Survey Sez! “Putin’s the World’s Foremost Villain!”

[courtesy Google Images]

However, so far as I know, the only thing the public knows for sure is that Flight MH 17 crashed.  That crash was probably caused by an explosive device. Although that explosive device might’ve been a bomb planted on the airplane before it left Amsterdam, there is widespread consensus that the plane was shot out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile (SAM).

If the plane was brought down by a SAM, I don’t see how it could yet be known with certainty what kind of SAM did the damage.  Nevertheless, it’s been believed almost from the moment the plane’s debris hit the earth, that the kind of SAM that destroyed Flight MH 17 was a “Buk” weapons system manufactured by Russia.

Perhaps evidence is in that the SAM was definitely a Buk–but I doubt that that conclusion can yet be justified by evidence.

I know that the evidence is not yet public as to who really fired the purported SAM.  It could’ve been the Ukraine military. It could’ve been Russia.  It could’ve been the Ukraine rebels–although this last possibility is the least likely.   Conspiracy theories include Israel and the United States gov-co as additional “suspects”.

Nevertheless, as seen in the headlines from various newspapers, the media appears determined, almost fanatically, to charge Russian president Putin with responsibility for the crash.  That charge could turn out to be true, but I doubt that sufficient evidence (or even any evidence) currently exists to prove that claim.

I am disturbed by the media’s virulent attacks on Putin.  Are the media simply leaping to conclusions?  Or are they working in concert to convict Putin before the evidence is in or even found?

The last time I can recall that any head of government was attacked as virulently as Putin is today, was back about A.D. 2002–when our government vilified Saddam Hussein as justification for invading Iraq.

I suspect that Russia’s president Putin may be now getting a big dose of the same media frenzy that helped push Americans into stupidly supporting the invasions of Afghanistan and  Iraq.  Those invasions were costly and unjustified by any reason ever publicly advanced by the government.  We had no more reason to invade Afghanistan and Iraq than the Nazis had to invade Poland and France.  The American soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq died in vain.  They pissed their lives away because they and their parents, friends and neighbors were dumb enough to support the U.S. gov-co’s determination to go to war.

Result?  Iraq is ruined.  Afghanistan is, well, still a pile of unconquerable rocks.  And the US military has been reduced from the status of the world’s only super-power to that of a significant but declining military power.

All of these losses of lives, wealth, and power were incurred because We duh Pee-pul were dumb enough to believe our government’s and media’s claims that an invasion of some foreign countries was somehow justifiable and necessary.

And now I see Vladimir Putin getting a dose of the same media virulence that once beset Saddam Hussein.

I don’t know that today’s media virulence is coordinated.  I don’t know that the ultimate objective is to create enough blame for Putin that Russia is subjected to more economic sanctions or even some sort of hot war.  But I can’t help wondering if that might be true.

More, insofar as the media may be acting in concert to vilify Putin, that suggests that Flight MH 17 was downed (much like the twin towers of the World Trade Center were downed) for the purpose of creating a reason for the world to support vilification of Putin and a possible attack on Russia.

If Russia and/or Putin (rather than Flight MH 17) is the real target in this drama, then Russia and/or Putin and/or the Ukraine rebels cannot be the actual perpetrators for the destruction of Flight MH 17.

If Putin is being falsely and instantly vilified, the real perpetrators behind downing Flight MH 17 are looking to risk, or even precipitate,  war with Russia–just like they did with Iraq.

That is scary.