[Peace-discuss] "OPCW abandoned impartiality and broke its fundamental rules for collecting evidence"

[J.B. Nicholson]

Aaron Maté wrote https://thegrayzone.com/2022/09/09/syrian-white-helmets-opcw/ and 
the following is an excerpt from that article:

> As an OPCW partner, the White Helmets carried out many of the sidelined
> scientists’ normal tasks. White Helmets members identified sampling locations;
> collected and tagged the samples; gathered video and photo evidence; and, in some
> cases, selected witnesses for interview. They then traveled to the neighboring
> Turkish border and handed material to OPCW staffers operating out of hotels. Some
> White Helmets members even claimed to be victims or witnesses of chemical attacks,
> and provided their testimony.
> 
> In enlisting the White Helmets, the OPCW pointed to the group’s claim to be a
> neutral organization that conducts rescue missions and other life-saving work. But
> from the outfit’s founding abroad to its activities on the Syrian battlefield, the
> reality was very different. Far from being impartial, the White Helmets were
> allies of – and funded by – belligerents in the Syria dirty war. And in the OPCW
> investigations in which the White Helmets participated, this overlooked conflict
> of interest shaped the outcome in their side’s favor. OPCW partners with White
> Helmets, the “hidden soldiers” of Syria’s sectarian insurgency
> 
> The White Helmets were established in Turkey by the late James Le Mesurier, a
> British military veteran, and his then-employer, the Western intelligence
> contractor Analysis, Research, and Knowledge, or ARK. With funding from the State
> Department and UK Foreign Office, ARK “branded the White Helmets and provided its
> training and equipment,” according to a 2019 report in The Intercept[1]. The US[2]
> and UK governments[3] have funded the White Helmets to the tune of $70 million
> since 2014. Millions more have flowed into its coffers from NATO and Gulf allies.
> 
> Over the same period, footage and media coverage of the White Helmets – including
> an Oscar-winning documentary – has been used to drum up Western public support[4]
> for these same states’ multi-billion dollar covert military campaign to overthrow
> the Syrian government. White Helmets leaders have even lobbied for direct Western
> military intervention[5] on the insurgents’ side.
> 
> Inside Syria, the White Helmets have cooperated with insurgent militias and
> operated exclusively in territory under their control. White Helmets members
> celebrated Al-Qaeda’s 2015 conquest[6] of Idlib province, participated openly in
> executions carried out by militants[7], and posed gleefully with the corpses of
> Syrian soldiers[8]. In 2016, an influential Al-Qaeda cleric said[9] the group is
> “no different” than Syria’s “mujahideen.” The following year, a top Al-Qaeda
> leader in Syria praised[10] the White Helmets as “hidden soldiers[11].” In 2018,
> the White Helmets collaborated[12] with the Turkish military’s ethnic cleansing
> operation in the majority-Kurdish northern Syrian city of Afrin, drawing local
> outrage[13].

[1] https://theintercept.com/2019/02/09/douma-chemical-attack-evidence-syria/
[2] https://2012-2017.usaid.gov/political-transition-initiatives/syria
[3] 
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/477177/response/1154293/attach/html/3/FOI%200400%2018%20Response.pdf.html
[4] 
https://thegrayzone.com/2016/10/02/white-helmets-us-military-intervention-regime-change-syria/
[5] 
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/world/20161202STO54435/syria-s-white-helmets-we-need-a-no-fly-zone-and-humanitarian-corridors
[6] 
https://observers.france24.com/en/20180510-syria-white-helmets-terrorists-fact-fiction-islamic-state
[7] https://thegrayzone.com/2017/05/23/video-white-helmets-executions-rebel-syria/
[8] 
https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/white-helmets-posing-with-dead-bodies.jpg
[9] https://twitter.com/walid970721/status/781931269013766148
[10] https://archive.ph/eiwTP
[11] https://twitter.com/walid970721/status/843789428522995712
[12] https://cpt.org/2018/10/06/open-letter-christian-peacemaker-teams-white-helmets
[13] https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/5820a186-bc70-40af-836a-7555811f145a

You aren't likely to learn about the OPCW's descent into corruption and the White 
Helmets being funded by western interests.

The White Helmets get lots of laudatory, non-critical coverage in 
establishment-serving media including Democracy Now! where coverage of the alleged 
Syrian gas attack near Douma was one of the stories that caused Maté to leave a 
10-year tenure at DN (see https://youtube.com/watch?v=DjDb-Q0-Sdg from mid-March 2022 
for more on DN!'s Syria coverage. That clip was described in the YouTube page just 
below the video as "On a recent episode of Democracy Now, host Amy Goodman opened the 
show with a video of a Ukrainian choir singing their demands for, according to 
Goodman, 'peace and a no-fly zone.' The two are mutually exclusive, of course, as a 
no-fly zone would bring NATO and Russia into direct conflict, so the possibility of 
peace AND a no-fly zone is a non-starter, as Goodman well knows.").