Al Queda wins an Oscar

[American Dream]

Rania Khalek’s defenders


Rania Khalek

I personally am opposed to lobbying groups or magazines to prevent her from making a living. Yes, let Khalek make her living writing articles justifying the killing of White Helmets because they are “linked to al-Qaeda”. If Khalek needs to get paid to write such garbage, why should we stand in the way? It is only her own reputation she is destroying. Eventually the jobs will dry up anyhow because writing the kind of crap that she, Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal write will eventually mark them as hacks. If you want to know where the “smart” people are going, just reflect on Jacobin breaking ties with the Assadist left, including a couple of people who used to write this kind of crap for them signing the statement: Greg Shupak and David Mizner.

The best approach is to point out how bad she is politically, the latest example taking the word of academic counter-terrorism “expert” Max Abrahms in a Salon article, whose poll revealed that Syrian refugees blame the rebels just as much as Assad. Max Abrahms is a hard-core Islamophobe who has been writing articles for the past 6 years making an amalgam between jihadists and everybody else who took up guns against the filthy murderer Bashar al-Assad.

More at: https://louisproyect.org/2017/03/07/ran ... defenders/

[Elvis]

Rania Khalek’s defenders


Rania Khalek

I personally am opposed to lobbying groups or magazines to prevent her from making a living. Yes, let Khalek make her living writing articles justifying the killing of White Helmets because they are “linked to al-Qaeda”. If Khalek needs to get paid to write such garbage, why should we stand in the way? It is only her own reputation she is destroying. Eventually the jobs will dry up anyhow because writing the kind of crap that she, Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal write will eventually mark them as hacks. If you want to know where the “smart” people are going, just reflect on Jacobin breaking ties with the Assadist left, including a couple of people who used to write this kind of crap for them signing the statement: Greg Shupak and David Mizner.

The best approach is to point out how bad she is politically, the latest example taking the word of academic counter-terrorism “expert” Max Abrahms in a Salon article, whose poll revealed that Syrian refugees blame the rebels just as much as Assad. Max Abrahms is a hard-core Islamophobe who has been writing articles for the past 6 years making an amalgam between jihadists and everybody else who took up guns against the filthy murderer Bashar al-Assad.

More at: https://louisproyect.org/2017/03/07/ran ... defenders/

There's NOTHING in that screed but angry opinionating. NOTHING. Talk about "crap"—read that piece again. It doesn't belong in a rational, evidence-based discussion.

Let's see a little evidence, some real reporting, some rational cases made. The above is just a hot-headed defense of the U.S. Syria policy.

[Elvis]

You complain about the use of the phrase "sinister clowns" but the Stalinoid members of the Workers' World Party who are supporting the growth of the Hands Off Syria coalition have a long, long tradition of sketchy entryism in support of the many murderous/authoritarian regimes they support: North Korea, Libya, Iran, Russia, Syria et al. and they have never cared much about the many victims of their chosen heroes.

I don't know anything about Hands Off Syria and I don't really care; they're not the ones destroying Syria. Maybe North Korea, Libya, Iran, Russia and Syria are their "heroes," maybe not; it sounds fatuous to me.

The video you cited means something but it does not prove your overall thesis, which seems to be the Russian/Syrian state propaganda line.

I never said it proved anything, but the photo & document caches would probably be more than sufficient in a law court. It's persuasive evidence, I think any reasonable person would draw the obvious (which means right in front of you to see) conclusion that the White Helmets were essentially drawn from the existing ISIS occupying forces.

I don't think being an anti-imperialist or for the working class means swallowing their propaganda hook, line and sinker- and not the U.S.-sponsored line either.

It would be helpful if you would point out which propaganda I'm swallowing. The photos and documents caches? Were they fake evidence meant to be found? What would be the point of doing that?

You say you're equally against all sides in the conflict, but you consistently post in support of one side. Then you imply that anyone who sees a wider share of blame is a "Putin lover" or "Assad apologist."

From my view, AD, aside from a few lip-service declarations of "I'm against 'em all," your great body of posts on this subject amounts to supporting and apologizing for U.S. imperialism and its PR narrative. Is Dick Cheney your hero?

[American Dream]

The Workers World Party (Hands off Syria, etc.) really are tankies. Such creatures do exist.

Sketchy forms of anti-Imperialism also do exist.

Putin and Assad are not great heroes. Far from it.

[Elvis]

The Workers World Party (Hands off Syria, etc.) really are tankies. Such creatures do exist.

Sketchy forms of anti-Imperialism also do exist.

Putin and Assad are not great heroes. Far from it.

Good job skirting my points there. But, while you often talk in circles around questions (see the repeated mantras above), I do appreciate the conversation.

[American Dream]

If you can provide a cogent argument that you feel proves your claim that " the White Helmets were essentially drawn from the existing ISIS occupying forces", please do so.

[Elvis]

If you can provide a coherent and substantiated argument that you feel proves your claim that " the White Helmets were essentially drawn from the existing ISIS occupying forces", please do so. Mostly though I feel like I'm trying to engage in a rational conversation with a true believer whose faith is unshakeable- and that's never likely to go very far.

The very persuasive evidence I spoke of is contained in this and related threads on this board. It's there for you to study or ignore.

I, too, feel like I'm trying to engage in a rational conversation with a true believer whose faith is unshakeable.

I'm a believer in evidence and facts, not ideology or Internet opinion pieces.

But again, thanks anyway for the replies. I suggest that we just let it go and each keep doing what we do. It's not the end of the world that we disagree about the White Helmets.

[American Dream]

If you have the evidence and facts, please summarize.

[Elvis]

If you have the evidence and facts, please summarize.

I indicated those to you, and you can easily do the research right here in a few RI threads; alas, I don't have the time to write a big report or make a powerpoint for you.

The ball is in your court:

The crux of this question is the evidence. You've given zero reasons why you think the evidence is not persuasive. All you said about it is that it 'doesn't convince you of much of anything'; I learn nothing from that, except that you tend to dodge legitimate questions you won't anwer.

Show me where I'm wrong about the evidence, and please don't just repeat the same stance and the same old insinuations that those who disagree are lovers of brutal dictators as if that's some kind of genuine refutation.

[tapitsbo]

One of Khalek's "sins" was taking part in dialogue between the West and Assad's government at a conference organized by former members of the UK government. In the past she was in favour of the rebels and against the Assad regime...

Ukranian oligarch Firtash who was also involved in the conference is now being extradited to the US, I believe...

The sketchy factions behind the war against Syria have serious influence despite first Obama and now Trump limiting their reach.

I think we could just as well ask AD for evidence that the "White Helmets" are distinct from various jihadist groups. The latter certainly have their sympathizers, although their backers are often so fickle as to thoroughly disappoint their efforts.

Nobody should be surprised, however, that some of us have serious reservations about the soundness of cheerleading for these questionable groups...

[American Dream]

I don't personally cheerlead for any of the big players.

[tapitsbo]

Except the articles you post mostly align with the kind of views on the conflict advanced by "big players" like McCain and Clinton...

[Nordic]

In case you had any doubt as to how horrible these people are:

http://theindicter.com/swedish-doctors- ... -in-syria/

Swedish Doctors for Human Rights (SWEDHR) Denounce White Helmets Video, Macabre Manipulation of Dead Children and Staged Chemical Weapons Attack to Facilitate a No-Fly Zone in Syria
by The Indicter | posted in: March 2017 issue | 0
By Prof Marcello Ferrada de Noli, SWEDHR chair.

An examination of a White Helmets video, conducted by Swedish medical doctors, specialists in various fields, including paediatrics, have revealed that the life-saving procedures seen in the film are incorrect – in fact life-threatening – or simply fake, including simulated emergency resuscitation techniques being used on already lifeless children.

I
The Alleged Sarmin Attack

There has been a recent, intense, publicity campaign that has capitalised on the Oscar for best documentary being awarded to the NATO and Gulf state funded organization, the White Helmets and their Netflix documentary producers [1] The White Helmets had previously been winners of the “Alternative Nobel Prize”, given to them in Sweden in 2016. [2] These various awards have ensured that the White Helmet fictitious “saving-childrens-lives” videos have been re-circulating across corporate and social media, a major PR coup for the sponsors of this questionable organization.

Central to this PR campaign and just prior to the Oscar award ceremony, Human Rights Watch published a “retrospective” report on February 13th 2017, focusing on spurious accounts of chemical attacks on the recently liberated city of Aleppo. This familiar HRW propaganda piece recycled a previous report from April 2015 detailing an alleged chlorine gas attack in Sarmin, Idlib [4].

Footage of the aftermath of this attack was provided, at the time, by none other than the White Helmets, which brings us to the macabre video, uploaded by this alleged first responder NGO to YouTube on March 15th 2015 [5]





Kenneth Roth’s obsessed ‘denouncing’ of unverified chlorine gas attacks, allegedly, carried out by the Syrian state against its own people

Ken Roth has waged a longstanding campaign for military intervention in Syria and the No Fly Zone, effectively a declaration of war





The “Sarmin attack” report published by HRW in April 2015 is, in itself, a remarkable feat of evidence engineering. HRW refers to two witnesses – anonymous “Sarmin residents” – stating they have “heard” helicopters “shortly before the attack”. They heard them but did not see them. Both witnesses also reported hearing “no explosions” [4] In the entire HRW report there is not one reported sighting of a helicopter, the existence of which should be an essential element of the White Helmet claims, uncritically reproduced by HRW and never questioned by the UN.

One of the key witnesses cited in the HRW, April 2015, report is a White Helmet operative by the name of Leith Fares [6]

“Leith Fares, a rescue worker with Syrian Civil Defence, told Human Rights Watch. “A helicopter always drops two barrels.” “You know, we were at first actually happy,” Fares said. “It is usually good news when there is no explosion.” [4]

A notably peculiar factor of the White Helmet footage of this alleged attack is that they do not film any external shots of the attack itself, despite their declared anticipation of being targeted, having “heard” helicopters.

Instead, the only footage is of an enclosed indoor space with no contextual filming to evidence where they are in Syria or that an attack has just taken place. The indoor environment certainly resembles a makeshift hospital emergency room. White Helmet “rescuers” parade in and out, manhandling and maneuvering the limp, lifeless bodies of three children. The naked bodies of these children have no external, visible injuries and do not respond when the various “medics” perform all manner of ostensibly “life-saving” procedures, in a haphazard effort to resuscitate these children.

II
“A Macabre Scene”

In order to obtain qualified clinical opinions, I sent the video to eminent Swedish medical specialists. I stressed that, particular attention, must be paid to the Syringe needle procedure (seemingly, intracardiac injection) carried out on one of the children, as seen in the screen shot from the video, below [Click on the image for the video]:



Dr Leif Elinder, a known Swedish medical doctor profile, author and specialist in paediatrics, summarised the following in his reply: [7]

“After examination of the video material, I found that the measures inflicted upon those children, some of them lifeless, are bizarre, non-medical, non-lifesaving, and even counterproductive in terms of life-saving purposes of children”.

Further, I received a detailed clinical statement from Dr Lena Oske, a Swedish medical doctor and general practitioner. In her statement, Dr Oske referred to the presumed, adrenaline injection, performed in the White Helmet video (excerpt in the photo above). Her specialist opinion dismisses the procedure conducted in the White Helmet video, as unqualified and incorrect. Furthermore, she describes the earlier assessment of the procedure by a colleague who had exclaimed:

“If not already dead, this injection would have killed the child!”

Excerpts from Dr Lena Oske’s statement to SWEDHR: [8]

“Intracutaneous injection with adrenalin may be used if any other resuscitation measure does not succeed. Especially under precarious circumstances – such as in field emergency settings– where safer ways for the administration of medication (i.e. endotracheal, intravenous, or intraosseus) might be difficult or unavailable. But not in the way shown in the video”.

“In order to perform the injection, CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) has to be interrupted, and then the CPR resumed immediately after. Which is not done in the procedures shown in the video.”

And referring to a correct medical procedure, the Swedish specialist MD adds:

“The technique is simple. Long needle, syringe with 1 mg adrenaline, find the 4th or 5th intercostal space and insert the needle just adjacent to the sternum, left side, deposit the medication after checking you are in the right position (aspiration of blood and no resistance), take out the needle and immediately resume CPR! So, the doctor who wrote the comment, ‘If not already dead, this injection would have killed the child’ was right! What a macabre scene; and how sad.” [8]

[Both colleagues, doctors Leif Elinder and Lena Oske, are senior members of SWEDHR, and on behalf of the SWEDHR board I fully endorse each other’s statements.]

[Elvis]

Thanks for posting this real, verifiable information. Some of the videos of those improvised 'children-saving clinics' are quite funny, the acting etc. is so bad. Btw I've worked for years at a place that sells and uses the fake-wound makeup stuff used for that kind of thing.

Swedish Doctors for Human Rights (SWEDHR) Denounce White Helmets Video, Macabre Manipulation of Dead Children and Staged Chemical Weapons Attack to Facilitate a No-Fly Zone in Syria
by The Indicter | posted in: March 2017 issue | 0
By Prof Marcello Ferrada de Noli, SWEDHR chair.

An examination of a White Helmets video, conducted by Swedish medical doctors, specialists in various fields, including paediatrics, have revealed that the life-saving procedures seen in the film are incorrect – in fact life-threatening – or simply fake, including simulated emergency resuscitation techniques being used on already lifeless children.

Ferrada de Noli is the founder and chairman of Swedish Doctors for Human Rights (SWEDHR),[36] a non governmental research organization integrated by a group of professors and doctors operating in health-related areas, aimed to the research and report of effects of war atrocities in civil populations, torture of prisoners and human rights transgressions. The organization implements its endeavour in the following areas: country-scenarios were civil populations have been targeted by war crimes, transgressions by the part of governments on the human rights of individuals exposing war crimes, individual cases of doctors subjected to human rights violations, and research on the effects of torture in prisoners.

[Iamwhomiam]

This is a good line to use whenever discussing propaganda: "The things that seem so sure to you are not so sure to me." - AD.

That's how I feel, too, and not just about this story. (Good idea to link to this thread in the crisis actors thread, Nordic.)

Jack Riddler wrote,

Interesting, the White Helmets issued an apology for that video, claiming it was an intentional attempt made in poor judgement to grab some viral action from the "Mannequin Challenge" (whatever the hell that was, I vaguely remember something about it). So yes, it is a fake and the excuse stinks, but anyway...

If we're to accept the stated purpose for the photos/videos included in the Mannequin Challenge as being genuine, which purportedly was to demonstrate what a child or person is subjected to in a warring state and then compare it to what that person would have been doing at that same moment during peaceful times, well, that would be truly noble.

I haven't the capability of judging people who do care for their war-wounded and injured when they are not battling to overthrow their brutal hereditary monarch. It's not my fight, however, if I felt I was left without any alternative, I believe even I could be driven to take such tactics under certain similar ungodly situations.

Some may be terrorists, of course, or members of some other fanatically radical group independent of, or affiliated with Al Qaeda, and those who take such remorseful actions against relatively innocent people should be condemned. I also believe there is a thin line dividing terroristic acts from acts of war.

That said, pretending (if they are) they're simply white-helmeted Red Crescent non-combatants who only administer aid who never engage in battle violates all reason and endangers all aid providers to war victims.

I don't have in hand the original photographs, so I cannot tell if some or any are genuine or fraudulent composited propaganda, but what has been presented as evidence seems damning, so for whose benefit does this one way or the other propaganda serve?

I think Jack's touched upon the answer,

"Leaving aside the photo and video analysis stuff that is usually less-than certain and often dubious (the Encyclopedia Browns of the world just can't resist confirmation overkill, especially since 9/11),..." (for context, but what he next wrote), "... I'll go with a) Boris Johnson saying the UK gave 32 million pounds to the White Helmets organization (which originated in the UK) and b) the State Department spokesperson saying USAID gave them 23 million dollars as two pretty interesting takeaways concerning the possible nature of a group that in its self-presentations at times has claimed it receives no funding from governments. Seems to me that one should stick to the salient and undeniable facts, no? I mean sure, this could be that odd random case in which the powers simultaneously backing Saudi Arabia and Israel to the suicidal hilt as they go about destroying the remnants of the Middle East just happened to free their purses for a good cause in the same region, right? "

But it might be just that. It cannot be discounted.