Vanessa Beeley

The White Helmets, “volunteers” who reportedly “rescue Syrians from rubble.” Never in history has such a group been so feted by the elite, or received so many awards from institutions acting as extensions of US and UK hegemony.

That was the beginning of Vanessa Beeley's recent article on the White Helmets' role and real mission in Syria. Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire and her article is titled, "The White Helmets, organ traders and child kidnappers, should be condemned not condoned."

A recent panel at the UN Security Council in New York revealed the shocking evidence of White Helmet involvement in organ trafficking in Syria. The lucrative trade of human body parts, bones, blood and organs is one of the most protected and hidden harvests of war.

The potential of White Helmet involvement in these nefarious activities raises questions that must be answered. Why were the shocking revelations met by a wall of silence from corporate media present at the panel in New York?

Not one media outlet pursued the subject, preferring to divert onto more comfortable issues that did not challenge the iconization of the White Helmets that has been the default position for virtually all state-aligned media since the establishment of the group in 2013 in Jordan and Turkey.

Vanessa Beeley says, "In July 2017, I had interviewed residents of the East Aleppo districts that had been under occupation of the various terrorist armed groups and the White Helmets. Salaheddin Azazi was a resident of the Jib Al Qubbeh area. Azazi went through the details of the November 2016 Nusra Front attack on civilians trying to flee via the Syrian and Russian-established humanitarian corridors which had been spun by the White Helmets into a “regime” bombing raid that resulted in a civilian massacre. It was a complete misrepresentation of reality which was seized upon by corporate media with no fact checking.

“The bodies of the dead and dying were left unattended for ten hours in the street after the Nusra Front rocket attack that killed 15 civilians. The White Helmets did not help them, they stole their belongings,” Salaheddin Azazi, resident of Jib Al Qubbeh and eyewitness to events on 30.11.2016, said.

Azazi and another resident, Ammar Al Bakr described how the White Helmets were the “runners” for the organ traffickers. Ammar said, “The White Helmet drivers would take the injured or dead bodies to the Turkish border. Many of the injured had light wounds, nothing that needed hospitalization but the bodies would come back without organs.”

Azazi said, “The bodies, dead and alive, would be inspected in the towns on the borders with Turkey before being taken by Turkish vehicles to the hospitals but if the injured civilian was a child or young and strong they would be taken directly to the hospital in Turkey because their organs had greater value.”

According to both of these witnesses, the bodies were worth $2000 dead and $3000 if alive and this market was dominated by the White Helmet operatives who profited from cross-border organ trafficking.

Other civilians confirmed the threat of organ theft which hung over them during the almost five-year occupation of East Aleppo districts by the armed groups and their White Helmet auxiliaries. Families spoke of hiding their children if they were slightly injured to prevent the risk of them being abducted and taken to one of three hospitals – Omar Abdulaziz, Al Quds and Zarzour – that specialized in organ theft in East Aleppo, all of which had been taken over by terrorist gangs early on in the war. The so-called “foreign doctors” were operating in these three hospitals and were in charge of organ extraction. In post-liberation Eastern Ghouta, similar stories abounded.

In January 2019, Vanessa Beeley visited survivors from the Jaysh Al Islam controlled Tawbah Prison in Douma, Eastern Ghouta (known as Repentance Prison). She met with former prisoners in Adra Al Balad who spoke of the torture and violent abuse they had received after being kidnapped from Adra Al Ummaliya in 2013 by Jaysh Al Islam and Nusra Front. Familiar descriptions of the White Helmets were forthcoming:

“Regarding the White Helmets, they are terrorists and Takfiris. They have nothing to do with Humanity. When they saw an injured civilian, they used to finish them off. If you come to “rescue” a man would you slaughter them? The White Helmets and the terrorists are one and the same, they are hand in hand,” said Hassan Al Mahmoud Al Othman, one of the survivors who spoke about their experiences as captives of Jaysh Al Islam and Nusra Front during the six years that Eastern Ghouta was occupied.

The evidence against the White Helmets is mounting on a daily basis and will only increase as Idlib is liberated or a political resolution is achieved in the last Syrian province effectively controlled by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) a rebrand of Al Qaeda.

Despite this, Western corporate media and NATO-aligned think tanks, policy influencers and NGOs are stubbornly sticking to the “volunteer hero” script. The Observer recently collaborated with Reader’s Digest to produce a slick homage to the White Helmets “rescued” from Syria by Israel in July 2018, entitled ‘The inside story of Canada’s dramatic rescue of the White Helmets out of Syria.’ It depicts the volunteer “bankers and barbers” as heroes and downtrodden saints fleeing for their lives. A far cry from the image portrayed of organ thieves, child abductors and bone peddlers by the Syrian people who lived under the White Helmet regime of sectarian violence and exploitative abuse.

A network of global carpetbaggers enabling the criminal obfuscation of White Helmet crimes against Humanity and denial of justice to the Syrian people whose accusations against the pseudo humanitarian group are systematically silenced and marginalized by the White Helmet acolytes.

The White Helmets have received an unprecedented number of awards and peace prizes, including the Right Livelihood Award 2016 (RLA), the Atlantic Council Freedom Award 2016, Tipperary Peace Prize 2017, Hollywood Oscar 2017 and they have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for three years running.

According to the RLA website, they “honour and support courageous people and organizations that have found practical solutions to the root causes of global problems”. There is nothing honourable or courageous about the White Helmet crimes against the Syrian people.

The White Helmets have enabled and participated in organ trafficking, one of the deepest root causes of our global problems but the RLA has made no move to retract their award from this group of criminals, thieves and terrorists. They have ignored petitions and statements from groups of peace activists and academics. Instead, in 2018, they published a counter petition signed by 29 former RLA Laureates calling upon all parties to “stop targeting the White Helmets in Syria”.

While blaming Russia for the smear campaign against the White Helmets, the petition informs us that “(White Helmet) work is guided by the inherent dignity of human life.” The RLA claims that the evidence against the White Helmets is “unsubstantiated and does not stand up to scrutiny”. One cannot help but wonder; when did they scrutinize the evidence or listen to the huge number of Syrian civilian testimonies that detail the crimes committed by the White Helmets that are most definitely not guided by the inherent dignity of human life?

What all these US Coalition-aligned organizations fail to understand is that Russian media do indeed give a voice to the Syrians who are ignored by media in the West. Russia is not the originator of the claims against the White Helmets.

While these organizations, claiming to support peace in Syria and an end to hostility, continue protecting the White Helmets who are responsible for so much of the misery endured by the Syrian people, they forfeit any credibility and become nothing more than a corrupt extension of US supremacism in the region.

Child exploitation, abuse, human trafficking and organ trafficking – which goes hand in hand with the former – should never be tacitly condoned or covered up and must always be investigated or we have fallen into a moral vacuum from which there is no escape.

Does Trump Lie to Say ‘We Have Defeated ISIS in Syria’?

ERIC ZUESSE

At 11:52AM on Wednesday, December 19th, CBS News headlined "White House orders Pentagon to pull troops from Syria immediately”and reported that, “Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a veteran of the US Air Force who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and now serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it's ‘simply not true’ [which Trump, had said there, that] ISIS is defeated in Syria.” CBS News didn’t indicate which political Party Kinzinger represents, but he is a Republican, and he represents the rural Illinois 16th Congressional District, where Donald Trump had beaten Hillary Clinton by a 17% margin in 2016. So, Kinzinger is an anti-Trump Republican on this matter. He’s credible about that, not partisan about it. 

Who is telling the truth, Trump’s “We have defeated ISIS in Syria” or Kinzinger’s contrary, and what explains the contradiction between the accounts by Trump and Kinzinger?

As the CBS News report says, “Two weeks ago, Special Envoy Brett McGurk said the end of ISIS will be a long-term initiative, and "nobody is declaring mission accomplished.” CBS's report, however, fails to note that McGurk is an Obama appointee and has been consistently dedicated to America’s defeating Russia and replacing the leadership in all nations that are allied with (or even friendly toward) Russia, including, most especially, Syria and Iran.

At a deeper level, the question is: Which nations are primarily the cause of the considerable reduction in ISIS forces in Syria? If ISIS has been defeated in Syria, then, nonetheless, is it true for Trump to claim, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria,” or is the United States not even the main force which has done that?

On 30 September 2015, CNN headlined “Russia launches first airstrikes in Syria” and reported that, “Claiming to target ISIS, Russia conducted its first airstrikes in Syria, while US officials expressed serious doubts Wednesday about what the true intentions behind the move may be.” The next day, on October 1st, PBS bannered "Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, talks about why Russia deployed airstrikes in Syria”, and Morell, who had always been speaking and writing against Russia and against any Government that is at all allied with Russia, said: "President Putin believes that if President Assad were to depart the scene, there would be even more instability in Syria and, with that greater instability, ISIS would have more running room, and you could actually end up with ISIS in Damascus. So that is the primary reason he's doing what he is doing. Now, the question is why doesn’t he just attack [only] ISIS then because President Assad is under attack from a variety of different groups? ISIS is one, al-Nusra [Al Qaeda in Syria] is one, and the moderate opposition is another. So in order to prop up Assad to keep him in control, to make sure you don’t have more instability, he wants to attack all of those groups, right. But his fundamental focus is on ISIS.” But, then, he argued for US President Barack Obama’s position, against Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria: “If we were to have a transition from Assad to another government that everybody can agree on, then we’re actually going to have more stability in Syria. And I think the President probably argued that as long as Assad is around, he is a magnet for fighters to join ISIS, to join al-Nusra to fight Assad. And you can’t ultimately defeat ISIS and defeat al-Nusra without getting rid of President Assad in the process.” So: Morell acknowledged that Putin’s main target was ISIS, but Morell said that Obama was correct to oppose Russia’s bombing campaign there, because “you can't ultimately defeat ISIS and defeat al-Nusra without getting rid of President Assad in the process.” Then, he said, of Putin, “this guy is a thug. This guy is a bully.” But he said that, unfortunately, America must deal with that “bully”: “"first thing we have to convince the Russians of is that you can’t successfully deal with ISIS and al-Nusra without Assad going away. We have to be able to convince them of that. We really believe that. We really believe that. We really believe that he is a magnet for drawing people to ISIS and to al-Nusra.” He was saying that Assad had caused ISIS, which was trying to overthrow and replace him.

Then, on 9 October 2015, investigative journalist Tony Cartalucci bannered “The Mystery of ISIS’ Toyota Army Solved” and he documented that ISIS had gotten its Toyota pickup trucks from the US-backed Free Syrian Army, whom Obama called moderate rebels. Whether the FSA had ever had those trucks wasn’t known.

Then, on 14 October 2015, the Financial Times bannered ”Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists” and reported that, “Oil is the black gold that funds Isis’ black flag — it fuels its war machine, provides electricity and gives the fanatical jihadis critical leverage against their neighbours. … Selling crude is Isis’ biggest single source of revenue. … While al-Qaeda, the global terrorist network, depended on donations from wealthy foreign sponsors, Isis has derived its financial strength from its status as monopoly producer of an essential commodity consumed in vast quantities throughout the area it controls.”

Then, on 16 November 2015, the New York Times bannered “US Warplanes Strike ISIS Oil Trucks in Syria” and reported that, “United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group [ISIS] has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. … Until Monday, the United States refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1,000 tanker trucks.”

Two days later, on November 18th, the Pentagon said at a press conference, that “This is our first strike against tanker trucks” of ISIS.

Moreover, on November 24th, Zero Hedge bannered “'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes” and reported that the US Government were doing this oil-tanker-truck bombing only for show, because Russia had actually started the serious effort to conquer ISIS in Syria, and so the US needed to do something, for PR purposes.

Yet, further evidence also exists that the US Government supported ISIS against Syria’s Government: 

On 24 March 2013, the New York Times bannered “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.”, and reported that “From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons,” and that “‘A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,’ said Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who monitors illicit arms transfers.” The US Government tried to hide its involvement in this, by doing it through allied “Arab governments,” which were named in this news-report: “Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey,” and all four of these Governments (US, Sauds, Turkey, and Qatar) were trying to overthrow Syria’s Government. Then, on 8 September 2014, AFP headlined “Islamic State fighters using US arms: study”, and they reported that the US Government was supplying ISIS. On 1 September 2017, Russian Television reported that the US Government was secretly supplying weapons to ISIS and that an anti-Assad fighter had even quit the CIA-backed New Syrian Army because of that.

US President Barack Obama started the US policy to arm ISIS, and it was continued under the current US President.

There is considerable other evidence that the US Government has invaded, and been occupying, parts of Syria, solely in order to replace Syria’s Government by one that would be controlled by the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia.

It is definitely a lie for Trump to say: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria.”

A big turn in these events had been the failed 15 July 2015 coup-attempt, to overthrow Turkey’s Government, and which Turkey’s President, Tayyip Erdogan, says was engineered by the Gulen organization headquartered in the US, which is connected to and protected by the CIA. After July 15th, Turkey increasingly has allied with Russia’s Government, against America’s Government.

The present withdrawal of the US Government from Syria is actually due to the success of Vladimir Putin’s and Tayyip Erdogan’s plan (which I described on 10 September 2018, and which they jointly announced a week later, on September 17th) for Turkey to handle the military task of conquering the jihadists in Syria’s Idlib province and of Turkey’s forces then moving eastward to compel the US Government to end its occupation of northeastern Syria — that nation’s crucial oil-producing region. If Russia’s troops, instead of Turkey’s, were to do that task, it would risk bringing on a US-Russia war, but, since Turkey is still in NATO, that danger doesn’t exist when Turkish troops and armor (backed by Russian air-power) do that highly sensitive job.

Instead of “We have defeated ISIS in Syria,” the truth, from the US Government, would be “We have been defeated in Syria.” However, Putin (and Erdogan, and maybe even Assad) will not be crowing about their victory. Syria’s Government has successfully resisted the US Government’s effort, since 2009, to replace Syria’s Government by one that would be controlled by the Sauds.

ERIC ZUESSE

American writer and investigative historian

The West Stays Mum About Aleppo Chemical Attack

ALEX GORKA 

More than 100 people were injured as a result of a chemical attack in Aleppo on Nov. 24. The Syrian government asked the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to send a fact-finding mission to the city. Evidently the rebels were responsible. The West’s reaction has been surprising. Unlike in previous instances, the West has stayed mum instead of creating an uproar after the attacks and blaming Syria without any sort of thorough investigation to prove its guilt.

When rebel-controlled areas came under chemical attacks, Western leaders raised a hue and cry, but they more or less shrugged it off when civilians living in Aleppo’s government-controlled areas became the targets — shot by 120-mm mortars firing chlorine-filled rounds. The shelling came from Idlib — the province where the remaining rebels are based. There is no way the Syrian government troops could have been the perpetrators. Nobody would believe a story claiming that they attacked their own forces so deep behind their own lines. Russia and Syria are proud of the fact they have established peace in Aleppo, and they have no interest in disturbing it.

Neither the US nor its comrades-in-arms — the UK and France — is launching missile and air attacks to strike rebel-held positions in Idlib. And no one is rushing toward international podiums to do any finger-pointing. No statements have been issued from either Washington or Brussels as of Nov. 27. The silence is deafening.

Only French President Macron has announced that his country is condemning the use of chemical weapons in general and in the Syrian city of Aleppo in particular. Some time ago, Paris was vigorously advocating for the West’s intervention in Syria. It joined the US military actions against Syrian government forces. French special forces operate side-by-side with their American counterparts there. The French president has always expressed his indignation and condemnation of the Syrian government for the things it has not done. This time he failed to castigate the radicals in Idlib for the crime they really did commit.

It was Russian forces who attacked the terrorist positions from where mortars were firing chemical rounds, according to intelligence sources. The Russian air force prevented another chemical attack in order to protect civilians. Russian and Syrian medical personnel saved human lives by rapidly coming to their aid. Syria and Russia joined efforts in an investigation to produce proof that it was Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham militants (the former Jabhat al-Nusra) who perpetrated this war crime.

Russia had warned that the White Helmets were preparing to stage such an attack while freely operating in the terrorist-controlled areas. They had been painted in the West as human-rights defenders until their group was exposed as terrorist collaborators. Interestingly, the group had always operated in areas controlled by the extremists, never in zones held by the so-called “moderate opposition.”

But the question is — why were the Russian warnings  ignored? Another question — what will the OPCW do after it has acquired new powers to hand down verdicts about who is to blame? Russian experts are already there investigating and producing tangible results, while that global watchdog is not sure if it is safe enough for a team to be sent to Aleppo! Even if it goes in, it’ll have lost too much time to be able to conduct an effective investigation. The way to do it is to arrive on the scene quickly and gather evidence. It has not done this. Will it cooperate with the Russian military as it should? After all, Russia has hard evidence it can produce, otherwise it would not have attacked Idlib and breached the ceasefire accord. It protected the civilians in Aleppo knowing perfectly it would have to justify its actions.

In any event, the chemical attack in Aleppo is an acid test that will demonstrate the OPCW’s ability to beef up its credibility as an international body empowered with the authority to assign blame. The inspectors did not travel to Syria’s Shayrat air base to conduct an inspection after the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack last year, nor did they go to see with their own eyes what really happened in Douma, where a chemical attack took place in April. It’ll have to behave more responsibly this time, even if its own safety is not guaranteed.

The idea behind the attack was to provoke a clash between Turkey, which is responsible for the situation in Idlib, and the Russian-backed Syrian government that is defending Aleppo. But those plans fell apart when they were exposed by Russian intelligence. The attack was not unexpected. And there was one other thing that was exposed as a result — the duplicity of the West.

Effective mechanisms necessary for creating global peace, collective security

Muslim scholar

TEHRAN, Sep. 23 (MNA) – Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, Chief Editor of Baku-based ‘Deyerler’ news portal, stressed the need for effective mechanisms for creation of peace and collective security in the world.  

Muslim scholar Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, who is the chairman of DEVAMM (the Centre for the Protection of Freedom of Conscience and Religion), as well as the Chief Editor of Baku-based ‘Deyerler’ news portal, said in an interview with the Islamic World Peace Forum (IWPF) that global peace and security would come into effect when “effective international mechanisms to restrain aggression appear.” He went on to criticize the UN for its failure to influence the course of events in a constructive way due to being run by the US and its allies.

“The most world powers keep either a neutral position of observer, or sail in the wake of American foreign policy,” he added.

“The mechanism of organized resistance is strengthening in the Middle East,” he stressed, which necessiates integration of efforts to “develop mechanisms for mass security.”

Following is the full text of the interview:

Given the slogan of the UN General Assembly this year in line with the International Day of Peace (September 21, 2018), which is “The Right to Peace - on the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, what practical measures do you propose to materialize this slogan?

Similar to many other conceptual solutions of UN, this postulate will come to an effect, when effective international mechanisms to restrain aggression appear.

There is no doubt that US and its allies run the show in UN and many other important international institutions. UN, declaring attractive slogans, just in words, is deprived of real opportunity to influence the course of events and manage world processes in a constructive way.

The most world powers keep either a neutral position of observer, or sail in the wake of American foreign policy.

Unfortunately, many countries with Muslim populations, especially the Persian Gulf countries, not only support US policy, but also are very active sponsors of international terrorism. Indeed, because of their direct intervention and as a result of their financial support, the inextinguishable fire of the war flared up in the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and millions became refugees.

Sailing in the wake of Zionist policy, these states with outwardly Muslim positioning actually are satellites of Israeli regime and active gendarmes of Middle East nations that wish justice and dignity.

Indeed, there are many people in the West who know the actual state of affairs. But the voice of fair and impartial people of the West is drowning in a stream of disinformation, poured on the public from Mass Media that under the control of oligarchic capital.

But, along with this, it is necessary to note that the world around us is changing slowly but definitely. It is no longer possible to deceive millions of people blatantly and unceremoniously, to create a distorted reality, to change concepts with impunity.

Let’s consider at least the situation with the "White Helmets" in Syria. Despite powerful disinformation, the United States and its allies failed to press the positioning of this terrorist structure as a public organization. And such examples are too many.

The mechanism of organized resistance is strengthening in the Middle East, more and more countries are shaking off the shackles of colonial rule and choosing a difficult but dignified life.

Thus, it is necessary to continue integration efforts, to conduct educational and enlightening work, to develop mechanisms for mass security, etc.

Given the recent developments in the world and in the region (ISIL, Saudi’s attacks in Yemen, war crimes of Zionists in region, Syria and insecurity and instability in the Middle East) what are the international requirements for creating a world full of peace and security?

The problem of global security is the main issue of the modern world. But, unfortunately, the most who speak about it are the representatives of the circles, which are precisely the source of international tension and even chaos. Here there is a substitution of concepts. According to their point of view, mass security is the lack of any resistance against their hegemonic aspirations.

Thus, humanity will only reach a global security system, when it can create effective and working mechanisms that are capable to ensure justice in international relations, to punish aggression, and to hold out against terror. And in this case, the policy of transparency and clearness in covering these issues becomes very vital. Including, via creation of international schemes of views exchange, like your forum.

I am absolutely convinced that mass security in the world will come with the appearance of the Hidden Imam (a.f). Humanity craves justice and a dignified life. During many-many years several leaders appeared, too many slogans were put forward, which corresponded to these efforts. And the more Muslims seek justice in international and interstate relations, the more terms will be created for the sacred Appearance.

In the light of the objectives and measures of Islamic World Peace Forum in the field of establishing just peace in the world, what measures do you propose for promoting just peace discourse in the world?

Here, it is very important to create horizontal links between representatives of nations, states, and societies. The more strong ties and constant contacts in this field, the more opportunities to achieve mutual understanding and sincerity in matters of international peace and security. These ties are designed to unite all people of goodwill, and create terms to hold out against disinformation, chaos, terror.

Do you think that international organizations and international human rights defender and responsible for establishing peace in the world have not yet been able to act in their true responsibility for peace in the world?

Certainly, international organizations and international human rights defenders, who responsible for establishing peace in the world, are still far from accomplished mission. There are both: objective and subjective reasons.

It is important to know the essence of the Imperialist-Zionist policy of aggression and suppression of dissent, the mechanisms of substituting concepts and ideas, support of terrorist groups and creation of conditions to control chaos. International structures are far from being totally aware of these matters. And the more it is explained by convincing and irrefutable arguments, the more people of goodwill cooperate in the creation of mass security systems, the faster and more effective will be the work of international human rights organizations and structures, who are responsible for establishing peace in the world.

Haji Ilgar Ibrahimoglu is the imam of “Juma” mosque in Icheri-sheher, the chairman of DEVAMM Center for Protection of Conscience and Persuasion Freedom, President of the International Religious Liberty Association and a scholar at the Islamic World Peace Forum