Tag Archives: State of the Union

What would you do?

We get that is the ‘dangerous’ question, but consider your situation when you are a mere step from becoming broke (or whatever a nation calls itself) you have no credit left, no goodwill left and you need to get your defence settings up (in a major way) as such the United States is set into a almost unbearable situation where (according to several newspapers)  they are requesting ‘Iran war has cost US $37.5bn so far, Hegseth says, as Pentagon seeks billions more’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70gek2kqyno) beside the setting that as I see it, that almost 38 billion amount seems to have been stretched, the request of “Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee it was urgent that lawmakers approve another $87bn in congressional funding for the Pentagon, with $67bn of that destined for operations in the Middle East.” I am not debating the amount, although seems to be a little far fetched, especially as in 2025 the num bars given were “The U.S. national defense spending for fiscal year 2025 totaled approximately $919 billion to $954 billion in total outlays (with the initial Department of Defense request starting around $849.8 billion)” setting the need for Iranian oil well beyond 10% of the total and “The White House asked Congress in April for $1.5tn for the Pentagon over the next fiscal year, which would raise American military spending to an all-time high in the modern era”, where we consider that the US defense forces are at that stage loaded for bear (as expressions go). And compared to 2025 it exceeds 100% of the previous year, as such I am facing questions. It makes sense in my consideration that the United States is about to buckle and they want their defenses to be up when it does. So whilst we are given “Hegseth said current and future training for military members would need to be cut without the funds, as he repeatedly blamed former President Joe Biden’s administration for what he said was an underfunded military. The most senior Democrat on the committee, Patty Murray, pushed back on the funding request, saying it “does not make a lot of sense”. Asked by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin if he had an estimate for how much the war in Iran has cost so far, Hegseth gave the $37.5bn figure.” I can see both sides off the argument, especially if the United States would be forced to forfeit on their loans and when the US Treasury bonds are dumped by others (which is at present set to almost $9.37 trillion) the setting that this could be dumped on the markets whilst also seeing over a trillion dollars in interest bills. I reckon that 2027-2028 will become a messy United States to be sure. As most of these settings collapse, a strong defense is pretty much all that stands between the United States and circling vultures. 

As such I see the requests of Pete Hegseth, whilst not debunking Patty Murray on any of this, and in all this the blaming on all this on former President Biden is becoming stale to say the least, especially when too many truths are getting twisted in all this. As such a headline given 11 hours ago where we see ‘The USA has collected 13 billion dollars from Venezuela’s oil sales, but has not provided details about the destination of these funds.’ As such there is a concern that these finds are handed to the US defense coffers, as such the 37.3 billion might have to be lessened by $13 billion, or did you forget about the Venezuelan clambake? And in all this, what are the total numbers of expenditure in troops, material and ammunition in all of this? Why wasn’t this raised on numerous occasions? Or is whatever went under the bridge no longer an interest to the media? All these questions and there is a consideration that the $13,000,000,000 was used to keep the United States afloat. It might be merely my view, but I am unwilling to consider that none of the media has considered that, or are they driven by Epstein files and digital dollars to make their revenue?

So, You see, the questions are piling up and the setting of a ‘State of the Union’ because as I see it, these parkers were up for some time and the ink from the date of February 24th 2026 is barely dry. As such the setting of the speech, which is supposedly giving the nation “Outlines the condition of the nation, reviews the administration’s achievements, and proposes upcoming legislative priorities” might have missed the marker by at least a mile and when you consider that the “The current “golden age of AI” is an era of rapid technological acceleration driven by generative models, deep learning, and massive infrastructure investments. This period has radically lowered the barriers to software creation, automated complex workflows, and sparked national science initiatives like the White House report on” would be missing the mark by at least two decades and that is the short and sour of that equation, as such there is no golden age, because (as I see it) that revenue is being pushed back and forth by 3-4 corporation with Nvidia being the largest winner. So there is a larger default and in that age Pete Hegseth is requesting an amount going towards $1,500,000,000,000 and that is bedsides the Stargate funds, which is targeting up to US$500 billion in total funding by 2029. It was officially announced by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX. And when this is set in the scales with a estimated debt of $39,588,242,618,845 the numbers are not adding up. It is almost like these debts are ‘compartmentalized’ though people that seemingly don’t talk to each other and they are taking turns talking to the United States Department of the Treasury. I wonder how Scott Bessent is keeping all that separated and apart for a speculative reporting. Did you not wonder that? 

In all this I wonder how some parties are avoiding the limelight in all this and the requests by Pete Hegseth brings it all to the surface, because a journalist should have had his quills up (those without a text editor) and that is seemingly not happening, because we would have read this and whilst one source gave us: ‘The US printed more than 3.3 trillion dollars in 2020 alone and it matters today’ whilst I cannot deny this might have happened, there is no valid source or a newspaper who is supporting that part and if that would be true, the dollar is due for a decent downside, because that would be added to the $39 Trillion debt and I raised this in ‘Is it that simple?’ With an exaggerated Weimar example (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2026/07/19/is-it-that-simple/) I remember that, because I had a DM100,000,000 note, which I hope would be enough to persuade some gorgeous lady to have sexual intercourse with my 16 year old body (we are delusional in what we can) and not weirdly, no one was taking that bait. But that is for another day. Still that setting is out there and all the facts are not events that took place in the last few weeks, as such the State of the Union might have been a hollow ship and when we consider rallying that my setting for a imploding United States might be on track to be 11-23 months from now. And as I see it, the Pete Hegseth request as well as the clambakes towards Canada (51st state), Greenland, Venezuela and Iran snow bringing too much to the surface and that is not a good thing. Because the United States needs friends, it desperately needs them and as I see it, they alienated allies they had, busted up economic options and as I see it, what was intended for the coffers of the United States, is now headed towards Canada (making me happy to a larger degree). And as China is now infringing on options that had put the United States in the first Column, China is now moving into and leaving the United States in the third column (a sales term). As I see it, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE is putting their options towards tourism draining the United States even more and all this is adding up, whilst some costs and expenditures are not voiced correctly (as I personally see it), as such the United States is in a bad place and I ask you: ‘What would you do?’ Because the simple truth is that the one priority of the United States is the United States, that much anyone should accept. But how will they get there? So whilst one source (PBS) is giving us “President Donald Trump’s financial disclosures revealed that his business ventures generated over $2 billion in 2025 during his first year back in office—more than triple his prior income. These unprecedented financial gains, heavily driven by cryptocurrency projects and branded merchandise, have intensified public debate and ethics scrutiny regarding potential conflicts of interest” we are facing two settings. Did he break any laws (I don’t care) and the second setting is “Are the United States is much deeper waters pertaining to the debt levels than anyone is considering?” Because that part matters, it matters for the Commonwealth and it matters to the EU and they need to either get stronger together, or seek some kind of an alliance with a place like China. And I think that this might be the case as the China bashing through places like LinkedIn is getting stronger and as LinkedIn is Microsoft, it brings the seating that this might be the reality we have to face. 

Feel free to deny or debunk my views, but there is too much out there and I am merely keeping a tally of what is being missed by the media at large. 

Have a great day today.

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Today is the difference

That is what people will tell themselves and I would agree, but there is a setting that no one ever expected. You see, America has just had its State of the Union. And the ‘books’ say that the state of the union is:

So we can assume that the Americans will be given a true representation of what is, what might be and what is desired. So we get two sources. First the Dutch NOS who gives us “‘US stronger than ever,’ Trump says in campaign speech riddled with falsehoods” (in Dutch, at https://nos.nl/artikel/2603925-vs-sterker-dan-ooit-zegt-trump-in-campagnespeech-vol-onwaarheden) and to avoid translating the whole enchilada, we can turn to CNN who gives us (at https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/24/politics/fact-check-state-of-the-union) ‘Fact check: Trump makes false claims about the economy, elections and crime in State of the Union’ and CNN fires of the first sinker of whatever battleship opposes it with “Many of them were long-debunked falsehoods familiar from his rallies, interviews and social media posts. These include various lies disparaging the fairness of US elections, his false claim that he ended wars that were never actually wars or never actually ended, and his fictional “$18 trillion” figure for supposed investment in the US over the past year. The subject on which he was most frequently inaccurate was the economy. Among other things, Trump overstated the performance of the economy during this presidential term to date, overstated the inflation he inherited from the Biden administration, used highly misleading figures when discussing gasoline prices, and wrongly asserted, twice, that foreign countries are paying the tariffs that are actually being paid by US importers.” And weirdly enough I get it, a nation that is broke is the most unlikely to state in its statement of the budget “We are destitute, we squandered all you have and the United States doesn’t have anything left, we are a drowning vessel with no hope for shore. It sounds like a passenger on the Titanic that asks “Is land far away?” And the crew member states, no madam, it is a mere 3,800 meters to land. The lady asks what direction she should swim. The crew answers straight down. 

That is the setting as I see it, that the United States of America is in. The 18 trillion is to avoid the discussion of the United States defaulting on its loans, because that will be the next setting to scuttle Wall Street, pension funds and several other funds who have been banking of US Treasury bills. And I am not alone, David Kelly (JP Morgan) stated last October that the United States was going broke slowly, I am no longer convinces that it is going slowly. As the America administration is vying for the next hype, they are banking with funds they no longer have and as I see it, any nation with US treasury bills is about to sell them with a loss and there is no going back. I warned for this for almost a decade and no one wanted to listen. In stead of overhauling the tax system, people started screaming that they should tax the billionaires whist that might merely stop the avalanche that comes for a mere week and it would be unlawful. But that is for another day. CNN also gives us “As of the night of Trump’s address, the White House’s own website said the figure for “major investment announcements” during this Trump term was “$9.7 trillion,” and even that is a major exaggeration; a detailed CNN review in October found the White House was counting trillions of dollars in vague investment pledges, pledges that were about “bilateral trade” or “economic exchange” rather than investment in the US and vague statements that didn’t even rise to the level of pledges.” Sol why did he double it? I reckon that the economy is at a massive decline with waging war on Canada, Greenland and a few other places. Canada and the EU are don’t with him. I personally believe that China is too, there is too much in the recession pipeline, China has won and the United States lost. A war that never had any chance of success. Why? When you consider the ‘innovation’ that some tech companies proclaimed all whist they cannot figure out the innovation that Huawei is sporting, that should be enough and now that we see some political game between OpenAI and Microsoft with hundreds of billions at stake, the AI war is seemingly settled in favour of Google, AWS and IBM. So whilst we get all kinds of innovation speech on how AI can replace COBOL programmers (downgrading IBM stock by 10%), we are unlikely to see that happen, as such IBM stock will repair itself and the proclaimers of that setting (Anthropic) fail to deliver, their basket will be floating down the Nile to the space of a hungry Crocodile. And in all this no one is asking how Anthropic got the trained DML engine that could do this, because if it only went from the manuals, they are in for a big surprise as I see it. IBM programmers got COBOL to cry ‘mommy’ whilst getting 12 statements out of 8 lines. I know it does not make sense, but there is a bigger setting and whilst I only casually did COBOL in 1985, I am in no way an expert. Yes there COBOL AI can run circles around me, not IBM programmers wit decades of experience. And that is merely one of many setting where the America Economy falls flat. And the United States are making it harder on itself with every iteration of tech enterprises that are playing some bluff game and are setting the bar to miscommunication in the 11th hour. That Is how I personally see it and the media is chasing digital dollars, so they are mostly no help. 

Then CNN gives us “Trump claimed gas prices are “now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places, $1.99 a gallon.” But no state had an average gas price on Tuesday below $2.37 per gallon, according to AAA; only two states had an average below $2.50 per gallon. And while there are some individual gas stations selling gas for below $2 per gallon, they are scarce; Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for the firm GasBuddy, said during the speech that the firm found just four stations across the country below $2 (aside from special discounts) out of the roughly 150,000 stations the firm tracks, so about 0.003% of the total.” As such we see the state of the union a setting where the United States might actually be broke, I have no evidence to that effect, but it renders correctly with all the other facts we are given and the other settings we have been watching for years. As such today is the difference and I wonder who will actually as the president of the United States whether it is acceptable that the State of the Union was based on incorrect miscommunications. 

A fair question, not?
And now I hear (unverified) that Canada has told StarLink to vacate Canada, its allocated frequencies have been retracted, its hardware must be removed in 60 days and as I see it, that will imply that America gets even less money now. As I stated, this was unverified and asI had only one source, it is not enough. Perhaps I get more data later, but for now, whomever hears that news, take it with a spoonful of salt. 

So have a great day and feel free to question the data your government gives you. 

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It’s a bulletpoint

We all have these days. We have moments where we are confronted with superiors (or bosses) who seem to be able to do anything based on a one page memo that is drenched in bullet-points. It was an almost Neanderthal moment in management when those (getting tertiary education) were all brought up with the belief system that a memo is one page (which I can partially agree with), yet that memo should merely consist bullet-points that bring the goods.

I always thought of that part as an absolute load of bollocks. I can agree that sometimes luck works in our favour and that is exactly what happens, they are however rare. You see, the bullet-point might be correct to some extent, but you can only see part of the view with bullet-points. An actual tactical or strategic business setting is properly set in a SWOT analyses. If it is a serious action, that is what you need, because the boss requires the opportunity, yet he must also know the threat and the weakness. Some decisions are merely based on the balance of merits; do the strengths and opportunity outweigh the weakness and threat? That is the game we face in most business ventures and as they move forward. The Netflix balance, the ‘Nine+Fairfax=NEC’ setting, the setting that we saw in Natixis, Ubisoft and Verizon. The last one is apparently not focussing on big Mergers, that is, until we get the allegedly implied news in upcoming October, when in the black out period of Verizon Hans Vestberg will make an interesting announcement. This is not merely about the ‘fast-growing global market‘, this will be about the upper hand and those with the data will have the upper hand, plain and simple.

So when we go back to 2018, where the state of the union treated us to ‘President Trump claiming the military defeat of ISIS‘, yes, also I have a bridge to sell you, nice view of the Tower of London, going cheap! In that same setting we see the New Yorker giving us: “Trump was holding a press conference, a few blocks away, with the Presidents of the three Baltic states. He was visibly angry when asked about Syria. “I want to get out,” he said, his voice rising. “I want to bring our troops back home. I want to start rebuilding our nation. We will have, as of three months ago, spent seven trillion dollars in the Middle East over the last seventeen years. We get nothing—nothing out of it, nothing.” He called it “a horrible thing.”“, here I have to say that he was not entirely incorrect. There is no return on investment. In a war against terrorists, unless you are willing to become, or unleash the monsters, any fight against monsters is a cost, and will remain a cost; there will be no return on investment.

Unless you are willing to properly strike back, this fight will go on and on. The events in the New Yorker were in April 2018, three months after the so proclaimed not really existing victory. The New Yorker brought the news one day after Haaretz gave us: ‘Trump’s White House Says Military Mission to Eradicate ISIS in Syria ‘Coming to Rapid End’‘, a rapid end and not in a good way. Haaretz also emphasises on “Trump said Tuesday that he expects to decide “very quickly” whether to remove U.S. troops from war-torn Syria, saying their primary mission was to defeat the Islamic State group and “we’ve almost completed that task.” Trump’s national security team is advising against a hasty withdrawal even as he makes his preference clear: “I want to get out.”“. that was the setting in April, now a mere 84 days later we are treated (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/25/dozens-dead-suicide-attack-syria-sweida-isis) to ‘Surprise Isis attacks leave more than 200 dead in south-west Syria‘, several credit cards will not charge interest the first 90 days, not ISIS, the interest was served quick, to the point and basically deadly precise. The by-line giving us ‘Suicide bombers strike targets in Sweida city and launch simultaneous raids on nearby villages‘. That is the setting less than 24 hours ago and the directness of the attacks imply that we will see more over the next 4 days. This is not a quick hit and run, this is a message to President Trump that his Trumpet is false and full of lies.

As we are confronted with “The militants are also believed to have kidnapped dozens of people and taken them back to their hideouts. Local sources said the attacks began almost simultaneously in the early hours of Wednesday, between 3.50am and 4.30am“, we see a setting of coordination, creativity and direct action. Not merely proving that the State of the Union setting was wrong, it is a setting that implies that a lot more resources are required. In addition, it also proves that we need to shift gears and reactivate the monsters that can take care of business. This is not the theater of Chicago windy city makers; this is the battleground of people like Academi and the Wagner group. Yes, there is a case where it might be better that the actual governmental military organisations do the work, but it seems that America did not have the stomach for it, the Europeans and NATO are locked in everlasting debates and Israel is eager to stop it all, but that means a direct was with Syria, which it prefers not to be in. So there are not too many options at present. Even as the media at large is setting the stage on a Putin-Trump option, we see in equal measure on how Assad won and Trump is fine with that. We get loads of writing, but none of it reflects a solution and with all the papers all printing the same photo, all claiming a death count that is somewhere between 200-220 we are told that the count is high, yet they do not give us that this happened 35 Km from Jordan, 90 Km from Damascus and 90 Km from Israel. I think that the message from ISIS is clear. There is an issue; ISIS is still a player in the region and yes, from all we can tell ISIS with this one act melvined President Trump pretty much on the spot.

Yet everyone’s question will be how to counter this and deal with ISIS. From my point of view we see a setting that cannot be resolved the way it has been, it requires a different scope of activities and a very different level of investigation and intelligence analyses. That evidence is seen in the way the surprise attack went through and pretty much every part of it was a success (form the ISIS point of view), giving is to wonder how incomplete the current level of intelligence data is to begin with. We were aware that there is too much intelligence ego in Syria (or Iraq for that matter). Even now, in the last few months as sources go out and admit (or proclaim) intelligence failures in Israel, the US, NATO et al. Even as the Syrian nuclear reactor is the most visible one, the quality of the workers gathering the data, often in am allegedly precarious double agent setting tend to be not the greatest sources of intelligence. A less reliable source is seen in open source intelligence where we can get a taste of some things happening, but for the most the reliability is too low to be of operational use, even after the facts deeper digging tends to show issues that after the fact seemingly it could only have contributed towards failure, not towards success.

Iran is the second setting where some go from the balance of probability in a algorithm setting that dictates the tactical push forward, yet the people involved tend to forget the oldest IT setting in any data analytical collective where the protocols of GIGO are in effect, a given law that dates back to 1982 when I was in the Middle East for my own adventure. I always see (or better stated I have seen too often) that the officer’s response of GIGO would be: ‘some of it can be used‘, yet the setting Garbage In Garbage Out is merely the setting that as Garbage was accepted, all data involved becomes tainted, or is tainted. Those who bring you ‘some of it can be used‘, tend to rely on the creation of truths by aggregating false flags. So the setting where: ‘he never relies on computers’, we get ‘must create notes on their intelligence’. The one setting where he does not use computers because the person was dyslexic was overlooked. Aggregated data can be useful against the singular observation in a timeline, it gives the unit against the volume, but if one false flag was false, the others lose value and the column setting is no longer reliable. GIGO is devastatingly simple and pretty much always a given truth (or is that a confirmed non-false?), yes, I am at times that funny.

this now takes us to a setting almost three weeks ago in the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/07/09/russia-and-the-u-s-have-common-interests-in-syria-but-it-may-not-matter), where we see: “Last week, national security adviser John Bolton said that the meeting could offer a “larger negotiation on helping to get Iranian forces out of Syria” and that an agreement could be “a significant step forward” for U.S. interests in the Middle East“, it is a statement that I cannot agree with. You see, even as Iran in Syria is an issue for Russia, it is not the same where Iran is an American problem, pure and simple. Russia has a setting where it wants to waste as much of the resources that NATO and America have, plain and simple. There is plenty of data proving that. I have nothing against John Bolton, I do not know the man, but I know he has been out of ‘circulation’ for almost 12 years. He is however not that devious. He sails a straight course (a commendable setting), in this he was always against the Iranian deal, he has been advocating regime change for both Iran and North Korea. It does not matter whether he is neoconservative, pro-American, or a nationalist. The settings that are clearly out and visible is that he has placed his country before his personal interests again and again and that is always a good thing (a lesson Democrats should learn at some point), yet when we look at Politico (at https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/25/bolton-cabinet-meetings-mattis-pompeo-trump-740429), he is also doing something dangerous. It is seen in part with: ‘Cabinet chiefs feel shut out of Bolton’s ‘efficient’ policy process‘, followed by “Defense Secretary James Mattis has gone so far as to draft a letter requesting the national security adviser hold more gatherings of agency and department chiefs“, this is followed by ““He doesn’t want to ‘meeting’ an issue to death,” said one White House official. “He wants to make the bureaucratic process more efficient so that decisions can be made at the principals level.” But across the U.S. national security establishment, there’s a growing sense of a breakdown in the policy process since Bolton took over the National Security Council on April 9“. From where I am sitting, it creates a different friction. The different stations always had their own way of registering intelligence and it is in the misinterpretation of each of the used Thesaurus, that is where the data gap is starting to form, an international data point is not seen the same by the NSA, DIA and CIA. This gets me to my party favourite, what is another word for ‘Thesaurus‘? It is funny when you think of it, because as there is no synchronicity between Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA Gina Cheri Haspel and National Security Advisor John Bolton, they only think there is synchronised thinking (they nearly always do). So now we have the hats of the big cheeses in a similar direction, but not in the same direction, it gives us the issue that there are losses, losses in intelligence, losses in data and losses in translations, and lets not forget an overall loss of quality. That tends to be a much larger problem, and that problem will hit the desk of Director of the FBI Christopher Wray a little sooner than he bargained for. It also sets a very dangerous precedent. You see, it is mishaps like this that caused the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. I see it as a setting where people that need to act are getting more than one version because of the lacking intelligence cohesion, which was never great to begin with is now in a setting of decay. I get where John Bolton is at, but the red tape has one setting which is intelligence quality, that is now too in a stage where the Dodo went. You see, the politico quote ‘cutting unnecessary bureaucratic red tape, pushing the nitty-gritty discussions to lower levels‘ shows the foundation of a good thing, but pushing certain issues to a lower level also means that the accountability and responsibility is brought down, whilst at the same stage, the essential lack of security clearance at that level also stops optional security leaks and as such some information will not be available at lower levels. So if ISIS decides to become surprisingly creative again and we see in a future news setting that they decided to visit Al-Umawyeen St, Amman, Jordan, We will see an entirely new escalation, one that President Trump cannot walk away from, in equal measure, if the changes by John Bolton enabled that scenario, we will see another setting where a National Security Advisor will immediately go into retirement and focus on his family life (the present assigned young-ling is 69 after all, so that excuse will be readily accepted).

So the shorting of the memo’s relying on bullet points, whilst setting the strategic placement of people to be placed at the point of a bullet is not so far-fetched, is it? Even as we will soon see that this gets paraded as a once off event, a rare option where ISIS got lucky. Remember that this was not merely an explosion. It was that, in addition the abduction of people and activities in other places as well that it all went down at the SAME TIME. It was not merely coordination; it required funds, facilitation of events and goods that were available at the right time. Should you consider my folly (never a bad thing to do), consider the one setting that we did not get to see in the news. The distance from the Zaatari Refugee camp to Al-Umawyeen St, Amman, Jordan is a mere 60,224 metres; I have actually walked that distance, so when we consider the dangers in place and we accept that there are ISIS sympathisers in Zaatari (we do not know how many), the one issue that the US cannot allow for is any more miscommunication between intelligence operations. On the plus side, if it does happen, Hollywood can do another movie, John Krasinsky was awesome in the Benghazi story, and he could prepare his Jordanian language skills if he reprises his role at: The Markaz, Arts Center for the Greater Middle East 1626 N. Wilcox Ave, Suite 702 Los Angeles, CA 90028.

You see there is something in this setting for everyone, whilst me successfully avoiding bullet points until the very end, how crazy was that?

#BulletPointsAreAlwaysInaccurate

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Who is guilty?

This is a question we all seem to know, when we hear the words MH-117 and Ukraine. However, is that position a given fact? You see, we all seem to blame and to some extent I also blamed, but it seems to me that I am the only one who is asking the questions that need answering.

Let’s take a look at the events and the sides.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed on July 17th 2014. The first fact given and already it is an incorrect one. MH-117 was shot out of the sky. Let’s not beat around the bush, it was shot down with advanced technology. No shoulder held equipment could have done this; it required serious hardware to achieve this. It happened over Donetsk, an area under control of pro-Russian separatists. The only information that seems correct is that this was done by pro-Russian separatists. After this, the press takes a gander and accusations are flying all over the place, several of them pretty wild ones.

The first issue is found here: Evidence from open sources indicated that separatists in Ukraine were in control of a BUK missile launcher on 17 July and transported it from Donetsk to Snizhne (at http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/journalists-find-solid-russian-ties-to-missile-that-hit-mh17-371161.html). I have a few issues with the Bellingcat report! It can be found (at https://www.bellingcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Origin-of-the-Separatists-Buk-A-Bellingcat-Investigation1.pdf).

I think the reader will need to make up their own minds, but let me elaborate on my reasoning. My issue here is that there is no clear confirmation on the photos. Faking social media events is too easy, some pictures are too grainy, the chances and danger of photo editing is too high. The report should have listed all the particulars of EVERY photo, where it was found, when downloaded and then we have other issues, data on a JPG can be manipulated, who took the photo and when.

These events give one clear view in my mind, the Russians are not proven guilty and the separatists are not innocent.

The second issue I have with all this are the Americans. They claim to have evidence, but will not release it. In my mind, if you held the Dutch and Australians in actual high regard, you would have released all footage and data. The next part is pure speculation on my part (just warning you ahead of it all). I think that the Americans have clear evidence and that evidence is that the BUK never came from Russia. I will elaborate on this a little later on in this article. In addition, I am amazed that both UK (GCHQ) and France (DGSE) have not stepped forward with satellite data either. Do you actually believe that in an area, so important for the near future would not keep their eyes on this all? Let us not forget that the Iraq debacle with these satellite pictures, not revealing WMD’s is the reason why most Europeans, actually most non-Americans do not trust America at present. To restore some credibility, they should have released this data, especially as this was a civilian aircraft, shot down by unlawful combatants, meaning non-combatants who directly engage in armed conflict. They are non-combatants as the pro-Russian separatists are members, not part of any recognised national army. So, they are unlawful combatants at best, terrorists at worst (shooting down a civilian plane is regarded as a terrorist act).

It is my personal believe, (again, an assumption, but a likely one) that the fault lies DIRECTLY with the Ukrainian government. Let me explain my reasoning. We know that the Ukraine has BUK units; there is additional information (non-reliable) that former Ukrainian soldiers are part of the pro-Russian separatists. One statement (again non-reliable) is “one militant told reporters that they originated ‘from a military warehouse'”. Yet is this such a stretch?

A linked quote is “The Minister of Interior Affairs Arsen Avakov gave orders to blow up the warehouse with arms and ammunition of military unit 3037 of the National Guard of Ukraine in Donetsk, to prevent the capture of remaining stock of arms and ammunition by separatists” (at http://igcp.eu/hronika-prestupleniy/military-warehouse-burned-down-donetsk?language=en).

Now it is time for my theory (again it is an assumption based upon information I found).

Russian separatists got hold of hardware (weapons, ammunition and vehicles) when they sprang into action. One of the vehicles (a set of three) was a BUK. Now this is not the full answer. You see, to properly operate a BUK you need a trained team, if not then there are a dozen things that will go wrong and as such MH-117 would never have been shot down with one missile, perhaps not even with 4 missiles. Here are my thoughts on the guilt of Ukraine.

The moment this was known, or even suspected that warehouses were raided, the Ukrainian government would have needed to alert all people, especially airlines. This was not done (as far as I know). When the BUK did its job, those in the Ukrainian government went into a blame game mode. More concerning is the chance that America has conformation of my theory, but they desperately need to do business with the Ukraine and this issue would make Ukraine not happy. So there we have it, because ego prevented people from ringing the alarm bell, a plane was shot down. If those power-hungry ‘commanders’ had rung the alarm bell, it is almost certain that MH-117 would have taken another path and these people would be alive today. Ego was the biggest killer, not the missile.

Again, this is based on a theory with limited data, now consider the facts. Do you think that Russia would hand over a BUK with a firing team to separatists? A situation that could escalate so fast, more important, do you think that these soldiers would shoot down a civilian airliner? All answers as I see them are a clear ‘NO!’ in my mind.

However, there were apparently ‘phone calls’ and as far as I saw, only the Daily Mail had them, which means that the ‘evidence’ is worthless, especially considering claims they made regarding FIFA in the past.

Another part comes from the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/mh17-crash-kerry-evidence-pro-russia-separatists-responsibility) “‘we have enormous input about this that points fingers’ Kerry told CNN’s State of the Union, ‘it is pretty clear that this was a system from Russia, transferred to separatists. We know with confidence that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point of time’” something that was published on July 20th.

It is the last part “We know with confidence that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point of time”. This MIGHT have been true, but where were they all? where is the list of tally for ALL the BUK systems Ukraine has, because the Ukraine does have them. Where are ALL the missiles? you see, i think that pro-Russian separatists did make plans and they needed hardware to create a win. With Crimea there was a bottleneck and pretty much all Crimean’s seem to have wanted to be returned to Russia, Donetsk is another matter, not all seem to prefer Russian return and as such it required military actions. Now, it is definitely possible (more likely than not is the legal term) that Russia would like to ‘assist’ to some extent with the separatists, because they look good if this happens, the idea that some people feel uneasy to join the EU and America is not everybody’s joyous idea. So if Donetsk becomes independent, it would be a good blow for Russia, yet I feel unable to believe that the Kremlin is so moronic (no other word fits the bill), to give access and control of Russian BUK systems to separatists, the backlash would be too hard.

So here we are, America might have evidence and refuses to release it, and we know for certain that separatists are guilty, but Russian guilt at present is not proven. There are too many issues and America keeping ‘evidence’ away is just too unreliable. Where lies the truth?

I have no clear answer, my assumptions are based on logic and factual interpretation of events, but I will admit firstly that I could be wrong too. It is up to you the reader to consider why three large players either have no satellite data or are unwilling to release it. Why?

The other path open now is that Russia could release all their satellite data, but are they willing to do this? Such evidence could exonerate the Russians, but they also have a stake in the fire, for as they give out the separatists, that connection would also be under fire, but would it be to the same extent? Consider that the units responsible are handed over to The Hague and that Donetsk would become a separate state, what would be the dynamic then? This is not a part that needs answering, but it should be looked at.

It will take a lot of time to figure out where the BUK exactly came from, but the louder some shout over the origin of the missile, whilst not handing over the evidence is a worry all by itself.

 

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