We should never forget that all human deaths are tragedies. No human is perfect and none is completely evil. Even the most wretched, snivelling excuse of a human being you can possibly imagine – say Ian Austin – has known a mother’s love. Le Mesurier leaves a wife and children who will be mourning. We should not forget that.
Unfortunately he worked in a profession where you can very quickly move from an asset to a liability. Le Mesurier’s usefulness to Western security services, Israel and their Gulf allies came to an end when the jihadist headchoppers to whom Le Mesurier had been providing logistic support and invaluable propaganda, lost their last secure footing in Syria. That the white helmets worked hand in glove with the extreme jihadists, and moved out wherever they moved out, is beyond dispute as a matter of fact, whatever the state of denial of the mainstream media. That there is now nowhere in Syria that people can go around executing Christians with impunity, and simultaneously now nowhere that the White Helmets can operate, is not the coincidence the mainstream media affect to believe. Some of them possibly do believe it. As a wise man once observed, it is amazing what people can believe when their job depends on it.
Having stopped being useful, Le Mesurier became much more of a liability after Turkey took over further control of former jihadist controlled areas in Northern Syria. The chances of Turkey obtaining both documentary and first person testamentary evidence of the relationship between the White Helmets, the jihadists, and western and allied intelligence services increased substantially. Indeed I have reason to believe Turkey may already have done so. His potential liability to his former employers ratcheted up. This resulted in his death. Whether he was killed or took his own life from the resultant stress, I have no information at present.
As regular readers know I have excellent contacts in Turkey of precisely the right kind. Leading a life a great deal more complicated than just being a blogger, I regret that I have been unable to date to tell you the full truth of what I was doing in Ankara in December 2017, and probably will not be able to tell you for a year or two yet. I will now try to get further information from my contacts on Le Mesurier, but please understand it may not be instant.
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Yesterday, around lunchtime, Radio 4 broadcast a glowing eulogy for James Le Mesurier. It was spoken by somebody high up in the UK security services (sorry I cannot recall his name). I realised it was entirely fake before hearing on whose behalf it was given. I wondered if the man giving the eulogy might also have been the individual who ordered James Le Mesurier’s “retirement”. That is a chilling but surprisingly believable possibility.
Was the item on WATO – The World at One, or maybe the ‘news’.
It was probably our very own Hamish de Bretton-Gordon!
‘In a tweet, the White Helmets said the group had “learned with shock and sadness the news” of the death of Mr Le Mesurier. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a director of the Doctors Under Fire campaign group and a friend of Mr Le Mesurier, said: “It’s absolutely tragic. He was one of the few people who have made a humanitarian footprint in Syria.”
Mr de Bretton-Gordon said the White Helmets had a very “strong structure” and their work would continue. But he said Mr Le Mesurier’s death had left a “hole to fill”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50375869
Here is Hamish de Bretton-Gordon on the Forces Network speaking about Le Mesurier
https://www.forces.net/news/james-le-mesurier-friend-pays-tribute-special-kind-person#.XcvCO_zUd4l.twitter
“Mr de Bretton-Gordon said [….] Mr Le Mesurier’s death had left a “hole to fill”.”
Just how high was that balcony?
Boom ya.
Maybe he was rocket assisted.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamish-de-bretton-gordon-obe-37aa9a35/
Another ex Army guy who pops his head.
He made comments last year with the Skipal’s
Now with his friend Le Meusier in Turkey.
When will he pop up next ?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-winberg-91004913b/
Emma Winberg, the wife of james-le-mesurier.
Another spy, she worked for the FCO for 7 years (2007 – 2014) as a Political officer.
What is the role of a Political Officer ?
George, here’s a link where you may find enlightenment?
https://fco.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/appcentre-ext/brand-2/candidate/so/pm/4/pl/1/opp/3290-Political-Officer/en-GB
“What is the role of a Political Officer ?”
It’s like what the Russians had in that film/book, The Hunt for Red October.
He’s the spooky bloke, there to ensure the military chaps don’t go off script.
Minders, I suppose.
But don’t worry, only horrible, hating our freedoms, anti-democratic dictatorships behave like this.
It was probably the world at one. I was setting up in readiness for some student experiments in sending audio signals along fibre optic. The student lab session was timed to begin at 1-30 pm. My transistor radio seemed a convenient audio source for generating a clear speech signal. It was the only news story i heard to on Radio 4 because I quickly felt the need to change channel. I wouldn’t want to encourage students to listen to this kind of disinformation.
he said Mr Le Mesurier’s death had left a “hole to fill”
Perhaps not as big as the hole to fill in the pavement below the apartment.
Too slow. See above. Need to be quick around here.
And a whole page obituary in today’s “Times”. (I know that only because I sometimes pick up a free copy from Waitrose, mainly for the Sudoku and crossword).
I didn’t read it – if I feel like fantasy, I usually read SF or comic strips.
The question we in Britain must ask is why our alliance with the US must be underpinned by fomenting terror worldwide. I no longer see the US as our ally, I see them as the world biggest terrorist organisation treating us the way the Krays ran the East End.
The Us are clearly interfering in our General Election: why is Killary wittering on about it? She is yesterdays news, a bloodthirsty psychopath condemned by a world no longer to,erating global imperialism.
Why is TBP being denied an electoral platform? Agree or disagree with them, democracy is not about oligarchs doing candidate list deals to stop the people expressing a true choice. It is like telling Scots they can have SNP or Labour but not both on the same ballot.
James le Mesurier was part of the UK-US killing machine which rules with no other purpose other than conquering, killing, subjugating and looting. It must crush hope wherever it sees it.
I have three family members who have treated me like that for forty years and more: faux Labour, two of them. Absolute narcissists or psychopaths, all of them. All were promoted above their competence courtesy of their spying. One was given grace and favour luxury accommodation in Hampstead by FCO spook women lying that they were ‘helping poor doctors’, when aforementioned doctor was in top 2% of earners. She paid <£500 a month for a luxury flat double the size of £600-750 a month flats I rented in Manchester and Leeds. The tax evasion ran over a decade well into six figures and the Saudi-backed Royal Brompton Hospital could not care two hoots about the criminality of its senior medical staff. As 'medical education' is a good front for spies travelling to 'regions of interest', it is hardly surprising.
No one should ever believe that you CAN get promoted without embracing thuggery, scum, antidemocracy, lack of boundaries and absolute revulsion of self-contained, self-motivated people immune to MI6 skullduggery.
Everyone should face the truth that consultant doctors join spying ops: they must prove themselves as spies to get a job. Just like playing rugby or swimming fast gets you promoted quicker as a medic. Pathetic, is it not?
Real world disgusting and despicable UK and USA…
“The question we in Britain must ask is why our alliance with the US must be underpinned by fomenting terror worldwide”.
It’s really very simple. You can’t just walk in and start plundering a civilised nation with a properly functioning government, armed forces, police, etc.
So the trick is to stage some kind of mass violence – a revolution, terrorism, whatever. Then you can sidestep the UN Charter’s absolute prohibition of aggressive war by saying, “We are just saving those poor people from the state of anarchy that their government is obviously unable to cope with”. That is, literally, what they did in Syria. First set someone on fire, then rush in and knock him doan and start smothering him with foam – while you steal his clothes and shoes and take all his valuables.
Back about the time of the Second Gulf War, it struck me that the USA’s modus operandi is very much like the way some spiders consume their prey. First they catch it in a network of sticky strands of silk, and wrap it up so tightly it can’t move. Then they inject a powerful digestive enzyme through the prey’s carapace, which more or less liquefies its insides. Then the spider calmly sucks it all out, like a teenager drinking a milk shake through a straw.
Sound disgusting? Think how much worse it is when it’s done to a whole nation of tens of millions of fairly decent people.
Craig: “Having stopped being useful, Le Mesurier became much more of a liability after Turkey took over further control of former jihadist controlled areas in Northern Syria. The chances of Turkey obtaining both documentary and first person testamentary evidence of the relationship between the White Helmets, the jihadists, and western and allied intelligence services increased substantially.”
Which is presumably also why Israel evacuated the White Helmets in an emergency measure when they (TWH) had become surrounded by Syrian forces in 2018:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-44915099
For anybody who has not seen it already the Corbett Report’s documentary (30m) on the White Helmets is well worth a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vNwe7yKbwo
Essentially then, it seems, that what is/has been happening is that after the lies of the Iraq war became clear the public became even more sceptical about and opposed to war, which was further confirmed in 2013 when, under public pressure, parliament voted against a regime change military assault on Syria and the Assad regime. I recall George Osborne referring to the moment as being one of great national shame, whilst most people will have regarded it as a democratic high point.
Faced with such public opposition the American-lead west, including the UK, has resorted to (presumably illegal) clandestine measures to destroy the Assad regime, along with the rest of his country (as General Wesley Clarke has said), including conniving with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others to fund an international Jihadi mercenary assault on Syria leading to the appalling devastation, death and the refugee crisis that we now see.
The White Helmets have been part of that operation, and their capture or dissolution seemingly poses the threat of the reality of what has been happening being made explicitly public.
Meanwhile, our spineless political and media classes lie to us about what is happening in this major international catastrophe.
Craig: “Some of them (journalists) possibly do believe it. As a wise man once observed, it is amazing what people can believe when their job depends on it.”
None so blind as those who do not wish to see.
At some point there needs to be a serious reformation, if not revolution, in British journalism because what we have now is an utter disgrace and a scandal.
Following her talks, Ms.Patel asked about sending British aid money to the Israeli army, for funding humanitarian projects in the occupied area of Golan Heights.
That would be The Syrian Golan Heights.
At this time her boss was none other than Boris Johnson.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/11/here-why-priti-patel-s-undisclosed-trip-israel-so-bad
At this time in South West Syria, there was an Islamic State Enclave, nestling against the Jordan border, nestling against the Israeli held Golan, that was used as a three way corridor.
Apparently lots of White Helmet Heroes were extracted through
The Golan.
So the argument above (Craig and posts) is if you pull someone out of the rubble and save their life in an area run by jihadists you’re responsible for the conflict… you’re responsible for jihadists executing Christians… you’re responsible for the bomb that dropped and the injuries of the person you’re trying to save. And if they die, despite your efforts, you’re responsible for that too.
But if you did nothing… walked by or just watched them die in front of you…. or perhaps even if you were the pilot dropping the bomb… then that’s the way not to be responsible for anything…
no, i think the argument is that if you kill kids and place them artfully around a set up scene of a gas attack, you are helping the u.s. and britain topple another government they don’t like. this also applies if you merely snatch a few childrens’ bodies and do so, without killing them yourself.
If you’ve got four minutes I suggest a look at this video. The White Helmets aren’t much different from the SS Einsatzkommando, except they wait for jihadis to do the killings before they take the bodies away. Except for children, where it’s said they’ve killed them themselves to present as video footage of young victims of “Assad atrocities”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpJNiWcKDMU
I’m coming from this from a position of open-minded ignorance. I looked at the video, I’ve done some searches around the claims here. I found this more convincing…
https://codastory.com/disinformation/armed-conflict/a-swedish-alternative-ngo-disputes-a-video-of-syrian-carnage-and-a-russian-fake-news-meme-is-born/
i’m approaching codastory from a position of open minded ignorance. are they related to coda media? because the first listed “partner” on the wiki article is the guardian. what is your opinion of the reporting on syria in the guardian, then?
and what about the faked chemical attack in douma? what is your position on that?
First time I’ve visited that site… looking it up… yes it looks related to coda media. You’ve digressed into questions on my opinion about other things… (I’d have to have a look at those two things to form an opinion as I don’t have one)… rather than dealing with anything said in the link. Your only challenge seems to be associations of the site…
my challenge pertains to a media site that is well known to distort the truth. if you really are unaware of the recent revelations about the douma fraud, you need to do a great deal more open minded investigation than you have done yet.
The trouble, No to mass murder, is that when you voluntarily admit ignorance of other matters that are all part of the same picture, some of us will doubt whether you have sufficient background or perspective to interpret what you see being reported.
There is a natural and very powerful tendency to believe what you are told by your government, the BBC, the papers, etc. Most of us don’t start to doubt until we have noticed a very consistent pattern of deception and distortion.
Tom (November 14 2019 at 14.01)
That’s right. I despair when BTL commentators spout snippets that they’ve read in the Guardian over the past 12 months and think that reflects reality and they now know all there is to know. Some of us have been absorbing articles, reports, interviews, documentaries, Twitter posts, technical reports (OPCW, Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, and Theodore Postol, for example) and video coverage from both sides of the fence for (in my case) over five years (and some people for far longer than that) and doing our own independent research on NGOs, chemical weaponry, background checks on named individuals describing atrocities, journalists, the background and interests of public figures who have spoken for or against the Syrian Government etc etc (the list goes on) …all in order to form an educated opinion about what is going on. With no exaggeration I check every day for updates relating to events in Syria. I live on my own, am retired and get immense satisfaction out of this research and relying on my own judgement rather than being told what to believe.
I have no time for people who just fleetingly dip into the subject and think they can change my opinion simply by accusing me of being an Assad supporter and apologist because that’s what the Guardian tells them I am. There has also been a pattern recently of anti-Assad commentators appearing to believe that we all base our opinions solely on the campaigning of Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett. This is ill-informed on two levels.
First, they overlook the fact that both these ladies back up their contentions with video evidence, photographs and interviews with ordinary Syrian citizens, Syrian journalists and White Helmets (former and current). And one of the current commentators on here actually remarked that we cannot trust what they say because they have never been to where the White Helmets operate. That shows such a complete lack of basic comprehension of the whole state of affairs in Syria that I wouldn’t even bother trying to respond to that.
Second, whilst people such as myself do pay (objective) attention to what Beeley and Bartlett report, they are not the only ones reporting and commentating on Syria. Would critics suggest that Peter Ford and John Pilger and Robert Fisk and Peter Hitchens, to name but four others, are all in the pay of Beeley, Bartlett, Assad or Putin? Presumably they would.
After harvesting their organs.
This.
How would you call this, “No to mass murder”?
Wait for it. Wait for it.
Action!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rOL7fYyRQo
The white helmets amateur dramatic troupe.
lol. such discipline!
+1
Your logic sucks.
Some spectacular comprehension difficulties here.
“It is hard to get a man to understand something…”
No to mass, murder is being paid for. So the white helmets followed the alqueda, al nusra et al terrorists around Syria so they could pull people out of the rubble? Cause a few fake chemical attacks, always ensuring the right kind of camera crew take the best possible angles, again and again and again.
Tell us no to messy murder, how many hundreds of millions of taxes has this fake compassion group received from the west and Saudi backers?
And perhaps NTMM could explain why the White Helmets wear outfits with their organisation’s name written in English; why the White Helmets receive so much funding from the West whilst the real national Syria Civil Defence Forces receive nothing in spite of being members of the International Civil Defence Organisation since 1972 and comprise 50,000 fire and rescue volunteers (as opposed to the paid workers of the so-called Syria Civil Defense (‘White Helmets’)); the latter pick up the pieces after the terrorists have blown up and maimed – and continue to do so – innocent civilians (yes, including children) in all areas not occupied by the jihadis (they would be killed, and have been, if they went into terrorist controlled areas). And why the White Helmets don’t have a telephone number for the public to call for assistance – the real Syria Civil Defence uses the number 113. And why the White Helmets don’t keep official records of the people they have rescued; no names or other personal details. That’s strange but convenient for an organisation in receipt of millions and millions of aid from the West and with an extensive PR Department.
Ntmm,
Ever heard of the Red Crescent?
They and their co group Red Cross are the ones who normally in conflict zones.
So why were the RC not allowed where the WH’s created by an aristo military English adventurer were?
I see the Groan has come out with a blatant barefaced denial of the many FACTS of the covert activity of our state departments and security and military forces.
Yeah it’s all Russian propaganda!
Further down, you stated “I’m coming from this from a position of open-minded ignorance”.
Yet, though you acknowledge your ignorance of the background to Craig’s words, you feel free to conclude that he is guilty of some kind of bias (your first sentence).
I’m reminded of something once said by William Kingdon Clifford “To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”.
You would need to spend many hours going through the reams of on the ground reports submitted by the likes of Andrew Ashdown (Anglican vicar who visited Syria many times during the conflict), Vanessa Beeley (likewise), Eva Bartlett (likewise) and many other commenters, such as Ted Postol’s analysis of the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, or the Swedish Doctors for Human Rights comments on the White Helmets treatment of children supposedly suffering the effects of a chemical attack by the Syrian Government.
The is a wealth of evidence to show that The White Helmets work closely in league with the Jihadists.
This was a noisy murder, not a quiet one. If this were CIA/UK ordered it would have been quiet. More obviously, whathisname Bretton-hyphen wouldn’t be the obvious fake PR liar praising what a good guy he was, someone more subtle would do it.
Loads of money gets thrown at PR in Syria. Bell Pottinger had a $540mn contract for just 2007-2011 Iraq PR for the DoD. (They said they were just buying cameras for TV crews to produce footage – and the newspapers printed that).
Le Mesurier was throwing a lot of that money at Isis type villains, and then the music stopped and he no longer had money to give.
This is what happens when you stop paying any mafia your dues. It was an Isis type group demanding more cash.
MI6/CIA would have found plenty more work for him.
The assassination of JFK was anything but quiet.
S/he who plays with fire must not be surpriised to bepushed into one.
I hope they will hand a hat round at the MIs, as a guesture to his distraught family and the future of his childten.
Althogh something tells me that something must have fallen aside those hundreds of millions the west has wasted on bad confusing publicity, death and destruction in Syria.
Mark Urban pushed the idea that the Russians killed Le Mesurier https://ibb.co/bRmYQZn , but he then deleted those tweets. https://twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1193855016408375296 . I wonder if he got a D notice to censor any doubts that it was suicide. If people think it was murder, they might suspect someone else, other than the Russians.
Philip Cross and others have hinted the same ‘Russians did it’ idea on Wikipedia and tried to smear anyone who criticises the White Helmets. https://ibb.co/y5Jjk4S
here was a report on Russia Today about “Philip Cross” polishing establishment turds this morning….
A quick tweet:
https://twitter.com/VanessaBeeley/status/1194148807375773697
Here is a video of Al Jolani, Al Nusra’s boss (AKA as Al Qaida in Syria) praising the white helmets.
https://twitter.com/ShehabiFares/status/1194299801556463616
Meanwhile CM’s tweeting takedowns of Rory Stewart and MI6 buggers.
Kit Klanrenberg has goods on the little git, too.
I still wonder why Chulov of the Guardian hasn’t peeped a squeak on this?
Infact not much this month – maybe a deserved holiday to some holiday paradise?
Though ‘he’ has retweeted something yesterday that is totally unrelated!
Is he like the fabled dog going to waste away without HMV?
Hell Mates ????
Just what has Ian Austin done to prompt the deserved expression of distaste that John Mann, John Woodcock and this morning, Tom Harris hasn’t?
The case of Tom Harris is an odd one (not). He actually announced that he had converted to Toryism on Saturday. The “announcement” today was reheated old news. Still, every day must have its bad news for Jeremy moment.
Surely Mr Mesurier was aware that one cannot participate halfway in the dark ops food chain?
That he was human and had a wife and children and presumably parents and all – well, maybe he should have thought of them before undertaking activities that lead so cavalierly to the deaths of countless and unacknowledged others.
You can’t help but wonder what those last moments are like for Mr Mesurier and others of his ilk – William Colby, for example. A door opens, men approach, you realize that which you’ve brought upon others – it was your job description ffs – has now come for you.
You had countless opportunities to stop causing carnage but you didn’t. The good news is now that you’re dead, you’ll never have to explain to your children just how you let so many others die in agony and how you left so many families to grieve and suffer.
Whatever happened to Mesurier, he got off easy.
Yes, Le Mesurier has left his wife Emma Winberg to run MayDay Rescue all by herself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_Rescue_Foundation
“… Since its establishment, the Mayday Rescue Foundation’s primary role has been as an implementing partner for international support to Syria Civil Defence (SCD, the “White Helmets”), for whom it has provided training, equipment and mentorship funded by countries including the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany; the other implementing partner delivering aid to SCD is Chemonics, which delivers a comparable amount of support to the White Helmets on behalf of USAID …
Mayday Rescue reports that between 2014 and 2018 it received funding of $127 million, $19 million of which came from non-government sources …”
Emma Winberg’s bio at Skoll.org:
http://skoll.org/contributor/emma-winberg/
As a Director of Mayday Rescue Foundation my focus is on developing new solutions for building upstream grassroots community resilience in the context of global threats from issues such as forced migration, violent extremism and climate change.
I believe that by empowering vulnerable communities and equipping them with a basic and versatile toolkit of skills and means to prepare for, respond to and adapt to the man-made and natural threats that they face, we can increase their intrinsic resilience. By fostering networks of these communities through the shared language, philosophy and approach of community resilience-building we can help transcend ethnic, sectarian and cultural divisions.
My background is in security, stabilisation and peace building in states that are entering, enduring and emerging from conflict. My postings have been in Kabul, Damascus, East Jerusalem, Istanbul and Erbil [capital of Iraqi Kurdistan] with shorter postings in Yemen and East Africa.
I have been working in the Middle East and South Asia for the past ten years, first as a member of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and subsequently in the fields of strategic communications and community resilience. I am fluent in English, Swedish and Arabic.
So Craig, are we all invited to your pity party for him, with trebles all round?
No wonder the West is dying, thinking more about criminals/mass murderers/troublemakers/satan’s little helpers instead of their VICTIMS!
Here is the extensive analysis by Vanessa Bealy of the White Helmets setting its history and how it was conceived and set up in Turley by Le Mesurier. It also contains some quotes by him about their work. Although written two years ago and contains a lot of valid documentation for those who are new to the propaganda set up as The White Helmets.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/white-helmets-terror-syria/231597/
This would be Vanessa Beeley the self-confessed Assad supporter and apologist, assistant editor of the 21stcenturyliar conspiracy website would it?
Not sure I’d expect anything unbiased or objective from her.
https://al-bab.com/blog/2018/05/assad-defender-vanessa-beeley-speak-union-backed-festival
She’s always sounded pretty good. A couple of slurs from a self-confessed right-winger aren’t going to affect her reputation.
You’ve never stopped to consider her motives?
Interesting critique on how the bulk of the anti-White Helmets propaganda emanates form her and Eva Barlett, Bashar Assad once described the pair as “our female soldiers”.
http://brockley.blogspot.com/2018/10/is-vanessa-beeley-reliable-source.html
OK what about these other sources, one from BBC
https://theduran.com/stunning-evidence-emerges-from-bbc-journalist-exposing-white-helmets-staging-chemical-attacks-in-douma/
https://twitter.com/ShoebridgeC/status/1158377280168779777
Or this you must brace yourself to watch this:
https://clarityofsignal.com/2017/06/21/highly-graphic-videos-white-helmets-film-themselves-participating-in-beheadings-of-syrian-soldiers/
Of course I’ve thought about her motives. Naturally there’s such a massive amount of anti-Asad stuff, simply because it’s pushed by western governments with large investments in supporting the rebels. There isn’t much pro-Asad stuff, because there’s nobody paying for it.
Asad isn’t particularly delicate, though defending Syrian interests, but then he’s much the same as Sisi, or MbS, and I haven’t seen you criticising them. Why not? Why are those latter not equally evil? I wouldn’t go further in defending Asad, because the Syrians I know, although some are Alaouite, are not very keen, probably because of what’s happened to them personally.
However, it is certain that Asad is the only way to achieve peace in Syria. The alternative is jihadi confusion.
Beeley and Bartlett have been a bit too partisan, but that’s all, in telling the truth.
In case you’ve forgotten, I’d remind you that I’ve had to do quite a bit to keep Syrian students alive during the crisis, though I’m out of it now.
“the bulk of the anti-White Helmets propaganda emanates from her and Eva Bartlett”
http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/security-council/watchbr%20/watch/roundtable-discussion-on-the-activities-of-the-white-helmets-organization-in-syria/5982221816001/
Sorry. Time to give up with link…life’s too short! Anyone interested in what a UN group found when investigating the White Helmets can simply put into their search engine ‘ UN discussions on White Helmets 20 December 2018’. It will come up with the video recording of the full 1 hour and 20 minutes of presentations (including videoed testimonies of identified witnesses and former White Helmets) and conclusions. The US and UK refused to attend this session.
“You’ve never stopped to consider her motives?”
Vanessa Beeley is what used to be known as a “journalist”, Kempe. You are doubtless unfamiliar with that term in its proper meaning. It implies a burning desire to know the truth and explain it to as many people as you can.
As a real journalist explained, long ago,
“But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than to be ignorant”.
– H. L. Mencken, “What I Believe,” The Forum (September, 1930), p. 139.
Unlike Chulov and others who write about Syria, she actually did proper investigative journalism on the spot. Even Chulov and those BBC investigators who report about Syria cannot set foot in the place. Those reporting about East Aleppo would have had their throats cut off by the moderate rebels as has happened before. Anyway Kempe, let us assume that you are honest and like to see whether the investigations she carried out are true. Did you manage to look at the evidence presented? Did you just repeat what you heard elsewhere or did you evaluate the evidence yourself?
Chulov and the BBC do set foot in northern Syria from the Turkish side only if they are in the company of the terrorists themselves and do as the terrorists and their backers direct them.
When you need to fabricate you loose all credibility.
Vanessa Beeley is not a ‘self-confessed Assad supporter and apologist’. I doubt she’s ever met Assad. Her interest is in Syrians living in Syria, not Assad. She has many many Syrian supporters, whose opinion of her give far more weight to her reports than your ignorant, biased remark.
Er, Brigid, in case you hadn’t notice, Mr al-Assad is a Syrian living in Syria. No better, as far as I can ascertain, and no worse than any other Syrian person.
Although he seems to be a great deal better than most Western politicians.
Aren’t we all Assad apologists? In the sense that we or at least our media spread millions of lies about him and we are now ashamed.
What I would call the George Galloway principle – anyone lied about that much that strongly must be a good guy.
Besides you don’t need to be Vanessa to know that he White Helmets were fake and paid for by Western governments with Turkish local assistance.
My favorite conspiracy theory is that Jeffrey Epstein was dispatched from hiding in Israel to suicide Le Mesurier in Turkey…
“Assad likens ‘suicide’ of White Helmets founder to EPSTEIN & other high-profile mystery deaths” – RT 15 Nov, 2019 21:38
A major recurrent donor to the Tories is Ayman Asfari, a Syrian tycoon and owner of Petrofac of fracking fame. Here are some links to what he does. Mary might also want to take up this thread.
hhttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/18/tories-receive-50000-from-ayman-asfari-businessman-questioned-by-serious-fraud-office
https://www.asfarifoundation.org.uk/where-we-work/
The Syria Development Network funded by the Asfari Foundation also funds the Syria Campaign – their press releases were being printed verbatim in the Guardian as ‘journalism’. When I objected they suspended me the first time!
Asfari and wife were contributors to Cameron and the tories. The fraud case and charges against him got booted into the tall grass of the SFO – where these who get ‘caught’ get sent to be disappeared from prosecution and eventually get discharged – it is a giant carpet under which major misdeeds are swept.
This post is backwards, this guy was an intelligence service guy from the west that created and led an organization that in the end helped Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Al-Nusra terrorists. Under no time under his life did he renounce what the White Helmets had become. Good riddance I say!
word in the casbah is a housemaid planted a mirrror in his room
Le Mesurier. was a Mercenary, he is no loss to the human race .His creation the White Helmets were the propaganda arm of Al Nusra ,the Syrian offshoot of aL Qaeda., one of the most evil organisation ever
He worked thru MI6 as an independent Consultant. His operation was financed by the FCO by about £100million and the money trail is still flowing. Marks Sedwill has his hands in that pie ,as head of the FCO.
Le Mesurier ran Jihadists in the Kosova war and there was involvement in Organ Trafficking. The White Helmets ,apart from their speciality of setting up fake chemical attacks with children in Syria were also involved in Organ Trafficking there.
Israel is next door and a favoured destination for product.
The Israelis ex-filtrated Hundreds of White Helmets when the Regime change operation failed. It is reckoned 400 of those murderers were. allowed into Britain at the request of the FCO. They will be re-activated when required ,probably to Iran, Shades of the Libyans allowed into Manchester by Mi6. That turned out well for Mancunian kids at a pop concert.
I’m pretty sure the exfiltration of the WHs was agreed to by Asad. It would go along with the Syrian policy of putting the jihadis in buses and shipping them out to Idlib (or Israel, depending where they were). Much better than too much political embarrassment from putting them on show, which might provoke a US/European attack.
You’d have thought the propaganda value of just a handful of confessions from ex-WH members would’ve been worth the risk, even if they had to be extracted under torture.
You failed to read my comment.
But then many of us believe that torturing people is wrong, Kempe. And so we don’t do it.
Not ever.
“I’m pretty sure the exfiltration of the WHs was agreed to by Asad.” How sure?
They had fled across the border into the Golan Heights. I doubt Assad had any control over where they went.
HDB-G, the tank regimenter, with JLeM were setting up the Syria chemical attack false flag operations in 2012!
There is plenty of proof in public already about their activities and backing by MI and Fco funding of private companies set up as cover.
The can of worms that keeps giving and giving! More popcorn.
Btw Just watching the start of Impeachment public hearing – the first witness ambassador is about to get cross-examined. Even more popcorn!
Dungroanin, if I ever want to watch and listen to a bunch of neurotic, slef-obsessed imbeciles boasting and complaining and whining and conspiring, I just watch “Neighbours”.
They are about as honest, sensible and intelligent as the denizens of Washington. And not nearly as horrible.
As for the people of the USA, if they insist on electing governments of such ghastly creeping things, it’s entirely their outlook.
Russia has long accused the White Helmets — the informal name of the group also known as the Syrian Civil Defence —
of being a project by western intelligence services to undermine its ally Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria,
according to the Financial Times.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/british-lawmaker-links-le-mesurier-death-with-russia/1642614
I think it was all U.K. money and the idea came from the U.K.
Now some of these heroes are living in the U.K.
It wasn’t the Russian style, I think. Suborning a bodyguard or associate is much more typical of Middle Eastern habits. i.e., a Syrian or someone he knew threw him off the balcony.
I mean that, as we now discover, the Le Mesurier family were staying in the WH’s offices in Istanbul, for fear of attack. The outer door was followed by a second door with access by hand-print. Necessarily, therefore, someone known. The idea that you fall off a balcony because you’ve taken anti-depressants and a sleeping tablet is for the birds. Balcony barriers aren’t that low.
Perhaps we could crowd fund apartments in Istanbul for DeBretton G, Luke Harding, Katherine Viner…………I could go on.
Too funny!
Maybe the Russians could send some of those huge old cramped Stalin-era tenement blocks… we need something that will accommodate thousands at least.
Covert operators can kill troublemakers in Istanbul with near impunity.
“Covert operators can kill troublemakers in Istanbul with near impunity”.
Or anywhere else, come to think of it. Dallas… Salisbury… London… London… London…
But Istanbul is particularly interesting here because Jacky Sutton, an associate of Le Mesurier’s, was apparently assassinated there.
Some good retorting from RT, on Syria / White Helmets.. Where Rick Sanchez explains how the US government can maintain perpetual war only by routinely misinforming the public
For The first 6 mins, then it goes onto some truths about Bolivia, Hong Kong –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvowFktSSvQ
Thanks CM..keep up that good work..Qui bono? Is the relevant question I fear..
“Cui bono”, Gerard. Excuse my pedantry.
Craig seems to have lost his memory or his marbles to consider Le Mesurier and his family as a part of the human race. Perhaps his cosy chats with John Le Carré’s civilised chums has implanted an indelible rosy picture of how MI6 operates. Le Mesurier did not give a flying flamingo about human attributes, such as suffering grief, or any remote connection to feelings. He was a ruthless, pathological killer excited by extreme brutality and relished in the reports of massacres as reported in MSM. How do I know this? MI5 compiled a report on some of his mates in the UK. A lawyer acting for them had access.
I agree that Craig does seem to have a very wide streak of charity and kindness. But I can’t honestly hold it against him.
One of the most compelling reasons for believing that our world was not created by a loving omnipotent agency is that the better a person is, the worse they fare – and vice versa.
Heaven and Hell were invented to assuage people’s righteous indignation about this, but they really aren’t convincing. I mean, how much better would it make you feel if you knew that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney – and of course thousands more like them – were frying and bubbling away right now. But you know they aren’t.
Erdogan as friend and co-sponsor of terror of Masoud Barzani in Kurdistan, and friend of Trump in NATO, and friend of Putin in Syria has learnt nothing new from his racist excursions against the Syrian Kurds.
Erdogan is the organ of NATO and a tool of USUKIS colonisation of the Muslim Middle East.
He is also chief recipient of aid from Qatar in his role as NATO / USUKIS utensil called the Muslim Brotherhood founded by the British in Egypt in 1918 to replace the Muslim Caliphate.
I have avoided travelling through Istanbul since Erdogan’s escorting Islamic State through Turkey to Mosul. The disgraced tyrant is the lackey of David Cameron, William Hague and Boris Johnson. His alliance with Putin makes it obvious that USUKIS and Putin are also in alliance against Islam by way of blackening the good name of Islam by the use of terror.
The Middle East is very complicated. You don’t like Barzani, though he is a Kurd. You think Erdogan is a tool of NATO, though he is a Turkish nationalist. He isn’t allied with Putin, who has other interests.
Frankly you’d do better to understand the position of Kurds today. Independence for Kurds is not possible, but autonomy is, as with the Kurds of KRG in Iraq. Better to wait for another occasion to go for independence, once it’s sorted out what parts of NE Syria, al-Jazira, are really Kurd. The definition has taken a bash from the Turkish invasion.
Laguerre
I didn’t say I was against Barzani. His policy of being a gewad for USUKIS hosting Daesh like Erdogan has left Iraqi Kurdistan safe.
He only wanted independence because USUKIS wanted to use northern Iraq as a missile base. A lesson for Scotland.
Your nasty southern overlord is a good deal more benign than the neocons.
Or as Sturgeon put it to Jeremy Corbyn, f I don’t get what I want I’m going to hold my nose and stop breathing. Then you’ll be sorry because…Anyway i think Corbyn will cope with the tantrums of electoral teenagers trying out their eyelashes on his vanity.
The end of the world is at hand , might get a blink out of him . It would solve the Brexit dilemma if it could be arranged in time.
Its probably the age old scenario repeating itself of those who’ve fallen out of favour, or are no longer useful, or they could be a threat and know way to much and must be taken care of, such as Epstein, MacRae and Kelly, and countless others.
The precise quote, from Upton Sinclair, is “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Must be dreadful for everyone involved in the Syrian mess and wider crap in the ME, always wondering if you’re now seen as a liability, or a loose end somehow. Not saying that’s the case here, idk. But it comes shortly after Baghdadi’s reported death after was hunted down and there is lots of speculation he was originally a pawn of the US. Once a prisoner of the US, the late John McCain tweeted a picture showing a meeting with him – or someone who looks remarkably similar, which seems to point to aid in establishing IS.
Goes without saying that the whole idea of taking sides and propping up military dictatorships and brutal monarchies, needs a major rethink. It’s hard to lecture others on rights and democracy eg. China, when we list our friends as el-Sisi and Bin Salman
There’s no other western policy in the Middle East, other than support of Netanyahu’s vision of destruction of any Arab power capable of resisting Israel. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked. Hizbullah has 50,000 missiles ready to launch.
Laguerre. I dont think they have 50,000 missiles. They don’t need many. The world changed when the Saudi oil refinery was hit by a few accurate drones. These are now available to poor countries who have been set upon for to long. We no longer have the monopoly
in causing chaos. It would be wise for Saudi Arabia to end the war in Yemen and heed the offer of a cease fire from the Yemenies. If not expect another attack and the collapse of Aramco public offer. Israel, even now at this late stage, should see the light and cease its headlong brutal grind. Listen to prominent Jews themselves. There is an interview of Assad on you tube ‘Syria: Assad accuses US of ‘supporting terrorism’ in rare interview’ on RT by Afshin Rattsani (of Going Underground) 11th Nov. If someone could post link please.
If someone could post link please.:
https://www.rt.com/news/473087-us-hegemony-assad-interview/
Wikikettle..
I see Rowan posted a link to that..Cheers Rowan.. Though here is a link to just the Youtube video..It’s very in depth stuff, covering everything 53 mins of it –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flaqLAp0Yp4
Rowan Berkeley & Brianfujisan. Thanks. Afshin Rattsani is very good. I recall him being insulted about his ethnicity by Piers Morgan after Afshin calmly destroyed Morgans “talking points”. nice one Afshin…
About a month ago I saw the independent film “For Sama” here at a screening in Birmingham. It is an account from videographer Waad al-Kateab who gets married, gives birth and helps run a hospital in Aleppo, while dodging bombs from either the Syrian or Russian governments during the city’s last stand. It was honestly one of most terrifying documentaries I have seen – it was fantastic and awful at the same time. It was certainly well put together.
https://www.forsamafilm.com/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/for_sama
And as the credits roll, you see this, and wonder if it does not bode well:
FOR SAMA – PRODUCED BY CHANNEL 4 NEWS/ITN PRODUCTIONS FOR CHANNEL 4 AND FRONTLINE PBS.
And then you see a thanks to the White Helmets too, which is pretty frustrating given how good the film is. I’ve generally accepted that the White Helmets is an funding mechanism allegedly independent of Western govts, so they can show they’re not funding Islamists directly – despite having done so for decades – and yet here we are with an independent Syrian journalist tipping her hat to their heroism. I don’t want to be the one to tell al-Kateab that she’s made a mistake, or that in not calling out the White Helmets she is buying into Western imperialism. I certainly haven’t lived through the war that she has. I wonder if dodging Russian and Syrian warplanes makes American interventionism seem like a good option? I can’t imagine that there is much room for moral purism when a person’s own government has tried to kill them.
How can us ordinary mortals untangle this stuff? We are potentially being lied to by everyone.
Jon
It was shown on terrestrial Channel 4 a couple of weeks ago. ” …an independent Syrian journalist tipping her hat to their heroism”?? No, just another anti-Assad propaganda production with all the usual hallmarks… children, humanitarian doctors, bombed hospitals, non-partisan journalists, respectable families, evil SAA and Russians. We’ve heard and seen it all before and know exactly what their game is. Channel 4 is simply a mouthpiece for all the jihadis in Syria and grasps any opportunity to demonstrate that.
The Groan used to publish ‘reports’ on that regularly and the dodgy doctor (that HdB-G pretends to run) were popping up in the media telling us about hospitals being bombed – it was all high grade pr via the Syria Campaign.
For Sama is a follow up to the Mr & Mrs Smith, sorry Clooney, White HellMates ensemble caper.
Ch4 ain’t no saint neither! All msm is controlled .
The easiest way to approach it is with a heavy dose of scepticism on ANY topic except sport and by giving it up, for sanity sake.