John McWrice
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- Jan 31, 2017
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According to new disclosures, the Australian Government believed in 2014 that in the daylight hours before MH17 was shot down, Ukrainian Government military forces were using the overflight of civilian airlines in eastern Ukraine as shadow and shield for attacks against ground targets in the belief the separatist forces would not return fire for fear of hitting the civilian airliners.
Optimists believe that in time the truth always wins out. Skeptics believe men and women are liars by nature, so machines are necessary to catch them out. Pessimists believe that by the time that happens it will be too late to make a practical difference. Politics, the pessimists add, is about gain, not about truth. So is journalism.
Here are two stories about the difference between Australia and Canada in the way in which lying by ministers of state has been caught out recently on the subject of the civil war in Ukraine. Australia and Canada are former British colonies, whose head of state is still the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. They are also parliamentary democracies, and members of US treaty alliances which encourage them to fight in US wars in exchange for US protection if they are attacked. That’s the political practice, if not quite the truth.
The Australian story is of the way in which the government in Canberra conceals from voters the truth about an incident in Ukraine over which Australia’s prime minister planned to send troops to fight on the Russian border. The incident occurred on July 17, 2014. It was the destruction of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, and the deaths of all 298 people on board; 38 of them Australian. For details of the secret Australian plan to go to war, read this, first reported in July 2016.
Last week it was revealed in Canberra that the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister have acknowledged between themselves, and in an exchange of classified communications, that the MH17 incident was not (repeat not) the Russian crime, or the crime of President Vladimir Putin, which it is Australian policy to declare in public – in the United Nations, in the local courts, and most often in the Australian media. For details of the new story, click to read.
In other words, Attorney-General George Brandis (below, left) and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (lead image, left; below, right) are lying on a matter of life and death to their citizens, and of strategic security for their state.
Mod Edit: Don't post entire articles, link added Report: Australian Government Believes Ukraine Used MH17 as 'Human Shield'
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