The conspiracy theory that the Russians were behind the death of President Lech Kaczynski last Saturday is bubbling to surface.
The sorrowful reaction from politicians of all political colours has been genuine in the wake of the plane crash killing Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others in Smolensk on Saturday.'
But suggestions that the pilot, maybe under pressure from President Kaczynski and others not to be late for the ceremony - and Kaczynski has a track record of hassling pilots - is the dominant explanation outside of Poland and with many inside.
But there is a right wing conservative element who thinks that this could not be simply a tragic accident, or Polish pilot error. This was sabotage.
Law and Justice MP Artur Gorski - who we have met before on this blog after he said that the election of Barack Obama as US president meant the “demise of white civilisation” - broke ranks with the PC mourning line yesterday..
“'One version of events says that the plane approached the airport four times, because every time the Russians refused it permission to land - they wanted to send the plane with the president to an airport in Moscow or Minsk,” Gorski told the ultra-conservative Nasz Dziennik newspaper.
Russian investigators, after examining the black boxes from the aircraft, say that the plane, in fact, only circled two times. But Gorski claims that the Russians were scared that Kaczynski’s visit would overshadow a similar ceremony three days before, attended by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Vladimir Putin. And that’s why air traffic control didn’t want the plane to land and suggested going to another airport in Moscow, or Minsk.
Nasz Dziennik, which has been pushing this type of theory, also published the opinion of an ‘expert’ in aviation at Szczecin Polytechnic, Ryszard Drozdowicz, who says pilot error in judging the height of the aircraft - the plane struck tress before crashing - was unlikely and that the probable cause was a mechanical failure, or that there had been deliberate sabotage of the plane.
The Soviet-built Topolov TU 154 had been serviced only a few months before…in Russia!
A man with a loud hailer embarrassed the huge queues of people lining up to pay respects in front of Kaczynski’s coffin in the presidential palace, Tuesday, claiming the deaths were part of a conspiracy involving PM Donald Tusk, Putin and Obama. See photos.
Whatever the conclusion of the Russian and Polish teams investigating the crash, this type of thinking will prevail within the right wing conservatives and ‘mohair berets’. President Kaczynski died where many before him died from Poland. That’s enough evidence to think that he died at the hands of the same people.
23 comments:
Best way to sabotage a plane is to make sure it loses power at takeoff.
..and???
I was told by my 'peeps' in Poland that the polish media circulate the long lead times on deliveries of VIP/HoS planes as the official excuse for still flying TU-154s. In reality (a) the VIP/HoS orders typically go to the front of the line, (b) with the economic decline a lot of orders have been cancelled, and (c) because of (b) a lot of smaller carriers went belly up and there is a glut of planes available for purchase and/or lease..
OMG, the BR didn't become a busker in Gdansk after all!
Is there any indication yet who specifically in the Church gave Jaroslaw the choice of three burial sites?
Cracks me up how some folks think Jaroslaw resisted having him buried in the Wawel.
Next thing ya know, Jaroslaw will be the living legacy of his brother, the great national patriot, who will fill his shoes and run and win the presidency for Poland which, after all, is under attack.
This is all going to get very nasty, methinks.
Was it Dziwisz?
But how could present a choice outside of his K-kow diocese (unless he got the big guy in Warsaw to give the other two choices aside from the Wawel)?
This just in from the BBC:
“Hundreds of people staged a protest in front of the residence of Krakow’s Archbishop, Stanislaw Dziwisz, on Tuesday evening, carrying banners reading: “Not Krakow, not Wawel”, and “Are you sure he is the equal of kings?”
what do you mean that conspiracy theories will 'prevail' among right-wing conservative?. you've given evidence of one politician, one nutter with a loud hailer and some vague insinuations from a newspaper. in fact, the vast majority of politicians on the right in poland have accepted that this was in all likelihood a tragic accident and, unless the investigation turns up anything suspicious, it's very likely to stay that way.
That nutter is saying the currently almost unsayable...there is a mourning PC going on at the moment which will end on Monday.
By right wing conservatives I meant some on the right wing of PiS and further afield. And believe me, there are many here that cannot accept that this was a mixture of tragic circumstances which brought down the plain and not a conspiracy.
A conspiracy, even an evil one, has the benifit of giving meaning to an event which may indeed be meaningless. But many - and I would that number at a sizable minority here, think this way.
"Tragic accident" or "mixture of tragic circumstances"? Hmmmmn.
i'm also in poland at the moment, have spoken with a lot of people here, and i don't have any sense of a belief in any kind of conspiracy. in fact, the media and public have generally been pleasantly surprised by russia's response and the positive impact this tragedy may have on polish-russian relations. clearly there will be a fringe that believes something untoward happened, but unless anything dodgy emerges from the investigation, i'm confident they'll remain a very small, and probably decreasing, minority. it will be very easy, for example, to disprove gorski's argument that the plane was refused permission to land simply by releasing audio of communication with smolensk air-traffic control (which i imagine will happen in due course). and is anyone really going to believe that the plane could be sabotaged during servicing in russia and manage to continue flying for a few months (during which time it must have made at least one flight, back to warsaw) then malfunction just as it comes into land?
I hope you have accurately assessed the vox populi, anon.
But at least one of the most senior members of PiS is saying stuff like the following (and it doesn't seem that other PiS leaders are repudiating her statements):
"Ms. Szczypinska, who gave up her seat on the ill-fated flight just hours before it took off, said she had been informed by Polish journalists at the crash site that Russian authorities had demanded that witnesses who had been waiting to greet the dignitaries hand over their cameras, cell phones and memory cards.
“I have flown many times on that plane and I knew the pilots, and I am convinced that it wasn’t a pilot’s mistake that led to this tragedy,” she said in an interview on Thursday. “It is disturbing the way the Russian side has been communicating, issuing statements and how they had their version of events from the beginning. It is very strange, and we expect answers.”
Anon - if you ask the people who you are with if they think that other Poles think this way they will say the same as me. A minority do think this way.
i agree that a minority will probably believe in a conspriracy; i just think that it's a very small minority, and that to highlight it as the only element of your coverage of the tragedy is not very representative of the wider reaction. the positive effects on polish-russian relations or the heated debate over burying kaczynski at wawel have been far more prominent, significant and interesting - but then i suppose that's only my opinion.
Yes indeed, the journalists who had landed not long before the president's plane came in had their cameras, memory cards, tapes and phones confiscated by the Russian police. The pilot also dumped his fuel, hence no fireball explosion and forest fire. That is clear from the trees not being burnt and the plane not being charred black. No bodies and no blood anywhere according to journalists walking the scene just minutes afterwards. No ambulances and medical aid arrived at all. Only police, secret service and one firetruck. Russian media reported no survivors minutes after arriving, then found four survivors and then these 'survivors' disappeared. Former head of the KGB and known killer heads the investigation holding all blackboxes at least for a few hours before Polish authorities can get access. Whatever the cause of the crash, God bless the souls on board and the loved ones they left behind.
What minority proportion of the Polish population thinks this way?
20%, 30%, 40%, close to 50%?
According to various opinion polls in the US, upwards to 40% of eligible voters think that President Obama is either a Muslim or was born outside of the US.
It seems that Kaczynski himself may have been responsible for the crash. At least this is how it seems from a reconstruction of the events. Apparently, Lech requested a parachute when the pilot suggested diverting to Minsk or Moscow...
Where oh where is my tinfoil hat..
On a wider note, I always wondered why is it the extreme right to believe in conspiracy theories, not the other parts of the political scene. If anyone, it should be the leftists to believe in the World Government, capitalist conspiracies and such.
I have to agree with anon @ 6.59 above on this one.
The miniscule minority whose suspicions immediately turned to Russia are completely irrelevant compared to the unexpected wave of good feeling between Russia and Poland which has come about as a result of Smolensk. It seems strange to highlight it.
But then again the non-Polish media seemed desperate to find a Polish-Russian conflict angle on the disaster.
CNN almost gleefully predicted bad blood and then seemed disappointed when Poland failed to break out in anti-Russian demonstrations.
Channel 4 News reported 'sad and angry' Poles lining the streets of Warsaw as the president's body returned. Cue images of merely 'sad' people.
Might you provide a url of a CNN transcript indicative of predicting bad blood and disappointment that there were no anti-Russian demos? Were there particular reporters/commentators?
The same for Channel 4 (NBC?) re. the angry bit?
I never witnessed such coverage, but there is a possibility I missed it. Most of the coverage I saw made a hero out of Kaczynski and blamed the pilot for the tragedy, exonerating the Russians and mostly not even considering that an order might have been given to the pilot by a Pole in greater authority... Otherwise, much was made of there being all those important people on the one plane as if it were a Polish joke.
r u so sure it wasn't Doda dat did it? Look at those photos in your story below. Eerie.
I wonder what Jaroslaw will choose to highlight? People are strange.
Czarny Kot wrote: The miniscule minority whose suspicions immediately turned to Russia are completely irrelevant compared to the unexpected wave of good feeling between Russia and Poland which has come about as a result of Smolensk. It seems strange to highlight it.
My view is that the Pilot was quite young at 36.He knew what happened in Georgia,with a fellow Pilot being carpeted for diverting in a war zone and he was then under pressure to land,although he could not see the runway through the fog. If this had been a civilian flight,the pilot would have diverted,as the conditions were not suitable, as they did not allow a safe landing due to no visibility of the runway.
Don't you think it is time to write something... or write you are not going to write any more because this was the last rites of your writing on this blog? Right?
Jerzy from Poland
Czarny Kot wrote: The miniscule minority whose suspicions immediately turned to Russia are completely irrelevant compared to the unexpected wave of good feeling between Russia and Poland which has come about as a result of Smolensk. It seems strange to highlight it.
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