Great post. Indeed, it's messy as fuck. I have no idea what actually happened, but when things like this are so messy, narratives flip-flopping and changing by the day, evidence scrubbed, right in the middle of a massive geo-poilitcal conflict where the 2 sides are ALREADY involved in assassinations, attacks, and threats of war... I'd say its fair to say that NONE of it should be considered credible or reliable. Seriously how can you trust any statements from anyone at this point? The chances that something else entirely happened, and that what we are seeing are the 2 sides scrambling on how they hope to frame whatever the fuck happened for the public I think is high.The entire handling by both the Iranian and Canadian/ American governments. Iran immediately came up with a story that the plane just crashed "These things happen." Canada, Ukraine and anyone else with people on the plane offer help and are told to fuck off, "We'll sort it out we have the black boxes." Then the story started to unfurl "America says it was likely shot down." At which point Iran said it was "physically impossible for that to have happened." Trudeau then has a press conference where he says it was shot down "perhaps accidentally"< Note the very deliberate wording. Shortly after Iran wipes the crash site before anyone can see it and then says "Oh, the black boxes are damaged." If what I heard was correct as of noon yesterday (local time) the Supreme Leader was still denying any foul play whatsoever. Yesterday afternoon the Pompeo has a press conference and confirm what JT said again using the very specific wording of "It might have been shot down by mistake." Then all of a sudden The Supreme Leader says "Oh, I just found out we did fuck up, sorry." It seems a lot more like he was going to deny it forever until he thought "I can say this is an accident? Yeah, I'll do that." If anyone here thinks for a second that a guy who is referred to as the "Supreme Leader" finds things out like this 5 days after they happen, I've got some nice ocean front property in Saskatchewan to sell them.
The reason why the wording by the U.S. and Canadian governments is so important is that if you thought it was probably an accident (which I did until yesterday) When you had a press conference you'd say "Intelligence says the plane was shot down and it was likely an accident." Not "It might have been an accident." That kind of wording is reserved for things that probably didn't happen, not things that probably did. Couple that with the extremely cagey behavior of the Iranians, even by Iranian standards, and you have a situtation where it looks like a civilian liner was intentionally shot down. People are also kind of pretending that Iran might not have known what was in their own airspace at the time they launched a missile strike. That in itself is kind of absurd.
That to me is the only shred of doubt is I don't know why you'd do it. The only tenuous link I can make is that it was a Ukrainian airline. I don't doubt the Russians would like the the Ukraine to get involved with one of their allies who they could then support or possibly invade themselves.
Bottom line we don't know shit, and all we can do is BELIEVE one report or another if we choose to.
I think the truth will be much clearer down the road when we see the aftermath and result of all this. For now I think what actually happened is likely so far under the bullshit we probably won't be able to find it for a while, if ever.