a highly touted report Higgins co-authored with Washington-based Atlantic Council in which researchers used open source information from Google's Street View, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and VK.com, as well as satellite imagery, to prove Russia carried out military operations inside Ukraine.

    Highly touted? By whom I wonder? This article was the one that got destroyed by a German sat-imagery expert who basically summed it up by saying "Bellingcat doesn't have a clue what they are talking about".

    And so the endless circle of assertions supposedly proven by evidence which turns out to be out previous assertions goes on. To mangle a quote, "much sound and fury, proving nothing."

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