White Helmets

On September 17th, while the U.S. Coalition was bombing the Syrian Army, a film praising the White Helmets was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is now trending on Netflix. The Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal are praising the “Angels on the Front Line.”

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The White Helmets: A 'rescue and assist' organization for terrorists
With the recent events surrounding hospital bombings (real and imagined) in Aleppo, growing attention is now being paid to the "human rights NGO" known as the White Helmets, a supposed Syrian organization that focuses on rescuing and providing medical care to injured civilians in Syria. According to the Western media, the White Helmets are knights in shining armor, willing to risk life and limb to save innocent people from the fangs of the evil Assad.

A more realistic examination of the White Helmets, however, provides us with a much different view of the organization.

Essentially the White Helmets are nothing more than a terrorist rescue organization funded, directed, and promoted by Western governments, intelligence agencies, and Foundations aimed at assisting Western-backed terrorists in the destruction of secular Syria. The organization serves as a clever and opportunistic tool to be used by Western media for the purposes of sourcing false claims as coming from "impartial" "activist" groups on the ground in Syria and giving the source the credibility of a "human rights" organization.

The White Helmets should be considered nothing more than a branch of the Western destabilization apparatus, a wing of Jobhat al-Nusra, and an entirely discredited organization. Clearly, after examining the nature and reality of the organization, whatever claims made by the White Helmets should be immediately dismissed as yet another false statement in a long string of lies easily traced directly back to the United States and the UK.

The History And Formation Of White Helmets - The Founders And Directors

White Helmets was founded by James Le Mesurier, an admitted former British army officer and mercenary with the Olive Group, a private contracting organization that is now merged with Blackwater-Academi into Constellis Holdings.[1] Although White Helmets half-heartedly attempts to hide its source of funding, the organization is linked to George Soros through a PR firm named Purpose Inc., a pro-war firm that argues for Western intervention against Assad. The co-founder of Purpose is Jeremy Heimans, who also helped found Avaaz, a "pro-democracy" group connected to Soros' Open Society Foundation, SEIU, and MoveOn.org.

In her expose of White Helmets, "White Helmets: War By Way Of Deception," Vanessa Beeley summarizes the history and funding of the organization when she wrote:

The White Helmets were established in March 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey, and is headed by James Le Mesurier, a British "security" specialist and 'ex' British military intelligence officer with an impressive track record in some of the most dubious NATO intervention theatres including Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Le Mesurier is a product of Britain's elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and has also been placed in a series of high-profile pasts at the United Nations, European Union, and U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The origins of The White Helmet's initial $300k seed funding is a little hazy, reports are contradictory but subsequent information leads us to conclude that the UK, US and Syrian opposition [Syrian National Council] are connected. Logistical support has been provided by given by Turkish elite natural disaster response team, AKUT.

A further $13 million was poured into the White Helmet coffers during 2013 and this is where it gets interesting. Early reports suggest that these "donations" came from the US, UK and SNC with the previously explored connections to George Soros in the US.
Soros in Syria: 'Humanitarian' NGO Deployed For Regime Change, Not Aid

However, subsequent investigations reveal that USAID has been a major shareholder in the White Helmet organisation.

The website for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) claims that "our work supports long-term and equitable economic growth and advances U.S. foreign policy objectives by supporting: economic growth, agriculture and trade; global health; and, democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance."

In a USAID report update in July 2015 it is clearly stated that they have supplied over $ 16m in assistance to the White Helmets.

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In addition to Soros and the $16 million, White Helmets is known to receive approximately $23 million dollars from the U.S. State Department via USAID, a figure that was confirmed more recently by Deputy State Department Spokesman Mark Toner when questioned by reporters at a State Department briefing on April 27, 2016.

It is thus no surprise that White Helmets have been publicly calling for Western intervention in Syria, particularly a No-Fly Zone since their creation. The organization is, after all, a fully funded arm of U.S./Western imperialism. It is, therefore, reasonable to expect the group to publicly call for the same desires as their bosses in the United States and Europe.

Raed Saleh, head of White Helmets (aka Syrian Civil Defense) has publicly called for the implementation of a "No-Fly Zone" over Syria by the United Nations Security Council, an act that is tantamount to direct military warfare, an example of which can be seen in the rubble of Libya. Indeed, such a decision would simply be a repeat of the Libyan tragedy.

Saleh has stated on the White Helmets website:

Barrel bombs - sometimes filled with chlorine - are the biggest killer of civilians in Syria today. Our unarmed and neutral rescue workers have saved more than 40,823 people from the attacks in Syria, but there are many we cannot reach. There are children trapped in rubble we cannot hear. For them, the UN Security Council must follow through on its demand made last year to stop the barrel bombs, by introducing a 'no-fly zone' if necessary."

Saleh himself is an interesting case. Content to shower Saleh and his organization with millions of dollars and flattering public relations material, the United States apparently does not trust Saleh enough to allow free access to American soil. In April, 2016 Saleh was set to receive another typical back-slapping award in Washington, D.C. However, Saleh's visa was canceled and he was forced to go back to Istanbul. The New York Times reported,

The leader of a Western-backed rescue organization that searches for survivors of bombings inSyria was denied entry into the United States this week, where he was to receive an award recognizing his contributions to humanitarian relief.

Raed Saleh, the head of the Syria Civil Defense, was to accept the award from InterAction, an alliance of aid agencies, at its gala dinner Tuesday night in Washington. The dinner's keynote speaker was Gayle Smith, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.

But when Mr. Saleh, who works in Syria and Turkey, arrived Monday at Washington's Dulles International Airport on a flight from Istanbul, the authorities said he could not enter the United States. He was told his visa had been canceled.

It was unclear whether Mr. Saleh's name might have shown up on a database, fed by a variety of intelligence and security agencies and intended to guard against the prospect of terrorism suspects slipping into the country.

The State Department declined to give specifics, but a spokesman, John Kirby, said that "the U.S. government's system of continual vetting means that traveler records are screened against available information in real time."

"While we can't confirm any possible specific actions in this case, we do have the ability to immediately coordinate with our interagency partners when new information becomes available," he added.

State Department Spokesman Mark Toner was also questioned about the details surrounding Saleh's visa but Toner found it difficult to answer any questions regarding this incident in a coherent fashion. According to the State Department's own published transcripts the reporter/spokesman interaction went as follows:

QUESTION: On the last one —

MR TONER: Yes, sir.

QUESTION: — you commend this group, you're going to continue to support them, and yet you revoked the visa of their leader. I don't - that makes zero sense to me.

MR TONER: Well —

QUESTION: What - what's exactly going on?

MR TONER: Well, I mean, this group, and I would precisely make that —

QUESTION: Yeah, but this is the guy who is the leader of this group who the head of USAID lionized in a - and her - that she lauded him —

MR TONER: Sure. Sure.

QUESTION: — in a speech at the event that he was supposed to be accepting —

MR TONER: Sure.

QUESTION: — an award that he couldn't get here for because the State Department canceled his visa while he was in the middle - while he was in midair, presumably, over the Atlantic so that when he arrived at Dulles, he was promptly thrown on the next plane back to Turkey. And now here you are talking about how wonderful his group is. I just don't understand how it works.

MR TONER: So a couple responses. One is, unfortunately, we can't speak to individual visa cases. I think broadly speaking, though, on any visa case we are constantly looking at new information, so-called continually vetting travel or records. And if we do have new information that we believe this - an individual —

QUESTION: But —

MR TONER: — let me finish - would pose a security risk, we'll certainly act on that. I can't speak again specifically to this case, but what I can talk about is this group. And this group, as I said, has saved some 40,000 lives, that are first responders, they operate in a combat zone, and the fact that they're being singled out and hit by the Syrian regime is, frankly, cause for a concern. And we do support this group. We do support their efforts to save lives in what is admittedly a very complex and convoluted battlefield scene.

And to speak to your broader - to say that this group's - which I think is the implication of your question, that they somehow have ties to —

QUESTION: No, I'm not suggesting that at all.

MR TONER: Then - okay.

QUESTION: I'm saying that it just strikes me as a bit odd that you're saying that this group is wonderful and does such a great job and you're commending them for their heroism, and yet, this - you're doing this just 10 days after the leader of this group, who was supposed to be - who got his visa revoked and wasn't allowed to travel here. I understand there was an attack that killed some of its members, and I know that that's the immediate cause of it —

MR TONER: Right.

QUESTION: — but it just strikes me as being a bit inconsistent if you say that this group is wonderful, and yet, you also ban its leader from coming to the States to collect an award for which - and you say you're going to continue to support the group. I mean, if you have reason to revoke his visa, that he could be a security threat or something like that, why would you continue to support —

MR TONER: But again - but again, I'm trying to separate this individual from the group, which we believe is —

QUESTION: All right. So the guy is - you're saying that basically he is suspect but his group is not?

MR TONER: Well, again, I can't speak to the specific allegations against him, Matt.

QUESTION: Well, not if I —

MR TONER: No, I'm sorry, I - my hands are tied too but —

QUESTION: All right. The other thing —

MR TONER: — but yes, we're not condemning the group in any way whatsoever.

QUESTION: Off —

MR TONER: We believe it's doing good work.

QUESTION: Could I —

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

QUESTION: If he is the leader of the group, how do you support this group and he is not allowed to get into the States? This is the question.

MR TONER: I understand that and all I can say is that —

QUESTION: How can you separate the leader of the group from the group?

MR TONER: Well, he's one individual in the group.

QUESTION: But the leader of the group.

MR TONER: And any individual - again, I'm broadening my language here for specific reasons, but any individual in any group suspected of ties or relations with extremist groups or that we had believed to be a security threat to the United States, we would act accordingly. But that does not, by extension, mean we condemn or would cut off ties to the group for which that individual works for.

QUESTION: Okay. It just seems a little odd.

QUESTION: Could I just follow up on the group? Which group is —

MR TONER: Sophisticated. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: I mean, they are a civil defense group, right? They are —

QUESTION: The White Helmets?

QUESTION: Who are —

MR TONER: The White Helmets. So this is a group —

QUESTION: White Helmets. Okay, I understand.

MR TONER: So, yeah, this is the Syrian Civil Defense Group. Yeah.

QUESTION: Do you know - I understand about the White Helmets. Do you know who finances them, how they operate, who are they supported by, what kind of organization they have? How do you get your information from them and so on?

MR TONER: Well - well, I can say we provide them with —

QUESTION: We - you do know a little bit.

MR TONER: Well, I can tell you that we provide, through USAID, about $23 million in assistance to them.

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Vanessa Beeley also exposes Mosab Obeidat, White Helmets Project Officer and Farouq al-Habib. She writes,

Mosab Obeidat, previous Assistant Chief of Mission with the Qatar Red Crescent, one of whose officials, Khaled Diab was accused of supplying $ 2.2 m to secure arms for the terrorist groups in Syria. Details of this transaction and its exposure can be found in this Al Akhbar article from June 2013. http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/16160

At least three other members of the team were a part of the Syrian "revolution" including Farouq al Habib, one of the 3 most prominent White Helmet leaders who was also a leader of the Homs uprising against the Syrian government and according to his testimony, was tortured by the Syrian "regime" security forces in 2012 for smuggling a journalist into Syria to "cover" the "peaceful protests". Habib was a founder member of the 'Homs Revolutionary Council' (the CIA have been linked to nearly all 'Revolutionary Councils in Syria) before fleeing to Turkey in 2013 (A more in-depth analysis of his anti-Syrian government testimony will be presented in Part II of this article).

Fraudulent Photos: White Helmets And The Propaganda Machine

In addition to calling for the implementation of a "No-Fly Zone," the White Helmets have also gone so far as to post fraudulent photos so as to blame the Syrian military for civilian casualties and intentional targeting of civilians when such is not the case. In October, 2015 White Helmets released pictures on its Twitter account purporting to show the aftermath of the Russian bombing campaign against ISIS and assorted terrorists launched on September 30. "Russia strike in Homs today. 33 civilians killed including 3 children and 1 @SyriaCivilDef volunteer" the caption read.

The picture showed a bleeding girl being held by a "Civil Defense" volunteer and claimed that the child was injured along with a number of other civilians.

Unfortunately for the White Helmets, Twitter users immediately exposed the photos as a fraud, since the pictures were actually taken five days prior on September 25, 2015.

Interestingly enough, the White Helmets, in an attempt to assist drumming up opposition to Vladmir Putin and Russia's attack on jihadists, also managed to tweet about the horror of Russia's air strikes hours before Russia's parliament even granted Putin the authority to use the Air Force in Syria, according to Sputnik.

White Helmets: Anti-Assad Propaganda, Support And Rescue Team For Al-Nusra

Despite being routinely cited as a "humanitarian" organization, however, the White Helmets appear to be much more than even a wolf in sheep's clothing in the NGO world. Not only providing the basis for carefully crafted propaganda opportunities, the organization appears to actually work side by side with terrorist outfits like Jobhat al-Nusra both on the propaganda angle and the battlefield.

For one, it is important to note that the area of operation for the White Helmets is never within territory controlled by the Syrian government. It is without deviation solely located within territory held by "moderate terrorists," Nusra, or other related Western-backed terrorist groups. Obviously, if White Helmets truly represented the Syrian people, they would be operating in both territories. As Rick Sterling wrote in his article "Highly Effective Manipulators,"

The trainees are said to be 'nonpartisan' but only work in rebel-controlled areas of Idlib (now controlled by Nusra/Al Queda) and Aleppo. There are widely divergent claims regarding the number of people trained by the White Helmets and the number of people rescued. The numbers are probably highly exaggerated especially since rebel-controlled territories have few civilians. A doctor who recently served in a rebel-controlled area of Aleppo described it as a ghost town. The White Helmets work primarily with the rebel group Jabat al Nusra (Al Queda in Syria).

White Helmets: 'Unarmed And Unbiased'

While the White Helmets' tag line is "unarmed and unbiased," nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the organization is incredibly biased and visibly armed. In the second part to her expose of White Helmets, "Part II: Syria's White Helmets: War By Way Of Deception," Vanessa Beeley writes,

As part of the myth-building process, White Helmet members are repetitively described as 'ordinary people', specifically, "bakers, tailors, engineers, pharmacists, painters, carpenters, students", and are relentlessly depicted as heroes, miracle workers, saints and super-humans scaling the "Mount Everest" of war zones with impartiality and neutrality. "Unarmed and unbiased" is their strapline, as they sacrifice themselves for the "Syrian People". Indeed, those same Syrian people who have never heard of them. The myth-making continues...

. . . . .

Can a organisation rightly be called an 'independent relief organisation' when it is being funded by a foreign government who is directly involved in the military over-throw of Syria's government? Most intelligent people should have no problem answering that question.

... . . .

This video below reveals a White Helmet operative describing the "throwing of Shabiha bodies in the trash". Shabiha is a derogatory term for Syrian Government militia or state-employed security forces but is liberally applied by terrorist aka "rebel alliance" factions to any member of the Syrian military, irrespective of whether they are Alawite, Sunni, or Shia. Let's remind ourselves of White Helmet claims on their websites of how its 'aid workers' "have risked sniper fire to rescue SAA bodies to give them a proper burial."

Watch this shocking video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOz0jt_wA8w

This same neutral White Helmet operative goes on to pledge allegiance to the terrorist forces in the region stating:

"They are our role models, the best of people and we have the honour to serve them"
"SERVE THEM [armed terrorists, Al Nusra/Al Qaeda]", curious turn of phrase for a neutral, impartial humanitarian "moderate" organisation? Watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qM0Xu4Sz80

He also congratulates the Mujahadeen for liberating Jisr al Shugour from Assad's forces.

"Glad tidings have reached us in Jisr al Shugour by the hands of our Mujahadeen brothers. May Allah strengthen them and make them steadfast on the correct way and soon, insh'Allah, the strongholds of the Assad regime in Latakia and Damascus will be liberated."

It should be clear that these alleged "moderates" you are watching here are actually moderate extremists and jihadists, and the western media has been very careful in hiding this fact. Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRquhd50mc

. . . . .

Moving on to another video, this time revealing White Helmet operatives standing on the discarded dead bodies of SAA [Syrian Arab Army] soldiers and giving the victory sign. This display of support for the Al Nusra extremist terrorists who have just massacred these soldiers once again demonstrates where their true allegiances lie.

Numerous photos and large amounts of video footage is available showing the alleged "unarmed" White Helmets parading about with rifles, virtually indistinguishable in their appearance and actions from the terrorists they are working with except for their actual white helmets. In at least on instance, White Helmets members were videotaped apparently taking part in the execution of a man condemned to death by Nusra/ISIS fighters. In this video, the execution of the man who is shot in the head by the terrorists is clearly shown. Before his body is even fully still, the White Helmets arrive at the scene, within seconds, to collect the body as if they were on standby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96AcFZ32RRE

Conclusion

With all of the above information taken together, White Helmets should be considered nothing more than a terrorist rescue operation and propaganda wing for al-Nusra Front. This organization is wholly funded, directed, and promoted by Western governments, intelligence agencies and Foundations for the purposes of assisting Western-backed terrorists in destroying secular Syria and replacing it with a collection of impotent religious/ethnicity-based petty squabbling microstates and mini-states.[2] The organization serves as a clever and opportunistic tool to be used by Western media for the purposes of sourcing false claims from "impartial" "activist" groups on the ground in Syria and giving the claims the source and credibility of a "human rights" organization. Clearly, whatever claims are made by the White Helmets should be immediately dismissed as yet another false statement in a long string of lies easily traced directly back to the United States and the UK.

References:
[1] Anderson, Tim. The Dirty War On Syria. Pg. 75.
[2] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives. Basic Books, 1st Edition. 1998.

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'Humanitarian' propaganda war against Syria - Led by Avaaz and The White Helmets
By Vanessa Beeley
Posted on October 2nd, 2015

"Propaganda is the spreading of information in support of a cause. It's not so important whether the information is true or false or if the cause is just or not — it's all propaganda."

"The word propaganda is often used in a negative sense, especially for politicians who make false claims to get elected or spread rumours to instigate regime change [sic]. In fact, any campaign that is used to persuade can be called propaganda."

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Russia's involvement in Syria has caused a flurry of "cold war", Assad/ISIS co-dependency propaganda, all being produced by the usual suspects and all with the primary objective of invoking a No Fly Zone in Syria and stoking the "Russian Bear threat" fires that have been smouldering for some time.

I am going to attempt to dismantle this propaganda edifice one brick at a time.

Russia Attacks CIA's 'Moderate Rebels' in Syria

In a Telegraph article dated 1st October 2015, with the headline British Troops Head to Saudi Arabia to train Syrian rebels, it was stated:

"The FSA is considered the most moderate of factions fighting Bashar al-Assad's government, but has been increasingly side-lined on the battlefield by more extremist Islamist factions. It has also been riven by leadership disputes.

"American-led attempts to train up moderates to hold ground against ISIL are months behind schedule because of the difficulty of finding groups which were not linked to the extremists."

The term "moderate rebels" has become one of the most significant misnomers (by now, a running joke in international intelligence circles) of this soon-to-be five year conflict. The hijacking of any semblance of a legitimate opposition to the Syrian Government by NATO, the US and regional allies including Israel in order to achieve their desired regime change - has been well documented.

Who are these elusive "moderate rebels"? You may well ask. Traditionally it is the US-backed "Free Syria Army" (FSA) which has long been marketed as the cuddly, viable alternative to the duly elected government led by President Bashar al Assad - which incidentally is the internationally recognised (outside of Washington and London) official government of Syria, supported by the majority of the Syrian people. Recent polls place Assad's popularity at around 80%. Unfortunately, we don't have to dig too deep to reveal the hard-line Islamist, Salafi affiliations of this so-called 'moderate' group of brigands.

Journalist Daniel Greenfield puts it most succinctly: "Few media outlets are willing to say that out loud, but it's quite true. There is no Free Syrian Army. It's an umbrella for providing Western aid to a front group run by the Muslim Brotherhood." He deplores the shaky Pentagon math that Obama and Congress have used in an attempt to downplay the reality that even in 2013 Pentagon sources were reluctantly admitting that extremist groups constituted over 50% of Syrian "opposition" and that these numbers were steadily increasing.

This map below clearly shows the weakness of this "moderate rebel" argument as it unequivocally demonstrates the minor FSA presence at the frontline of Syrian opposition. They compose of fragmented mercenary groups largely unable to operate without extremist logistical support.

So this rather dispels the "moderate" myth and leads to the conclusion that, in reality, Russia was targeting areas north of Homs that contained very few civilians and is an area controlled by a dangerous conclave of militant fighting groups that include the Muslim Brotherhood, Jabhat al Nusra, and other Jihadist opposition fighters supported by the US alliance.

It must also be remembered that the majority of civilians will flee an area infested by such mercenaries and seek refuge in Syria government-held areas. That fact alone should indicate who the people of Syria really favor. So, 90% of IDPs are in government-held areas. This is another fact conveniently omitted from most mainstream media reports.

It also makes a mockery of Defence Secretary Ashton B. Carter's claims in the New York Times yesterday:

"By supporting Assad and seemingly taking on everybody fighting Assad," Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said Wednesday, Russia is "taking on the whole rest of the country that's fighting Assad." Some of those groups, he added, are supported by the United States and need to be part of a political resolution in Syria.

"That's why the Russian position is doomed to fail," Mr. Carter said.

Despite Carter's pleas, the opposite seems to be true. Russia is effectively exposing US policy in Syria as naked hegemony, and America is not happy.

While the US has been supplying TOW missiles and a variety of arms/equipment to extremists and deliberately funding any group that will secure regime change, Russia is actively deploying its military to target the nests of terrorist mercenaries and opportunists waiting eagerly for the political vacuum that would be created by the "removal" of Assad, in order to inflict their extremism upon the Syrian people. They may not be technically called ISIS but they are cut from the same cloth of US/Israeli proxy terrorism and should be eliminated from any sovereign nation. Failure to do so has catastrophic results as seen in Libya and Iraq.

The Propaganda Trail

As soon as Russia launched its first airstrike against terrorist positions this week, the western media immediately piled-in with disinformation, in an attempt to demonize their efforts to support the Syrian government's own 4 year-long war on terror.

Now let's examine the unsavoury marketing aspect of the propaganda campaign being waged by a frustrated and increasingly infuriated US alliance. Of course the usual triad has leapt into action. Human Rights Watch (HRW), Avaaz and the White Helmets.

Avaaz has produced one of its most poisonous and misleading petitions to date. The inevitable eyewitness statements claim that Russia targeted civilian areas utterly free of ISIS operatives. These statements are already rendered questionable by the evidence I have submitted above.

When we watch the videos, particularly the longer Live Leak version, it is hard to detect the women and children that are being described. The majority of protagonists appear to be male and of fighting age. There is no evidence of "civilian" life among the deserted buildings, the only movement is of males, some on foot, some on scooters and presumably some taking the time to film events even as the bombs are falling. Not the actions of terrified, innocent civilians.

Live Leak Video of Russian bombing of Homs:


There is one other video that does show about 2 seconds of a young boy crying and obviously injured. However this video must be questioned as to its authenticity as the claims are that the initial shot of planes overhead is not even of Russian planes. The quality of the video is poor and apart from the footage of the one child, again demonstrates that the majority of people involved are men of fighting age in a deserted built up area to the north of Homs.

In this disgusting display of blatant propaganda calling for the long sought after no fly zone, Emma Ruby-Sachs, deputy director of the activist web portal, Avaaz.org, makes this extraordinary statement:

"Russia says it's bombing ISIS, but eyewitnesses say their brutal attacks targeted areas way outside of ISIS control. This will only sow instability and radicalisation and should be an urgent wake-up call to the US and its allies to enforce a targeted no-fly zone to save lives, counter ISIS and alleviate the refugee crisis. Syrians civilians need protection now, not further attacks from Russian bombs."

Speaking to one Damascus resident this morning, I asked for their opinion on this statement. His reply was simple, "I am just relieved that the Russian Air Force is in action". The hypocrisy of this statement from Ruby-Sachs perfectly mirrors the hypocrisy of Congress, Obama's Teflon speech at the UNGA, Pentagon's barefaced obscurantism over the US role in creating exactly this instability and radicalisation in Syria and bringing misery, terror and bloodshed to the people of Syria with the sole aim of securing their interests in the region [and those of their staunchest partner in crimes against Humanity, Israel]

If we wish to speak of real civilian casualties, then perhaps we should turn the spotlight on the pre- existing Coalition bombing campaign. The civilian death rates from these strikes is rarely discussed and often concealed by the Pentagon and US/European associated analysts like the British-led 'humanitarian' organisation - the Syria Observatory for Human Right (SOHR).

Where for example was the Avaaz petition calling for a No Fly Zone when the coalition air strikes resulted in a multitude of non-combatant deaths including children? This report from Airwars reveals the disturbing numbers:

"Syria has also seen a number of troubling mass casualty events attributed to Coalition actions. On the first night of bombing on September 23rd 2014, US aircraft killed as many as 15 civilians in the village of Kafar Daryan. On December 28th at least 58 civilians reportedly died when the Coalition struck a temporary Daesh prison at al Bab (see report). And on April 30th 2015, 64 civilians died in a likely Coalition airstrike at Ber Mahli. In these three incidents alone, 106 non-combatant victims have so far been publicly named - 38 of them children. It remains unclear whether any of these events have been investigated by the Coalition."

Avaaz did actually promote a petition for a No-Fly Zone back in March 2015 - a PR campaign which just happen to align perfectly with Washington plans for a No-Fly Zone for the purpose of dominating the skies over Syria in the same way it did in the NATO's intentional destruction of the nation-state of Libya.

In order to spare more innocent lives and preserve the secular nation-state of Syria, its citizens will need to a spanner placed in the spokes of this trendy 'change' propaganda vehicle that rides roughshod over their genuine needs with devastating consequences. Those needs are simple: stop the lying, stop fabricating and stop creating, funding, arming and incubating the terrorist cancer in Syria.

The White Helmet element

Now we come to perhaps one of the most insidious and damaging elements of the propaganda machine.

In September, we first introduced readers to the humanitarian interventionist, covert intelligence program and regime change PR operation known as the White Helmets, created by the Soros partnered, Svengali of PR giants, Purpose.com. The White Helmets with the debonair, Sandhurst-educated James Bond of humanitarianism at its helm, James Le Mesurier, a high-level British mercenary commander and trainer whose CV reads like a NATO itinerary, and whose high-level connections delve deep into the Empire's underworld of international subterfuge, media manipulation and strategy cultivation.

The first slick photo campaign was hot off the press almost immediately after the first Russian air strikes in the Homs region:

Unfortunately for them, perhaps White Helmets are exhausting their supply of heart string tugging images as their twitter campaign almost immediately came under attack by those who are waking up to this cynical propagandization of human misery.


See this Tweet here.
[embed]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Our NGO partner used a Sept 25th photo to document Russia&#39;s Sept 30th strikes against ISIS and AQ. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BestPractices?src=hash">#BestPractices</a> <a href="http://t.co/ksWVjKsxzX">pic.twitter.com/ksWVjKsxzX</a></p>&mdash; U.S. Dept. of Fear (@FearDept) <a href="https://twitter.com/FearDept/status/649269240437043200">30 September 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/embed]This was incredible sloppy work by this western-backed propaganda outfit. The following is a quote from Sott.net:

"The White Helmets in their haste to point the finger of blame at Moscow, managed to tweet about Russia's air strikes several hours before the Russian Parliament actually authorized the use of the Air Force in Syria."

This image was also picked up and run with by RT who accurately pinpointed the deep-rooted deceit that lies at the heart of the majority of White Helmet publicity campaigns. The flurry of activity on the White Helmets Twitter page must have taken, even them, by surprise.

The result was a series of fake and fraudulent Tweets churned-out by the White Helmets, like this Tweet:


For so long they have enjoyed the fruits of their marketing campaign depicting them as selfless heroes, saviours of humanity, impartial protectors of kittens and Syrians in equal measure. Their self-styled image is that of unarmed, neutral, demi-saints climbing the "Mount Everest of war zones". Unfortunately so many of their masks have slipped that they can no longer bask in their Purpose reflected glory.

Yesterday like HRW before them they were exposed to be the fabricators and deceivers they really are. Anyone can make a mistake I hear you say, yes sure, one mistake is acceptable, 2 is questionable but a consistent conveyor belt of misleading, perception altering, "nudging" images ceases to be innocent and enters the realm of manipulation on a terrifying scale with horrifying ramifications for the people of Syria who so far, have resisted their country being plunged into the same abyss as Libya or Iraq.

Just one other example of the White Helmets duplicitous image use:

Another image was brought to my attention this morning that further shatters the high-gloss White Helmet image. Whilst it is now well-known that far from being neutral, the White Helmets are in fact embedded with Jabhat al Nusra aka Al Nusra Front [the Syrian arm of Al Qaeda], it is perhaps not so well-known that their southern Damascus depot is situated at the heart of ISIS held territory, to the south of the notorious Palestinian Yarmouk Refugee Camp. This image shows their insignia and emblem clearly on the wall and gates behind the selfie-taking ISIS mercenary in the foreground.

It is becoming harder and harder for White Helmets to maintain their veneer of impartiality, a fact that is borne out quite effectively by the fact that the majority of Syrians in government held areas have never heard of them, even unbiased civilians in Aleppo have not come across them. Their association is exclusively with the extremist elements of the Syrian opposition. Their purpose is to facilitate calls for a No Fly Zone, cue Avaaz, and destabilize the region in the manner demanded by their masters in the US, UK and Syrian National Council.

These same agents of change can also be seen organising various NGO-affiliated live events in both Europe and the US, in order to drum-up political support and cash for the western-backed regime change project. This aspect of the campaign is detailed here in the article by Tim Hirschel-Burns, entitled, Developing Change A blog on development, activism, political advocacy, and NGOs.
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Conclusion

We can safely conclude that the US, Israel and their allies are furious that they have been out-manoeuvred and outsmarted by Russia and Syria, despite billions of dollars and countless man hours that have already spent by the US, UK and the NATO aligned allies - all the while in open violation of numerous international law and "norms". The West's initial No Fly Zone plans in Syria have been consistently thwarted and derailed. Russia has effectively demanded a No Fly Zone for the US-led coalition - which is the ultimate insult to US hegemony and self-proclaimed world police status. Russia, unlike the US, is targeting ISIS in all its distorted guises and nomenclature. It's expected that Russian airstrikes will be more accurate and efficient than the US-led coalition for the simple fact that their targeting is based on actual ground intelligence from the Syrian Arab Army.

And yes Mr Defence Secretary, Russia is bombing US supported "rebels" in Syria for the very simple reason that, in one way or another, ever since Washington DC had first started down the blood strewn road of regime change, the US has either equipped or funded every single extremist faction in Syria.

If we lived in a just world, we would see Avaaz and their ilk clamouring for an end to interventionism and demanding diplomatic solutions to support internal, sovereign nation, peace processes [as in fact Russia has unwaveringly called for in Syria]. However, we do not live in a world based upon a universal understanding of justice, we live in a world governed by the powerful and the greedy, devoid of compassion, intent only on their geopolitical prowess and humanity-exempt colonialism.


Comment: For more information on the subject of psychopaths in power, read Political Ponerology (A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes) by Andrew M. Lobaczewski


For the sake of the Syrian people and all other nations being crushed by this well used, well-oiled propaganda machine we must question, we must demand answers, and we must wake up to our responsibility to reject calls for the destruction of nations and peoples who ask only for their basic human right to determine their own futures.

Avaaz, HRW, White Helmets and their associates have no place in that brave new world.

Author Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there - as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her blog Will The Fall.

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August 26, 2015
Syria, the Propaganda Ring

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” ~ Malcolm X

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After four and half years of relentless propaganda being flung around our mainstream media by propagandists, NGOs and Empire serving mouthpieces, one wonders how this stream of effluent still manages to stick to the consciences of the public it serves to deceive.

Yesterday, a Facebook post caught our attention. A Palestinian based in Gaza posted two photos of child victims in Syria. The photos were accompanied by the caption ~ “The massacres of Assad regime in Syria #Douma”. The subsequent barrage of comments consisting of the usual plethora of outpouring against Assad and the SAA provoked us to investigate further.

What we discovered was a highly organised, western-centric propaganda ring…

We discovered that both photos were taken by photographer Khaled Khatib, and were of “reported” SAAF barrel bomb attacks on unclassified areas of Aleppo. Bearing in mind, most of Khaled’s photos on Google appear to be of the immediate aftermath of such an attack, one wonders why he does not specify the area and offer a verified claim of the attack being from barrel bombs, rather than the rather non committal “reported” tag.

Further investigation revealed that in reality, Khaled Khatib works for and with the White Helmets and his photos are used extensively by the well known EU backed, one man propaganda band, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The SOHR is actually Mr Rami Abdul Rahman who runs this propaganda feed from his house in Coventry, UK and who bases the majority of his information on Skype calls to Syria. This information, however, is unilaterally used by the Axis of Interventionism [US, Europe in particular] to justify their proxy invasion of a sovereign nation and their clumsy, murderous 4.5 year long attempt at the “regime change” of an elected government, engendering, in the process, the widespread loss of civilian life in Syria at the hands of their proxy armies. More than any other single information source, the SOHR’s propaganda dispatches are used to justify western policy of arming and supporting the multi-headed insurgency in Syria.

Thanks Eva Bartlett for the photo below:

The White Helmets are equally suspect. This is a quote from Rick Sterling’s excellent article on the “Highly Effective Manipulators”

“White Helmets is the newly minted name for “Syrian Civil Defence”. Despite the name, Syria Civil Defence was not created by Syrians nor does it serve Syria. Rather it was created by the UK and USA in 2013. Civilians from rebel controlled territory were paid to go to Turkey to receive some training in rescue operations. The program was managed by James Le Mesurier, a former British soldier and private contractor whose company is based in Dubai.

The trainees are said to be ‘nonpartisan’ but only work in rebel-controlled areas of Idlib (now controlled by Nusra/Al Queda) and Aleppo. There are widely divergent claims regarding the number of people trained by the White Helmets and the number of people rescued. The numbers are probably highly exaggerated especially since rebel-controlled territories have few civilians. A doctor who recently served in a rebel-controlled area of Aleppo described it as a ghost town. The White Helmets work primarily with the rebel group Jabat al Nusra (Al Queda in Syria). Video of the recent alleged chlorine gas attacks starts with the White Helmet logo and continues with the logo of Nusra. In reality, White Helmets is a small rescue team for Nusra/Al Queda.

But White Helmets primary function is propaganda. White Helmets demonizes the Assad government and encourages direct foreign intervention. A White Helmet leader wrote a recent Washington Post editorial. White Helmets are also very active on social media with presence on Twitter, Facebook etc. According to their website, to contact White Helmets email The Syria Campaign which underscores the relationship.”

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This illustration from Rick Sterling's article demonstrates clearly the role of White Helmets in justifying the No Fly Zone

Now lets have a look at Khaled Khatib and his role in this propaganda chain. He appears to be exclusively embedded in Aleppo. I have been unable to locate any photos by him that are not from this region [on google search]. The majority of his photos are taken between January and June 2014. Now bearing in mind the mounting evidence of the civilian casualties and fatalities as a result of the “rebel” hell cannon, mortars, & snipers in Aleppo, it should be surprising that not one of his images records the devastation and bloodshed caused by these wildly inaccurate and lethal weapons employed by the so called opposition cells positioned all over Aleppo.

Instead every photo and every statement from this propagandist focuses only on the Syrian Government’s “reported” use of the legendary barrel bombs. “There is great danger for civilians from the Syrian army, the militias who are fighting with them, and ISIS,” said Khaled Khatib, a photographer with the Aleppo branch of the Syrian Civil Defence, a volunteer rescue organization. “But the weapon that kills the most Syrians — by 90 percent — is the barrel.”

We have demonstrated that the White Helmets are an integral part of the propaganda vanguard that ensures obscurantism of fact and propagation of Human Rights fiction that elicits the well intentioned and self righteous response from a very cleverly duped public. A priority for these NGOs is to keep pushing the No Fly Zone scenario which has already been seen to have disastrous implications for innocent civilians in Libya, for example.

Khaled Khatib is quoted by the Guardian as being reserved on the No Fly Zone, but vehement in calls for a radar or “early warning” system that will ensure that “civilians” can flee areas that are about to be bombed by the Syrian Government forces. Lets just examine this statement, echoed by The Syria Campaign director, James Sadri: “If we could only get warning that the planes were coming, we could warn families, tell people to run from the markets, get the children out of the schools, let the medical centers know so that they can take cover,” Khatib said. “Every airport in the world has this technology – it is common, it is civilian. Why can’t they share it with us?”

Hmmm so, this makes an assumption, regularly echoed by the HRW brigades like Annie Sparrow and Ken Roth who have become increasingly rabid in their barrel bomb narrative, that the Syrian Government is going to deliberately target civilian areas like hospitals and schools. This seems absurd when one takes into account that most families in Syria have family members in the Syrian forces combating foreign proxy armies made up of terrorists and mercenaries. To suggest that these forces would be turned against their own families is delusional if not downright criminal and inhumane. Therefore we must assume that the Syrian forces are quite rightly targeting embedded terrorist cells, cells that are nested within civilian areas. We know that Aleppo has shrunk to one fifth of its size thanks to the infiltration of many areas by these mercenary fighters. This infiltration has driven many civilians into safe pockets within Aleppo away from terrorist strongholds. The SAA is marooned on the Acropolis Hill in the strategic centre of the Old Citadel in Aleppo and is surrounded on all sides by “rebel” encampments.

With this information in mind, we must ask the question, who would benefit most from this early warning system – the civilians or the “rebels”?

I have created a collage of the most dramatic of Khaled Khatib’s images, many of which are credited to AFP and Getty Images so we know they will be extensively used by the main stream media to convey the “situation” in Syria. I will in no way detract from the very real suffering of the people of Syria caught up in a war not of their making and fuelled by Western arming, funding and logistic support for the “opposition” to the Government that is steadfastly resisting their interventionism.

However, I would ask anyone to view these photos with an impartial eye and to appreciate their importance as a propaganda tool. We know that Al Jazeera, for example has fabricated evidence before now and used artistic licence to “create” images that pull on our heart strings. Even the BBC, the erstwhile reputed bastion of British media integrity has been caught out lying and deceiving on a terrifying scale when it comes to Syria. I leave it up to you, but here are some of Khaled’s images:

Khaled Khatib’s images taken in Aleppo Jan – June 2014. All “reportedly” of barrel bomb attacks

The final point that I would like to make is that during my investigation I noticed one important fact. Even when a report is written about an ISIS atrocity, we often will see Khaled Khatib’s photograph accompanying that report. I will give you an example. In March 2014, the Daily Star [Lebanon] reported on horrific mass executions carried out by ISIS throughout Syria, including Aleppo. ISIL jihadists conduct ‘mass executions’ in Syria: UN probe. Despite this article describing the hideous killings and torture of civilians by ISIS, the caption on the accompanying photo by KK reads ” The bodies of two children lie in the rubble of a residential building targeted by [yes you guessed it] barrel bombs launched by “regime” forces.

My marketing background alerts me to this insidious form of subliminal “advertising” that will ensure that the public psyche absorbs the message of “regime” atrocities in preference to the information regarding ISIS depravity. A brief check on other mainstream media reports demonstrates that this is not an isolated case. Some may argue that the media outlets have simply made a “mistake”, I would refute that argument..once maybe, ten times, twenty times is no coincidence.

Just in case my investigation into “war porn” needs simplification, Prof Tim Anderson has done a marvellous job of condensing it into a brilliant infographic.

Tim Anderson explains “war porn”

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Tracking dangerous People By Brandon Turbeville, Activistpost
http://www.activistpost.com/2015/10/soros-backed-ngo-fakes-photos-to-blame-russia-for-dead-civilians.html

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The U.S./UK Financed "White Helmets" Shtick - Fake "Child Rescued" Videos
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/06/the-usuk-financed-white-helmets-shtick-fake-child-rescued-videos.html

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Syria's White Helmets: War by way of deception - Part 1

The White Helmets in Syria, whose side are they really on?
"The Ivy League bourgeoisie who sit at the helm of the non-profit industrial complex will one day be known simply as charismatic architects of death. Funded by the ruling class oligarchy, the role they serve for their funders is not unlike that of corporate media. Yet, it appears that global society is paralyzed in a collective hypnosis - rejecting universal social interests, thus rejecting reason, to instead fall in line with the position of the powerful minority that has seized control, a minority that systematically favours corporate interests." ~Cory Morningstar

In his recent speech Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Nasrallah, alluded to a multi-phase "soft war" which relies upon the mass media complex to disseminate propaganda and bias, propelling the Middle East into, primarily, a sectarian crisis before descending even further into regionalism and finally a devastating individualism.

Cory Morningstar's body of work does more than any other to expose the bare bones of the non-profit propaganda industry that governs both our reactions - and inactions, through a network of multi-layered and multi-faceted media manipulation campaigns, of which the end result is mass thought control. She explains:

"The 21st century NGO is becoming, more and more, a key tool serving the imperialist quest of absolute global dominance and exploitation. Global society has been, and continues to be, manipulated to believe that NGOs are representative of "civil society" (a concept promoted by corporations in the first place). This misplaced trust has allowed the "humanitarian industrial complex" to ascend to the highest position: the missionaries of deity - the deity of the empire."

In a paper entitled, Foreign Aid and Regime Change: A Role for Donor Intent, written just prior to NATO intervention in Libya, Prof. Sarah Blodgett Bormeo describes the "democratization" process for target nations. Unwittingly or wittingly, Bormeo perfectly outlines the role played by NGOs in this process. Bormeo even goes so far as to pinpoint the lack of impartiality rife among NGOs large and small, the majority of whom, receive their funding directly from western government and major corporation sources - all of whom have a vested interest in the outcome of their NGO's activities and 'intervention' in a particular location. Bormeo emphasises the importance of "picking winners" in this scenario, as opposed to respecting and supporting the will of the people in any sovereign nation.

"Thus, it is possible that aid donors, in an effort to avoid further entrenching an "authoritarian" [my edit: this status is decided by donor] regime and perhaps increase the likelihood of democratization, channel funds through NGOs and civil society organizations in authoritarian states."

In this short video below, we are introduced to the US military's symbiotic relationship with NGOs in countries [in this instance, Iraq] where the policy is to induce pacification & advance Western ideologies. NGOs are cynically used to "soften" cultures and render entire communities dependent upon foreign aid in order to facilitate "Democratization".

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In this role, and dependent upon their donor support, NGOs cease to be the neutral, unbiased 'humanitarian' organisations they publically purport to be, and instead become actual covert tools for foreign intervention and regime change. By default, they are assimilated into the Western modus vivendi of "waging war by way of deception" and their purpose is to alter public perception of a conflict via a multitude of media and "marketing" channels.

Following this formula, let's examine, once more, the role of the Syria Civil Defence aka, 'The White Helmets' currently operating in Syria and take a closer look at their financial sources and mainstream media partners in order to better determine if they are indeed "neutral" as media moguls proclaim these "humanitarians" to be.

White Helmets: Follow the Money

The White Helmets was established in March 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey, and is headed by James Le Mesurier, a British "security" specialist and 'ex' British military intelligence officer with an impressive track record in some of the most dubious NATO intervention theatres including Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. Le Mesurier is a product of Britain's elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and has also been placed in a series of high-profile posts at the United Nations, European Union, and U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The origins of The White Helmet's initial $300k seed funding is a little hazy, reports are contradictory but subsequent information leads us to conclude that the UK, US and the 'Syrian Opposition' [or Syrian National Council (SNC), parallel government backed an funded by the US, UK and allies] are connected. Logistical support has been provided and given by Turkish elite natural disaster response team, AKUT.

A further $13 million was poured into the White Helmet coffers during 2013 and this is where it gets interesting. Early reports suggest that these "donations" came from the US, UK and SNC with the previously explored connections to George Soros in the US.

However, subsequent investigations reveal that USAID has been a major shareholder in the White Helmet organisation.

The website for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) claims that "our work supports long-term and equitable economic growth and advances U.S. foreign policy objectives by supporting: economic growth, agriculture and trade; global health; and, democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance."

In a USAID report update in July 2015 it is clearly stated that they have supplied over $16m in assistance to the White Helmets.

The USAID track record as a primary US Government/CIA regime change facilitator is extensively documented. From South America to the Ukraine and in the Middle East, USAID serve a malevolent and ultimately destructive role in the dismantling of sovereign nations and their reduction to Western hegemony vassal states, as always, all in the name of freedom and democracy.

"The United States does not lack institutions that continue to conspire, and that's why I am using this gathering to announce that we have decided to expel USAID from Bolivia" ~ Bolivian President Evo Morales

"USAID and NED are in the business of "Democracy Promotion" which uses public money (from U.S. taxpayers) for secretive operations with the intention to support pro-U.S. governments with the help of political and social movements abroad. The goal is regime change." ~ Timothy Alexander Guzman

With recent developments in Syria and as a consequence of the Syrian Government requested Russian intervention, we have seen a scramble to justify the shambolic US foreign policy and its clandestine terror operations in Syria. We have previously established the White Helmet connections to this US regime change operation and their undisputed exclusive integration into the Al Nusra and Free Syrian Army [Muslim Brotherhood] and even ISIS networks and strongholds.


Comment: See also: 'Humanitarian' propaganda war against Syria - Led by Avaaz and The White Helmets


After RT and Sott.net among others, exposed the gaping holes in White Helmet propaganda whereby the group recycled older photographs on Twitter in an effort to blame Russia for 'civilian deaths' - even before the alleged Russian bombing had occurred. Since then, the propaganda "war" has only ramped up. The Russian involvement in Syria, did not only betray the US military deception, it also brought some heavyweight media giants of its own into the fray who set about de-constructing the Western media and NGO indoctrination that had, for so long, been largely unchallenged.

ISIS mercenary photographed outside White Helmet depot, in ISIS held area south of Yarmouk Camp.
At this point the London Telegraph went into damage limitation mode. It published an article expounding the White Helmet humanitarian role in Syria but with admissions of UK Government "majority" funding and that the White Helmets are embedded with ISIS ("in at least one ISIL held area"), claims previously vehemently denied but rendered indisputable after discovery of the photo showing an ISIS mercenary posing directly in front of a White Helmets depot located deep in ISIS held territory south of Yarmouk.

"The Foreign Office is currently the largest single source of funding. It is an irony that if Britain does effectively become an ally of Assad, and starts raids against Isil in Syria, it will be bombing from the air and paying for the bodies to be dug out on the ground. The White Helmets are also operating in at least one Isil-held area."

Interestingly, the Telegraph stated clearly that the UK Foreign Office is the "largest single source of funding" for the White Helmets which may be perceived as an attempt to draw fire away from the USAID funding which still outstrips official figures released by the British Gov't who "gifted" £ 3.5 million in equipment to "civil defence teams" in Syria [Report March 2015]. However, the British Government also committed to an additional £10m to "increase coordination between the Syrian Interim Government and civil defence teams", to be funded by: UK Government's Conflict, Security and Stability Fund (CSSF).

If an organisation is funded by foreign governments who are directly involved in trying over-throw Syria's government, how can they be rightly called an 'independent relief organisation'?

It should be noted here also that although cries of 'regime change!' from both Washington and London have been muted since Russia entered the Syria conflict, both Washington and London have been supporting their own parallel, hand-picked 'interim government' for Syria since at least 2012.

So, with millions in hard cash and equipment being invested into the White Helmets by US & UK donors who have a very clear regime change objective in Syria, it becomes increasingly difficult to perceive their role as anything other than donor-biased propaganda merchants and a 'humanitarian' extension of a clandestine terror operation allied to the NATO proxy armies in the region.

White Helmet Leadership

James Le Mesurier has been portrayed as a Humanitarian maverick hero, miraculously in the right place (Istanbul) at the right time, just as the need arose for the formation of a Syria Civil Defence team, perhaps coincidentally, only a few months prior to the now infamous and universally (except for a few diehard propagandists) discredited Ghouta 'chemical weapon' attack in August 2013, an event which has already been proven beyond a doubt to be a false flag attack, as well as subsequent accusations levied at the Syrian Government which narrowly failed to precipitate the NATO desired 'No Fly Zone'.

However, when we delve deeper into the life and times of Le Mesurier we see that it was no happy accident that he was in Istanbul at this juncture. As Sandhurst Military Academy's top student and recipient of the Queen's Medal, his chequered career took him from OHR [Office of High Representative] in Bosnia to intelligence co-ordinator in NATO's newly won prize, Kosovo. We're told that Le Mesurier left the British Army in 2000 and joined the UN serving as deputy head of the Advisory Unit on 'Security and Justice', and Special Representative of the Secretary General's security policy body within the UN mission in Kosovo. His career then took him to Jerusalem where he worked on implementing the Ramallah Agreement, then to Baghdad as a special advisor to Iraqi Minister of Interior, and to the UAE to train their gas field protection force, and later to Lebanon during the 2006 war. In 2005 he was made Vice President for Special Projects at private mercenary firm Olive Group, and in January 2008 he was appointed as Principal for Good Harbour International, both based in Dubai.

Le Mesurier is also the founder of Mayday Rescue, a "non profit" organisation providing SAR [search & rescue] training to civilians enduring conflict. According to Mesurier's own biography on the website, Mayday Rescue was founded in 2014, after he had established Syria Civil Defence/White Helmets.

A quick flick through the other Mayday team members reveals some very interesting connections...

Mosab Obeidat, previous Assistant Chief of Mission with the Qatar Red Crescent, one of whose officials, Khaled Diab was accused of supplying $2.2m to secure arms for the terrorist groups in Syria. Details of this transaction and its exposure can be found in this Al Akhbar article from June 2013.

At least three other members of the team were a part of the Syrian "revolution" including Farouq al Habib, one of the 3 most prominent White Helmet leaders who was also a leader of the Homs uprising against the Syrian government and according to his testimony, was tortured by the Syrian "regime" security forces in 2012 for smuggling a journalist into Syria to "cover" the "peaceful protests". Habib was a founder member of the "Homs Revolutionary Counci" (note that the CIA have been linked to nearly all 'Revolutionary Councils' in Syria) before fleeing to Turkey in 2013 (A more in-depth analysis of his anti-Syrian government testimony will be presented in Part II of this article).

In this photo taken by a mobile phone on Wednesday Sept. 24, 2014, Read Saleh left, the head of the civil defense units in the northern city of Idlib, and Farouk al-Habib, right, a media campaigner for the rescuers known as the White Helmets, sit on a panel to draw attention to their work in Syria as world leaders come together for the annual UN general assembly meetings, in midtown New York.
Le Mesurier is heavily involved in several organisations not mentioned in this article, but for the purposes of demonstrating that the White Helmets should not be considered impartial or neutral as they claim, we will focus on those that best substantiate that argument.

Both Olive Group and Good Harbour International are experts in private "security". Taken from Sourcewatch on Olive Group:

"Olive Security was founded in 2001 by Harry Legge Burke. Olive lends their quick success to strong relations in the government and military industry. Harry Legge-Burke is an ex-Welsh Guard, and a former aid to chief of defence staff Sir [Charles Guthrie]. He can claim Prince William as a skiing partner and his sister was a nanny to the royal children.

Iraq: Olive were on the ground since the invasion began in 2003, and were able to deploy 38 former SAS employees within two days of the invasion's completion in 2004

Jonathan Allum, Olive's former director and co-owner, is also the son of Tony Allum, who is the chairman of the engineering company Halcrow and also the head of the UK government's Iraq Industry Working Group. It was in the latter position that Tony Allum went to Washington to meet with Bechtel leaders, where he suggested, among other UK companies, Halcrow and Olive as companies worth considering for subcontracted work, all stemming from Bechtel's $680 million contract with USAID. They were considered and contracts followed, though both Legge-Burke and Allum deny one had anything to do with the other."

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In May 2015, Olive Group merged with Constellis Holdings, in whose portfolio we can also find Academi, previously the notorious Blackwater Group (Nisour Square massacre, Iraq 2007). Taken from The Atlantic July 2012: Post 9/11, Bush enabled the CIA to subcontract assassinations allegedly targeting Al Qaeda operatives. Blackwater was awarded this contract.

"Running operations through Blackwater gave the CIA the power to have people abducted, or killed, with no one in the government being exactly responsible."

The CIA can no longer hide its Blackwater/Academi connections, especially after this week's Wikileaks data dump of CIA director John Brennan's emails, whose contact list included now spy chief Robert Richer at his Blackwater contact address.

The outsourcing of intelligence operations was in full-swing. What Bush initiated, Obama ran with, awarding Blackwater/Academi a $250m contract in 2010 to offer "unspecified" services to the CIA, thus maintaining the apparatus for "unaccountable" covert assassinations.

It is true that James Le Mesurier only joined Olive Group in 2005 and left them in 2008, but his involvement with them and their subsequent merger with Constellis and by default, Blackwater/Academi, gives a degree of valuable insight into the elite intelligence and Pentagon circles that Le Mesurier moved in prior to working for Good Harbour International and creating Syria Civil Defence (not forgetting the USAID funding & influence that underpins both Olive and SCD/White Helmets).

In 2008, Le Mesurier joined Good Harbour International, another private "security" expert organisation, whose CEO is none other than former terror advisor to the Bush administration, the Terror Czar himself, Richard A. Clarke.

The jury is still out on whether Clarke was indeed the "whistleblower" he fashioned himself as, post 9/11, or a merely a high-level gatekeeper who aided in preventing a full and detailed investigation into Bush and Rumsfeld's roles in 9/11.

Patrick Henningsen, a political analyst and writer for 21st Century Wire believes the latter is more likely:

"On first glance, one might buy into the mainstream media's characterization of him, but it's more likely that Richard Clarke is not a whistleblower at all. While appearing to oppose the Bush administration from a safe enough distance, I believe his role was inserted into the mix in the period of 2004-2005 in order to VALIDATE the bin Laden mythology and help to portray al Qaeda as an organic, independently run terror organization. He also claimed that Bush and Rumsfeld committed war crimes, but this means nothing because everyone knows that no US official will ever face 'war crimes' charges in any court of law anywhere on the planet. It's effectively a straw man narrative that distracts from the real scandal in the US which is that the entire premise of the war on terror is completely contrived. Clarke's 'whistleblower' status gives him brilliant cover from too much public scrutiny. I remain skeptical of his whole public narrative. He was, is, and always will be an insider."

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What is perhaps even more telling, is Clarke's reported close ties with Israeli-US operative Rita Katz of the SITE Intelligence Group, another supposedly independent, albeit 'private' intelligence firm located in Bethesda, Maryland, a stone's throw away from CIA headquarters. SITE are said to be responsible for the media release of the harrowing ISIS execution videos, al Qaeda videos, and their credibility has been extensively questioned.

Katz's long term working relationship with Clarke began before 9/11 when she and her research associate Steve Emerson were commissioned by Clarke to identify 'Islamic radicals' inside the Unites States. Over time, Katz's relationship with Clarke blossomed into a much more extensive one that included regular briefings at both the Clinton and Bush White Houses.

"One of SITE's founders, Rita Katz, is a government insider with close connections to former terrorism czar Richard Clarke and his staff in the White House, as well as investigators in the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security, according to SourceWatch. Her father was executed in Iraq as an Israel spy, a fact that suggests a connection to Israeli intelligence." ~ Mark Taliano

Wheels Within Wheels

This background on Le Mesurier should at least make us question the media portrayal of an affable, debonair and philanthropic leader of a civilian humanitarian mission. His military & intelligence roots, the fact that despite working for OHR in Bosnia, no visible record of his employment can be found there, his private security-centric career path, his appearance in Istanbul at just the right moment to partner USAID, the UK government & Syrian opposition in creating just the sort of "democratization" enabling NGO as described in our introduction, MUST at least cause us to doubt the transparency and neutrality of the White Helmets in Syria.

In addition, the White Helmet leadership consisting of known Syrian opposition protagonists such as Raed Saleh and Farouq al Habib must make us more cynical about the claims of impartiality and lack of bias and for those who will defend the "peaceful" revolution narrative upheld by Habib and Saleh, please take the time to read Professor Tim Anderson's in depth analysis of events in Syria pre NATO intervention.

"I have seen from the beginning armed protesters in those demonstrations ... they were the first to fire on the police. Very often the violence of the security forces comes in response to the brutal violence of the armed insurgents" - Jesuit priest Father Frans Van der Lugt, January 2012, Homs Syria

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"The claim that armed opposition to the government has begun only recently is a complete lie. The killings of soldiers, police and civilians, often in the most brutal circumstances, have been going on virtually since the beginning." - Professor Jeremy Salt, October 2011, Ankara Turkey

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Our presentation of the White Helmets as regime change propagandists & terrorist allies in this article will be further explored and verified in Part II.

"Existing soft power initiatives and agencies, particularly those engaged in development and strategic communications, must be reinvigorated through increased funding, human resources and prioritization. Concurrently, the U.S. government must establish goals, objectives and metrics for soft power initiatives. Furthermore, the U.S. government can better maximize the effectiveness of soft power instruments and efforts through increased partnerships with NGOs. By providing humanitarian and development assistance in areas typically inaccessible to government agencies, NGOs are often able to access potential extremist areas before the government can establish or strengthen diplomatic, developmental or military presence, including intelligence." — Joseph S. Nye, former US assistant secretary of defence, June 2004.

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End of part one

Author Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there - as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her blog Will The Fall.

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Seven Steps of Highly Effective Manipulators

White Helmets, Avaaz, Nicholas Kristof and Syria No Fly Zone

by Rick Sterling / April 9th, 2015

You might think that after seeing the consequences of their campaign for “freedom and democracy” in Libya, journalists like Nicholas Kristof and “humanitarian campaigners” like Avaaz would have some qualms.

Unfortunately they have learned nothing. They have generally not been held to account, with a few nice exceptions such as this Greenwald/Hussain article. And now they are at it again. Many well-intentioned but naive members of the U.S. and international public are again being duped into signing an Avaaz petition based on fraud and misinformation. If the campaign succeeds in leading to a No Fly Zone in Syria, it will result in vastly increased war, mayhem and bloodshed.

The following illustration shows the sequence and trail of deceit leading to Avaaz’s call for a No Fly Zone in Syria.

Following is a brief description documenting the flow of misinformation and deceit, beginning at the Source and ending with Avaaz’s campaign for NATO/US attack on Syria.

Source

The “Source” is unknown at this time. It might be some US agency with or without the approval of the Obama administration. Or it might be another foreign government which seeks, in plain violation of international law, the overthrow the Syrian government. In addition to the U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain and Qatar have each spent hundreds of millions and even billions in heavy weaponry plus 3,000 tons of weapons via Croatia plus arming, training, supplying and paying the salaries of thousands of domestic and international mercenaries sowing mayhem and destruction in Syria.

At this point we do not know but there is a REWARD: $100 finders fee to the first person who can provide credible evidence identifying the SOURCE.

PURPOSE Inc.

This is an international PR firm. CEO is Jeremy Heimans, a co-founder of Avaaz.

President is Kevin Steinberg, previous CEO of World Economic Forum USA (antithesis of World Social Forum). Their website describes their goal:

“Purpose builds and accelerates movements to tackle the world’s biggest problems.”

In this case the “problem” is reluctance to take over Syrian skies and land.

For a hefty fee, “Purpose” will dupe the public and break down that reluctance.

Toward that end, Purpose created “The Syria Campaign”.

The Syria Campaign

The Syria Campaign began in spring 2014. One of their first efforts was to work to prevent publicity and information about the Syrian Presidential Election of June 2014. Accordingly, “The Syria Campaign” pressured Facebook to remove advertisements or publicity about the Syrian election. Since then Syria Campaign has engineered huge media exposure and mythology about their baby, the “White Helmets” using all sorts of social and traditional media. The campaigns are largely fact free. For example, the Syrian election was dismissed out of hand by them and John Kerry but taken seriously by many millions of Syrians.

The Syria Campaign is managed by Anna Nolan, who grew up in northern Ireland and has very likely never been to Syria. In addition to promoting the White Helmets, Syria Campaign promotes a new social media campaign called “Planet Syria”. It features emotional pleas for the world to take notice of Syria in another thinly veiled effort pushing for foreign intervention and war.

According to their website, The Syria Campaign received start-up funding from the foundation of Ayman Asfari, a billionaire who made his money in the oil and gas services industry.

White Helmets

White Helmets is the newly minted name for “Syrian Civil Defence”. Despite the name, Syria Civil Defence was not created by Syrians nor does it serve Syria. Rather it was created by the UK and USA in 2013. Civilians from rebel controlled territory were paid to go to Turkey to receive some training in rescue operations. The program was managed by James Le Mesurier, a former British soldier and private contractor whose company is based in Dubai.

The trainees are said to be ‘nonpartisan’ but only work in rebel-controlled areas of Idlib (now controlled by Nusra/Al Queda) and Aleppo. There are widely divergent claims regarding the number of people trained by the White Helmets and the number of people rescued. The numbers are probably highly exaggerated especially since rebel-controlled territories have few civilians. A doctor who recently served in a rebel-controlled area of Aleppo described it as a ghost town. The White Helmets work primarily with the rebel group Jabat al Nusra (Al Queda in Syria). Video of the recent alleged chlorine gas attacks starts with the White Helmet logo and continues with the logo of Nusra. In reality, White Helmets is a small rescue team for Nusra/Al Queda.

But White Helmets primary function is propaganda. White Helmets demonizes the Assad government and encourages direct foreign intervention. A White Helmet leader wrote a recent Washington Post editorial. White Helmets are also very active on social media with presence on Twitter, Facebook etc. According to their website, to contact White Helmets email The Syria Campaign which underscores the relationship.

Nicholas Kristof/New York Times

The “White Helmets” campaign has been highly successful because of uncritical media promotion. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times was an advocate of the NATO/US attack on Libya. According to him, villagers who had been shot, injured and their homes destroyed were not bitter, they were thankful! . “Hugs from Libyans” is how he viewed it. It was, of course, nonsense, helping to pave the way in the invasion and destruction of the country.

Now Kristof is uncritically promoting the White Helmets, aiding and abetting their political and propaganda message seeking foreign intervention in Syria.

Avaaz

Avaaz is an online lobby organization founded in 2007 by Jeremy Heimans (now CEO of Purpose) and others. Start-up funding was provided by George Soros’ foundation. While Avaaz has promoted some worthy causes, they have been prominent in promoting neoliberal foreign policies in keeping with the U.S. State Department. Accordingly, they had a major disinformation campaign against Venezuela last year.

Avaaz very actively promoted a No Fly Zone in Libya. They are now very actively promoting the same for Syria.

In-depth research and exposure of Avaaz can be found here. The titles give some indication: “Faking It: Charity Communications in the Firing Line”, “Syria: Avaaz, Purpose & the Art of Selling Hate for Empire”, “Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps for Militarism”.

Avaaz justifies its call for No Fly Zone in part on White Helmets. Given the close interconnections between Avaaz and Purpose, they are surely aware that White Helmets is a media creation. This calls into question their sincerity.

Conclusion

The manipulators rely on emotional images and messages, not facts. They depend on willing partners in the mainstream media who amplify the easy and glib characterizations of who and what is good and bad. The manipulators depend on their audience not asking questions or investigating on their own. In these times of rapid spread of visual and text information via social media, the potential for deceit is huge.

Snapshots

Avaaz Petition for Libya No Fly Zone — 2011

Avaaz Petition for Syria No Fly Zone — 2015 (Syria Campaign Posting)

Kristoff/New York Times/2011

Kristoff/New York Times/2015

The Real White Helmet Purpose: Propaganda

Rick Sterling is a retired aerospace engineer who now does research/writing on international issues. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com. Read other articles by Rick.

This article was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2015 at 10:56pm and is filed under Disinformation, Libya, Media, Mercenaries, Propaganda, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Social media, Syria, Turkey, Weaponry.

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The White Helmets - al Qaeda with a facelift
Published on 29 Apr 2016

'The White Helmets', fake 'Syrian humanitarian group, exposed as an al Qaeda support group headed by a British military man and funded by the US Government. Short documentary by Steve Ezzedine, drawing on research by Vanessa Beeley.

http://<iframe width="560" height="...I4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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So, with millions in hard cash and equipment being invested into the White Helmets by US & UK donors who have a very clear regime change objective in Syria, it becomes increasingly difficult to perceive their role as anything other than donor-biased propaganda merchants and a 'humanitarian' extension of a clandestine terror operation allied to the NATO proxy armies in the region.

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In 2014, James Le Mesurier founded Mayday Rescue as a registered foundation in the Netherlands, through which international funding is now directed. Mayday Rescue has offices in Amsterdam, Dubai, Jordan and Turkey. James Le Mesurier was awarded an OBE by the British government in June 2016 for "services to Syria Civil Defence and the protection of civilians in Syria".

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Oxajil said:

I think this bit from the article by Beeley ('Syria's White Helmets: War by way of deception') pretty much sums this organization up:

So, with millions in hard cash and equipment being invested into the White Helmets by US & UK donors who have a very clear regime change objective in Syria, it becomes increasingly difficult to perceive their role as anything other than donor-biased propaganda merchants and a 'humanitarian' extension of a clandestine terror operation allied to the NATO proxy armies in the region.

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According to the Wiki page about the White Helmets, the founder of Mayday Rescue foundation that funds the White Helmets, received an award called the 'Order of the British Empire'. "British nationals, or anyone who has made a significant achievement for the United Kingdom" can receive this award apparently. Which makes it even more clear what kind of role the UK plays in Syria...

In 2014, James Le Mesurier founded Mayday Rescue as a registered foundation in the Netherlands, through which international funding is now directed. Mayday Rescue has offices in Amsterdam, Dubai, Jordan and Turkey. James Le Mesurier was awarded an OBE by the British government in June 2016 for "services to Syria Civil Defence and the protection of civilians in Syria".

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Partially funded by George Soros, Human Rights Watch has repeatedly shilled for NATO and America’s imperialist aims, particularly in Syria.

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The REAL Syria Civil Defence expose NATO's 'White Helmets' as terrorist-linked imposters

Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 21:26 UTC

"I am a director not only of a Syrian Civil Defence Unit, but of brave human beings, volunteers who risk their lives, despite the terrorism that is invading Syria, to maintain security for Syria. I give thanks from my heart for the courage of my men who have lost their comrades in terrorist attacks but they keep working despite the risks. They are true soldiers, their equipment and their spirit are their only weapons"
~ Director of Tartous' REAL Syria Civil Defence

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Did I hear a pin drop? The real Syria Civil Defence? Are the west's iconized 'White Helmets' not the only emergency first-responders inside Syria?

For the REAL Syria Civil Defence you call 113 inside Syria. There is no public number for the White Helmets. Why not? Why does this multi-million dollar US & NATO state-funded first responder 'NGO,' with state of the art equipment supplied by the US and the EU via Turkey, have no central number for civilians to call when the "bombs fall"?

Before we introduce the real Syria Civil Defence, who are Syria's real ICDO certified civil fire and rescue organization, let's first take a closer look at the imposters; terrorists in white hats, and agents of war - NATO's pseudo 'NGO' construct, embedded exclusively in terrorist-held parts of Syria...

We're told that the White Helmets routinely scale the walls of collapsed buildings and scrambling over smouldering rubble of bombed out buildings to dig a child out with their bare hands. Of course, never without a sizeable camera crew and mobile phone carrying entourage in tow.

Screenshot from one of the multitude of NATO’s White Helmets promotional videos, as per usual – with fans and camera crew in attendance.
So who, and what exactly are the White Helmets?

"Founded in 2013, the White Helmets, officially called the Syria Civil Defense, are often the only emergency first-responders available in rebel-held areas of Syria and claim to have saved more than 58,000 lives." ~ The Slate

© Netflix promotional documentary
White Helmets ‘Team’ Photo: Screenshot from recent Soros funded, Netflix promotional documentary.

The western media mythology goes as follows:

"They are made up of former bakers, builders, taxi drivers, students, teachers, pretty much anything apart from rescue workers," according to the much repeated phrase used by their British ex-military, USAR (Urban Search & Rescue) trainer, James Le Mesurier who specialises in outsourcing warfare - the kind of private security operations exemplified by the likes of Blackwater (now known as Academi) and DynCorp, and other well-known global suppliers of mercenaries and CIA outreach assassination experts.

"Running operations through Blackwater gave the CIA the power to have people abducted, or killed, with no one in the government being exactly responsible." ~ The Atlantic, 2012

White Helmets founder Le Mesurier, who graduated from Britain's elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, is said to be an 'ex' British military intelligence officer involved in a number of other NATO 'humanitarian intervention' theaters of war, including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, as well as postings in Lebanon and Palestine. He also boasts a series of high-profile posts at the UN, EU, and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Not to mention his connections back to the infamous Blackwater (Academi).

© UK Column

The White Helmet network showing primary funding sources and James Le Mesurier connections back to deep state.
The streaming giant, Netflix, recently launched the documentary meant to elevate the White Helmets to a Hollywood level of Madison Avenue-styled demagoguery. As an interesting aside: a major shareholder in Netflix just happens to be the Capital Research Global Investors who hosts a number luminaries of the military industrial complex on its books including Lockheed Martin and Boeing. In 2015, George Soros, billionaire, criminal hedge-fund manager, bought up 317,534 shares in Netflix said to be worth $32.79m. Curiously in 2016 Soros, dissolved those shares.

For further information on the George Soros role as the anti-Syria NGO impresario read 21WIRE article: George Soros: Anti-Syria Campaign Impresario

© Cory Morningstar of WrongKindofGreen
Variation on the Netflix promotional poster for the NATO White Helmet documentary.


Later, in Part III of this article, we will go into depth concerning the recent awards, including an objectionable nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, that have been bestowed upon this group of US, UK, EU backed fifth columnists, or as they would have you believe, "first-responders."

With over $60 million in their back pocket courtesy of USAID, the UK Foreign Office and various EU nations like the Netherlands, this group is possibly one of the most feted and funded entities within the west's anti-Syrian NGO complex, a pivotal part of the clandestine shadow state building enterprise inside of Syria.

Like many other 'NGOs', the White Helmets have been deployed by the west to derail the Syrian state, first by undermining existing civic structures and by disseminating staged PR to facilitate regime change propaganda, through western and Gulf state media outlets. Despite the fact that they were started, and are still generously funded by NATO members states, particularly from the US and UK, the White Helmets' official statement still claims categorically that they are somehow "fiercely independent" and "have accepted no money from governments, corporations or anyone directly involved in the Syrian conflict". This is both farcical and deeply misleading.

They claim they are not "tied to any political group in Syria, or anywhere else", yet they are embedded with Al Nusra Front, ISIS and affiliated with the majority of US allied terrorist brigades infesting Syria. In fact during my recent trip to Syria, I was once again struck by the response from the majority of Syrians when asked if they knew who the White Helmets were. The majority had never heard of them, others who follow western media noted that they are a "NATO construct being used to infiltrate Syria as a major player in the terrorist support network."

For further details on the White Helmets and their role in supporting US & NATO state-sponsored terrorism in Syria please refer to the compilation of articles contained in the 21WIRE article: WHO ARE SYRIA'S WHITE HELMETS?

The REAL Syria Civil Defence
Let us now focus upon the very real heroes inside Syria, the real Syria Civil Defence that have been usurped by the NATO mountebank White Helmets who also call themselves the "Syria Civil Defence" - a mere simulacra of the REAL Syria Civil Defence who have been saving lives in Syria, and further afield for decades.

The REAL Syria Civil Defence was established as an organization, in 1953, some 63 years before the White Helmets were a glimmer in the eyes of CIA and MI6 operatives.

The REAL Syria Civil Defence is a founding member of the ICDO (International Civil Defence Organisation). Other ICDO partners include the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Secretarian of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations of Geneva (UNOG), Red Cross and the Red Crescent.

To our knowledge and according to the Head Quarters of the REAL Syria Civil Defence in Damascus, the White Helmets are NOT a member of the ICDO. The REAL Syria White Helmets have received awards for their participation in the training of other member states in USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) and for their contributions to the Civil Defence community, prior to the NATO dirty war on Syria that began in earnest, in 2011.

Later in Part II, we will go into further detail regarding this affiliation with the ICDO and the role the REAL Syria Civil Defence has played in global civil defence developments for the last 63 years - which is tremendous, and something the White Helmets could never lay claim to in reality, despite all the superficial accolades being rained down upon them by the US and NATO fueled organizations, foundations and cosmetic award bodies.

This is an introduction to the unsung heroes who, unlike the counterfeit White Helmet, do truly risk their lives every day, working not only in government controlled areas, but forging deep into terrorist strongholds to rescue civilians living under the brutal US-NATO-backed terrorist siege and occupation that engulfs all of Syria.

When Syrian civilians are at risk, injured, or buried under the rubble of homes, schools and hospitals destroyed by terrorist mortar showers, it's not Le Mesurier's White Helmets who rush to their aid - it's the REAL Syria Civil Defence, a real civic organization who, up until the publication of this article, have never been mentioned by any western media outlets.

© Vanessa Beeley August 15, 2016
The REAL Syria Civil Defence, stationed in Syrian government held West Aleppo.
The REAL Syria Civil Defence: Aleppo

My first stop on my investigation to discover the REAL Syria Civil Defence units in as many Syrian governorates as I could during my time in Syria, was Aleppo. I focused on those units that were in closest proximity to the terrorist held areas of Syria, particularly, Aleppo and Idlib. Damascus which is the home and headquarters of the REAL Syrian Civil Defence was my last port of call, and is surrounded on two sides by Jaish Al Islam, another US-NATO protected terrorist clique.

Because of the the encroachment of the US Coalition terrorist entities, Aleppo city has been carved into two cities with the major occupier of the eastern portion being the universally feared Al Nusra Front. Spurious attempts by the US to rebrand this organisation as a lesser evil in an attempt to separate them from their Al Qaeda affiliation, have failed. People in Syria from all walks of life refuse to accept any differentiation between the titles accorded the terrorist brigades, insisting there is no difference in the way they all kill, maim, torture, rape, behead and destroy at the behest of their paymasters and controllers in the US, NATO states, Turkey, Gulf States and yes, Israel.

© Vanessa Beeley August 14, 2016
Decimated areas of Sheikh Maqsoud, the northernmost, Kurdish held, entry point into the government held West Aleppo.

For further information about the real situation in Aleppo, my journey to this terrorist besieged city and the debunking of the fictional US-NATO narrative, please read Part I of my article published at Mint Press: Journey to Aleppo: Exposing the Truth Buried under NATO Propaganda.

On the 15th of August, I entered the work yard of Aleppo's REAL Syria Civil Defence and was greeted by an exhausted team of about fifteen crew-members. That morning from 11am until around 3 pm, just before our visit, they had been fighting a fire in a cement and plastics factory which had been ignited by Al Nusra Front mortar fire.

They were understandably wary, but they still gathered around us (my colleague and independent journalist, Eva Bartlett and our translator) in the searing arid summer heat. Over the course of this 5 years and 6 months of this dirty war against Syria, not one western media journalist had ever asked to speak to them.

This extraordinary omission and failure to follow the most rudimentary journalist text book rules by the western media is staggering, but hardly surprising considering the level of spin and propaganda employed daily by the likes of the BBC, CNN, FOX News, The Guardian, New York Times, and Washington Post. Sadly, western media lap dogs end up simply wagging their tails to their masters voice and turning somersaults with the truth to merit reward.

Unfortunately for the Syrian people, western pundits have only reported on crucial and pivotal events in the war on Syria based largely on 'evidence' supplied by the US-UK-NATO construct, the White Helmets, who are ensconsed only in Al Nusra Front aka Al Qaeda and ISIS held areas.

As a result of western media outlets not bothering to make contact with the volunteer Syrians in the REAL Syria Civil Defence, western audiences never received a balanced view of the situation. Instead, western media only disseminates what amounts to a biased, one-sided view which mirrors anti-Syrian state and Syrian Arab Army rhetoric issued by the US State Dept and British Foreign Office.

I explained in detail, why I had come to talk with them, that my objective was to find out who were the real heroes inside Syria working tirelessly for their people who are being collectively punished by the baseless US-EU sanctions that impact hardest upon the Syrian people.

Aleppo's REAL Syria Civil Defence informed us there are 150 volunteers working across all units in Aleppo, the headquarters are in the Hamadaniya area which is one of the most severely targeted civilian areas, by Al Nusra Front Hell Cannon mortar fire and explosive bullets. The volunteers ages range between 25-45 years old, and the minimum age for training is 18.

All members of the crew were genuine volunteers. They spoke proudly of the intensive training process they undergo before they can be accepted into the unit. They are fully trained in urban search and rescue techniques (USAR). They are also fully qualified paramedics.

A glance around their yard revealed that their equipment is tired and worn. The fire trucks were gleaming in the sun but showed signs of heavy use. Tattered jackets hung from the fenders and wing mirrors of the trucks and a Syrian flag had been draped across the radiator of one truck, perhaps in honour of our visit.

© Vanessa Beeley August 15, 2016
West Aleppo REAL Syria Civil Defence unit.

I was told immediately, that I would not be able to photograph the crew themselves or to use their names. Aleppo is a city under siege, not by "Assad and his army", as the western media would have you believe, but by an assortment of up to 22 different terror brigades many of whom are armed, funded, and trained by the US, UK, France, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, to name only a few of the west's 'coalition.' The REAL Syria Civil Defence crew-members are under constant threat of being targeted by any one of these terrorist brigades - including the White Helmets, as they later explained to us.

Chemical Attacks

MODERATE WEAPONS: ‘Rebel’ Terrorists in East Aleppo shell civilians indiscriminately with their crude munitions, and then blame it on “The Regime” via misleading social media imagery.

The crew told us about a call out they had responded to on the 2nd August. There had been a terrorist Hell Cannon attack on the Old City of Aleppo, which lies right on the border with the Al Nusra front lines and is a regular target for their indiscriminate attacks. Terrorist Hell Cannons use an assortment of containers - gas canisters, water heater tanks packed full of explosives, glass, metal and any other limb-shredding materials.

As the crew entered the area, they said there was a pungent smell in the air that suggested the use of a toxic gas by Nusra Front, possibly chlorine. The concentrations were so high that they immediately experienced breathing difficulties and their flimsy paper oxygen masks were not sufficient to prevent the devastating effects of inhalation.

One of the crew, 36 year old Mohammed Ahmed Eibbish, succumbed to the fumes and eventually died while trying to rescue one of the 25 affected civilians. Both civilians and crew suffered with dizziness, nausea, burns on their body, spasms and respiratory difficulties. Four civilians died that day too, all women. This attack and many others like it, are being intentionally ignored by the western media agencies, politicians and partisan UN officials, desperate to attribute any such attacks to the Syrian government and its national army.

A very salient fact so often mislaid in the stampede to produce lies, is that the only chemical factory in Aleppo (producing chlorine among other substances) was actually captured by the Al Nusra Front coalition in 2012. It is located about 10km east of Aleppo's airport on the road towards Raqqa.

"The chemicals factory was taken over by Nusra Front and allies three years ago, they emptied everything out of it including potential ingredients for use in chemical weapon attacks. Part of the facility was shipped to Iraq. They destroyed the factory completely." ~ Voice from Aleppo

© Press TV article
Painful skin blisters caused by an ISIS chemical weapon attack in Northern Aleppo 17/9/2016.

The crew told us that the worst injuries they have ever witnessed, are children who have been hit by the terrorist Hell Cannon mortars. Their little bodies are eviscerated and literally torn apart. At least 54 children had been killed and many others maimed by the Hell Cannon attacks in a two-week period alone, between the July 31st and August 14th. These figures were provided by the Aleppo Medical Association during our time in West Aleppo. In total, 143 civilians, 23 women, 54 children and 66 men, were killed by US-backed "rebels" occupying East Aleppo.

© Vanessa Beeley August 15, 2016
Aleppo REAL Syria Civil Defence Fire Engine parked in their yard.

The West Aleppo crew is forced to attend missions without the standard issue equipment and to deal with situations like chemical weapons attacks with only the ineffectual paper breathing masks. This is another result of the EU-US sanctions being enforced against Syria, and effectively against the Syrian people. The REAL Syria Civil Defence is unable to replace equipment or replenish supplies, unlike the NATO White Helmets who enjoy an endless stream of kit and replacement materials via the Turkey supply chain that has remained unbroken for much of the four years that Aleppo has been under terrorist siege.

© screenshot from White Helmet promotional video
US EQUIPPED: White Helmets showing off their brand new equipment in Idlib (on borders with Turkey) supplied by US Equipment company, Bobcat.

The White Helmets: Criminals, Kidnappers and Killers

When we got on to the subject of NATO's White Helmets, the West Aleppo REAL Syrian Civil Defence crew became animated. One of them, stepped forward and began to talk excitedly to our translator. He had been stationed in East Aleppo at a REAL Syrian Civil Defence unit based in an area that has since been overrun by Al Nusra Front and their associate terrorist gangs.

Again, we are unable, as we have said, to provide names of the men we spoke with. They are prime targets for the Al Nusra Front and company in East Aleppo. This crew member, lets call him 'Khaled,' described what happened when the terrorists (western media still call them "opposition" or "moderate rebels") started to invade East Aleppo in 2012.

"They came in and they drove us out of our homes and they came to the Syria Civil Defence yard and they killed some of my comrades, they kidnapped others. They wanted to force me to work with them. I escaped at night. I was forced to leave my teenage sons behind. They burned my house to the ground and they put my name on all the terrorist checkpoints so if I go back, they will kill me."

Khaled went on to explain how those men who later became the White Helmets were among this first wave of terrorists:

"They are terrorists, not rescuers. They stole our ambulances and three of our fire engines. They don't do any rescue work. They drive round with guns in the back of their car like any other terrorist. Some are from East Aleppo, some are from Syria but not from Aleppo and some are even coming in from abroad."

Granted, this might come as a shock to anyone who has already bought into the public relations image of the group that's already been developed over three years by various agencies in New York, Washington DC and London, but these are the real accounts regarding what one might say is the true unmasked nature of the west's White Helmets.

At this point other crew members interjected and told me that they had watched the White Helmet "rescue" videos.

"They are fake. They don't carry out any correct procedures, either as paramedics or as search and rescue experts.


They described how the White Helmets use a heavy-duty power drill to dig down for civilians buried under the rubble of homes allegedly targeted by "Syrian or Russian airstrikes."

"It's the wrong equipment to use. It is not sensitive enough and because it vibrates powerfully, it can displace the rubble which is dangerous if anyone is genuinely buried beneath it."

They went on to describe other aspects of the White Helmet videos that they believe contravene all standard procedures that are followed by genuine search and rescue experts, paramedics and first responders.

In the following very recent video made by a White Helmet camera crew, men pretending to be genuine rescuers attack an area of rubble where they seem to know where a body is buried. They start with a mint condition JCB digger, which attacks the heap of rubble with gusto. Then, alarmingly, they begin to pound the rubble with a heavy duty mallet without employing any devices to actually determine where the body is located, under the impenetrable concrete blocks. Finally, the JCB digger returns to the mound of rubble and enters the teeth of its bucket into the rubble without any hesitation, surely not standard procedure if there is a chance of a body being under the debris.


Miraculously, as with all White Helmet videos, they seem to find exactly where the bodies are, despite having displaced the majority of the rubble in the process. They also, miraculously, avoided staving in the first body's head with the mallet. There is no intention to downplay or belittle the deaths that have obviously occurred but we do ask the questions:

1. How did the White Helmets know the bodies would be exactly where they found them?

2. Where is this rescue being filmed?

3. "Activists", "citizen journalists", the White Helmets and western media would have us believe that East Aleppo is under almost constant Russian or Syrian aerial attack yet the White Helmets make, on average, 4 or 5 films per day and we never see or hear any sign of an attack, only the "aftermath".

4. Where do these bodies come from? Are they victims of air strikes as we are told by these NATO funded "activists" and "first responders" or are they taken from among the thousands of "disappeared" that have been kidnapped by Nusra Front and other terrorist gangs in East Aleppo? Are they gruesome props being used inhumanely, to polish the image of this faux NGO embedded in East Aleppo, HQ for Al Nusra Front.

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I would not ask these questions without good cause and that cause was given to me by the crew members of the REAL Syria Civil Defence, in West Aleppo, some of whom were driven from their homes in East Aleppo and whose families, left behind, remain under threat, while they are unable to return, for fear of being assassinated by the Al Nusra terrorists and their associates the White Helmets.

A further cause for this question is the previous proven use of props and crisis actors by the BBC (just one example) in one of their most dubious reports on Syria, Panorama's piece entitled, "Saving Syria's Children". Robert Stuart's quite brilliant investigation into this chilling charade revealed some very disturbing evidence of the lengths to which, the mainstream media are prepared to go, to produce the propaganda required to execute yet another war on false pretenses. Propaganda that best serves the NATO and US intelligence agencies who continue toiling away to facilitate regime change and a 'No Fly Zone.'

"Why do you do it?" I asked an obvious question of the REAL Syria Civil Defence, essentially, volunteers who survive on a paltry government salary or public donations, who work with dilapidated equipment, under terrorist, indiscriminate, shell, mortar and explosive bullet fire, and with no recognition for the heroic work they do from western media or 'humanitarian' NGOs.

"It is humanitarian work for our country. We were there in the good times, and we are here when the times are bad and we are needed most. It's our duty"

No emotive, Manhattan based PR agency #hashtag headlines for these firefighters and life savers. Instead, we get simple words to convey a simple message. They told me they often work 24 hour shifts, without sleep. One man sat on the wall behind me told me he had broken both legs falling from a collapsing building after terrorists had shelled the area. Another showed me that he had lost an eye in a Hell Cannon mortar attack. In the background, their uniforms billowed on the washing line ready for the next shout.

© Vanessa Beeley August 15, 2016
The badge of honour, the REAL Syria Civil Defence badge sewn on to the sleeves of the uniforms in West Aleppo.

My final question to the REAL Syria Civil Defence in West Aleppo, was to ask them for their message to the outside world. The world that is unaware they even exist, many of whom are blinded by the propaganda glare that surrounds the White Helmet media circus. They responded thus:

1. Please lift the sanctions so we can keep working and saving lives.

2. Stop the terrorists from entering Syria, and stop funding and arming them.

3. If terrorists keep entering Syria, eventually it will affect the world, not just Syria. There has been enough bloodshed. It needs to stop now.

© Vanessa Beeley August 15, 2016
The staple equipment of fire crews and first responders. Visit to the West Aleppo REAL Syria Civil Defence.
The REAL Aleppo Medical Association

One of the other meetings we had during our time in Aleppo, was with the Aleppo Medical Association. We met with the Director, Dr Zahar Buttal and Dr Bassem Hayak, who is in charge of the medical teams assessing refugees from East Aleppo who fled to West Aleppo via the Russian and Syrian state humanitarian corridors, created on the 29th July, which have allowed over 2000 people to escape the terrorist strongholds to safety, food and medical care in government-protected West Aleppo. These figures were given to us by the Aleppo Medical Association on the 15th August 2016.

One of the questions I asked Dr Hayak, who spoke good English, was what he knew of the White Helmets. His response was concise and without preamble. His family is still in East Aleppo and although he has not been able to get back into East Aleppo for the last year, his family have told him that the White Helmets are not known in East Aleppo. I asked again to be sure, and was told again, people, civilians do not know of the White Helmets in East Aleppo. Any actual first response work is carried out by foreign workers from various countries, Pakistan and the Gulf region among them. These foreigners work with Syrian people who are not properly trained in first response. They might only receive 2 or 3 months training before being allowed to work.

Dr Hayak says, "Even with our relationship with WHO (World Health Organization) and the UN, we still didn't hear about the White Helmets."

Are the White Helmets, NATO ghosts?

Dr Hayak also states quite clearly, he has a cousin, working as a surgeon in East Aleppo. ISIS and other terrorist factions have forced her to stay in East Aleppo by threatening to kill her family, should she leave for West Aleppo.

Dr Hayak also said that the majority of civilians in East Aleppo are "hostages"of the NATO/US allied terrorists.

In East Aleppo, civilians living under Al Nusra Front occupation, do not know the White Helmets. Watch:


It is not unreasonable to speculate that the White Helmets are not first responders at all, except when required to don the white hats for a staged photo or promotional video, or to produce western news propaganda for the likes of CNN or the BBC, courtesy of their ever-present film and media crew.

It is not unreasonable, based upon the statements given by eminent members of the Aleppo medical fraternity and crew members of the REAL Syria Civil Defence in Aleppo, to draw the conclusion that the White Helmets are nothing more than common terrorists, being paid to present themselves as respectable first responders when the need arises for "reports from inside Aleppo" or elsewhere in Syria.

Later, in Part II of this story, we will travel to the northwest Syria regions of Lattakia and Tartousand speak toREAL Syria Civil Defence units there, before finally visiting the Syria Civil Defence Headquarters in Damascus, right in the heart of Jaish Al Islam, terrorist strongholds in Jobar and the surrounding suburbs of Damascus.

Every one of these units has a tale to tell about NATO's White Helmets and each tale is a further nail in the coffin of the west's multi-million dollar White Helmet mythology - nails which can't be extracted by any number of NATO sponsored prizes, awards or accolades.

In the end, the REAL Syria Civil Defence will be recognized as extraordinary "ordinary" human beings who deserve the title "Hero" and whose service to their people and their country will be applauded by all those who are not taken in by the by the obscene parody of terrorists dressed-up as saviours and saints.

The REAL "saints" do indeed come marching in....

© Lattakia Fire Brigade FB page
The REAL Syria Civil Defence, Lattakia, next stop on the tour of the true heroes inside Syria.

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The backlash against this move by the New Democratic Party has caused a few tidal waves. The following is an open letter written by John Ryan, Ph.D., Retired Professor of Geography and Senior Scholar at the University of Winnipeg.

Dear Mr. Cullen,

Since it was you who made the public presentation regarding the NDP’s position on this matter, I am writing directly to you but please forward this letter to all NDP MPs since they have unanimously endorsed this highly questionable proposition.

I am writing to alert you that the NDP has made a very serious mistake in recommending to the federal government that Canada should nominate the White Helmets for the Nobel Peace Prize. To some extent your error may be understandable in light of the fact that a commentator has recently said, “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press.”

Nevertheless, instead of simply relying on the mainstream media for information on this issue, you should have assigned someone to do in depth research on what the White Helmets entity really is. This is a complicated matter, and my research on this has resulted in a rather lengthy letter, but it’s critically important for you to know what is involved.

My research shows that the White Helmets do not operate in all of Syria but solely in Al Qaeda and other terrorist occupied parts of Syria. The question arises that if the White Helmets are supposedly not affiliated with any political party and that they are devoted to saving the lives of Syrian people wherever they are, how is it that they are found only in Al Qaeda and Al Nusra occupied parts of Syria, especially in the terrorist-occupied sections of Aleppo?

When these terrorist groups shell and bomb Syrian government controlled areas, how is it that there are no While Helmets to help the people in these areas? After all, it is the terrorists who are responsible for the bulk of the casualties.

For years the Syrian army has been trying to defeat and oust the Al Qaeda and Al Nusra forces from areas they had conquered since 2011. By being in these zones the White Helmets probably do save lives in the course of these battles. However, a case can be made that they are there primarily to be of propagandistic assistance to the terrorist groups that are trying to overthrow the legally elected secular Syrian government and replace it with a tyrannical Wahhabi religious regime. As such, this is a group that is hardly worthy of being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The reasons for the devastating war in Syria are well presented in an article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – a personage who could hardly be accused of being an Assad apologist. The following are several excerpts:

“While the compliant American press parrots the narrative that our military support for the Syrian insurgency is purely humanitarian, many Arabs see the present crisis as just another proxy war over pipelines and geopolitics. Before rushing deeper into the conflagration, it would be wise for us to consider the abundant facts supporting that perspective.

In their view, our war against Bashar Assad did not begin with the peaceful civil protests of the Arab Spring in 2011. Instead it began in 2000, when Qatar proposed to construct a $10 billion, 1,500 kilometer pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. . . . Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link.

In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria. It is important to note that this was well before the Arab Spring-engendered uprising against Assad. . . . Not coincidentally, the regions of Syria occupied by the Islamic State exactly encompass the proposed route of the Qatari pipeline. . . . And only when we see this conflict as a proxy war over a pipeline do events become comprehensible…… Qatar, which had the most to gain, invested $3 billion in building the insurgency and invited the Pentagon to train insurgents at U.S. bases in Qatar…… As predicted, Assad’s overreaction to the foreign-made crisis polarized Syria’s Shiite/Sunni divide and allowed U.S. policymakers to sell Americans the idea that the pipeline struggle was a humanitarian war.”

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Obviously, it is the USA that fomented and engineered the war in Syria. Doing this had nothing to do with “human rights and freedom”… it had everything to do with oil and natural gas policies that Syria had the audacity to oppose.

The Syrian war has been raging since 2011, leading to the deaths of an estimated 400,000 people, according to UN estimates. As Kennedy pointed out in his article, the conflict began when the US-backed opposition started an armed rebellion against President Assad’s government. Although this is regularly portrayed as a “civil war,” it is nothing of the kind. The US State Department has recently admitted that “an excess of 40,000 total foreign fighters have gone to the conflict [in Syria] from over 100 countries. The war has been funded by billions of dollars, primarily by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and indirectly by the USA through its on-going CIA operations that provide military training and the latest weapons, including artillery and anti-tank guns.

A new report citing former CIA officers has revealed that the CIA was knowingly providing weapons, including tow missiles to fighters that were effectively part of al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, continuing to arm “moderates” so long as they at least nominally kept their moderate names. As the war continued, these so-called “moderates” were defecting en masse to al-Nusra and other al-Qaeda forces. But so long as they retained their “Free Syrian Army” name the CIA could feign arming “moderates” – they didn’t care so long as they were arming a group that was fighting against the Syrian government. A Green Beret associated with the CIA programs has recently stated, “No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort, and they know we are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘Fuck it, who cares?’”

Contrary to the myth of the ‘moderate rebel’, they all operate basically as terrorists and these groups most often work together. For example, a top US-backed leader of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, is quite open about the fact that he works closely with ISIL-Daesh. The FSA has worked closely with the other main Al Qaeda group, Jabhat al Nusra, right from the very beginning.

So where do the White Helmets fit into this scenario? Our media portrays them as a group of Syrians volunteering as emergency first responders who scour through rubble in Syria after bombings to find survivors. They claim to be not affiliated with any political party and describe themselves as “neutral, impartial and humanitarian.” But if that is so, how is it that they do not operate anywhere in Syria except in areas held by Al Qaida forces, primarily in the Al Nusra occupied areas?

The media openly admits that they “respond in the aftermath of Syrian government aerial bombings.” So where would this be other than in rebel/terrorist-occupied parts of Syria that the Syrian army is trying to recapture? If that is the case, how can be they claim to be “neutral, impartial and humanitarian” when they operate only in their so-called “liberated areas”?

It is a myth, and actually a lie, that somehow all on their own Syrian civilians such as construction workers, blacksmiths, bakers, tailors, painters, students, teachers, voluntarily came together, in the thousands, to form the White Helmet brigades. They are portrayed as a “non-governmental” organization, i.e., an NGO, but it is on record that so far they have received $23 million from the US Government, $29 million (£19.7 million) from the UK Government, and $4.5 million (€4 million) from the Dutch Government.

In addition, they receive material assistance and training, funded and run by a variety of other EU nations. This totals at least $60 million, so the White Helmets are not some poor unorganized locally based charity group. And are we to believe that all this money is used to just “scour through rubble” to try to rescue civilians in shelled and bombed war zones? How could all this money be used just for this purpose? There has to be something more to this.

Given this, how can the White Helmets be called an ‘independent relief organization’ when it is being funded by the US and other countries that directly and indirectly are involved in the military over-throw of Syria’s government?

Since the USA, the UK and their allies have had a long-standing objective to overthrow the Syrian government, with the cry “Assad must go!”, all this money that has been poured into White Helmets isn’t just to save the lives of “innocent civilians” in war zones – it appears that its primary purpose has been to further undermine Syria’s government and to create propaganda that supports military intervention by the U.S. and its allies.

In line with this, the White Helmets systematically ignore the atrocities carried out by Al Nusra and other Al Qaeda groups, but instead proceed to create media-friendly images of victims of the Syrian Army’s bombing of rebel-held areas. Considering the beheadings, torture and multiple other atrocities committed by these groups, it is hardly surprising that the Syrian Army, in the course of its campaign to defeat them, regularly bombs them.

The White Helmets, originally called “Syrian Civil Defence”, is an organization that was not created in Syria and nor has it been designed for the Syrian public at large – they operate solely in rebel/terrorist occupied parts of Syria. It was created by the UK and USA in March of 2013. Civilians from rebel/terrorist controlled territory were paid to go to Turkey to receive some training in rescue operations. The program was headed by James Le Mesurier, a former British military officer and private contractor whose company is based in Dubai. The source of the $300,000 original seed funding is uncertain, but, as cited above, millions came in afterwards with open acknowledgements from the USA, UK and Holland.

In the first source cited above, a senior US State Department official has stated that their funding of this project “enables Syrian civilians to do something tangible in the face of the regime’s atrocities . . . in liberated areas of Syria.” Note that the reference is to “the regime’s atrocities . . . in liberated areas of Syria.” Hence, in line with US foreign policy, there is no mention of terrorist atrocities committed against the Syrian population and why the Syrian army is trying to recapture these so-called “liberated areas.” Moreover, what this reveals is that the USA’s sizeable funding of the White Helmets in “liberated areas” is somehow connected to its campaign that “Assad must go.”

If the White Helmets devoted their activities solely to save the lives of people caught up in war zones, that would be commendable and beyond reproach, but that is not the case. A major part of their activities are devoted to media reports and public relations, and it seems that this is what accounts for a major part of their funding – and it appears that this is the primary reason for their creation.

Central to their media campaign is the demonization of the Assad government – they paint the Syrian President and the Syrian Army as monsters slaughtering civilians, especially children; yet, when tracked back, all the stories come from utterly partisan sources. Combined with this is their appeal for a No Fly Zone and direct foreign intervention – just recall how well this turned out in Libya. Almost immediately after the White Helmets were formed they became very active on social media with presence on Twitter, Facebook, and editorials in high profile newspapers. For example, in March of 2015 a White Helmet leader wrote a Washington Post editorial, concluding with the request for “a no-fly zone, if necessary.”

This highly questionable barrage of consistently defamatory material is nothing more than outright propaganda.

The White Helmets is clearly a public relations project which has received glowing publicity from HuffPo to Nicholas Kristof at the NYT. White Helmets have been heavily promoted by the U.S. Institute of Peace (U.S.IP) whose leader began a press conference by declaring “U.S.IP has been working for the Syrian Revolution from the beginning”.

To be blunt about this, it appears that the White Helmets use search and rescue activities as a cover-up to demonize Syrian President Assad and help terrorists overthrow the Syrian government.

The claims regarding the number of people trained by the White Helmets (3,000) and the number of people rescued (60,000) are questionable. The numbers are probably highly exaggerated especially since rebel-controlled territories have few civilians. For example, almost 90% of Aleppo’s population is in government controlled area, whereas eastern Aleppo, occupied by Al Nusra, used to have a million people but now it’s reported to have only about 200,000 or even much less as estimated by others. To escape Al Nusra’s mercenary fighters, the bulk of the population has been driven into safe pockets within Aleppo away from terrorist strongholds. So how is it possible for the White Helmets to have rescued 60,000 civilians when the most populous area occupied by al Nusra has only 200,000 or less?

It is the White Helmets themselves who have claimed that they have rescued 60,000 civilians; this has not been verified by any other source. Despite such a classic conflict of interest, searching for independent evidence and disqualifying self-serving claims from belligerent parties in Syria has been ignored in much of the western media. As such, this claim by the White Helmets without any verification is next to meaningless.

There are other troubling aspects regarding the White Helmets. Although it was the US and the UK that were behind the creation of this organization (apparently primarily for propaganda purposes), it is revealing that on April 19, 2016, the US State Department had blocked entrance into the United States by Raed Saleh, the head of the White Helmets, and refused to say why, although it’s apparently because the FBI had placed him onto its no-fly list as a known terrorist. There was considerable consternation about this in the US media, but there is no denying that this happened.

A further disturbing aspect is the revelation of an Al Nusra video in which one of their members in Aleppo executes a civilian on May 5, 2015. Moments after the execution, several White Helmets appear on the scene to remove the body in a body bag. Afterwards the White Helmets had to respond to valid accusations of collusion, which they denied but it does show some type of symbiosis between the White Helmets and the “rebel” terrorist operatives. Shortly afterwards the video was deleted by YouTube. However, it was somehow saved and can be viewed on this site: An account of this has been presented by British journalist Vanessa Beeley in which she included four photos from the Al Nusra video, showing the execution and members of the White Helmets picking up the body.

In addition to this, Vanessa Beeley has provided further information on the White Helmets and includes several other informative videos. See: Who are Syria’s White Helmets

On their official website the White Helmets claim that they “have risked sniper fire to rescue SAA [Syrian Arab Army] bodies to give them a proper burial.” Contrary to this, however, one of the videos shows a senior member of the White Helmets describing the “throwing of Shabiha bodies in the trash”. Shabiha is a derogatory term used by the “rebel alliance” of Al Nusra/Al Qaeda forces for any member of the Syrian military, irrespective of whether they are Alawite, Sunni, or Shia. It is revealing how a supposed “neutral” White Helmet would use this derogatory term for dead Syrian soldiers. Another video shows several White Helmet members standing on a heap of discarded dead bodies of Syrian soldiers and giving the victory sign. And still another video shows “neutral” White Helmets once again flash the victory sign as they cart off dead Syrian Army corpses, perhaps be thrown in the trash. This display of support for the Al Nusra extremist terrorists who have just massacred these soldiers demonstrates where their true allegiances lie.

A final video shows a White Helmet referring to Al Nusra saying, “They are our role models, the best of people and we have the honour to serve them.” Surely this is a curious turn of phrase for a supposed neutral, impartial humanitarian “moderate” organization – one that is being put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize.

One could try to dismiss these comments by members of the White Helmets as not being truly indicative of the nature of this organization as such, but the fact that they have been funded by more than $60 million by the USA, other NATO countries and the Gulf states – all determined to overthrow the Syrian government – is something that cannot be dismissed. For all this money to be poured into this project shows that the White Helmets are being viewed as an important asset in the attempt to depose the secular government of the Syrian state.

The tens of thousands of Wahhabi-inspired fanatics and mercenaries from over a hundred countries who have been funded, armed, trained and directed by the USA and its allies for the purpose of destroying a secular state is not an easy sell for the general public, despite the efforts of a compliant mainstream media. Many people can see that this is a clear violation of customary international law and the UN Charter.

It was a stroke of genius, at relatively low cost, to create a seemingly innocuous NGO front group that would do “altruistic good works” but at the same time actively encourage direct foreign intervention in Syria. Hence, it appears that the primary function of the White Helmets is propaganda that encourages direct foreign intervention to depose the secular Syrian government that is actually supported by the majority of its people, as shown in the election held in June of 2014. Although the terrorists attempted to disrupt the election and it was dismissed in the USA as “fraud,” turnout was 73% of registered voters, with 88% voting for Assad. Representatives from 30 countries reported that the election was “free, fair and transparent”.

The White Helmets venture, promoted by the entire mainstream media, has been amazingly effective. The most recent effort has been the Netflix “White Helmet” documentary that premiered on September 16 at the Toronto International Film Festival. It appears to be essentially a promotion video with the “Kid rescued from rubble” as the standard shtick. After the hideous murder of British MP, Jo Cox, a special fund was established to raise money for three of her causes, one being the White Helmets. Seeing that this was done within hours of her death it seems to be a cynical and obscene exploitation of her murder to try to maintain the credibility of the White Helmets. Smart as Jo Cox was, it appears that she had been taken in by the media promotion of the White Helmets.

To show the effectiveness of the media campaign in its promotion of the White Helmets and the unjustified demonization of the Syrian government, on September 22 it was announced that the Right Livelihood Award, the so called “Alternative Nobel Prize”, is being given to the US/UK created White Helmets “for their outstanding bravery, compassion and humanitarian engagement in rescuing civilians from the destruction of the Syrian civil war.” The judges were obviously oblivious to the fact that the White Helmets only work in areas controlled by the armed opposition. They may have come to a different conclusion if they had seen this video which portrays their collaboration with Syria’s terrorists. A further comment on this matter was presented on September 23 by Rick Sterling:

“The Rights Livelihood press release says the White Helmets “remain outspoken in calling for an end to hostilities in the country.” That is false. The White Helmets actively call for US/NATO intervention through a “No Fly Zone” which would begin with attacks and destruction of anti-aircraft positions. Taking over the skies above another country is an act of war as confirmed by US General Dempsey. The White Helmets have never criticized or called for the end of funding to extremist organizations including Nusra/Al Qaeda. On the contrary, White Helmets is generally embedded with this organization which is defined as “terrorist” by even the USA. That is likely why the head of the White Helmets, Raed Saleh, was denied entry to the USA.”

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With all the evidence I have presented showing the propaganda nature of the White Helmets phenomenon, how could the NDP have decided to ask the federal government to have Canada support the nomination of the White Helmets for the Nobel Peace Prize? For the NDP to promote an organization that is supportive of terrorists in Syria and which is a creation of the CIA and American foreign policy for such an honour is scandalous.

How is it that in the past, both the NDP and the Canadian government, opposed the American war on Vietnam and the war on Iraq? Also we opposed US intervention in Cuba and the US-initiated coup in Chile. But more recently, both Canada and the NDP supported the US-NATO “no fly zone” in Libya (with disastrous consequences) and the US-inspired coup in Ukraine. And now the NDP, by backing the White Helmets for the Nobel Peace Prize, is supportive of the USA’s long-standing intervention in Syria, which is not based on humanitarian issues but on pipelines and geopolitics as pointed out in the article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

If the documentation that I have presented was to be taken seriously, how would the NDP now proceed to extricate itself from this self-inflicted White Helmets debacle? It would seem to me that the honourable and principled thing to do would be to retract its request to support the nomination of the White Helmets for the Nobel Peace Prize, and to honestly explain the reason for the retraction.

Because this is such an important matter and something that the Canadian public should be made aware of, I am taking the liberty of having this published as an “open letter to the NDP.” Moreover, I am forwarding this letter to Stéphane Dion, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, to alert him to the folly of acting on the NDP’s request regarding the While Helmets.

I write this with sadness and dismay, as I had done last fall with regard to the NDP’s election strategy.

John Ryan, Ph.D., Retired Professor of Geography and Senior Scholar

University of Winnipeg

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voyageur said:

Was glad to see a thread started for this group. In Canada, the NDP (political party) has come out in support for a Nobel Peace Prize for the WH. On September 26th, 2016, Professor John Ryan thankfully wrote an article and an open letter to the NDP and Government of Canad http://www.globalresearch.ca/canada-ndp-supporting-terrorist-linked-white-helmets-for-nobel-prize-is-a-serious-mistake/5547854

More recently, the MSN Canada wide has continued the WH Nobel Peace Prize mantra, and it does not appear to be going away - it seems to be gaining more traction - very sad indeed.

(it's a long open letter; 'bold' from original)

The backlash against this move by the New Democratic Party has caused a few tidal waves. The following is an open letter written by John Ryan, Ph.D., Retired Professor of Geography and Senior Scholar at the University of Winnipeg.

Dear Mr. Cullen,

< snip >

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Petition against giving the White Helmets a Peace Price:

For the sake of Syria, please do NOT give the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Qaeda aka the Syrian White Helmets.

The Syria Solidarity Movement

www.syriasolidaritymovement.org

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A push to nominate the White Helmets for a Peace Prize began in mid- August 2016.

The winner of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced at the beginning of October.

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Thursday 15th September 2016 — Some of the biggest names in arts and entertainment have joined leading politicians and thought leaders to support the nomination of a Syrian rescue group known as the “White Helmets” for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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The Syria Campaign

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http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic said:

The White Helmets venture, promoted by the entire mainstream media, has been amazingly effective. The most recent effort has been the Netflix “White Helmet” documentary that premiered on September 16 at the Toronto International Film Festival. It appears to be essentially a promotion video with the “Kid rescued from rubble” as the standard shtick. After the hideous murder of British MP, Jo Cox, a special fund was established to raise money for three of her causes, one being the White Helmets. Seeing that this was done within hours of her death it seems to be a cynical and obscene exploitation of her murder to try to maintain the credibility of the White Helmets. Smart as Jo Cox was, it appears that she had been taken in by the media promotion of the White Helmets.

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