The acronym “MH17” has become a symbol of many things since that fateful day on July 17 when the Malaysian airliner crashed in embattled east Ukraine. First and foremost, the scattered bits of aircraft aluminum that littered the cold fields of Ukraine are now a grave marker for 298 innocent souls.
The broken airplane was sent to the Netherlands via rail to be studied. It is prima facie evidence in a baffling, bewildering international mess. Luckily, there are those trying to unravel the mystery. Here’s some revealing testimony about just how botched this investigation is.
Wrecked From the Start
As the pieces of wings, tail, and fuselage of MH17 arrive via train in Netherlands to be examined, the Malaysian Airlines MH17 catastrophe is already being called a “botched investigation.” For some, it was from the very beginning, but now the Netherlands Parliament, and angry families of those killed, they’ve voiced their suspicions over the highly secretive inquiry.
On Dec. 5, Prime Minister Mark Rutte was asked to turn over the investigation to the United Nations. In The Hague, parliamentarians like Christian Democrat MP Pieter Omtzigt, have tabled questions for the Dutch Safety Board, the foreign ministry, and the minister of justice. As Omtzigt and others probe the veil of secrecy surrounding this affair, the world court of opinion owes a special attentiveness these efforts.
MORE:
- Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Russia Rejects Australia’s Call for Apology Over Downed Plane
- Malaysia Airlines Update: Flight 17 Prosecutor Open to Idea that Airplane Shot It Down
- What Happened? The Day Flight 17 Was Downed
Five months after MH17 disintegrated, and we only have a messy blame game as evidence of who shot down the plane.
Beneath the watchful eyes of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence, at a spot on the globe scrutinized like no other, 298 lives lay shattered to bits and pieces. It’s all inconceivable to even the layperson, that this case has no solution yet.
With Europe and the world in a spinning diplomacy game that’s spiraling downward, we’ve only a slew of acronyms to quell our curiosities: the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); the once masked Joint Investigation Team (JIT); and other curious outfits like the Eurojust.
As far as anyone outside the investigation know, rumors of CIA involvement and a false flag could be true. Is another acronym to blame—did NATO play a role? Or was the whole affair the fault of a former KGB operative turned president of Russia? We literally know nothing.
So it was when I tweeted Omtzigt and received his reply the other day, a ray of light beamed into an otherwise bleak information vacuum. As it turns out, even the lawmakers don’t know what’s going on.
