From the very onset of the MH17 incident, the US State Department position was, not just that they believed that Russia was responsible, but that they had absolute proof, in the form of Satellite images--that showed the exact launch site of the missile, and that these images confirmed Russia's complicity.
We immediately knew what the US State Departments stance was--Russia did it.
Did the US State Department ever release this satellite images that proved--beyond the shadow of a doubt--that Russia was responsible, thus putting the issue to rest for good and all? No. That's very strange. Why not? The US State Department, as they so often do when they're asked to present evidence that they don't want to, cited national security concerns. This is the USSD's go to answer for everything they don't want to answer.
Instead of providing their absolute proof, the US State Department, with a straight face, cited social media sources, and, amazingly, news sites that themselves were citing those same social media sources. In short, instead of offer reliable evidence that they claimed to have, they offered evidence that put the USSD's professionalism into question, and assumed that the public would be satisfied with what amounts to gossip.
Has the US ever released satellite images to prove something before? Yes they have, on numerous occasions. So how would releasing images that would be a slam dunk on the 'Russia did it' narrative impact on national security? The only answer anyone can come to is that they probably wouldn't. And that begs the question: then why not release them?
Does anyone believe that if the US held a silver bullet to blast the Russian propaganda machine with they wouldn't fire it? No. Nobody with two brain cells to rub together would believe that. Now when the US increased spending on countering Russian propaganda to more than half a billion dollars.
So we can safely assume that releasing said images wouldn't support the US narrative. And that leaves us with two possibilities:
1. The images don't exist, and John Kerry was simply lying. Kerry is a notorious liar making this a distinct possibility. He has reversed his stance on outright lies more times than anyone is probably counting, so an admission or reversal here is unlikely to redden his cheeks.
OR
2. The images do exist, but they don't support the US narrative. This would mean they prove someone other than Russia or the Russian backed separatists did it, and the only other possibility there is Ukraine. Would proving that Ukraine shoot down the MH17 be a threat to US national security? No. It would however be incredibly embarrassing, and make it hard for the US to continue supporting the current regime. This in turn would negatively impact on the US geopolitical goals.
So which is it? Well, Russia has already proven that the US did in fact have a satellite in orbit in position to get a bird's eye view of the area, and has formally requested these images. That the US had a satellite in the right region at the right time isn't overly suspicious, since the US military does have an awful lot of satellites. The US has claims, on numerous occasions, to be able to detect every missile launch that happens anywhere in the world, and this claim might actually be true--since Russia can. If the US had a satellite in position, and a launched happened, then the US satellite probably detected it, and images probably do exist. The chances of the US actually having evidence of the launch is actually pretty high.
Option 2 is the most probably. The US does have images, but they don't support the narrative that the US needs to pursue. That means the US images prove someone other than Russian backed separatists or Russia shot down MH17. This means the US 'probably' has evidence proving Ukraine shot down MH17, and they're intentionally not sharing this information, because it suits the Washington to maintain the current anti-Russian narrative.
There's nothing as loud as a secret screaming to get out.
Discuss!
