James
Le Mesurier, a British ex-mercenary, founded the White Helmets in
2013. The group has been lauded for its “humanitarian” efforts in
Syria, but they have actually functioned more as a logistics and
propaganda arm of Syria’s al-Qaeda branch, complete with training
from Le Mesurier.
By
Whitney Webb
Part
1
Over
the past two years, enlightening information has been revealed that
thoroughly and unequivocally debunks the “humanitarianism” of the
White Helmets in Syria, sometimes referred to as the Syrian Civil
Defense.
Since
they were founded in 2013, much of Western media has sought to
elevate the White Helmets as the “bravest” and most heroic of
Syrians. They have been the subject of a Netflix documentary, which
won an Oscar, and has consistently been plastered across TV screens
in surprisingly well-produced videos showing them removing children
from rubble in war-torn areas claimed by Syria’s “rebels.”
However,
missing from this unambiguously positive coverage has been the
group’s ties to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, their doctoring of
footage, their role in executing civilians and their use of children
– both dead and alive – as props for producing pro-intervention
propaganda. Also absent is how the White Helmets have received over
$123 million from 2013 to 2016 from the U.S. and UK governments, as
well as Western NGOs and Gulf state monarchies.
While
numerous articles have been devoted to dispelling the propaganda that
surrounds the group and detailing their shady ties to known terrorist
organizations like Syria’s al-Qaeda branch Al-Nusra Front,
significantly less attention has been focused on how the group was
created, particularly on the man who founded them – James Le
Mesurier, a British private security specialist, and former British
military intelligence officer.
Le
Mesurier’s role in founding the White Helmets and propagating its
mythology to a Western audience was exposed in 2015 thanks to the
work of independent journalist Vanessa Beeley.
Beeley,
who spoke to MintPress News at length for this report, notes that it
was Le Mesurier’s “‘realization that humanitarian aid was
more effective at maintaining war than an army” that spurred
his creation of the organization in order “to maintain public
support for another costly war in a country that is, in reality,
posing little to no threat to mainland America” or its allies.
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