jones wrote:
There are many serious outlets who accuse the organisation of fraud, unfortunately I know only of Arab or German ones; Jürgen Todenhöfer however might be a known name even abroad as he's one of the very few Western journalists who've been on the ground in every conflict zone in the Middle East.
Yeah, I'm familiar with Todenhöfer. I'd love to read some of his stuff if you know where it's accessible online. German is not a problem.
jones wrote:
You don't even need to know about these fakes to know that they're at least a dodgy source. Their media campaign focusses on attacks by the government only, not once have I heard them criticise the attacks initiated and supported by Western forces. Then there's the fact that in James Lemesurier a private security advisor has founded the group and that large parts of their operations is not even based in Syria.
I agree that it looks shoddy. The fact that they might be politically motivated to focus their efforts on certain aspects of the Syrian conflict doesn't make them frauds though, nor the fact that they receive government funding, or that Lemesurier was in private security. What would make them frauds would be evidence of them not conducting rescue operations and using funds to enrichen themselves. To the best of my knowledge, this evidence doesn't exist, which is why I asked for proof. There are questionable political motives in some of the criticism too; I know that the Syrian Civil Defence have been a target of the Syrian government and the Russian forces that support it, for instance.
jones wrote:
I wouldnt dismiss the claims on the face of the dodgy layouts of some websites who criticise them, especially with how many so called conspiracies turned out true in that part of the world
To be clear, I'm not dismissing the claims, I'm asking for evidence. I know at least one fact-checker who couldn't find hard facts to back up the accusations when they surfaced during the fall, which is why the paper couldn't run a potential story about the helmets. It wouldn't have held up to journalistic standards. And it's not because of a biased western narrative; Sweden has no dog in that fight.
Another point to consider is that even if the documentary White Helmets would turn out to have been filmed under unethical circumstances it doesn't necessarily make the organisation it covers fraudulent. I am somewhat familiar with Orlando von Einsiedel's films though and I don't think of him as a propagandist filmmaker who is biased towards western interests, especially not after Virunga which was supposed to be a positive tale about reconstruction in Congo but instead turned into a scathing criticism of British oil companies and their possible involvement in the M23 rebellion.
Better people have been duped into covering worse stories than the white helmets, that much is true, but I do think a disregard for facts and evidence is dangerous regardless of whether we're talking about profiling rescue workers or accusing Russia of interfering with elections.
