I dunno.
A Malaysian Airlines plane with 298 passengers and crew was shot down over the rebel areas of Ukraine this morning. No one took immediate responsibility, but Twitter and Facebook accounts attributed to "Strelkov" -- said to be the military commander of the Donbass rebels -- announced a shootdown shortly after the Malaysian plane was lost.
There is some question of whether these posts were made by Strelkov, as they were deleted shortly afterwards.
As we've known for some time, it is more than possible to manipulate social media accounts for the propaganda and social engineering purposes.
We'll know soon enough how this horrible, indeed inexcusable, incident is used beyond its propaganda value. Is this a false flag to ensure NATO enters the conflict directly? Is it further provocation of the Russian Bear?
Was it a tragic accident? Intentional? Stupid?
We'll see. I doubt it will end well.
Interesting article about tracks uncovered in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0717/Web-evidence-points-to-pro-Russia-rebels-in-downing-of-MH17-video
ReplyDeleteYah, that's basically the story I saw -- that Strelkov posted about the plane shot down (on VK not Facebook, but oh well) and then a few minutes later the posts were scrubbed and denials were posted.
DeleteThe question I raise is whether the original posts were Strelkov's or a hack of his accounts. I raise the question because false posts of this kind on social media have become a principal means of shaping opinion and war-fighting. There are denials that Strelkov has or uses social media accounts. I don't know the answer. Nor, I think, should anyone assume that social media accounts were not hacked -- or used -- for the purpose of making bogus posts. (There's a whole long backstory about that that I won't get into here.)
The only thing I can say about it with any certainty at this point is that this horrible incident appears to have been a sorry consequence of a war/game between two Ukrainian factions both of which consider "anything" to be fair. The Kiev coup-regime lies about everything as a matter of routine and the Donbass rebels tend to shroud their actions in diversions, calculated misinformation and half-truths.
If in fact the rebels shot the plane down -- certainly a possibility -- I would expect them to say so, perhaps not immediately, but soon. If the Russians did it -- again, a possibility -- I would not expect them to say so but instead to say nothing apart from "we're looking into it." If the Kiev forces did it -- yet another possibility -- I would expect them to lie and hurl a veritable blizzard of accusations at the rebels and Russia, accusations without hard evidence. After all, they continue to blame the Odessa Massacre on the victims.
We shall see.
There is apparently a story going around that Igor Kolomoysky's private army in the Donbass has access to just the kind of surface to air missiles that could have brought the plane down, and they might have been responsible. But I've seen no evidence it's true.
Obviously there will be many stories and accusations. We may never know the truth.