Malaysian jet tragedy propagandized – Ron Paul

July 19, 2014                                                                                                       

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Ron Paul (Reuters / Joel Page)

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Referring to the tragic downing of a Malaysian Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine, former Texas congressman Ron Paul warned against jumping to conclusions over the culprits.

Drawing parallels  between the potential for a Russian-made missile system’s  connection to the attack of the passenger jet on Thursday over  the restive Donetsk region of Ukraine and the capture of US-made  weapons by Islamist insurgents in Iraq, Paul pointed out that the  missile’s potential source of manufacture was largely  immaterial.

“That may well be  true, but guess what, ISIS has a lot of American weapons,"  said Paul. "We sent weapons into Syria to help the rebels and  al-Qaida ends up getting it — it doesn't mean that our American  government and Obama deliberately wanted ISIS to get American  weapons."

"So who gets the  weapons is a big difference between how they got them and what  happened and what the motivations were," Paul added. "So  even if it was a Russian weapon — doesn't mean a  lot."

Speculation of direct  involvement by the Kremlin, whether directly or through   “proxies” in the form of pro-Russian militia in Ukraine,  in particular seems propagandized, Paul told NewsMax on Friday.

Unverified video footage has been circulated as proof of  involvement by Ukrainian militia members, though the aircraft's  black boxes have yet to be retrieved, and there remain many  questions unanswered as investigators have trickled into the  crash site.

"Under these  circumstances, it's very difficult to get the real information so  everybody's angling to propagandize and make their position  known," said Paul.

"It'd be unwise to  say, well, the Russians did it, or the Ukrainian government did  it, or the rebels did it."

The ‘Buk’ anti-aircraft  system in question has been the source of wide speculation in  Western media. In use since the 1970s, the weapons system was  designed and produced by the former Soviet Union and have been  present in Ukraine since its dissolution, and has seen deployment  in a number of countries including Finland, Georgia, Azerbaijan  and Belarus.

www.RT.com