News /
Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]
Kuro - I watched the video and looked into the articles, thanks for posting the video in particular it was an interesting perspective for sure. (My thought here are not necessarily in any chronological order)
Some things that really don't make any sense to me is the h1n1 "hero" status of Poland for not using it - I'm sorry but who cares? Poland lucked out because the spread of it was very limited however had it gone the other way everyone would've been blaming the Polish health ministry for the many deaths. In march of last year I caught the A-flu which the swine flu is based on. I was in Mexico just a week or so earlier and needless to say they did all kinds of tests on me. Despite being in pretty good shape those were some of the worst days of my life. I don't think there was one tiny part of my body that didn't hurt, ache or shivered. I recovered quickly because I took Tamiflu and because I'm in good health overall but not sure how long it'd take if I was older for example...
After this episodes I will NEVER go without being vaccinated again. Of course, I've been vaccinated for all kinds of weird diseases in the past because I travel all over the world...
Anyways, my point here is that Poland is a tiny country and no one really cares about them deciding not to use the vaccine. I think it was irresponsible and they should've let the people themselves decide but that's a different story. I see zero chance of this "controversy" being connected to the Smolensk accident.
The second part that surprised me was all the nonsense about the government refusing to spend money on fighting the recession, the Zloty getting strong, etc. C'mon, all states have disagreements, why would they even mention this here?
To think someone would want to kill all those people simply because the Zloty is too strong or too weak or because they haven't joined the Euro is just ludicrous.
Now, when I was watching those people say - not again, I don't want my grandchildren 70 years from now find out the real truth about the "new" Katyn just like we did about the "old" Katyn - that was understandable to me, I really connected with them there.
(By the way, very impressed with how well versed in English some people were.)
One "theory" really blew my mind. So all those people would've been kidnapped, and taken to Russia, then the airplane flew just with the crew all the way to Smolensk and because some lights are moved the pilot crashed into the trees.
For the sake of our discussion - wasn't this trip sort last minute thing? I don't think it was planned several months in advance (Tusk's visit I believe was). What kind of logistical effort would it take to kidnap that many people and take them to Russia without anyone ever noticing something wasn't right?
The shots we're hearing could very well have been warning shots to scare people off. If there was a major accident at a US air force base and some journalists or whoever got in there would be a very short period from the warning shot to the real shot if people didn't leave immediately.
I've said it all along that the Russians should've invited other agencies asap after this accident or the conspiracies would flourish for ever. There IS a reason for it no doubt. In the past the Russian regime excelled at lying and deceiving so it's no wonder people are so suspicious. The Soviet propaganda machine was simply enormous and overwhelming - dzisiaj Правда jutro Pravda, right? Heck to this day Poles will say that WWII started when Germany invaded Poland which is the Soviet version which of course became the norm. In reality the war started when Germany with the support of the Soviet Union invaded Poland (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) and the Soviet Union invaded a few weeks after Nazi-Germany. Both of those countries started WWII - not just Germany yet the Soviet propaganda won.
My point is that yes, Russians knew then and know now how to manipulate media and that's why people don't trust them to this day. However, I still don't think this it was a conspiracy and if it was - it was a very good one.
Right after the accident they should've invited other safety agencies to review what happened there. It'd have been a great gesture by the Russian president to allow both Russian but also Polish soldiers to guard the site until the investigators arrived, even let them guard without weapons. It's very possible that Putin meant well when he took over the investigation but I don't think it was a smart move.
In a nutshell some of the comments on the video were very far-fetched but I sort of understand why.
