Ron Paul Defends Russia After Malaysian Plane Crash
Former Congressman Ron Paul defended the...
Tue, Jul 22, 2014, 0:50AM EDT - US Markets open in 8 hrs and 40 mins
Ron Paul Defends Russia After Malaysian Plane Crash
By Colin Campbell
13 hours ago
AP
Former Congressman Ron Paul defended the Russian government on Sunday
and slammed Western leaders for spreading "propaganda" after a Malaysian
Airlines plane was allegedly shot down by Kremlin-backed separatists in Ukraine.
"Western politicians and media
joined together to gain the maximum propaganda value from the disaster.
It had to be Russia; it had to be Putin, they said," the former
presidential candidate wrote. "While western media outlets rush to
repeat government propaganda on the event, there are a few things they
will not report."
One of those unreported things, Paul claimed in his weekly "Texas Straight Talk" column,
was the United States' own responsibility for destabilizing the region.
Ukraine is currently embroiled in violent conflict between the
Ukrainian government and the pro-Russian separatists.
"They will not report that the
crisis in Ukraine started late last year, when EU and US-supported
protesters plotted the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian president,
Viktor Yanukovych. Without US-sponsored 'regime change,' it is unlikely
that hundreds would have been killed in the unrest that followed. Nor
would the Malaysian Airlines crash have happened," Paul wrote.
The U.S. government has said
its intelligence suggests the plane was shot down by the separatists
with weapons supplied by the Russian government. But Paul, echoing
Russia's own line of defense, insinuated the Ukrainian government is to blame.
"They will not report that neither Russia nor the separatists in
eastern Ukraine have anything to gain but everything to lose by shooting
down a passenger liner full of civilians. They will not report that the
Ukrainian government has much to gain by pinning the attack on Russia,
and that the Ukrainian prime minister has already expressed his pleasure
that Russia is being blamed for the attack," he continued.
Paul, who still maintains a
sizable following among libertarian-minded activists, ticked off a
number of other things he said the media will not report on, including
Ukraine's ability to have shot down the plane, and that Russia "has
killed no one in Ukraine, and the separatists have struck largely
military, not civilian, targets."
However, at the end of his column, Paul admitted he could be wrong about the whole matter.
"Of course it is entirely
possible that the Obama administration and the US media has it right
this time, and Russia or the separatists in eastern Ukraine either
purposely or inadvertently shot down this aircraft," he wrote. "The real
point is, it's very difficult to get accurate information so everybody
engages in propaganda."
Paul's son, Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Kentucky) is widely seen as a possible presidential candidate in
2016. Business Insider reached out to Paul's office to ask if he agreed
with his father's take on the plane crash. As of this writing, we have
not received a response.
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