EU Referendum


Ukraine: adding to the sum of human knowledge?


24/07/2014



000a Guardian-023 BUK.jpg

Says the Guardian, a top rebel commander in eastern Ukraine has admitted the armed separatist movement had control of a BUK missile system, "which Kiev and western countries say was used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines plane last week".

This is Alexander Khodakovsky who, we are told, "leads the Vostok battalion" – one of the main rebel formations. And he says the rebels "may" have received the BUK from Russia, which the Guardian helpfully tells us is "the first such admission by a senior separatist".

"That BUK I know about", he adds. "I heard about it. I think they sent it back. Because I found out about it at exactly the moment that I found out that this tragedy had taken place. They probably sent it back in order to remove proof of its presence".

Later on, the paper than tells us "Khodakovsky said he did not know where the missile system had come from but it may have come from Russia". He added the separatists "had seized several BUK systems from Ukrainian bases, but none of them were operational".

Then we get this little gem by the way of a direct quote, with Khodakovsky saying: "I'm not going to say Russia gave these things or didn't give them. Russia could have offered this BUK under some entirely local initiative. I want a BUK, and if someone offered me one, I wouldn't turn it down".

And that quote, it appears, comes from an "exclusive" Reuters report issued on Wednesday evening, and is the only evidential support there is for the claim that the separatists were supplied by the Russians. A "top rebel leader" specifically refused to say whether the Russians supplied the missile and this is taken as proof that the Russians supplied the missile.

The interview with Khodakovsky is the put by Reuters to Eileen Lainez, a Pentagon spokeswoman, who is then cited as saying that his remarks confirmed what US officials had long been saying, that "Russian-backed separatists have received arms, training and support from Russia".

And now, today, today, we have Khodakovsky denying what little substance there was in the Reuters report. "We were discussing theories but one simple phrase was cutting throughout like a red line that I do not have the information on militia possessing such kind of a weapon," he says, than adding that he had told Reuters that he was not an expert and could not comment on the crash.

That is, in fact, what comes over from the interview – a man who has no specific knowledge and is only making guesses on what is not much more than common knowledge. His most pertinent comment is that, if the Ukrainian authorities knew that the separatists DPR allegedly possessed BUKs, they should have banned civilian flights in the Donetsk airspace.

Needless to say, this is too late. The thrust of the Reuters story has already been repeated by other newspapers, and has acquired the status of "truth" by dint of multiple repetition. But would somebody please tell me how this is news, and what it adds to the sum of human knowledge?

Even more so, one must ask what the utility is when another media organ embellishes the story by having Khodakovsky suggest that the missile system had "probably" come from Russia - a word that Reuters doesn't offer in its won report.

This is misrepresentation to the extent of being an outright lie – yet it still apparently qualifies as reputable journalism. One has to give the media ten out of ten for persistence, though. Once the "pack" decides on a narrative, nothing is going to dissuade it from  pursuing it. And if journalists can't get what they want from one source, they keep going until they find one that will give them it - or simply make up what they need.

FORUM THREAD