“The White Helmets,” a short documentary directed by Orlando von Einsiedel, won an Oscar at last Sunday’s award ceremony. The film tells the tale of “heroic first responders” in Syria who rescue victims from the war-torn rubble. The only thing is – as Pamela Geller points out – they’re essentially a happy-face version of jihadists ~ The White Helmets: Al-Qaeda Wins An Oscar.
 

Patrick Henningsen* (21st Century Wire) suggests that we Forget Oscar: Give The White Helmets the Leni Riefenstahl Award for Best War Propaganda Film ~

In your average lifetime, everyone will get their share of war propaganda films. In America, it’s a kind of sacred tradition, where Hollywood does the job of revisionism, paving over an otherwise uncomfortable history with a new coat of celluloid. It’s necessary – not just to make us feel better about ourselves, but also to cover-up any inconvenient truths and high crimes of the state.
 
To be honest, when I first heard about this film being promoted by Netflix, I wasn’t surprised at all because ever since the Syria conflict began in 2011, the establishment media has gone out of its way to falsely promote it as a “civil war”, and have used the NGO known as the White Helmets which calls itself the ‘Syria Civil Defense’, as its primary media protagonist in furthering that narrative.
 
The fact that a documentary about The White Helmets received an Oscar Award simply confirms what a glorious bubble the entertainment industry resides in, and how easy it is these days for a documentary film to used for the purposes of propaganda and made to reinforce a mainly US-UK foreign policy project.

 
In reality, the White Helmets organization is just basically camouflage for “moderate” Islamists. They really should win an award for ingenuity. What better way to take advantage of the Western propensity to throw money at a problem in the hopes it will go away than by claiming altruistic motives, while at the same time covertly waging war against government forces (- and non-Muslims)? It’s a win-win for al-Nusra – and other “moderate” jihadis.
 
And what better way to advance the cause than create a “documentary” to promote their narrative of selfless humanitarian aid? Henningsen explains how it works ~

The footage was provided by a terrorist-affiliated NGO based in Turkey, operating in Syria, and who is primarily funded by the US State Dept, the British Foreign Office, the Netherlands, and other NATO member and Gulf states to the tune of over $150 million and whose chief remit is producing US-led Coalition propaganda images for mass media consumption. The film, funded and distributed by Netflix, seems to be an extension of that remit.

As I’ve pointed out in various other posts about Syria, Bashar Assad is clearly no angel. But that doesn’t make Western efforts to depose his government legitimate. The White Helmets operate solely in terrorist-held areas. They aren’t “unarmed” as they’ve claimed, and they aren’t impartial.
 
But they surely do have Hollywood – and probably most Americans – fooled; what great acting!
 

My advice? Skip the Oscar-winning “documentary,” and watch this instead ~

 
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*CAVEAT: Patrick Henningsen appears to be anti-Semitic (refers to Israel in other writings as the “Zionist regime”) and pro-Palestinian, which makes him hugely suspect in my opinion. However, several other sources – including the above video – (even Huff-Po is vacillating) corroborate his lengthy and extensively-documented narrative about the White Helmets.

 
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Related:
“Who’s on first” in Aleppo?
The last word on Aleppo
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) calls on US govt to stop ‘supporting terrorists’ after meeting Syria civilians & Assad ~

An Iraq War veteran and member of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, Gabbard is known for her sharp criticism of former US President Barack Obama’s interventionist policy in the Middle East […]
 

“We must stop directly and indirectly supporting terrorists—directly by providing weapons, training and logistical support to rebel groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS; and indirectly through Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Turkey, who, in turn, support these terrorist groups”, Gabbard wrote.

GOP Debate – Who’s right on Assad?