I sat down with my coffee this beautiful Australian morning to watch two of my favorite independent media figures jam together in a Corbett Report interview of renowned independent investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley. About two-thirds of the way through, I nearly fell out of my chair.
At 24:30 of the clip, the following bone-chilling conversation takes place about the nature of the establishment media's aggressive protection of the highly publicized "Syrian Civil Defense", also known as the White Helmets:
Beeley: But I think what is interesting, why is this organization being protected to such an extent? I think it's because the imperialist apparatus is defending the concept. We've already seen [White Helmets founder] James Le Mesurier recruiting in Brazil. We know that the White Helmets have appeared in Malaysia and in Venezuela, and in the Philippines. So you know, because this went through my head so many times, these are only 3,000 criminals and thugs that have emerged from the terrorist ranks or the "Free Syrian Army" [air quotes] moderate extremist ranks to become the White Helmets in order to continue to get paid doing the same job but under a different auspice.
Why are they being so heavily protected? But I think it's more to do with the concept. It's more to do with the importance of this concept going forward. As James Le Mesurier said very recently, who would you trust more than the fire brigade or a first response NGO? There you have it. That's the key to why this group is so important.
James Corbett: It is the perfect cover. And it certainly is a template that I'm sure will be used over and over in these types of situations if they can get away with it. So, extremely important.
Extremely important indeed. The White Helmets are a war propaganda firm with extensive ties to both lucrative western financial backing and known terrorist factions, and the notion of this organization branching out into other potential targets of the US-centralized war machine is absolutely horrifying. We already see the White Helmets cited constantly by western mass media in every allegation against the Assad government, as in this article courtesy of Associated Press and the Washington Post using the "Syrian Civil Defense" as their source for a report on an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Idlib province, referring to them in the header as "Syrian activists". The mainstream media will promote everything this organization says as fact and do everything they can to protect and promote the White Helmets' reputation, meaning that if they spread throughout the world, war propaganda can be manufactured from the inside against any government the empire wishes to target with its armies of extremist "freedom fighters".
In response to this jarring new information I reached out to Vanessa Beeley to make sure I was understanding this properly, and she provided the following statement:
The White Helmets franchise is a terrifying extension of soft power infiltration deep inside target nations, exploiting trust, vulnerability and poverty with the “First Responder” construct that “everyone trusts” as James Le Mesurier so clearly stated in a recent interview in Brazil. This pseudo Humanitarian, NATO state-sanctioned fist will be used to crush many more nations in the future if it is not stopped in Syria. Just as Syria has contained the terrorist fire within its borders, so has it exposed the White Helmets as the terrorist alter ego, but for how long will both be contained? Terrorism is fanning out into Europe via the EU funded Turkish exit routes, the White Helmets are also establishing themselves further afield, in Venezuela, Malaysia, the Philippines to name a few. Terrorism and the White Helmets march in lock-step and can only be stopped by confronting the cancerous cultures in which they are cultivated – US Necolonialism, British Imperialism, EU Globalism, Gulf State Extremism & Israeli Parasitism.
Ouch. Okay. I was really hoping I'd misunderstood.
I cannot overemphasize how dangerous this is. The west is already saturated in deceitful war propaganda about Syria, as shown irrefutably in cases like the Bana Alabed CNN interview and the BBC's Saving Syria's Children footage, and this has largely been made possible by the mass media's collaboration with the White Helmets. Putting them in places like Venezuela, a regular target of imperialist manipulations with the largest oil reserves in the world, or the Philippines, a major longtime US military asset where a Duterte pivot away from Washington toward Beijing could get very ugly, would give the US war machine the ability to legitimize any allegation against those governments if it decides it's time for aggressive regime change. The organization's own website (archived here in case they change it) asserts that it is "currently assessing opportunities for implementation of Civil Defence-based stabilisation programmes in other countries in the Middle East, including Yemen and Iraq."
Yesterday The Guardian, which has surely become the overall most aggressive promoter of western war propaganda on the planet, ran an article titled (I swear I am not making this up) "'Russia wants to hack the Oscars': smear campaign targets Syrian nominee". It was authored by Olivia Solon, the same Guardian writer who, without ever having been to Syria or having any Middle East reporting experience whatsoever, wrote an extremely deceptive smear piece on Beeley and other reporters who've been contradicting the establishment narrative about the White Helmets. The new article alleges that Russia is running a conspiratorial campaign to prevent yet another pro-White Helmets documentary from receiving yet another Academy Award.
Beeley picks apart this new film The Last Men In Aleppo and the ongoing trend of establishment media elevating such documentaries in this excellent article here, so there's no need for me to get into why Olivia Solon's latest war propaganda piece is just as ridiculous as her first, but it's important to note how ferociously these establishment outlets are protecting the White Helmets. How weird is that? Where else do you see war zone search and rescue teams being made into glamorous media superstars with cute matching uniforms? Who are aggressively protected from counter-narratives by stalwart establishment outlets?
James Le Mesurier is a British private security specialist and a former British military intelligence officer. He knows how to construct a psyop. He's trying to franchise his war propaganda firm worldwide, where it will be used to manufacture pro-regime change narratives and will be aggressively defended and promoted by the establishment media, and its allegations against disobedient governments and factions will be reported as fact by western newscasters and pundits.
It's a brilliant scheme, and it may become the future of war propaganda if we can't shed enough light on it in time. Please help get the truth out about these bastards.
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Right on the money again @caitlinjohnstone, the western backed White Helmet operations and propaganda must be fully exposed in Syria to prevent future infiltration of countries in the cross-hairs of empire.
21st Century Wire has done a standup job exposing this facade but more people need to know about how the White Helmets are funded and play a special dual role in Syria. First, portrayed as heroic civilians saving lives in Aleppo and beyond before the cameras. Second, as members of Al Nustra and so-called 'rebel' fighters (terrorists/'Al Queda with a facelift') away from the cameras.
http://21stcenturywire.com/tag/white-helmets/
You might also want to hear this one rogue journalist going against the BBC's White Helmet propaganda. Needless to say, he wasn't invited back on the BBC.
Great article as usual Caitlin...Speaking of establishment propaganda, they have entered the sphere of steemit with an account engadgetnews. A so called 'tech news' blog. James Corbett has spoken about the way they are using tech journalists as propagandists. This is another extension of the new methods being deployed. Within 24 hours of joining, they felt the need to post a 'tech news' article about how Russian trolls were hacking tumblr social media to influence the American election. LOL...Can it get more obvious?
thank you steemit for letting this type of honest journalism be seen uncensored. resteemed.
Great piece. I found myself wanting to write on the subject myself, but you’ve summed up brilliantly, the feeling many of us are having right now, having listened to Vanessa’s update. And of course, any truth challenge must be blamed on Russian interference ..... deep breath. Resteemed.
Oh great, another fustercluck in the making. As if the frying of Gadaffi wasn't enough....
Head. Hurting.
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Nice and interesting story
US: ready to give up
Syria: hey Russia come help
Your a pretty good reporter but I think you lack some serious analysis on Syria. The US was in a pickle so to speak. With Assad forces busy fighting the opposition that the US was backing (whether under questionable means is another story) ISIS was rapidly advancing into Syria. The US couldn't see taking out Assad if there was even a chance the vacuum of power would have fell to ISIS, it would have been just another mess like Iraq had become. The US couldn't just say hey now we are going to back both sides so the only other alternatives was to have Russia come into the picture. This is why there was let up on sanctions in place at the time, the deal was for Russia to come in and get a grip on ISIS, that's exactly what they did. There are horror stories told about the atrocities that Russia used to gain the upper hand, places where they took prisoners and tortured them to give up locations of ISIS leadership, actually it worked much better than if the US had tried to do it because unlike the US were people get all queasy about this stuff Russian people don't question those in authority. As strange as a reality that that may be that the US didn't want to take Assad out that is why they didn't, that is why they don't give further involved in a all out war, this tit for tat will continue until there's a consensus on who will control the power vacuum if and when Assad were to leave, to not guarantee such would leave Syria looking quite a bit like the mess created in Iraq.
Thanks Caitlin!! THIS IS ATROCIOUS. DEFINITELY NEEDS TO REACH PEOPLE!!
I just watched the interview myself. Consortium news has done a great job throughout the Syrian conflict. Great post, followed!
@caitlinjohnstone some more facts please... well this is disturbing... will be reading your next post... peace...
what a great job it is!! keep it up
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Thank you so much for your excellent commentary on the video interview of Vanessa Beeley by James Corbett, who are both also two of my longstanding favourite true investigative journalists.
For anyone who would like more 'evidence' please take a look at this excellent synthesis of information compiled by @clarityofsignal, "Exposing “The Last Men in Aleppo” (Hollywood's Deception) – FSA Terrorist Psyop and Oscar Nominated Propaganda Campaign".
This is a summary of the evidence-based post:
This post features dozens of screen captured images from the Facebook pages of the individuals behind the 2018 Oscar nominated documentary ‘The Last Men in Aleppo”, and will clearly show, through their own posted Facebook images, that these individuals are aligned with the FSA (Free Syrian Army) which is comprised of dozens of terrorist groups including al-Nusra Front, ahrar al-Sham, Nour al-Zinki, Army of Islam and ISIS.
On January 20, 2018 it was announced in western media that the Netflix documentary “The Last Men in Aleppo” was nominated for an Oscar award by Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, to be presented at the March 4th, 2018 Oscar ceremony in Hollywood, California.
The Facebook page of Firas Fayyad, the Oscar nominated director of the film was used as the hub when conducting the following terrorist exposure. The post branches out by exploring the (specified by himself) film associates of Firas Fayyad and examines these individuals Facebook images, links and post related associates, thus establishing their likes, links, proclivities and admiration for terrorist related activities. The online addresses of the Facebook accounts which were examined are included at the bottom of this post for further proof of validity and reference.
Please read the complete post here: https://steemit.com/news/@clarityofsignal/exposing-the-last-men-in-aleppo-and-hollywood-s-deception-fsa-terrorist-psyop-and-oscar-nominated-propaganda-campaign
Agreed - White Hats form part of a propaganda contingent that navigates alongside the real military. So refreshing to read some accurate reporting of the facts online, so thanks🌼