pineapplemike wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2019 6:06 am
*posts wikipedia article to make a point about propaganda*
lol
OK, have another source.
In October 2017, the Joint Investigative Mechanism—a body created by the UN Security Council and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to research chemical weapons attacks in Syria—confirmed that sarin had been used in Khan Shaykhun and that the Syrian government was responsible. The investigators drew heavily on the testimony of the White Helmets and on biomedical, soil, and clothing samples that were provided to them by the White Helmets, Le Mesurier confirmed. These samples were consistent with others gathered after the gassing, including those obtained by hospitals in Turkey.
Almost immediately after the attack, the Syrian regime initiated a disinformation campaign backed by its patron, the Russian government. Both had earlier claimed that a 2013 chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta, in which more than 1,400 people were killed, was perpetrated by the opposition—contrary to the conclusions of a UN investigation. They had also denied that atrocities such as the targeting of civilians and medical facilities were committed during the siege of Aleppo when regime jets bombed a US convoy. Aleppo fell to Syrian forces in December 2016. Now Syria and its Russian ally were set on denying what they called the “myth” that Khan Shaykhun had been gassed by government forces.
One strategy pro-Assad bloggers use to discredit the White Helmets is to argue that the group is funded by governments that, in the bloggers’ view, are intent on regime change in Syria. Part of the White Helmets’ funding comes from the British government’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, which oversees various global projects such as building dams in Central Asia and preventing sexual violence during war. Le Mesurier confirmed that the total UK government funding of the White Helmets had been about £38.5 million ($51 million) over a five-year period to March 2018. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) provided about $33 million over a similar period. The Qatari Red Cross has made a donation of about $1 million to the White Helmets, and other funding comes from the German, Canadian, Danish, and Japanese governments. These funds support the group’s budget of approximately $30 million a year, much of which is spent on equipment such as ambulances, fire trucks, and heavy diggers to recover bodies from collapsed buildings, and stipends for individual White Helmet volunteers, which are $150 a month.
But the White Helmets’ financial backing is not the real reason why the pro-Assad camp is so bent on defaming them. Since 2015, the year the Russians began fighting in Syria, the White Helmets have been filming attacks on opposition-held areas with GoPro cameras affixed to their helmets. Syria and Russia have claimed they were attacking only terrorists, yet the White Helmets have captured footage of dead and injured women and children under the rubble. According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as eyewitness accounts, Putin’s bombers have targeted civilians, schools, hospitals, and medical facilities in opposition-held areas, a clear violation of international law. “This, above all, is what the Russians hated,” Ben Nimmo, a fellow at the Atlantic Council specializing in Russian disinformation, told me. “That the White Helmets are filming war crimes.”
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/1 ... e-helmets/
