EU Referendum


Ukraine: MH17 - corroboration from the Germans


21/10/2014



000a Spiegel-021 MH17.jpg

We were quick off the mark on the MH17 tragedy and now, three months after the event, German Intelligence, via der Spiegel is taking the view that the downing was caused by pro-Russian separatists, using a BUK missile.

While the Mail was telling its readers that a BUK was something you could pack in a golf bag and the Sun was blaming it on Putin, I think we called it right, from the very first. And that was despite the "paper of record" getting it totally wrong.

What we are looking at here is that Gerhard Schindler, president of the BND, told a secret [German] parliamentary committee on security affairs earlier this month that it had intelligence indicating that pro-Russian separatists had captured a BUK air defence missile system from a Ukrainian military base and had fired a missile on 17 July that had exploded in direct proximity to the Malaysian aircraft.

Schindler says his agency has come up with unambiguous findings. One is that Ukrainian photos have been manipulated and that there are details indicating this. He also told the parliamentary committee that Russian claims the missile had been fired by Ukrainian soldiers and that a Ukrainian fighter jet had been flying close to the passenger jet were false. "It was pro-Russian separatists", Schindler said.

I think the point must be made here. If you accept the careful, sober analysis of the German Intelligence Service (BND), we got it right while the legacy media was floundering around and getting it wrong. Furthermore, we did with far more technical detail and analysis, and far quicker than most of the media sources.

Even now, when actually reporting on the BND report, the Mail is still revisiting its own errors, with the video of a BUK radar system which it calls a missile launcher. That's the other thing about the legacy media – they rarely correct their own errors.

At least though the Mail did report the BND findings, which is more than can be said of the rest of the British media. Noticeably absent are the Times and the Sun which were quick to blame Putin – and are now equally slow to issue a corrective.

And, of course, we have Booker who not only got it right, but also asked questions that have yet to be answered. An alert media would have picked them up – and the failure to do so tells its own story.

The fact that we are so ill-served by our media should not pass without comment. Time and time again, we are told that a free media is an essential part of a functioning democracy, on which basis the media claims its rights and privileges.

But, of course, the effect depends of the media doing its job diligently. And, as the MH17 saga indicates – there is very little evidence of that happening.

FORUM THREAD