Intelligence Stalemate: Truth About MH17 Crash Shrouded in Secrecy Forever?

The MH17 flight crash in eastern Ukraine is still under investigation, but the situation is far more complicated than you might imagine, American analyst Phil Butler notes.

After the notorious Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 had been shot down over eastern Ukraine, Western mass media launched an unprecedented propaganda campaign aimed against Russia and independence supporters in Donbass, although they failed to present any evidence to support their groundless claims.

There has been something sinister about the story since the very beginning, "it was clear there was a lot of 'story building,' as we call it in our PR practice, going on," Germany-based American analyst and consultant Phil Butler points out in his article for New Eastern Outlook.

"But the one story not rising from the ashes of MH17 was the military intelligence version. Those humongous intelligence gathering capabilities we've come to know, the NSA, GCHQ, space weapons galore, and the capability to see anything via Google Earth even, there was utter silence from there. The most costly and controversial technologies ever devised by humanity, arrayed to start, or to prevent any chance of World War III being a surprise — these proved useless, when the capability was most needed. Useless!" Butler emphasized.

Indeed, in August 2014 US investigative reporter Robert Parry called attention to this fact, suggesting that Washington could have covered up Kiev's involvement in the downing of flight MH17: US policy makers were probably unwilling to expose the fault of their puppet government in Ukraine, and therefore they still have not released satellite data that could shed some light on the tragedy.

But that is not the whole story. Butler narrated that the Russian Ministry of Defense immediately released civil radar and satellite information related to the crash excluding advanced military air and space defense data. What if Russia has got a 'trump card' up its sleeve? A 'trump card' it still cannot use…

"While understandable, the use of civilian radar and satellite imagery instead of highly advanced Russian air and space defense units in the region is telling. Even though the ministry goes farther than the Americans in compiling a plausible explanation, much lays hidden beneath the veil of measure-countermeasure strategic capability," Butler implied.

"Assuming the US and Russia mutually possess similar strategic and intelligence capabilities, we can begin to understand why the MH17 downing was not solved early on. Neither nation can afford to reveal the depth of technologies involved or the lack of capability if there are shortcomings," the American analyst pointed out.

The analyst suggested that Russia could have obtained high resolution media or imagery of the event which it cannot use since by presenting it Moscow could betray its "exact" military capabilities and technological "gaps" to the Americans.

"Russia cannot show the missile or aircraft cannon riddling MH17 with projectiles, and neither can the Pentagon. Both capability and weakness can be revealed in IMAX-like video of the plane being hit, and then falling to Earth," Butler underscored.

In the light of this there is a possibility that we will never find out the whole truth about the crash, the analyst hinted, adding that Washington is using Moscow's silence to point the finger at Russia and bolster anti-Russian propaganda.

"Now as to ultimately responsibility for the MH17 tragedy, we can still only speculate as to where the US or Russia has more to lose or gain form supplying the full picture," Butler concluded.