The Ukrainian war propaganda is a pack of lies

All summer long, we've been subjected to the heaviest barrage of war propaganda since 9/11 ... and it's mostly crap.  None of it, actually, rings true to me.  None of it.

Last week we heard claims of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.  That claim came from Ukrainian officials who first claimed 1,000 Russian troops crossed the border and then dramatically increased that to 4-5 thousand ground troops backed by columns of tanks and other armored vehicles.  There was no evidence of that, other than a few photos that could have shown anything, really ... but essentially showed nothing at all.  Reminds me of the photos used to "prove" the existence of Saddam Hussein's vast stockpiles of WMD.  They looked like screenshots from a video game.  We're not even getting adult lies; we're getting lies that a child would make.

But here's the thing:  It never happened. It's all bullshit, people, don't buy it this time.  Don't let friends go around selling it.

To their credit, the American military officials admitted they couldn't confirm any of those claims and, over the weekend, President Obama refused to lend any credence to them.  That marks a change, actually, since US officials have been "rubber-stamping" the false claims of the Ukrainian government for months now.

You wonder why you don't hear about the Malaysian Airliner (MH 017) that was allegedly shot down by the Russian surface-to-air missile?  Because it never happened.  That airliner was almost certainly shot down by the Ukrainian government fighter-jet that was detected approaching the plane just before it crashed.  The facts simply don't support the propaganda.

What is most interesting to me is the contrast in the way the Russian government and the US government handled the downing of MH 17 is striking.  The US immediately made unfounded claims it later had to retract after the Intelligence agencies refused to back up Secretary of State John Kerry's claims (which were baseless in fact, in other words, they were lies).

But the Russian government patiently asked for the US to assist them, and called for:

1. the US to use its satellite surveillance videos to verify what the Russians' own intelligence suggested might be a Ukrainian Su-25 ascending at high speed toward the Malaysian jetliner (http://en.itar-tass.com/world/741655)
2. the publishing of the photos and the data captured by US satellites in order to determine the cause of the crash. (never released)
3. an independent investigation of the crash by the International Civil Aviation Organization

The Russians were not the ones attempting to hide the satellite surveillance photos that can reveal the truth about that incident.  The US, at least, has used good sense in backing away from recent Ukrainian government claims that simply aren't verifiable.  In other words, propaganda lies.