one of the retouched WWI picture can be seen at:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/407083253789107606/

 

And who can forget a Jewish paper removing Hillary Clinton from the picture of the war room:

 

 

A big hat-tip to Failed Messiah (who gave a hat-tip to Critical Minyan) for breaking the news that an Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish newspaper, Der Tzitung, has determined that the photo of top U.S. leaders receiving an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden was too scandalous.

What was so offensive about the image? U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the photo and, based on good intel, the editor of Der Tzitung discovered that she is a woman. The Hasidic newspaper will not intentionally include any images of women in the paper because it could be considered sexually suggestive. The iconic photo shows President Obama, Vice President Biden, and members of the U.S. National Security Team in the Situation Room of the White House. Secretary of State Clinton, wearing a long-sleeved suit jacket, sits with her hand over her mouth. I'm not sure how Der Tzitung determined this was a racy photo. Perhaps they just don't like the idea of a woman with that much political power.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/jewish_techs/hasidic_newspaper_

photoshops_hillary_clinton_iconic_photo

 

old people's photos...

Without going into details, I started my professional life as a "retoucher" in a major photographic and publishing house in Europe. I know all the trick of the trade. Way before Photoshop was ever invented, pictures used in any quality publications, be it catalogues or magazines were always "retouched" in order to increase the contrasts, improve the details (specially the edges of ) and highlight the glow of the picture which would have looked crap without it. As well we used to fade backgrounds in order to bring the main subject forward...

Most Aussie newspapers in the 1970s did retouching of photographs...

Photoshop did not invent retouching. It only made it a lot easier and faster... But give me a brush (or an air brush — I still have mine) with the right palette and I can do wonders, still. My eyes are still sharp and my hands do not tremble... It takes time and I believe these skills of great precision have more or less vanished. I was the master of black and white "touch ups" or of the rare colour prints "fudge"... Soon, in the late fifties, I was working with other aces who could retouch 10 x 8 inches transparencies with feather like technique with various transparent inks and sometimes weak acids or alkaline solutions...

A lot of these skills were also used in the "intelligence" services, mostly in the "disinformation" section.

I never worked there, though some of my mates might have. 

 

Note: as an aside it was only from 1954 onwards that Kodachrome could be processed outside the Kodak Laboratories... Complexity of patents, monopoly laws and some foreign countries having cracked the "processing" of the "reversal film" made it so Kodak could not hold on to the exclusivity of the technology...

In one of the comments above I have placed a link that did not work. Sorry. here it is corrected:

and who could forget the merde-och press' touch up?

old people's photos...

It was “morally completely wrong” to choose an image of the Russian ambassador to Turkey’s assassination as photo of the year, believes the chair of the World Press Photo 2017 awards, who says the decision “seems to advance the intentions of a terrorist.”

The image showing the assassin, Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, standing and shouting by the body of the killed Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, was captured by AP photographer Burhan Ozbilici.

The picture received the photo of the year award from the World Press Photo Foundation, an independent group based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on Monday. 

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/377448-world-photo-ambassador-killing/

 

Yep... A photo of Hitler could have won the day as well...

 

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The London Evening Standard has apologised to Solange Knowles for airbrushing her crown of braids from an image on the cover of its magazine.

The singer, whose songs include Don’t Touch My Hair, was featured in the magazine discussing her upcoming album, as well as the “art form” and cultural legacy for black women of braiding their hair.

It emerged on Friday that the newspaper, which is edited by the former chancellor George Osborne, had digitally removed Knowles’ braids from the cover of its ES Magazine.

Knowles called out the publication on social media, posting a picture of the original, unaltered image on Instagram with the caption “dtmh” – an abbreviation of Don’t Touch My Hair, a track on her critically acclaimed 2016 album A Seat at the Table.

When the Standard posted its image of the cover, with the braids removed, fans attacked the publication, accusing it of racism for editing out a core part of the singer’s cultural identity.

The paper has now offered “unreserved apologies” to Knowles, saying the image was changed for “layout purposes”.

In a statement, the Standard said: “We were delighted to have the chance to interview the wonderful Solange Knowles and photograph her for this week’s edition of ES.

“It is therefore a matter of great regret that the finished cover artwork caused concern and offence.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/oct/21/evening-standard-sorry-for...

 

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The Times has released an article accusing top British academics of promulgating pro-Assad and Russian conspiracy theories. The report claimed that the founders of a self-styled Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media are spreading disinformation in relation to Syria. Radio Sputnik spoke with peace activist Vanessa Beeley about this issue.

Vanessa Beeley: A systematic smear campaign that has been running probably for the better part of the year that has included social media attacks, it has included smear piece from The Guardian written by a San Francisco technology expert, certainly not anybody that has ever been to Syria. 

From the Syria campaign which is the Amin Asfari funded PR agency for the White Helmets which is of course UK foreign office financed and Amin Asfari who funds the Syria campaign who wrote I think about a 46-page report trying to basically discredit our work on exposing the White Helmets has also financed the Tory government. 

READ MORE: UK PM May: We Acted in Syria Over National Interest, Not Just Following Trump

So this is exposing itself to be a web of intelligence operatives and people who are basically supporting the UK foreign office regime change war policy inside Syria and so it has basically escalated to the point where the Times wrote I think four articles. I sent a page photograph of myself with President Bashar al Assad. 

Now what is really interesting about this photograph in particular, the original photograph actually shows all members of the US peace council delegation with whom I came to Syria in July 2016, in an effort to fact find on the Syria conflict, to raise awareness on what was really happening on the ground and to build bridges between the Syrian government and peace activists and organizations in the United States. So a very important, in my view, mission of peace and what they have basically done is cropped the image to disappear the other members of the US peace council and in my view this is misleading journalism, again as they have pretty much done throughout the Syrian conflict. They have cropped the images or the narratives on Syria to suit the UK regime foreign policy, to fit it into the frame of the narrative that is required to support the foreign office policy inside Syria.

Sputnik: What about the response, do you think the tide is turning slowly with regard to the UK population because it does seem to be a sea change within the UK population now and their attitude towards the UK government and the media, they just don’t believe what the media is writing anymore, do they?

No, I really don’t think they do. I think the mainstream media is in complete free fall. We listen to in fact, one of your guests Professor Torry McCormack being interviewed by the Today program and they brought on an expert witness from the White Helmets, Amar al Salmu as a witness to the fact that the White Helmets are not affiliated to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups. 

READ MORE: Pantsir-S1 Repelling US Strikes on Syria Showed 100% Effectiveness — Russian MoD

Now, unfortunately for the BBC there are in existence archive photos of this very White Helmet member as an armed militant member of al-Qaeda, so this is the level to which these mainstream media outlets are being forced to drop to try and protect a narrative that was already unraveling, which is the Douma chemical weapon attack. 

Not only did we have the Russian military on the ground inspecting the site, we have a number now of civilian testimonies saying that a chemical attack never happened. We have the UN agency there in Damascus and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in Damascus both saying that the hospitals had no patients coming in showing or demonstrating chemical weapon attack symptoms. 

So, you know, basically our [UK] government has carried out a criminal and unlawful act of aggression against a sovereign nation without getting permission from parliament, without a UN Security Council mandate, and based on, not even a dodgy dossier we hadn’t even got to the point where dossier had been completed. I mean this is even more extraordinary than the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 

I am here in Damascus and I can tell you categorically that the Syrian government and the Russian organizations on the ground are doing everything they can to expedite the OPCW’s visit to the site. 

So we are being consistently lied to right now and the lies are being exposed in real time. We are actually living through a quite extraordinary time in history where I think we are seeing what I really believe now is an extended [cy-op]  in Syria by the British government, by the media, by the US intelligence and deep state and its aligned media, by a number of aligned think tanks, by the UN. 

We are seeing the entire narrative coming tumbling down like a pack of cards right now. Generally speaking, the mood here in Damascus, is they feel empowered. I mean, they think they feel they are pushing back against the tripartite act of aggression, criminal act of aggression was basically carried out only by Syria as far as we know Russia didn’t fire a single air defense against this attack. So basically what this has proven is that what is really relatively antiquated equipment, antiquated missiles or air defense missiles. The Syrian Arab Army has defended itself and its people against an attack from some of the most powerful nations on this Earth.  

For Syria, I think, this has been a tremendous turning point. I think now they feel empowered, they feel that they are able to defend themselves. I think the majority of the missiles didn’t hit any specific targets because the jamming systems that were being used by Syria were also very successful.

 

Read :

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201804161063623847-mass-media-images-sy...

 

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And by the way, here is the cropped photograph (excuding all the other member of the US peace mission) published in The Times (an Uncle Rupe publication).  The article is called: TIMES INVESTIGATION ‘To say Douma attack was staged is to enter an Orwellian world’  Let Gus say that The Times is a "Murdoch World" — far worse than an Orwellian one...

The caption read Vanessa Beeley has described her meeting with President Assad last October as her “proudest moment”". 

 

The copy says:

When Idrees Ahmad read the letter of complaint against him, he was baffled to see it written on University of Sheffield headed paper. The authors were members of a recently formed organisation, the Syria, Propaganda and Media (SPM) group, whose stated aim was to “facilitate research with respect to the 2011-present war in Syria”.

They objected to Dr Ahmad, a lecturer in digital journalism at Stirling University, criticising an article written by Tim Hayward, an Edinburgh professor of political theory who is one of their key members.

Then it mentions Vanessa Heely as a "pro-Assad journalist in Syria".

At least Vanessa is in or has been to Syria, unlike the many Journos writing for, say, The Guardian who comment on the great work done by the "White Helmets" (an al qaeda outfit sponsored by the British secret service via a nifty web of deception and cash). Such journo for example is Olivia Solon — a senior technology reporter for Guardian US in San Francisco... She would not have a clue.

This actually means that reporters for The Times and The Guardian are actually anti-Assad, without "being there".

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To send an impeccable image to voters, when a presidential candidate, Emmanuel Macron did not stop at any expense during the presidential campaign. Although his makeup costs were reimbursed, this was not the case for his vocal coach.

Anxious to appear at its best, the leader of the movement En Marche! did not skimp on the expenses related to his image, during the presidential campaign.

According to the National Commission of campaign accounts and political financing (CNCCFP), Macron has provided a bill of 29,042 euros for 35 sessions of make-up — more than 800 euros per session. A sum so big that the Commission, suspecting "apparently personal expenses" added to the bills, wanted the president to justify their electoral nature. His team cited a decision of the Council of State — according to Le Monde — which states that "the costs of makeup are considered by the electoral judge as election-related expenses and may give rise to reimbursement when these expenses were incurred in order to collect votes".

The journalists of the TV show Quotidien on TMC, have also found a bill for retouching the photograph of the campaign poster of the second voting round. For 5,500 euros, Macron presented a profile with less blurred eyebrows, got his ears stuck and hid a beginning of baldness. "It was thought that it was Marine Le Pen campaign poster that was the most photoshoped, but it's a tie between the two candidates of the second round of the presidential election" commented the journalist Paul Larrouturou of Quotidien, which does not specify, in addition, if these retouching fees have been refunded.

 

Read more:

https://francais.rt.com/france/50360-30-000-euros-maquillage-5500-fasteu...

 

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https://nypost.com/2018/07/16/every-sexy-bikini-photo-you-see-is-probably-fake/

 

Read from top...

 

Fake bottom news? see also:

why trump is correct...

TV channel France3 has “fixed” a placard held by a Yellow Vest protester, which urged President Emmanuel Macron to resign. The broadcaster explained that the sign was broadcast reading just Macron, due to a “human error.”

The unfortunate blunder occurred on Saturday during an evening news program that was covering the ongoing Yellow Vest protests.

Among videos and images of the protests, France3 featured a photo supplied by Agence France Presse (AFP). It shows a couple of mounted police officers watching the crowds outside the Opera building in Paris on Saturday. One of the Yellow Vests holds high a placard, reading “Macron out.” Here’s this photo.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/446613-france3-macron-yellow-vests/

 

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Fox News has removed digitally altered photos from its website after a Seattle newspaper noted misleading images used in the network's coverage about a section of the city that has become a centre of protest against police brutality and racial injustice.

 

Key points:

• The altered images included photos of a man with a rifle being inserted into other images
• Fox News took down the altered images after the Seattle Times inquired
• A Fox News spokeswoman falsely claimed all photos were from the same week and the same location

 

On Saturday, Fox News included an editor's note at the top of at least three stories on its website covering Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), saying it replaced a "home page photo collage" because it "did not clearly delineate between these images" and that it "mistakenly" included a Minnesota photo in a slideshow about Seattle.

The Seattle Times reported Fox News' website featured at least two photos that inserted an image of a man standing with a military-style rifle, and that there were no disclaimers on how they were manipulated when featured on the network's website prior to Saturday.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-14/fox-news-removes-altered-images-of-seattle-protest-zone-chaz/12353582

 

 

 

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Norwegian photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen, who was acclaimed at the international “Visa pour image” festival in Perpignan (France), revealed in Magnum Photos that he had completely fabricated his report on the Fake News factory in Veles (North Macedonia) [1].

He described how he himself falsified all his photos, creating imaginary figures on empty backgrounds, to demonstrate that it is possible to trick even the greatest experts.

The director of the French festival, Jean-Francois Leroy, has apologized to the photography industry, claiming to have been deceived despite his alertness and that of his team.

Experience shows that photographs are no longer proof of anything.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article214195.html

 

 

READ FROM TOP... READ FROM TOP... SEE ALSO: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/9800

 

assangez

In a blow to Ukraine, the World Court ruled Russia didn’t finance terrorism in Donbass and the court refused to blame Moscow for the downing of Flight MH17.

 

The World Court ruled on Wednesday that Russia did not finance terrorism in its defense of separatists in Ukraine and the court refused to find Russia guilty of downing Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 as Ukraine had asked.   

The case was brought to the ICJ by Ukraine in 2017, three years after the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev overthrew the democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych. 

When Russian speakers in Donbass rebelled against the unconstitutional change in government that they had voted for, the coup leaders in 2014 launched what it called an “anti-terrorist” military operation to put down the rebellion.   

Russia responded by helping ethnic Russians with arms and other military equipment. Ukraine claimed to the court that that was in breach of a treaty barring terrorism financing. 

But the ICJ ruled on Wednesday that the treaty only covered cash transfers made to alleged terrorist groups. This “does not include the means used to commit acts of terrorism, including weapons or training camps,” the Court said in its judgement. 

“Consequently, the alleged supply of weapons to various armed groups operating in Ukraine… fall outside the material scope” of the anti-terrorism financing convention, the Court ruled. The Court also said it had no evidence to show that any of the armed militias in Donbass fighting against the government could be characterized as terrorist groups. 

The ICJ found only that Russia was, “failing to take measures to investigate facts… regarding persons who have allegedly committed an offense.”  It added that the court “rejects all other submissions made by the Ukraine.” 

The ruling is highly significant in undermining Kiev’s claim to be fighting a war against terrorists in Donbass, an essential part of the Ukraine’s and the West’s narrative in justifying its brutal operation that left more than 10,000 civilians dead.  

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 amid indications that Kiev was beginning a new offensive against Donbass. Ukraine and the West had failed to implement two peace agreements negotiated in Minsk and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.  

Western and Ukrainian officials later admitted they never had any intention of implementing the deal and pretended to to buy time to build up its forces against Russia. 

Rejected MH17 Claim

In its complaint to the Court, Ukraine had also claimed that Russia was responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014, killing all 298 civilian passengers and crew on board. Kiev wanted Russia to pay compensation to the victims.  

But the court refused to rule whether Russia was responsible and to order compensation.  This ruling appears to contradict the results of the official investigation into the incident. 

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and a Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT) concluded in 2016 that the plane was shot down by ethnic Russian separatists using a missile supplied by Russia. Moscow has denied involvement in the incident. 

The ruling on MH17 came two weeks after the European Court of Justice decided that the Dutch government was not required to release information it has about the incident.  The Dutch news outlet RTL Nieuws had brought the case before the ICJ.  

It wanted to know what reports the Dutch government had received about Ukrainian airspace before the plane was shot down.  The government refused to release that data and the European court ruled it did not have to divulge information regarding aviation safety. 

No Discrimination

Ukraine was also denied compensation for what it said was discrimination against ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014. 

The court only agreed that Russia failed to adequately protect Ukrainian language education in Crimea. This complaint came as Ukraine passed laws discriminating against the Russian language in the country.  

US Judge Votes Against Russia

Joan Donoghue, the American judge who is president of the Court, voted to protect Ukraine against several of the measures of the judgement. 

For instance, she voted (in a 10-5 vote) against rejecting “all other submissions made by Ukraine with respect to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.” She only voted for the point criticizing Russia for not properly investigating the charge and against rejecting Ukraine’s demands for compensation.  

Donoghue also voted (in another 10-5 vote) against rejecting Ukraine’s charge regarding discrimination against Ukrainians and Tartars in Crimea.

 

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/01/icj-rules-against-ukraine-v-russia-on-terrorism-mh17/

 

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AI is not to blame for Channel 9’s misogyny – humans are
By Su Dharmapala

 

Is there a word for when you are in a rage and in despair? Respair? Dage? Cause whatever that is – I am both in rage and despair as a woman who works in both politics and technology over the latest example of how the media treats powerful women; in this case Georgie Purcell, member of the Legislative Council for Northern Victoria. If we really want to change things and enable women to fully participate in society including all levels of democracy – let’s start with misogyny, not technology.

Georgie Purcell, member of the Legislative Council for Northern Victoria and member of the Animal Justice Party found out that a news segment broadcast by Channel 9 on Monday contained a digitally altered image of her. As well as resizing an image they randomly took from the internet (which would most likely be a breach of copyright against whoever took the photo), they also gave her bigger boobs and a crop top. Then The Australian added to the veritable bacchanalia of misogyny by mentioning the MLC was a former stripper.

Adobe, the creators of Photoshop software, promptly refuted this and said their AI generative function still requires ‘human intervention’. What next Channel 9? The dog ate your homework?

If you are getting the feeling that the Australian media landscape is filled with white middle-aged men who peaked in primary school, stealing ciggies and wanking over Playboy out the back of the bike shed – join the club.

Georgie Purcell is an amazing woman. At 31, she is currently the youngest person in the Victorian Parliament and the only elected member of the Animal Justice Party (AJP) in the state after the 2022 election. She started in politics at the age of 26 and in a few short years, she became the Chief of Staff to the first AJP MP for Victoria, Andy Meddick, and has worked tirelessly to stop the repulsive Victorian sport of duck hunting. That’s the reason she was in the news in the first place, but the misogyny became the story, instead of animal cruelty.

Everything that I have observed of Ms Purcell in politics tells me that she is a pragmatic, thoughtful and informed woman who deserves her place in Victoria’s legislature. We need more people like her in politics rather than less.

As a woman running an AI tech political data start-up, I can confidently tell you that AI cannot do anything unless it is trained by a human to do what it wants to do. AI is a tool used by its human masters. A hammer is a tool. It can be used to drive a nail, it can also be used to kill someone.

Self-aware AI is on its way – but still it needs to be told what to do. Sure, it can do things faster and sometimes better – but it is beholden to human trainers. Unless we address the culture of the way women’s bodies are viewed and controlled by the media and afford everyone the respect they deserve as a function of their humanity – this is a zero sum game. It wasn’t AI that chose the random image from the internet (instead of going to the AJP website, or the Victorian Parliamentary website for an official image) to use and then write the slut shaming headline in The Australian. It was humans.

If we really want to change things and enable women to fully participate in society including all levels of democracy – let’s start with misogyny, not technology. We need more powerful women like Ms Purcell leading the charge for the society we want to see.

https://johnmenadue.com/ai-is-not-to-blame-for-channel-9s-misogyny-humans-are/

 

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FREE HIM, PLEASE.......

 

 

Cotler’s campaigns for foreign regime change or intervention almost always march in lock-step with neoconservative U.S. foreign policy. His “humanitarian” branding is but a thin veneer of hypocrisy to conceal his establishment policies — policies that almost always serve the interests of Israel.

 

by Vanessa Beeley

 

August 01st, 2019

On July 22, 2018, Israel organized and facilitated an exceptional evacuation of White Helmet operatives from southern Syria, claiming the operatives were at risk from an advancing Syrian Arab Army. A number of NATO member states backed the move, calling on Israel to bring their intelligence assets to safety. 

The White Helmets have been discredited and exposed as a British-government-incubated project by a number of independent geopolitical analysts, including Scott Ritter, Philip Giraldi, John Pilger, Seymour Hersh, Eva Bartlett, Graham Porter, Rick Sterling , Cory Morningstar and many more.  

This journalist’s extensive work has shown that the U.K. Intelligence-manufactured group of pseudo “humanitarians” — financed by the majority of member states within the U.S.-led interventionist alliance waging war against Syria — is nothing more than an auxiliary of the Al Qaeda generic offshoots in Syria. The White Helmet image has been professionally polished by a vast network of PR agencies, billionaire philanthropists, and media outlets aligned with their respective government objectives to overthrow the Syrian government and reduce Syria to a “failed state,” as they succeeded in doing with Libya.

Israel has a history of supporting terrorism in Syria since the start of the U.S. coalition war against the nation officially began in 2011. Israel has offered medical treatment to the various militant groups previously occupying areas of southern Syria. Stories abound of Israeli troops providing covering fire for groups dominated by Al Qaeda affiliates or rebrands as they came under attack from the Syrian Arab Army legitimately reclaiming territory lost to internationally-backed armed group

As journalist Sharmine Narwani pointed out in her article “Are Al Qaeda affiliates fighting alongside U.S. rebels in Syria’s south?”

“

If forced to choose, Israel prefers the presence of terrorist groups to Iranian influence […] Israel is so heavily [in]vested in keeping Syria and its allies away from its borders, it has actively bolstered al-Qaeda and other extremists in Syria’s southern theater.”

Israel’s evacuation of the White Helmets was an extension of its terrorist-supporting operations in southern Syria — and a response to a cry for help from a U.S. ally that has also supported proxy terrorism in Syria for the last eight years. Certainly Israel would not lift a finger to help any entity opposed to its existence in the Middle East, regardless of the pressure brought to bear by its allies in the U.S. or the U.K. It must also be noted that Israel and NATO member states did not offer the same humanitarian assistance to ordinary Syrian refugees gathered at the borders with Jordan and in Israeli annexed territory. 

The following video footage of the Israel forces enabling the White Helmet evacuation process was published on Twitter by former Israeli security affairs expert Shai Ben-Ari: (blocked/censored – TID)

During my time in the southern region of Syria, I visited numerous abandoned White Helmet centers located, as they always seemed to be, next to armed group centers or in shared complexes, usually former schools, hospitals or industrial buildings that had been converted into military headquarters and munitions factories.

I followed the route taken before me by the White Helmets as they exited Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights before being transported to Jordan for their onward journey to asylum in the U.K., Canada, France or Germany. Locals in the area told me that a significant number of leaders and fighters from armed groups had been evacuated alongside the White Helmets with no opposition from Israel. 

On September 20, 2018, I managed to enter a still-operating White Helmet center in Daraa Al Balad, south of Damascus, and interview White Helmet members as they continued to work in areas still under the control of armed groups during ongoing Russian-brokered reconciliation talks. One of the White Helmets, Abu Mohanad Al Mahamid, told me: 

“

There are some [armed] factions connected with Israel; those factions were gathered by Israel in Quneitra and were told that you will [they would] leave with the White Helmets. By the way, the number of White Helmets in the southern area is 635, but those who left were 800. This means that there are [armed] factions who work with Mossad and they were extracted alongside the White Helmets… Not all those who left were White Helmets; there were people who left from Quneitra. There were terrorists; some left from the Yarmouk Basin.” 

When asked to clarify who the terrorists from Yarmouk Basin were, Al Mahamid confirmed that they were ISIS fighters. 

During the dramatic evacuation of the White Helmets, former U.K. Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford responded to a statement issued by U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Ford raised a number of questions regarding the extradition of the White Helmets, perhaps one of the most pertinent being this:

“

Might the British government have been afraid of this particular group being caught and interrogated, revealing perhaps the truth about alleged chemical weapons incidents?”

In December of 2018, Jordanian Member of Parliament Tareq Khoury demanded that the “dregs of White Helmets” still in Jordan be extradited as traitors to their homeland to face justice inside Syria.

“It is known they are traitors,” he said, adding:

“

Treason is a shameful and disgraceful act. Whoever betrays his homeland and his people will not spare the homeland of others. There are many stories throughout history in which traitors are eliminated by their operators when their dirty missions against their homelands are finished… I urge the Jordanian government to hand over those remaining [White Helmets] to the Sryian state to try them for betraying their homeland.”

Who orchestrated this exceptional rescue?

When the pedigree of those behind the White Helmet evacuation is more closely examined, Israel’s outsized role in the promotion and protection of the internationally financed group becomes more even more apparent.

Rewind to the hatching of the White Helmet “rescue” plan. On July 24, 2018, The Globe and Mail ran a story headlined: “How Canada’s woman in Istanbul began the daring rescue of the White Helmets.” The article outlines how White Helmets leader Raed Saleh approached Robin Wettlaufer, Canada’s Istanbul-based special envoy to Syria, for help.

Saleh has a history of being refused entry to the U.S. He was turned back at Dulles Airport in 2016 because of his suspected ties to extremist groups in Syria. This inconvenient fact was wiped from his immigration slate by former Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry and Saleh was subsequently allowed to enter the United States in September 2016. Kerry met Saleh during a closed-door session at the U.N., where the then-secretary of state had convened a meeting with members of the Syrian opposition, including members of armed groups. Incidentally, it was during these talks that Kerry famously admitted to the Obama administration’s support for ISIS in Syria in leaked audio published by the New York Times.

According to the Globe and Mail, Canada was being “hailed for its leadership” of the White Helmet rescue mission. Chrystia Freeland, Canadian foreign minister and former Globe and Mail editor, used a July NATO summit in Brussels to issue a plea on behalf of the White Helmets, which persuaded both Germany and Britain to accept a number of the high-profile “refugees.”

Former MI6 intelligence operative and creator of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, praised Canada’s initiative and singled out Wettlauger for praise. “Robin has been absolutely extraordinary; …the drive, the galvanization came from Canada,” Le Mesurier told the Globe and Mail.

As time passed, another individual was revealed to have been at the forefront of the Canada-led campaign. In October 2018, the Globe and Mail ran another story identifying Irwin Cotler’s role in the operation.

“

Renowned international human-rights lawyer Irwin Cotler is nominating Syria’s famed White Helmets, a group of volunteer humanitarian workers Canada helped rescue from the war-torn country, for the Nobel Peace Prize 2019.”

Cotler, the former Liberal minister of justice and attorney general for Canada, was a crucial element in the White Helmets rescue bid and was called upon to broker an agreement for the mission with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Why is Irwin Cotler so invested in the White Helmets?

Cotler’s history and connections reveal a high-profile global player who has consistently defended Israel’s appalling human-rights record in Palestine and is a tireless promoter of the responsibility to protect doctrine or R2P. 

R2P is one of the most enterprising propaganda initiatives of the global powers aligned with U.S. supremacy and neo-colonialism. It effectively provides the moral justification to invade or attack any country whose government is deemed repressive toward its people.

Of course, those who decide what countries are repressive are the same ones with a history of militarily subjugating sovereign nations, plundering their resources, and in most cases ultimately reducing the quality of life for those same “repressed people.” This, on top of the years or even decades of bloodshed that leave behind depleted uranium and psychological trauma that will affect those “repressed people” for generations once the campaign has succeeded in reducing these nations to failed states. 

The R2P doctrine has become one of the most insidious instruments used by global hegemons to manufacture consent for the myriad forever-wars of various intensities that are currently plaguing most regions of the world. It sells the “humanitarian value” of war and obfuscates hidden interests that are the true driver of modern-day colonization projects. 

Cotler has hung the R2P Sword of Damocles over the heads of both Syria and Libya. In 2016 he accused Canada of “defaulting” on its responsibility to intervene in Syria, reinforcing the hyperbole used to facilitate another “humanitarian” war:

“

That doctrine [R2P] says that whenever there is a situation of war crimes and crimes against humanity and, God forbid, genocide, and the country in which it takes place is the author of that criminality, there is a responsibility to intervene and protect the innocent civilians. And I think we have defaulted on that — not just Canada, the international community — with respect to Syria.”

In 2011, Cotler argued that intervention in Libya to effectively bring down President Muammar Qaddafi would be a “test case for the UN Security Council and its implementation of the R2P doctrine.” History has since revealed that many of those “mass atrocities” so vehemently condemned by Cotler were little more than narratives designed to manufacture consent for the wholesale destruction of Libya by NATO member states. 

The reality of Cotler’s campaigns for foreign regime change or intervention is that they almost always march in lock-step with neoconservative U.S. foreign policy. His “humanitarian” branding is but a thin veneer of hypocrisy that attempts to conceal his establishment policies — policies that almost always serve the interests of Israel.

Canadian author and journalist Yves Engler has waged a long-time campaign against Cotler’s crypto-neocolonialism. When former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin nominated Cotler for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, alongside Cotler’s own nomination of the White Helmets, Engler wrote an article titled “Canada’s Dershowitz, apologist for Israeli war crimes, nominated for Peace prize.”

In the article Engler lays out a convincing argument that Cotler is a serial apologist for Israel’s genocidal policies towards the Palstinian people. Engler reveals that Cotler was a long-time unofficial advisor to the former Israeli military chief of staff, General Moshe Ya’alon. Ya’alon is on the record saying that Israel “has a right to every part of the land of Israel.” In 2002, Ya’alon told a conference of rabbis in Jerusalem: “The Palestinian threat harbors cancer-like attributes that have to be severed and fought to the bitter end.”

Cotler’s own daughter, attorney Michal Cotler-Wunsh, was included in a joint list of Israel’s Resilience and Telem Party candidates headed by former Chiefs of Staff Benny Gantz and Moshe Ya’alon. Cotler-Wunsh was “born in Jerusalem, served in the Israeli military and obtained law degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.” The Cotler family connections to extreme right-wing elements of the Israeli ruling elite could not be stronger or better defined. 

To launch the Telem Party campaign, Gantz released a video celebrating his role in the massacre of 2,200 Palestinians during the 2014 “mowing the lawn” bombing campaign in Gaza. For Gantz, “parts of Gaza [being] sent back to the Stone Age” was a victory for “peace” in the region. A “peace” that only Israel would benefit from. In his article, Engler points out that Gantz faces a war-crimes case in the Netherlands for his participation in the 2014 campaign that claimed the lives of civilians in Gaza and reduced much of the besieged enclave to rubble, destroying infrastructure and ensuring living conditions were reduced to sub-third-world status. 

In his staunch defense of Israel, Cotler has described illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank as “disputed territories” and justified the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon that left 1,200 mostly civilians dead. He has consistently attempted to derail investigations into Israeli war crimes — savagely attacking Richard Goldstone, who led the UN investigation of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which killed 1,400 Palestinians in Gazain 2008 and 2009.

Cotler and Venezuela

It should come as no surprise that Cotler’s support for U.S.-backed foreign interventions extends to the other side of the Atlantic as well. In Venezuela, he has been instrumental in furthering the U.S. agenda and undermining governance in an independent and sovereign state. 

Cotler has gone so far as to state that “recognizing Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s leader is not a coup, it’s an embrace of democracy.” Cotler has called for the delegitimization of the Maduro government, and the sanctioning of top officials to hasten the demise of Maduro and to “speed the transition to democratic governance” in Venezuela. He described the Venezuelan government as being responsible for the “worst ever humanitarian crisis in the region,” while ignoring the U.S. role in creating and maintaining that “humanitarian crisis” through crippling sanctions aimed at undermining the Maduro government. This is such a textbook regime-change script and Cotler adheres to it without deviation. 

In his exposé on Cotler, Engler claims that Cotler has been working with Guaido’s right-wing Popular Will Party for four years with the aim of ousting the Maduro government. Regional media outlet VenezuelaAnalysis pointed out that Cotler was “one of three international experts” responsible for a 400-page Canadian-backed Organization of American States (OAS) report on rights violations in Venezuela. The panel recommended OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro “submit the report to the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC [International Criminal Court] and that other states refer Venezuela to the ICC.” 

Cotler’s dedication to the “mobilization of shame against human-rights violators” is invariably directed against states and leaders who oppose U.S. global supremacy.

Cotler on Iran and Syria

In 2012 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that the U.S. State Department had reportedly removed Iran’s Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the terrorism list. According to the article:

“

Iranian Americans sympathetic to the plight of MEK enlisted the support of a number of pro-Israel figures, including Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust memoirist Elie Wiesel; Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz; and Irwin Cotler, the former Canadian justice minister. “ (emphasis added)

As an aside, earlier this year the White Helmets were recipients of the Elie Wiesel Award from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (HMM) for their “work” in Syria. Raed Saleh was available to receive the award on behalf of Al Qaeda’s auxiliaries and simultaneously picked up a check from the U.S. government for $5 million to “help us with acquiring ambulances and to help us with search and rescue operations.” 

Former CIA counter-terrorism officer Philip Giraldi wrote a scathing article condemning the hypocrisy of the award, the irony of the taxpayer-funded HMM honoring what he called a “terrorist group … used in support of Israeli propaganda vis-a-vis Syria.” Giraldi concluded: 

“

Perhaps, while they are at it, the museum’s board just might also want to check out Elie Wiesel, for whom the award is named. Wiesel, who was a chronicler of Jewish victimhood while persistently refusing to acknowledge what Israel was doing to the Palestinians, notoriously mixed fact and fiction in his best-selling Holocaust memoir, Night. Ironically, the award and recipient are well matched in this case, as mixing fact and fiction is what both Elie Wiesel and the White Helmets are all about.”

Cotler, Wiesel’s comrade in defending the MEK and promoting the White Helmets, was responsible for the organization of three “Iran Accountability” weeks. In 2014 Cotler invited Maryam Rajavi, leader of the MEK, to appear in the program alongside UN human-rights officials and “pundits from a hawkish American think tank.” Cotler later argued that Rajavi’s inclusion in the event was “issue specific,” but his prior support for this brutal terrorist cult undermines such an argument. 

Cotler employs blatant “human rights” double standards in his condemnation of governments in U.S. and Israeli crosshairs, while systematically ignoring the appalling human-rights records of governments or organizations included within the U.S. circle of power.

As in Syria, it seems that prominent neoconservatives will favor terrorist groups over legitimate governments that are perceived to threaten Israeli security in the region. 

Cotler is also a member of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP). The ICJP has operated under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) since 2006. Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel (NY-16), is chairman of the ICJP and vice president of the WJC. Engel is another vociferous supporter of the MEK. 

Engel presented a “gift of appreciation” to Cotler during a dinner at the King David Hotel in 2015, on behalf of the WJC. “If one looks to this generation and seeks a role model, that would be Irwin Cotler,” Engel said. 

Engel connects again with Cotler in his condemnation of the Syrian government and support for increased “humanitarian” military intervention in Syria. Engel was responsible for the Caesar Civilian Protection Act, which was ostensibly introduced to increase economic sanctions against the Syrian government based upon claims made by an alleged former Syrian military photographer in the questionable Caesar Report. That report was commissioned by the government of Qatar, a Gulf State heavily invested in the financing of terrorist groups and the White Helmets in Syria. 

The Caesar Civilian Protection Act will effectively collectively punish the Syrian people for resisting efforts to destabilize their country and topple their elected government in the time honored tradition of U.S. Coalition sanctions that can only be considered siege warfare or economic terrorism. The orchestrators of this vindictive measure clearly have their roots in the neoconservative camp in the U.S. 

There are now two more elements of Cotler’s influence on the global stage that I would like to examine in some detail. Cotler has been at the forefront of the new cold war campaigns to criminalize Russia, but that warrants an entire article dedicated to Cotler’s war against the Russian government’s perceived “culture of corruption and criminality.” Cotler was instrumental in introducing the controversial “Magnitsky Law” (Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act) in Canada to “fight Russian thuggery,” and for promoting the adoption of the Magnitsky Act by all aligned governments. 

The Cotler-Dershowitz partnership 

Alan Dershowitz, a controversial figure in his own right, has described Cotler as “his mirror image in Canada.” The Cotler-Dershowitz double act is a longstanding and powerful partnership with far-reaching influence among the world’s most powerful entities.

“

Alan “Needles” Dershowitz, says “Irwin Cotler is my mirror image in Canada” https://t.co/QWB912RWVx pic.twitter.com/d9zJQ7s3Qi

— William Owen (@Bill_Owen) June 19, 2019

Dershowitz, and American lawyer and academic, was heavily implicated in the recent Jeffrey Epstein scandal that has sent shock waves through the establishment ruling classes, exposing decades of depravity among the most powerful sectors of society and a blackmail cartel that profited from the sexual perversion of their billionaire clients from within capitalist, political and intelligence inner circles.

Dershowitz negotiated the “sweetheart plea” for Epstein that allowed him a “work release provision throughout his 13 months in Palm Beach County Jail” in 2008, when Epstein faced charges of sexually abusing under-age girls at his Palm Beach mansion. Dershowitz denied claims that an under-age child and a woman were forced to have sex with him by Epstein and his girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. 

Award-winning journalist Whitney Webb is publishing a series of articles for MintPress News detailing the horrifying implications of the Epstein case and the origins of this underworld-sanctioned debauchery. I asked Webb for a comment on the Dershowitz connections to Epstein and his role in furthering the U.S./Neocon “humanitarian” war agenda. 

She told me: 

“

Alan Dershowitz is an individual deeply involved in the pro-Israel lobby and has close ties to influential figures in the U.S. and Israel like casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. In his pro-Israel activism, Dershowitz fits well with Cotler’s efforts to “shame” groups that run counter to their policy goals, and this has recently been seen in how Dershowitz has sought to initimidate and shame the young women who have accused him and his friend Jeffrey Epstein of rape.”

“

this argument would be SO different if it werent coming from a man who has been accused by several of Epstein’s underage “sex slaves” who could not give consent in the traditional sense because they were basically enslaved.

— Whitney Webb (@_whitneywebb) July 30, 2019

In 2016 Dershowitz nominated Cotler for the Nobel Peace Prize. Like his “heroes” in the White Helmets — who have, themselves, been unsuccessfully nominated several times — Cotler has yet to succeed in his bid for the ultimate “humanitarian” prize. 

While Cotler may promote his hawkish policies under the cover of “humanitarian” branding, Dershowitz has openly advocated torture under specific condtions and argued that non-lethal “torturous techniques of interrogation should indeed be legally authorized.” 

Dershowitz seems to endorse torture if the government makes the decision to torture an individual under any “reasonable” pretext. This is effectively the legitimization of state torture, which could very possibly be used against anyone classified by the government as high risk.

The Jewish Coalition for Kurdistan

The Brussels-based Jewish Coalition for Kurdistan (JCFK) counts Dershowitz and Cotler among its pro-Israel members. The JCFK website declares its mission to support independence for Iraqi Kurdistan: 

“

The Jewish Coalition for Kurdistan is committed to deepening friendship between the Jewish and Kurdish people worldwide, and supporting the further development and consolidation of relations between Kurdistan and the State of Israel, the only two democratic and pro-Western societies in the Middle East.” (emphasis added)

This project brings Cotler and Dershowitz into alliance with Bernard Henri Levy, a French-Jewish philosopher with a deadly reputation for fomenting and supporting neocolonialist projects around the world, but perhaps most notoriously in Libya. Levy has been a long-time supporter of Kurdish “independence.” 

While it would take a separate article to fully explore the neoconservative weaponization of Kurdish independence to weaken, destabilize and partition target states, including Syria, Iraq and Iran, the involvement of these three empire builders in the “cause” and the marketing of Kurdistan as the other “democratic and pro-Western society” in the Middle East must indicate the direction in which this campaign is heading: the balkanization of the Middle East. 

Bringing down nations and trafficking children

Cotler must be considered a “humanitarian” fraud when one takes into account the extensive damage caused to nations that have had to resist one interventionist war after another by his neocon-aligned policies. Policies designed to remove non-aligned governments and collectively punish the non-aligned citizens of those countries. 

In his 2019 petition against the nomination of Cotler for the Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian-Canadian activist Mehdi Samadian states: 

“

The petition organizers believe that Irwin Cotler has supported and advocated for political actors and policies instigating conflicts and prolonging instability at the international stage.”

Cotler’s protectionist campaign on behalf of the White Helmets should raise alarm bells among the legions of Palestinian movement supporters and ostensibly pro-Palestine journalists and talking heads who have promoted the concept of a grassroots “Syrian revolution” to their substantial Western audiences.

Whether wittingly or unwittingly, media personalities like C.J Werleman, George Monbiot, Nafeez Ahmed, Jon Snow of U.K. Channel 4, and many others have vehemently leapt to the defense of the White Helmets and joined the chorus of attacks and smears against journalists and academics who have dared to question the credibility of the organization financed by the U.S. Coalition that so clearly collaborates with the terrorist groups committing heinous crimes against the Syrian people. 

Israel’s involvement in the evacuation of the White Helmets and the subsequent promotion of the group by personalities and governments heavily invested in expanding Israel’s interests must highlight who the organization serves in the region — and I do not believe it is the Syrian people, as their PR agencies claim.

Cotler’s “human rights credentials are a sham” according to Engler. Much has been made of his role as legal advisor to late South African President Nelson Mandela. Yet South Africa’s ambassador to Venezuela, Pandit Thaninga Shope-Linney, apparently denies this claim, thus stripping Cotler of his most potent “humanitarian” identity. According to Engler, Mandela himself does not name Cotler in his biography, although he does mention other lawyers by name. 

Cotler has been merciless in pursuit of China for its alleged record of “gruesome organ trade.” Why then does Cotler not equally condemn Israel for its appalling history of organ trafficking and theft, particularly in Palestine? 

In 2009, Nancy Scheper-Hughes was Chancellor’s Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley, the founder of Organ Watch and author of a number of academic books on organ trafficking. I have taken the following quote from an article by long-time author and journalist Alison Weir: 

“

While Scheper-Hughes emphasizes that traffickers come from numerous nations and ethnicities, including Americans and Arabs, ‘Israel,’ she states, ‘is at the top. It has tentacles reaching out worldwide.’ … In a lecture last year she explained that Israeli organ traffickers ‘have a pyramid system at work that’s awesome…they have brokers everywhere, bank accounts everywhere; they’ve got recruiters, they’ve got translators, they’ve got travel agents who set up the visas.”

What is perhaps even more disturbing and ominous is the fact that Cotler has not addressed the accusations of organ trafficking levied against the White Helmets themselves by the Syrian civilians who were forced to live under their occupation in areas of Syria formerly under the control of terrorist groups partnered by the very organization that Cotler nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2019.

Cotler has not only defended the White Helmets, but he has also lauded them and invested his reputation in the whitewashing of their image. Cotler is a powerful sympathizer of the Israeli government and influencer with connections that reach into the darkest corners of state affairs in Canada, the U.S. and Israel. He has not chosen to ally himself with this fraudulent and criminal organization by chance. 

Cotler’s mirror image in America is Alan Dershowitz, this, according to Dershowitz himself, accused of sexual abuse, defense lawyer for a convicted serial child-abuser and advocate for state-controlled torture. More recently, Dershowitz argued that “puberty is arriving earlier, particularly among some ethnic groups,” in light of which Dershowitz proposes that the age of consent in America should be lowered. Or, as Whitney Webb commented, “Alan Dershowitz is now making a ‘constitutional’ argument to legalize statutory rape.” Dershowitz is effectively suggesting that if a child reaches puberty at the age of 10, they are to be considered a legitimate target for sexual predators — interesting timing as the Epstein scandal storm gathers.  

We can only speculate that there is a connection between the White Helmets, accused of multiple child abductions and organ trafficking, and the nefarious activities connected to one of their staunchest supporters: Irwin Cotler and his double-act partner Alan Dershowitz. It certainly warrants a deeper investigation.

 

Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist and photographer who has worked extensively in the Middle East – on the ground in Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Palestine, while also covering the conflict in Yemen since 2015. In 2017 Vanessa was a finalist for the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism which was won by the much-acclaimed Robert Parry that year. In 2018 Vanessa was named one of the 238 most respected journalists in the UK by the British National Council for the Training of Journalists. In 2019, Vanessa was among recipients of the Serena Shim Award for uncompromised integrity in journalism. Vanessa contributes regularly to Mint Press News, Russia Today, UK Column, The Last American Vagabond, Sputnik radio, 21st Century Wire and many other independent media outlets. Please support her work at her https://www.patreon.com/vanessabeeley Patreon Page.

 

 

https://www.theinteldrop.org/2024/07/12/faux-humanitarian-irwin-cotler-the-white-helmets-and-the-whitewashing-of-an-appalling-agenda/