November 07, 2015

WaPo Peddles Crackpot Idea - Fears Russia Will Steal It

The Washington post editors peddle the crackpot idea that the CIA smuggled a bomb on board of the Russian airline that went down over the Sinai peninsula. Or something like that. No one else, as far as I can tell, has offered such an idiotic conspiracy theory.

So far there is not even a shred of real evidence that a bomb took down the plane. All we know is that the black boxes on board of the plane suddenly stopped recording. This points to a sudden rupture and decompression of the plane after which it disintegrated and fell down. The cause of such ruptures can be manifold. Metal fatigue or faulty repairs are a frequent cause (see Japan Airlines Flight 123). As the plane's tail separated from the main cell a tail strike the plane suffered years ago might be relevant. A turbine blade may have cracked and hit the nacelle at a critical point (see Delta Air Lines Flight 1288). A Lithium ion rechargeable battery pack in some luggage in the rear luggage hold may have exploded (see UPS Airlines Flight 6).

The Islamic State claimed it had something to do with the downing of the plane but that announcement was unusual as it contained zero evidence. Other Islamic State attacks were announced with video or other evidence of its misdeeds. Here the Islamic State might just piggyback on a mere technical accident.

Maybe some farting goats on board released methane which exploded? Maybe. But there is no evidence that there were goats, or a bomb, on board of the flight.

Non the less, the Washington Post editors suggest that, maybe, the CIA took down the plane and that, maybe, Russian or Egyptian peoples might be told such:

[W]e won’t be surprised if Russians and Egyptians are told the CIA is somehow responsible for the tragedy in the Sinai.

How come the editors "won't be surprised"? I "won't be surprised" if Russians and Egyptians are told that one plus one is two because I know that one plus one is two. So when the editors "won't be surprised" do they know something about CIA involvement that we do not know?

The editors suggest that the governments of Egypt and Russia might lie about the incident:

The Egyptian and Russian regimes are far less adept at fighting terrorism than they are at lying.

This from the media of the country that peddled the falsehood of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and wages a "war of terror" which increased the membership of al-Qaeda from some low hundreds in 2001 to a hundred thousand in 2015.

There is little chance for Russia or Egypt to lie about the incident. The investigation of the plane wreckage and circumstances will be done by several countries and technicians from Airbus will be involved:

Under international aviation rules, representatives from France, Ireland, Russia and Germany are included in the official committee investigating the crash because of various connections to the plane or the flight.

So how would Russia or Egypt lie about it? The WaPo editors accuse both countries of some nefarious mindset:

While Mr. Putin suspended Russian flights on Friday, his spokesman was still insisting there was no reason to conclude that there had been an act of terrorism. When not issuing his own denials, Egypt’s transport minister was obstructing the British evacuation effort, reducing the number of London flights from 29 to eight.

But the Putin spokesman is right - there is no reason to conclude that this was terrorism because there is no evidence to support such a conclusion. And the "obstruction" by the Egyptian transport minister was a well founded decision after the British government said the British passengers flying home could only take carry-on luggage:

“The British airlines opt to fly without the hold baggage of the British passengers,” Hossam Kamal, the minister of civil aviation, said in the statement. “The airport will not accommodate more than 120 tons of left-behind luggage,” he added. “This big volume affects the smooth operation of the rest of the domestic and international flights.” The burden of the British baggage, he suggested, had caused the airport to reduce the number of British departures to eight instead of the 19 flights previously scheduled, thus prolonging the plight of the stranded vacationers.

There is no doubt that the neoconservative Washington Post editors hate the Russian and the Egyptian governments. But that is hardly a good reason to wrongly accuse those governments of falsehoods or for suggestions that the CIA may have taken down the Russian plane.

Posted by b on November 7, 2015 at 13:09 UTC | Permalink

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