Crude Western Propaganda Exposed

Shortly after the shooting down of MH17 over what was formerly eastern Ukraine, many Western media outlets published this "outrageous" image, which was said to show a "pro-Russian terrorist" stealing a wedding band from the crash site.

That image then became the basis of an emotional diatribe by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs during a speech before the UN Security Council ...

Just for one minute---I'm not addressing you as representatives of your countries, but as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers---just imagine that you first get the news that your husband was killed, then, within two or three days, you see images of some THUG removing the wedding band from their hand. Just imagine that this could be your spouse.

But here's the truth, in the form of the brief video clip from which the image was taken ...

The "thug" is a man who is clearly distraught and affected by the task of collecting belongings from the crash site. And, quite apart from stealing the ring, he drops it carefully into a box. He's then seen leaving the site---without the box---while other personnel continue to load passengers' belongings onto a truck in full view of international news crews.

oh lets not over analyze this, the Russians are the aggressors plain and simple who gives a shit, they violated the sovereignty of two countries and now they're suffering the economic sanctions for it

It's not the first time this thing is happening and certainly it won't be the last either.

I'd go as far as saying that propaganda war is the real war of the 21 century.

If it really is propaganda, you should be happy. Harks back to the Pravda of the Cold War days.

Does it really matter? For the sake of the argument, let's assume that he did pillage the crash site. So? Thugs and retrogrades are the multitude of the security apparatus of every country on God's earth, especially of expansionist and hegemonic states. A few days ago three IDF soldiers were indicted with looting during the last Israeli offensive, and I can tell you that for every one that is indicted there are dozens walking free. Dozens of American freedom-fighters were involved in the stealing and smuggling of Iraqi artifacts.

Propaganda or not, that's hardly scandalizing; instead, cheap soundbites at best. The Dutch have a propensity for dramatism, so don't hold it against their foreign minister.

You'd have to be pretty naive to think it's only ever the enemy who utilizes propaganda, and that we're perfect and would never try to mislead the public to gain support for whatever.

Exposed? I think it's been exposed many, many times before this.