On March 8, 2014, the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared over the indian ocean with 239 people on board. Roughly 25 countries ranging from India, Myanmar, China, Australia, and the United States have been engaged in the frantic search for the airliner.
Not much is known about the disappearance of the plane and no wreckage has been discovered. The Search has reached its 40th day. The search and countless interviews with “specialists” on airplanes and flights have been televised everyday since the disappearance. To certain news outlets in the US this is the only story worth televising. Most world events seem to not be as important as this missing plane.
However, it would not seem as bad if the search was gaining any form of traction. The search parties have been scouring as much of the Greater Indian Ocean as possible and have found nothing.
CNN is a 24/7 news station that was at one point in time devoted to providing as much domestic and world news as possible to its viewers. Unfortunately, they have become another gear in the political machine and has used the reporting of the Malaysian Flight 370 as a distraction from the real information that needs to be shared. Most have forgotten the issues that have taken place on the global stage.
On another note, one should consider when watching the search for the airliner that the Malaysian Airlines flight is not the only story worthy of attention.
According to several Russian news outlets– including Moskovsky Komsomolets, an independent Russian newspaper and Russian intelligence have discovered the plane, but this story is no where to be seen on the US media.
As published on March 31st on the independent newspaper, the airliner was in Afghanistan, “near the border with Pakistan”. The article went on to declare that all members of Flight 370 were captured in a Taliban controlled area close to Kandahar. Many other outlets, like the International Business Times in the UK, have taken this report into serious enough account to publish it.
Knowing this only raises more questions. Why has the US media decided not to include this piece of intel to the search of the Malaysian flight? Has the US known about the landing in Afghanistan and decided that it was in their best interests to keep it under wraps?
There could be a few reasons why the stories weren’t published: One being that they were planning to send a team in to recover the people and they did not want the Taliban to be aware that their location has been discovered. The other reason would be that keeping us focused on the plane would be a distraction for the recent controversies in Europe. i.e. Ukraine, Russia, Romania.
One last thing to seriously keep in mind is, if the Russian government officially decides to recover the crew and passengers from Afghanistan (assuming that they are correct), what would happen to US-Russian relations?
The US would appear weaker in comparison to Russia, with the Europeans appearing to handle the situation more astutely. The relationship would deteriorate even further. This might send us to a point close to completely re-hashing a Cold War status.