[Peace-discuss] The 'White Helmets' Controversy

[David Johnson]

Max Blumenthal shows how the White Helmets are funded with millions of
dollars from the British Foreign Office and $23 million from USAID.) Former
weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was one of the few voices daring to
contest President George W. Bush’s false claims about Iraq’s WMD, wrote
<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/white_helmets_inherent_contradiction_am
ericas_syria_policy_20161005> an article which challenged the White Helmets’
“lionization.”

Internationally, the Israeli TV station I24 ran a
<http://www.i24news.tv/en/tv/replay/focus-en#/focus-en/x4ua2xh> special
report with the title “White Helmets: Heroes or Hoax?” – giving equal
coverage to supporters and critics. Even “The National” out of United Arab
Emirates has
<http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/newsmaker-the-white-helmets#page2>
documented the controversy around the White Helmets.

Not surprisingly, this dissent to the mainstream media’s love affair with
the White Helmets drew return fire. The British military contractor who
initially set up the group accused critics of being “proxies” for the Syrian
and Russian governments (much as Ritter and other skeptics about the Iraqi
WMD “group think” were called “Saddam apologists” in 2003).

The controversy also has done little to chasten the Western press corps from
relying on the “White Helmets” as the go-to sources for information in
Syria’s conflict zones.

 

The ‘White Helmets’ Controversy

July 22, 2018  

FROM THE ARCHIVES: As Israel in the past few days helped evacuate 800 “White
Helmets” from Syria, en route to Britain and other Western countries, we
look back at an article published by Consortium News in Oct. 2016.

By Rick Sterling

 <https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Rick-Sterling.jpg>
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Rick-Sterling-150x150.
jpgAcross the mainstream Western media, the “White Helmets” are hailed as
heroic first responders rescuing injured civilians in rebel-controlled parts
of Syria. The U.K. Guardian and The Independent urged the Nobel Committee to
award this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the “White Helmets.” As it turned
out, they didn’t get that one, but they did receive the prestigious
<http://rightlivelihoodaward2016.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/SyriaCivilDe
fence.pdf> 2016 “Right Livelihood Award.”

On the U.S. side of the Atlantic, the “White Helmets” are treated with
similar uncritical acclaim. They were the subject of the Oct. 17 TIME
magazine
<http://time.com/magazine/us/4520901/october-17th-2016-vol-188-no-15-u-s/>
cover story. Netflix has released a special “documentary”
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wj4ncIEDxw> movie about them. (It later
won the 2017 Academy Award for Best Documentary.)  New York Times columnist
Nicholas Kristof has gushed over them for years, helping the group’s
one-sided depiction of events inside Syria shape the pro-rebel narrative
that is pretty much all the American and European publics hear about Syria.

 
<https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MS69tqLX_400x400.jpg>
The "White Helmets" symbol, expropriating the name of "Syria Civil Defense."

The “White Helmets” symbol, expropriating the name of “Syria Civil Defense.”

And, this love-fest is not just confined to establishment media.
DemocracyNow! ran a
<http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/13/the_white_helmets_as_syria_death>
puff piece interview with the White Helmet infomercial directors. The
Intercept published an
<https://theintercept.com/2016/10/01/syrias-white-helmets-risk-everything-to
-save-the-victims-of-airstrikes/> uncritical promotion of the “White
Helmets” and the group’s controversial leader.
<http://www.codepink.org/tonight_white_helmets_of_syria> Codepink
recommended the Netflix movie (though after receiving criticism about the
endorsement, the anti-war group removed it).

Yet, despite the favorable “group think” regarding the “White Helmets” – and
more broadly about the rebel cause in Syria – there is another side to the
story, including the fact that the “White Helmets” are not just some
well-meaning Syrians who emerged to help all civilians suffering from the
five years of war.

Not only do they only operate in rebel-controlled areas but they are a
source of propaganda about the war, indeed their very existence is an
element in the larger propaganda campaign to rally international support for
a “regime change” war in Syria. The “White Helmets” brand was conceived and
<https://www.purpose.com/purposes-anna-nolan-speaks-at-netroots-nation-2015/
> directed by a New York-based marketing company named “The Syria Campaign,”
which itself was “incubated” by a larger politically oriented marketing
company called Purpose.

Along with managing the online and social media promotion of the White
Helmets, the Syria Campaign has parallel efforts in support of “regime
change” in Syria. One of these efforts has been to criticize United Nations
and humanitarian relief organizations that supply aid to displaced persons
living in areas protected by the Syrian government.

“The allegations made by the Syria Campaign and others were written by
people who know nothing about the UN and how it must work,” according to
<http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/line-fire-war-un-syria/> an NGO worker
operating in Damascus.

Exaggerated Claims

Claims that the “White Helmets” have saved 65,000 people also appear to be
wildly exaggerated. The areas, served by the White Helmets and controlled by
Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and its rebel allies, have few civilians living in
them. A medical doctor visiting east Aleppo two years ago described it as a
“ghost town,” yet Western media reports cite a highly inflated estimated
population of 250,000. 

 <https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/samantha-power.jpg>
Samantha Power, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN,
addresses the Security Council meeting on Syria, Sept. 25, 2016 (UN Photo)

Samantha Power, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN,
addresses the Security Council meeting on Syria, Sept. 25, 2016 (UN Photo)

Perhaps unintentionally, the “White Helmets” and one of their video teams
confirmed this reality in producing a “
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkfcE-Drnas> cat video” when cat videos
were all the rage on social media. In an apparent bid to bring cat lovers
onto the side of “regime change” in Syria, the White Helmets’ video showed
White Helmet members playing with stray cats in empty neighborhoods, saying:
“The homeowners abandoned this district and its kittens.”

Besides promoting themselves as a humanitarian group, the White Helmets have
become essential to the propaganda war by gaining — along with similar
pro-rebel “activists” — a virtual monopoly on information from
rebel-controlled areas, supplying a steady stream of heart-rending stories
and images about suffering children to a credulous Western media wanting to
believe everything bad about the Syrian government.

One of the reasons why the “White Helmets” have been so successful in
inserting their propaganda into Western media is that most of the rebel
zones of Syria, especially east Aleppo, have been off limits to Western
journalists and other outside observers for years. Two of the last Western
reporters to venture into rebel territory, James Foley and Stephen Sotloff,
were subsequently beheaded by the Islamic State.

So, as the Syrian government and its allies finally try to expel Al Qaeda
terrorists and their cohorts from east Aleppo, the White Helmets have become
a major source for the Western news media which treats these “relief
workers” as credible providers of on-the-ground information.

Thus, the positive image of the White Helmets and the group’s skillful use
of social media deflect attention from the sectarian, violent and unpopular
nature of Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front (recently renamed the Syria Conquest Front)
and other armed opposition groups while hyping accusations that Syrian and
Russian attacks are primarily hitting civilians.

In other words, the White Helmets have gone from being talked about to being
the ones doing the talking. News stories increasingly use White Helmet
witnesses as their sources, often in ways that promote the self-serving myth
of White Helmet heroism. One day,
<http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/06/middleeast/syria-white-helmets-center-destroy
ed/> CNN announced that a White Helmet aid center had been hit. Another day,
TIME magazine claimed that White Helmet workers were being
<http://time.com/4507009/aleppo-offensive-syria-white-helmets-attack/>
“hunted”.

‘Eyewitness’ Accounts

Reports from the  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBOETNKi9gA> White
Helmets also have served as “eyewitness” accounts about the Syrian military
using “barrel bombs,” including in an attack to destroy a Syrian Arab Red
Crescent humanitarian convoy and warehouse on Sept. 19 in Orem al Kubra. But
there were reasons
<http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/09/syria-conflicting-reports-dubious-witn
esses-challenge-convoy-attack-case-.html> to be suspicious of this claim
since this town is controlled by the infamous Nour al Din al Zinki terrorist
group, which recently filmed itself
<https://southfront.org/us-backed-moderate-rebels-beheaded-boy-by-mistake-me
anwhile-high-ranking-rebel-commanders-responsible/> beheading a Palestinian
Syrian boy.

 <https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/white-Helmets.png>
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/white-Helmets.png

U.S.-backed Syrian “moderate” rebels smile as they prepare to behead a
12-year-old boy (left), whose severed head is later held aloft triumphantly
in the video. [YouTube Screenshot]

It was also illogical that Syrian or Russian planes would attack a SARC
convoy, which they could have stopped when it was in government held
territory. Plus, the Syrian government works with SARC. And, the ones to
“benefit” from the attack were the rebels and their Western backers who
cited this atrocity as another reason for “regime change” and to condemn the
Russians for assisting the Syrian government. The attack also took attention
away from the U.S. airstrike that killed some 70 Syrian soldiers on Sept.
17.

After the convoy was struck, the Russian and Syrian governments called for
an independent investigation of the attack site but this has not been done,
presumably because the terrorists controlling the area have not allowed it.
Nevertheless, the narrative supplied by the White Helmets and other
pro-rebel factions – blaming the Syrian government and their Russian allies
– has dominated the Western media’s handling of the story.

The “White Helmets” also played a dubious role in allegations that the
Syrian government was using chlorine gas in 2013 and 2014 by warning
residents before the attacks to expect the Syrian military to drop chlorine
bombs, although it was unclear how the activist first-responders would know
that fact in advance. In one of the cases, seven witnesses told U.N.
investigators that the rebels had
<https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/08/un-team-heard-claims-of-staged-chemic
al-attacks/> staged the chlorine-gas attack, which could suggest that the
“White Helmets” were in on the scam.

So, are the White Helmets heroes or a politically motivated hoax? The time
to investigate is now, since it does little good to uncover the lies and
manipulations years later, as has happened with the Iraqi and Libyan “regime
change” invasions.

A Dangerous Replay

Evidence now suggests that we are seeing a replay of
<https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/04/americas-chalabi-legacy-of-lies/>
Curveball and the Iraqi WMD in 2003 and the
<https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/06/the-forgotten-libyan-lessons-and-the-
syrian-war/> bogus hysteria about stopping a Libyan “genocide” in 2011, both
debunked by later investigations but too late to spare those countries from
massive death and destruction.

 
<https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/collateralmurder.jpg>
A scene from the "Collateral Murder" video in which an Iraqi man stops his
van to aid those wounded in a lethal U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad on
July 12, 2007, only to be gunned down by the American gunners. 

A scene from the “Collateral Murder” video in which an Iraqi man stops his
van to aid those wounded in a lethal U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad on
July 12, 2007, only to be gunned down by the American gunners.

The belated recognition by some Americans that they are being “had” again in
Syria has led to some
<https://www.facebook.com/petri.krohn/posts/10153399125219364> pushback
against the mainstream media’s promotion of the “White Helmets” and other
pro-rebel activists. In April 2015, Dissidentvoice published an
<http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/seven-steps-of-highly-effective-manipulat
ors/> expose of the group’s creation and purpose. Since then there have been
other articles and videos revealing the reality behind the “feel good”
veneer.

Vanessa Beeley has produced a number of articles about the fraudulent
pretense that the “White Helmets” are Syrian Civil Defense, including
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-syria-civil-defence-exposes-natos-whi
te-helmets-as-terrorist-linked-imposters/5547528> documentation about the
real Syrian Civil Defense, which was founded six decades ago. She initiated
an online Change.org petition to NOT give the Nobel Peace Prize to the
“White Helmets,” an initiative that must have upset some influential people
because Change.org removed the petition without explanation. (You can read
the text of the petition
<http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/10/do-not-give-the-nobel-peace-prize-2016-to
-the-syrian-white-helmets/> here.)

The real Syrian Civil Defense works on a shoestring budget with real
volunteers without video teams accompanying and promoting them. Most in the
West are unaware the real Syrian Civil Defense even exist. The situation is
similar for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which is a genuinely neutral and
independent relief organization and has a good  <http://sarc.sy/> website.

Another online petition, also at  <http://change.org/> Change.org, which is
still up and running, calls on the Right Livelihood Foundation to
<http://tinyurl.com/zwaau6y> rescind its award to the “White Helmets.” The
petition includes a number of reasons why the group does not deserve the
prize and are not what they are presented to be: they stole the name Syria
Civil Defense from the real Syrian organization; they appropriated the name
“White Helmets” from the Argentinian rescue organization Cascos
Blancos/White Helmets; they are not independent; they are funded by
governments; they are not apolitical; they actively campaign for a “no-fly
zone” (which even Hillary Clinton has acknowledged would “kill a lot of
Syrians” although she continues to promote the idea); they do not work
across Syria; they only work in areas controlled by the armed opposition,
mostly under the command of Al Qaeda’s affiliate Nusra Front; they are not
unarmed; they sometimes do carry weapons and they also celebrate terrorist
victories; they assist in terrorist executions.

Max Blumenthal wrote a two-part exposé at Alternet: “How the White Helmets
became International Heroes while Pushing US Intervention and Regime Change
in Syria” and “
<http://www.alternet.org/world/inside-shadowy-pr-firm-thats-driving-western-
opinion-towards-regime-change-syria> Inside the Shadowy PR Firm that’s
Lobbying for Regime Change in Syria.”

(Blumenthal shows how the White Helmets are funded with millions of dollars
from the British Foreign Office and $23 million from USAID.) Former weapons
inspector Scott Ritter, who was one of the few voices daring to contest
President George W. Bush’s false claims about Iraq’s WMD, wrote
<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/white_helmets_inherent_contradiction_am
ericas_syria_policy_20161005> an article which challenged the White Helmets’
“lionization.”

Internationally, the Israeli TV station I24 ran a
<http://www.i24news.tv/en/tv/replay/focus-en#/focus-en/x4ua2xh> special
report with the title “White Helmets: Heroes or Hoax?” – giving equal
coverage to supporters and critics. Even “The National” out of United Arab
Emirates has
<http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/newsmaker-the-white-helmets#page2>
documented the controversy around the White Helmets.

Not surprisingly, this dissent to the mainstream media’s love affair with
the White Helmets drew return fire. The British military contractor who
initially set up the group accused critics of being “proxies” for the Syrian
and Russian governments (much as Ritter and other skeptics about the Iraqi
WMD “group think” were called “Saddam apologists” in 2003).

The controversy also has done little to chasten the Western press corps from
relying on the “White Helmets” as the go-to sources for information in
Syria’s conflict zones.

 

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