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<\/a><\/p>\nThe West\u2019s war on Syria, and rapidly heating cold war on Russia, have involved extensive use of smear. Of unsubstantiated or even disproved allegations repeated in our\u00a0not-so free media<\/strong><\/a><\/span> until even those who rightly or wrongly \u2013 usually wrongly \u2013 deem themselves critical thinkers assume,\u00a0no-smoke-without-fire<\/em>\u00a0 fashion, there must be truth to them. This conclusion is seldom drawn by the conscious mind. That\u2019s not how propaganda works: witness on the one hand that near universal belief that \u2018adverts don\u2019t sway me in the slightest\u2019;<\/em>\u00a0 on the other those misguided capitalists who, oblivious to our immunity to it, continue to throw vast sums at that propaganda form we call commercial advertising.<\/span><\/p>\n Putin \u2013 my, how we feted his predecessor, the drunken Yeltsin, as he oversaw Russia\u2019s descent to basket case status while Wall Street drooled over the spoils! \u2013 and Assad feature hardly less frequently on our screens and front pages than do ads for new cars and sofas. The\u00a0stakes are higher<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, though[1], which explains two aspects of their demonisation not shared by commercials.<\/span><\/p>\n James Le Mesurier, former British Army officer who founded the Syrian white Helmets. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n One is the cynicism with which charities have allowed themselves to be used. In most cases, this has involved the naivity or worse of big names, either unaware of the threat to \u2018the brand\u2019, else willing to risk it for short term gain. See in this respect Professor Tim Hayward on an\u00a0Amnesty International<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>throwing \u2013 I\u2019m being kind here \u2013 caution to the wind on Syria. But in at least one case \u2018the brand\u2019 was corrupt at birth. I mean the\u00a0White Helmets<\/strong><\/a><\/span>: brainchild of Brit mercenary , recipient of well over $120 million in funding from the USA and other states overtly seeking Assad\u2019s removal, and \u2013 to a degree of certainty very much higher than that of Damascus having used sarin gas on its own people \u2013 in cahoots with Islamist terrorism.<\/span><\/p>\n The other, related, is the equal cynicism \u2013 or, at a stretch, starry-eyed credulity \u2013 with which our media inflate the value of \u2018information\u2019 from risible sources. One such is the grandiosely titled Syrian Observatory on Human Rights, routinely quoted by BBC, Guardian and even \u2013 to their undying shame \u2013\u00a0\u2018far left\u2019 media\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/a>in reporting alleged abuses by the Syrian authorities, without informing us that, to quote from the post just linked:<\/span><\/p>\n SOHR is the one man band of Rami Abdul Rahman, a disgruntled Syrian who lives in Coventry and hasn\u2019t set foot in Syria since 2003. His methods are opaque, to say the least, but seem to rely on what I\u2019ll call \u2018cascade inquiry\u2019, whereby he phones a handful of pals inside Syria. They, in turn, phone their pals, who phone theirs. But who are these pals? Rumours abound that Rahman is affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, rivals to more recent Saudi backed Wahabi groups led by Al Qaeda and ISIS, but nevertheless willing to work with Daesh to end Syria\u2019s secularism and impose theocratic Sunni rule on Shia, Christian, Druze and Alawi alike. (Nor is there any evidence of widespread Muslim Brotherhood support from Syrian Sunnis, most of whom see Islam and Islamism as poles apart and value their secularist, authoritarian\u00a0but religiously tolerant state.)<\/span><\/p>\n Eliot Higgins. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n Then there\u2019s Bellingcat, the organisation founded by one Eliot Higgins: Media Studies drop-out and author of \u2013 I feel a professional slight here, having taught digital arts at Sheffield University \u2013 digitally altered images that serve NATO objectives in an ongoing Russia demonisation which endangers us all.<\/span><\/p>\n (Worse by far, of course, is the fact his amateurish\u00a0 images \u2013\u00a0these for instance<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, offered as proof that Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was downed in July 2014 by Russian missiles \u2013 would have earned him a fail in my Photoshop class.)<\/span><\/p>\n Fortunately, I need spend few words on Bellingcat\/Higgins. That take-down has already been done, most recently in Catte\u2019s excellent\u00a0OffGuardian piece<\/strong><\/a><\/span>\u00a0of two days ago. What I have not seen till now though is any questioning of Bellingcat\u2019s credentials in mainstream media. So let me hand you over, without further ado and with hearty if surprised approval, to Mary Dejevsky: not known as a Kremlin stooge or Putin troll. Yet here she is, in today\u2019s Independent, asking in all sincerity and with admirable bluntness just\u00a0WTF is Bellingcat?<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Who knows, such questions might in their own quiet way help avert WW3. We can but hope.<\/span><\/p>\n [1] \u2013 I mean no downplaying of the terrifying effects on climate of capitalism\u2019s inbuilt addiction to growth. But while the threat of thermonuclear war may be no more serious than that of environmental catastrophe, it is capable of materialising at shorter notice.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>