Why Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets (and more)

[Jerky]

A must-read article by investigative journalist and war reporter Janine Di Giovanni for the New York Review of Books.

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/1 ... e-helmets/

Essential reading for anyone who wishes to consider themselves well versed in the myriad nuances of the stories behind this particular story, and a DEFINITE must-read for everyone here at R.I., in my opinion.

Cheers
YOPJ

[American Dream]

Wow, thanks for posting this. I detest the implication that of course we agree to demonize the White Helmets and cheer on torture, mutilation and murder by pro-Assad forces because we believe that conspiracies are important. Deep in the woodwork is a red-brown alliance, aided by an international propaganda network and lovingly lubricated by a small army of true believers who are weak on discrimination and discernment.

For Syrians like Kassem Eid, who narrowly escaped the 2013 attack in Ghouta, the general denial of Assad’s attacks in Khan Shaykhun was excruciating. Checking his Twitter account in the days that followed, Eid was sickened by how quickly the pro-Assad camp was able to persuade ordinary people of its version. “I don’t know what’s more disgusting, committing genocide, or denying it and twisting facts,” Eid said. “As a survivor of Assad chemical weapons, I feel devastated every time he gasses more civilians. But I feel even more heartbroken when I see the propaganda denying it—or even accusing the victims of gassing themselves.”

On edit: Inadvertantly screwed up this post but I think I restored it successfully.

.

[Elvis]

The OP is plain dishonest propaganda, it's garbage.

John Pilger vs Janine di Giovanni?

Janine di Giovanni is the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

[Elvis]

I detest the implication that of course we agree to demonize the White Helmets and cheer on torture, mutilation and murder by pro-Assad forces because we believe that conspiracies are important.

Huh?? Who's "we"? Please be specific.

[MacCruiskeen]

^^ Good luck with that.

[American Dream]

we believe that conspiracies are important.

I detest the implication that of course we agree to demonize the White Helmets and cheer on torture, mutilation and murder by pro-Assad forces because we believe that conspiracies are important.

Huh?? Who's "we"? Please be specific.

[MacCruiskeen]

^^ See?

It is beyond parody. It's also very far beyond a joke now.

[Jerky]

Yeah, it's a real funny fucking "joke" alright.

One of these days, you're going to figure out exactly how wrong you've been about all this, and the implications of that should send whatever remains of your soul screaming into the void with shame. No amount of shouting your ever dwindling stock of Holy Magic Names will help anymore, once you reach that threshold.

"BUT PILGEEEEEEERRRRR...."

Thank whatever Gods you believe in that the opinions of everyone who participates here has less than zero influence on the Big Picture.

J.

[Elvis]

^^ Good luck with that.

Yup.

I detest the implication that of course we agree to demonize the White Helmets and cheer on torture, mutilation and murder by pro-Assad forces because we believe that conspiracies are important. Deep in the woodwork is a red-brown alliance, aided by an international propaganda network and lovingly lubricated by a small army of true believers who are weak on discrimination and discernment.

In this bizarre stew of motives, reality is cooked out. Needs a grain of salt.

[MacCruiskeen]

A must-read article by investigative journalist and war reporter Janine Di Giovanni for the New York Review of Books.

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/1 ... e-helmets/

Essential reading for anyone who wishes to consider themselves well versed in the myriad nuances of the stories behind this particular story, and a DEFINITE must-read for everyone here at R.I., in my opinion.

Cheers
YOPJ

Truly dreadful stuff, even by the NYT's dependably low standards. From Eva Bartlett to Vanessa Beeley, Robert Fisk and John Pilger, there is not one honest informed independent reporter this mercenary hack doesn't go out of her way to slander as a tool of Putin or to cast other sleazy aspersions on without providing a scrap of evidence to back up her bullshit.

What really gives this salaried hack's product away as bullshit is her complete and utter refusal to address, or even link to, any of the evidence provided by any of the above-named independent reporters or indeed by anyone else at all. All she has to offer in the way of argument is ad hominem, guilt by association, mere assertion, and nasty insinuations by the barrel-load.

In short, it is garbage. Desperate low-grade warmongering propaganda from a know-nothing employee of the most warmongering empire in history, an empire also infamous for its mendacity, an empire currently collapsing under President Donald Trump and the weight of its own lies, an empire still quite likely to take the entire planet with it when it finally dies.

[American Dream]

Most of Assad’s Western apologists have a presence only on Twitter and obscure websites like 21st Century Wire (a website founded by a former editor of American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars), yet it would be foolish to disregard them. The work of this small group is also spread by a spectrum of far-left, anti-West conspiracy theorists; anti-Semites; supporters of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah; libertarians; and far-right groups. At their core are Beeley, the daughter of a British diplomat; a Canadian activist named Eva Bartlett; the Hezbollah-friendly commentator Sharmine Narwani; and Max Blumenthal, the son of the former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal.

As The Guardian recently reported, the Russian government uses Twitter accounts belonging to its embassies, as well as other accounts that have been linked to the Internet Research Agency, which oversees trolls and bots, to spread disinformation. The views of pro-Assad writers also filter into the mainstream through more respectable Assad-friendly American and British journalists such as Robert Fisk, Stephen Kinzer, and John Pilger (who oversees the Martha Gellhorn Reporting Prize, which was previously awarded to Julian Assange, and for which Beeley was a runner-up). In turn, their reports are echoed by public figures such as the British MP Emily Thornberry, Baroness Cox, and the Reverend Andrew Ashdown, an Anglican minister.

The damage the bloggers do is immense. They attack anyone with an account of events that contradicts their own, but their chief target is the White Helmets. The bloggers’ work is repeated on the state-owned Russian news outlets RT and Sputnik; some of it has even been cited by Russian ambassadors at the United Nations. The bloggers resist being linked to the Kremlin, and there is no evidence of financial transactions other than the standard fees paid by RT for television appearances. But the Russian version of its own military strikes is amplified by bloggers like Beeley and Bartlett, who promote RT reports that push the Kremlin’s false narrative about the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Beeley, a former consultant to a waste management company in the Middle East with no journalistic background, has only about 42,000 followers on Twitter, but she appears regularly on RT and Sputnik. Her posts are retweeted by the Ron Paul Institute, by members of the “alt-right,” and by what Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, a lecturer at the University of Stirling and an expert on the Russian disinformation campaign in Syria, calls “the Red–Brown alliance,” an unlikely coalition of far-left and far-right extremists.

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/1 ... e-helmets/

[Elvis]

One of these days, you're going to figure out exactly how wrong you've been about all this, and the implications of that should send whatever remains of your soul screaming into the void with shame. No amount of shouting your ever dwindling stock of Holy Magic Names will help anymore, once you reach that threshold.

"BUT PILGEEEEEEERRRRR...."

So RI now should trust The Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council and Newsweek (ad nauseum) over John Pilger?

No.

Your turgid rebuke is not persuasive. The OP article is a pile of cherry-picked neoliberal crap.

[Elvis]

Beeley, a former consultant to a waste management company in the Middle East with no journalistic background, has only about 42,000 followers on Twitter, but she appears regularly on RT and Sputnik.

A Twitter contest! Only 42,000 followers?

Funny how Janine di Giovanni has only 13,200 Twitter followers, but appears regularly in every neocon/neoliberal rag out there pushing the imperialist line.

[MacCruiskeen]

Beeley, a former consultant to a waste management company in the Middle East with no journalistic background, has only about 42,000 followers on Twitter, but she appears regularly on RT and Sputnik.

A Twitter contest! Only 42,000 followers?

Funny how Janine di Giovanni has only 13,200 Twitter followers, but appears regularly in every neocon/neoliberal rag out there pushing the imperialist line.

That is the quality, and it is a dead giveaway. That glutinous agglomeration of ad homs, unsubstantiated insinuations, and the slow drip-drip of guilt by association. That piss-poor, evidence-free, evidence-ignoring propaganda exercise from one of the warmongering NYT's most shameless hacks. This is the stuff that American Dream (sic) goes out of his way to recycle here (this time explicitly approving of it, for he is not always as careful as he should be), all the while pretending not only to be a socialist but to be the very Voice and Conscience of the Left.

No, I don't think it's laughable. Not after the 17, 000th iteration of the same tired joke. Not in the 17th year of the never-ending War on Terror. American Dream's (sic) blatantly mendacious warmongering propaganda campaign has become very seriously unfunny now.

This is an antifascist board.

[Sounder]

Mac wrote...

What really gives this salaried hack's product away as bullshit is her complete and utter refusal to address, or even link to, any of the evidence provided by any of the above-named independent reporters or indeed by anyone else at all. All she has to offer in the way of argument is ad hominem, guilt by association, mere assertion, and nasty insinuations by the barrel-load.

People that live by personal slander of others have no credibility. But, i have to admit, it sure is effective as distraction and energy sinks.