By Andrew Korybko | One World | March 11, 2020
The MH17 tragedy is back in the news after the start of this case’s show trial in the Netherlands, which isn’t about bringing the alleged perpetrators to justice or helping the victims’ families find closure, but waging information warfare against Russia in an attempt to “conclusively” pin the blame for this crime on its supposed proxies in Eastern Ukraine so as to ruin President Putin’s international reputation once and for all.
The world is once again talking about the MH17 tragedy after the start of this case’s show trial in the Netherlands, where four of the alleged perpetrators are being accused of murder. It’s unlikely that they’ll appear before the court, so the entire process is more about show than substance. In case the reader doesn’t remember exactly what happened on that fateful summer day on 17 July, 2014, the author recommends that they review his most recent analysis on the issue from earlier this year titled “Latest MH17 Documentary By SBU Whistleblower Shares Some Shocking Truths“, which covers what he believes to be the most convincing version of events that transpired immediately before, during, and after the passenger jet was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. In short, the conventional narrative that the Russian-aligned rebels there were responsible is debunked as a convenient cover-up for masking Kiev’s culpability, which in turn also makes that government’s Western backers — and not Russia — indirectly responsible. It’s therefore understandable that a lot of powerful forces are invested in making their manufactured version of the “truth” the “official” one, hence the show trial, which is nothing more than an attempt to “conclusively” pin the blame for this crime on Russia and its supposed proxies in Eastern Ukraine.
Before going any further, it needs to be said that victims’ families have every right to be upset about what happened, and that everyone should respect their right to draw their own conclusions about what took place even if one doesn’t ultimately agree with them. The author doesn’t believe that Russia or the Eastern Ukrainian rebels were responsible, but acknowledges that some of the victims’ families think differently, especially after some of them staged a silent protest outside of the Russian Embassy in The Hague over the weekend. Nobody should criticize the victims’ families and thus make this all the harder for them to deal with, but there’s also nothing wrong with talking about how their reaction to this tragedy is being exploited by those who are relying upon it to convince others that their interpretation of events is the only correct one. Politicizing the suffering of innocent people is wrong no matter who does it or why, which is why it’s morally reprehensible that others are taking advantage of them under the guise of “giving them a voice” in order to push their narrative onto the broader public. The ongoing trial isn’t about bringing the alleged perpetrators to justice or helping the victim’s families find closure, but waging information warfare against Russia, the purpose of which is to ruin its international reputation and that of its leader.
President Putin is generally despised by the West but loved by the non-West because of his domestic and foreign policy successes over the past 20 years, which greatly contributed to bringing the emerging Multipolar World Order about. Even his detractors recognize that he’s an epochal figure whose legacy will certainly be studied for generations to come by people all across the world, they just regard Russia’s return to international prominence as being detrimental to their countries’ zero-sum interests. Nevertheless, they also wisely understand that soft power is more important than ever before in today’s interconnected, globalized world, especially after the information-communication technology revolution of the early 2000s, so they have a driving motivation to defame the Russian leader any chance they get. Regrettably, the MH17 tragedy is cynically seen as the “perfect opportunity” to ruin his legacy by forever associating him with what happened even though he played no role in those events whatsoever, nor did his countrymen. All that’s important to the “perception managers” who manufactured this weaponized narrative is that the lingering suspicion of President Putin’s possible involvement “credibly” exists, which explains the infowar importance of the ongoing show trial for supposedly “confirming” that.
Back to the show trial itself, it’s predictable that the accused will probably be found “guilty” for the aforementioned political reasons of pinning the blame for that tragedy entirely on Russia and the Eastern Ukrainian rebels so as to deflect from the “inconvenient” facts that have since come to light implicating Kiev and its Western backers, which was explained in the author’s analysis that he cited in the opening paragraph of this article. The overall soft power impact of this seemingly inevitable conclusion will likely be minimal, however, seeing as how most people have already made up their minds about who was really responsible. Those who are convinced that Russia played a role will feel “vindicated” by the anticipated verdict, while those who have remained skeptical this entire time could use the newfound attention to this case to share the “inconvenient” evidence that was just touched upon with others. The takeaway from all this “legal” drama is that tragedies will almost always be politicized for information warfare purposes, especially if the case can remotely be made that Russia or any of the West’s other geopolitical rivals might have had even an indirect role in whatever it is that transpired, so these countries should brace themselves to expect more such show trials in the future and take steps to ensure that their side of the story is heard by as many people as possible.
Andrew Korybko is an American political analyst.