Talk:White Helmets


 * ''Moved from Talk:Alleged Chemical Attack, March 16, 2015 -- Petri Krohn (talk) 09:30, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

White Helmets?
The same original content from the first attack has been distributed on YouTube with two different logos. One logo is the al-Nusra logo that is also seen in these three videos distributed by Coordinating Srmin. The other logo is blue and yellow and is also seen on the ambulance and the back of the medic. This means that the Coordinating Committee, al-Nusra, and the ambulance team and their propagandists are all tied closely together. This calls into question the neutrality of the reporting and the videos. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 03:21, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

P.S. (May 7) - An illustration of the closeness of the two is these two videos from March 26 uploaded by the al-Nusra -linked Sarmin Coordination Committee with both al-Nusra and Syrian Civil Defense logos. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 14:11, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I've seen a group calling themselves "White Helmets" who are active on twitter and have some link to the alleged gas attack videos. I think they are Civil Defence? Or at least say they are. Links to Jabhat al-Nusra tends to say they aren't neutral. --Charles Wood (talk) 03:31, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The White Helmets claim to be a civil defense force specializing in digging up victims from bombed out buildings. They may in fact be a US State Department funded infowar operation for intervention and a war of aggression in the name of a "No-Fly Zone" to protect civilians.
 * I am doubtful if barrel bombs even exist. Maybe we should investigate. A wider question is if airstrikes on civilian targets and the "collateral damage" / civilian victims is really a problem in Syria. Most of the destruction is likely the result of artillery bombardment. Even in Ukraine there are only a few tens of civilian victims of air power. Why would Assad need airplanes to "kill his own people?" -- Petri Krohn (talk) 02:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's their site: https://www.whitehelmets.org/ Good news, they're "unarmed and neutral." Their issue is barrel bombs, often filled with chlorine, and they don't mention the weird type of chlorine with unusual symptoms... and how there's a neutral need for a "no fly zone." Linked to by an activist video compilation I left a helpful comment at (if it remains) --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, and it specifies "the Syrian Civil Defence - known as the White Helmets." They're the ones with the blue and yellow logos, and I presume the black-and-yellow blankets. Maybe they're like a new non-neutral replacement for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, who continue cooperating with the government and won't even need to try operating in areas like this. I wonder if there are any issue with the SARC that would lead to such a replacement plan? --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Their website looks like it came out of some smart New York or London Advertising Agency. In fact it did. It's an obvious branding exercise using the iconic white helmet as the easy to remember visual key.

I've done some basic snooping and it's associated with The Syria Campaign. I guess the idea is to move up Google rank by cross-linking the sites.

'white helmets' itself is a product of 'Purpose' a Brooklyn based organisation with offices in London and Rio de Janeiro. Their 'Team' shows what they are - an upmarket media communications company. The Purpose Team

Certainly no Syrians were involved in creating the White Helmets!--Charles Wood (talk) 23:47, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh shit, they even have a Global Head of Cetacean Affairs. They really must be the good guys! -- Petri Krohn (talk) 14:45, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Minor update on Purpose - the key player for White Helmets may be Alison Weiner - see the Team. From her blurb:


 * Ali graduated from Yale University with degrees in history and political science and a concentration in journalism. After graduation, she joined the Clinton Global Initiative, where she was responsible for drafting briefing memos and other communications for President Bill Clinton


 * i.e. Establishment Linked as are other Team players.--Charles Wood (talk) 23:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * That's about what I would guess from the overly-slick vibe I got. Thanks for a little follow-up. Yes, they're not any kind of desperately needed mission to counter all the NY-style missions helping wreck the world's nations at record rate. They're just another in the well-funded chain. Go team! Mission: get paid and don't wonder why! --Caustic Logic (talk) 08:40, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * According to a spreadsheet I've acquired they got a just under $1 million from Oak foundation for non Syrian related 'activist' marketing. Given the number of high-power Team members I'd expect income of the order of $5 million annually from probably(?) Soros related funds.


 * More research shows they have a portfolio of topics they market - LGBT, Climate Change, and Syria being the major ones. Various 'empowerment' and 'women' topics pop up but don't seem to be mainstream.


 * The best guess is they are a niche marketing agency who focus on profitable topics especially ones that can get a strong US/European consumer reaction. Hence the inevitable donate button on their various websites. However it's virtually certain they get the majority of their funding from 'interested parties' who may or may not be traceable to various Nation States.


 * As for White Helmets? I'd say that is a complete creation of Purpose They may have bought in some Syrian Activists and written them up as local heroes, but the evidence is they started seriously marketing them around 2014-08-11T19:50:31Z (When Alison Weiner registered the domain name).


 * Chlorine bombs? Sounds like they needed a new marketable atrocity and have been watching too much Absolute Power --Charles Wood (talk) 13:11, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * AP via HuffPost, May 23: Syrians Try To Build Case Against Assad In Chlorine Attacks
 * The Syrian Civil Defense, a group of 2,640 volunteers that provides emergency and rescue services in rebel-held and contested areas, has been gathering evidence to document the recent attacks, said Farouq Habib, the group's political adviser. He and the group's director, Raed Saleh, returned this week from the United States, where they met U.S. and European officials.


 * They collected remains from the barrels used in a number of bombings, soil samples that the group says show high levels of chlorine traces and urine and blood samples from victims.

Is civil defense the same volunteer rescue team this guy the article starts with is a member of? "With only a cloth mask for protection, Firas Kayali rushed to try to rescue the residents of a house" that wound up being where the Haj Ali home in Mishmishan from the May 2 alleged incident. "Once a house painter and now a member in a volunteer rescue team," Kayyali tried three times to "break in" to the (locked?) house but the gas - chlorine, allegedly - caused him to suddenly loose consciousness - which chlorine doesn't do. No one else on his team had gas masks either, so they had to wait 20 minutes for the gas to dissipate before they could get in and find the baby already dead. From something that doesn't sound like chlorine, although they'll say it smelled just like it. He explains with sadness "I blamed myself first. But then again I go back and say if we had equipment and outfits, maybe," Kayali said. "Then again, 'if' will not change anything now. ... God destined and what he destined happened." That's not guilt-tripping bullshit from an obvious Islamist. Oh wait, it is. As I mentioned in a comment there, White Helmets have plenty of gas masks - most members you see in videos wear them all the time. But when they're talking w/no pictures, suddenly they have nothing, huh, and the fact that they fail to save some people means they need more help? Why would they send no one but rag face here, or a team all with no masks as implied, to save people unless they wanted him to fail and the victims to die? --Caustic Logic (talk) 06:48, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Rick Sterling Articles

 * About Those Chlorine Gas Attacks in Syria Humanitarians for War, part 2. By Rick Sterling, founding member of Syria Solidarity Movement (and ACLOS site member). Counterpunch, April 3, 2015.
 * In reality the White Helmets is a project created by the UK and USA. Training of civilians in Turkey has been overseen by former British military officer and current contractor, James Le Mesurier. Promotion of the program is done by “The Syria Campaign” supported by the foundation of billionaire Ayman Asfari. The White Helmets is clearly a public relations project which has received glowing publicity from HuffPo to Nicholas Kristof at the NYT. White Helmets have been heavily promoted by the U.S. Institute of Peace (U.S.IP) whose leader began the press conference by declaring “U.S.IP has been working for the Syrian Revolution from the beginning”.


 * Apart from the PR work, White Helmets work in areas of Aleppo and Idlib controlled by Nusra (Al Queda). The video from a medical clinic on March 16 starts with a White Helmets logo. The next video of same date and place continues with the Nusra logo.


 * US and UK tax dollars pay for a program which has an appealing rescue component and is then used to market and promote the USA and UK policy of regime change in Syria in de facto alliance with Nusra.


 * The fake “independence and neutrality” of White Helmets is shown by their active promotion of a No Fly Zone.

--Caustic Logic (talk) 08:37, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Here is another piece by Rick Sterling:
 * Seven Steps of Highly Effective Manipulators - Rick Sterling, April 9th, 2015
 * ''But White Helmets primary function is propaganda. White Helmets demonizes the Assad government and encourages direct foreign intervention. A White Helmet leader wrote a recent Washington Post editorial.  White Helmets are also very active on social media with presence on Twitter, Facebook etc.  According to their website, to contact White Helmets email The Syria Campaign which underscores the relationship.

The March 27 op-ed piece in Washington Post by Raed al Saleh head of the Syrian Civil Defense is here: -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:19, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Stop the ‘barrel bombs’ in Syria


 * Article on White Helmets in Italian, seems maybe worth translating. Not that I did yet. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:18, 18 May 2015 (UTC)


 * photo tweet Little girl carried by a Civil Defense worker - captioned best. Hug. Ever. The girl might not agree. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:45, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Execution video
I came across this tweet which contains a youtube video showing the execution of a civilian by some masked goon after some older guy read him his verdict. Tweet says he's an alleged murderer. After he gets killed with two headshots, three "white helmets" come along with a stretcher and carry him away. Way to save lifes.

Anyway, what surprised me was that they had fancy uniforms with that blue-yellow logo. Never seen those before in the few videos I watched about the chlorine stuff and "white helmets" dancing with Nusra in Idlib. So I thought they were new and wanted to find out how new. So I went to the linked account @whitehelmetsbot (which is what it say it is, a bot), checked the timeline and quickly found this announcing new graduations last week. That "Mayday Rescue" org has a not very informative, anonymously registered website and says it is in Dubai. Notice the similarities of their logo with SCD logo.

I also found that the account @SyriaCivilDef now wears the name "The White Helmets". The distinct uniforms go back as long as you can scroll on Mayday Rescue and I quickly figured that "White Helmets" is another name for Syrian Civil Defense. Fortunately one could scroll just back to early August 2014 which is when as Charles found the White Helmet domain was registered. And indeed, the first occurance of "White Helmets" is in three tweets from August 29 with pics from the same graphics designer, the second of which is this, which says that Mustafa was "trained with support from @jica_direct by @ARKSyria and @AKUTEnstitusu".

And this fits with what these two articles about SCD claim as well:


 * In 2013, with help from Turkey's elite natural-disasters response team, AKUT, and $300,000 of seed funding from Japan, the U.K., and the U.S., (Le Mesurier, CE) launched the first seven-day SCD course to teach 25 vetted Syrians how to deal with the chaos erupting around them.


 * Around the same time (early 2013, CE), ARK, an international contracting firm based in Istanbul, had received a mix of U.S. and British funding intended for “non-lethal aid” to the Syrian opposition, and had identified the rescue teams as a priority. The scale of Assad’s bombardment paralleled conventional wars in Europe (lol, CE), and ARK resurrected a Blitz-era doctrine called Civil Defense. Partnering with a Turkish organization, AKUT, that specialized in earthquake response, they established a training center in southern Turkey for the new teams. There, the boys from Hanano learned basic urban search-and-rescue techniques, along with first aid and firefighting. They were issued trucks, uniforms, and equipment, and then sent back to Syria.

Now, aside from the propaganda value of especially the second article, these seem to be legitimate organizations (@jica_direct is a Japanese rescue org).

So what I take from all that is 1) the "White Helmets" are a slick branding/marketing/propaganda campaign started in August 2014 based on an existing organization that might be legitimate, and 2) our chlorine propagandists might only "play" "White Helmets" and use their logo in the videos, and nobody complains because the goals are the same.

Or do they wear the official uniforms in these chlorine videos and I just missed it? --CE (talk) 21:29, 5 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Interesting, obviously the execution assistance. That might deserve a section or something. It's been failry clear WH-SCD for a while now, but good to learn it's not challenged. As for the logo, indeed, no one has it in Sarmin on March 16 that I can see (some uniforms are covered). That could mean some kind of impostors, but I don't suppose they'd need to fake their way in to such an esteemed and ethical group. And with such a high profile incident, they'd want to brand themselves as official if they could, let people see them in action and in uniform. I would guess the logo uniforms just hadn't been delivered there yet. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:23, 5 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Unsurprisingly MiniTrue made Youtube get rid of the execution video quickly. Mirrors are here and there. To counter dolts who argue that it is somehow cut together (like some did on twitter): When the "White Helmets" come to "help", watch the shadow of a gunman in the bottom right corner... --CE (talk) 19:52, 6 May 2015 (UTC)


 * SCD statement from today on the video. Core:
 * On 5th May 2015, the Hreitan Civil Defence team were contacted around 11:15am by the Dar al Qadaa in Hreitan and informed that there was a corpse in the street, in front the Hreitan Main Mosque. The Civil Defence team deployed a corpse retrieval section which arrived at the location at approximately 11:35am. When the section arrived at the scene they found an execution in the process of being conducted, which was carried out at approximately 11:40 am.
 * Apparently someone wanted them to look really bad and filmed them going into the trap. Assad? ;o) --CE (talk) 20:05, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

The uniforms with the blue patches on the shoulders were visible in the nighttime videos from March 16, 2015. Look again. The logos on the backs are not seen because the White Helmets are wearing reflective vests -- Petri Krohn (talk) 05:09, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Not that it's a big deal, but until I see one I'm sticking with no logos yet. Uniforms with blue shoulders, yes. Covered with vests in those videos, yes. But the 9-minute fisheye video shows a couple uncovered backs that are all gray, no logo. --Caustic Logic (talk) 08:18, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * You are right! This March 26th video is the one that tied the pieces together: SCD logo on back of uniform and on ambulance, al-Nusra logo on video. Although one could have drawn conclusions from this Orient News video with SCD logo blankets and the White Helmets guy with a GoPro camera attached to his helmet. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 13:34, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Disagreements With Other Aid Groups

 * Terrina Aguilar on Twitter finds a report at Rescue.org PDF link - if the 21 groups contributing are the ones listed on page 2, they don't include the White Helmets, but do include Syrian American Medical Society and Hand in Hand for Syria. So not all will likely endorse passages like the ones where they criticize all armed parties (not singling anyone out) and call for a political solution, not the ouster of the government. And this:
 * Other governments with influence in Syria should:

''- Avoid fuelling the conflict and serious violations of IHL and IHRL by halting the supply of arms, ammunition and military personnel to parties which have been responsible for violations.'' ''- End calls for militarily-protected corridors or buffer zones, which can provide a false sense of security to civilians, can compromise the operating environment for humanitarian agencies, and could be used to justify refoulement of refugees.'' The White Helmets aren't singled out, but clearly this flies in the face of their concept of stopping the bombs with bombs (or do they really not know what a "no-fly zone" is?) --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:45, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Independent video or photo material?
Has anyone ever seen the White Helmets on video or photos other than the ones they produce themselves? They were quick on the spot of the al-Nusra execution, but has anyone else actually filmed them? Are there any independent sources for their existence?

Here is one video of civilian buildings destroyed by US bombing somewhere near Idlib. Do we see any White Helmets here? They should be. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 02:09, 14 August 2015 (UTC)