{"id":96406,"date":"2017-08-07T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=96406"},"modified":"2017-08-04T12:45:47","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T11:45:47","slug":"james-le-mesurier-the-former-british-mercenary-who-founded-the-white-helmets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/08\/james-le-mesurier-the-former-british-mercenary-who-founded-the-white-helmets\/","title":{"rendered":"James Le Mesurier: The Former British Mercenary Who Founded the White Helmets"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Le Mesurier, a British ex-mercenary, founded the White Helmets in 2013. The group has been lauded for its \u201chumanitarian\u201d efforts in Syria, but they have actually functioned more as a logistics and propaganda arm of Syria\u2019s al-Qaeda branch, complete with training from Le Mesurier. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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British ex-mercenary, and founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, pictured in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo: Twitter\/James Le Mesurier)<\/p><\/div>\n

31 Jul 2017 – <\/em>Over the past two years, enlightening information has been revealed that thoroughly and unequivocally debunks the \u201chumanitarianism\u201d of the White Helmets in Syria, sometimes referred to as the Syrian Civil Defense.<\/p>\n

Since they were founded in 2013, much of Western media has sought to elevate the White Helmets as the \u201cbravest\u201d and most heroic of Syrians. They have been the subject of a Netflix documentary<\/a>, which won an Oscar, and has consistently been plastered across TV screens in surprisingly well-produced videos showing them removing children from rubble in war-torn areas claimed by Syria\u2019s \u201crebels.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, missing from this unambiguously positive coverage has been the group\u2019s ties to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda<\/a>, their doctoring of footage<\/a>, their role in executing civilians<\/a> and their use of children \u2013 both dead and alive \u2013 as props<\/a> for producing pro-intervention propaganda<\/a>. Also absent is how the White Helmets have received over $123 million<\/a> from 2013 to 2016 from the U.S. and UK governments, as well as Western NGOs and Gulf state monarchies.<\/p>\n

While numerous articles have been devoted to dispelling the propaganda that surrounds the group and detailing their shady ties to known terrorist organizations like Syria\u2019s al-Qaeda branch Al-Nusra Front, significantly less attention has been focused on how the group was created, particularly on the man who founded them \u2013 James Le Mesurier, a British private security specialist, and former British military intelligence officer.<\/p>\n

Related |\u00a0How The Syria\u2019s White Helmets Became The Latest Neocon Tool For Regime Change<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Le Mesurier\u2019s role in founding the White Helmets and propagating its mythology to a Western audience was exposed in 2015 thanks to the work of independent journalist Vanessa Beeley.<\/p>\n

Beeley, who spoke to MintPress News at length for this report, notes that it was Le Mesurier\u2019s \u201c\u2018realization that humanitarian aid was more effective at maintaining<\/em> war than an army\u201d that spurred his creation of the organization in order \u201cto maintain public support for another costly war in a country that is, in reality, posing little to no threat to mainland America\u201d or its allies.<\/p>\n

James Le Mesurier: From Mercenary to \u201cHumanitarian\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though mainstream narratives have suggested<\/a> that the White Helmets were trained by the Red Cross, the White Helmets were actually founded<\/a> in March 2013 by Le Mesurier. He, like many officers in the British military, attended the Royal Military Academy, where he graduated at the top of his class, receiving the Queen\u2019s Medal.<\/p>\n

He later served<\/a> in the British Army and operated in a variety of theaters. Most notably, Le Mesurier served as intelligence coordinator for Pristina City in Kosovo soon after the NATO intervention that led to NATO being accused<\/a> of war crimes for its targeting of thousands of civilians and media.<\/p>\n

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Having served the governments of the UK, US, UN and Gulf States, James Le Mesurier was able to very quickly garner financial support from fervent supporters of Syrian regime change. (Sofie Gran\/Aspunvik)<\/p><\/div>\n

By 2000, Le Mesurier left the army and went to work for the United Nations as he had \u201crealized humanitarian aid was more effective<\/a>\u201d than an army in theaters of war during his time with the British military. He, again, served in a variety of locations, focusing on<\/a> \u201cdelivering stabilization activities through security sector and democratization programs.\u201d According to Le Mesurier, \u201cstabilization activities\u201d refers to the \u201cframework for engagement in \u2018fragile\u2019 states\u201d or, in other words, destabilized nations.<\/p>\n

Prior to his founding of the White Helmets, Le Mesurier served as<\/a> Vice President for Special Projects at the Olive Group<\/a>, a private mercenary organization that has since merged with Blackwater-Academi into what is now known as Constellis Holdings. Then, in 2008, Le Mesurier left the Olive Group after he was appointed to the position of Principal at Good Harbor Consulting, chaired by Richard A. Clarke<\/a> \u2013 a veteran of the U.S. national security establishment and the counter-terrorism \u201cczar\u201d under the Bush and Clinton administrations.<\/p>\n

Related | <\/u>John Pilger: The White Helmets Are A \u201cComplete Propaganda Construct\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After joining Good Harbor, Le Mesurier became based<\/a> in Abu Dhabi, where he specialized in risk management, emergency planning, and critical infrastructure protection. He trained a UAE gas field protection force and \u201censured the safety\u201d of the 2010 Gulf Cup in Yemen, a regional soccer tournament. But following this work, Le Mesurier claims to have become dissatisfied, wanting to have a more direct impact on the communities he worked in.<\/p>\n

He told Men\u2019s Journal<\/em><\/a> in 2014 that it was the idea of using his military training to benefit civilians that truly enthused him: \u201cthe idea of being a civilian carrying a weapon and guiding a convoy in a conflict zone \u2014 that leaves me cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

White Helmets Founded through Western Funding<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it came to time to found the White Helmets in March 2013, Le Mesurier seemed to have simply been in the right place at the right time. According to his own account, he founded the group in Turkey after being \u201ccompelled\u201d<\/a> by Syrians\u2019 wartime stories.<\/p>\n

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James Le Mesurier poses on a ferry dock in Istanbul, Turkey.
(Photo: Twitter\/James Le Mesurier)<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite founding the White Helmets in Turkey, he raised $300,000 in seed funding provided by the UK, the U.S. and Japan, which Le Mesurier apparently had no trouble scrounging up. The $123 million dollars that was funneled soon after to the organization by the U.S. and UK governments, along with Western NGOs and Qatar, dispels all notion of the organization\u2019s alleged \u201cimpartiality\u201d and \u201cnon-partisan\u201d stance on the Syrian conflict stated on their website. <\/a><\/p>\n

He then used it to train 25 \u201cvetted\u201d Syrians \u201cto deal with the chaos erupting around them.\u201d By September of that year, more than 700 \u201cvetted\u201d individuals were believed to have undergone training under Le Mesurier\u2019s supervision.<\/p>\n

However, Le Mesurier\u2019s ties to British military intelligence, mercenary groups and involvement in \u201cstabilization activities\u201d and \u201cdemocratization programs\u201d suggest that his convenient appearance in Istanbul, Turkey is perhaps not too coincidental. As Beeley noted in an interview with MintPress: \u201cthere are very few coincidences in the multi-spectrum, hybrid war that has been waged against Syria by the U.S. coalition since 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the White Helmets were founded when the West was losing on both the propaganda and military front regarding the push for regime change and foreign intervention in Syria. More specifically, as Beeley told MintPress, the group\u2019s founding took place just after \u201cthe Syrian government had raised concerns about a terrorist chemical weapon attack in Khan Al Asal against the SAA [Syrian Arab Army].\u201d<\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise then that, since their founding, the White Helmets have been instrumental in blaming the Syrian government for any and all subsequent chemical weapons attacks in Syria, acting as both witnesses and responders to events that were later proven<\/a> to be the work of the armed opposition in Syria or staged<\/a>. As a result, Beeley argued that it\u2019s well within reason to speculate that the White Helmets were explicitly founded with this purpose in mind.<\/p>\n

However, it is Le Mesurier himself who shed light on why the White Helmets were formed at such a crucial point for the foreign-funded opposition. As Le Mesurier noted in a speech<\/a> delivered on June 2015, in \u201cfragile\u201d (i.e. destabilized) states, security actors \u2013 such as mercenaries or foreign armies \u2013 have the lowest level of public trust. However, Le Mesurier states that in contrast, those professions with the highest level of public trust in such situations are firefighters, paramedics, rescue workers and other similar types of first responders.<\/p>\n

Le Mesurier discusses the White Helmets in June 2015:<\/strong><\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/vimeo.com\/132521006<\/p>\n

Le Mesurier, however, is not the only figure linked to the British military to take such a perspective. UK Admiral Sir Philip Jones, Chief of Naval Staff, stated last year<\/a> that \u201cthe hard punch of military power is often delivered inside the kid glove of humanitarian relief.\u201d It is for this reason that military actions sponsored by the United States and its allies for the past few decades have often been framed as \u201chumanitarian interventions<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, the White Helmets were seen as a chance to reclaim the trust that the Syrian opposition fighters had lost, as news of their affiliation with terrorist groups began to spread.<\/p>\n

In reclaiming that trust in Western audiences, the White Helmets have done nothing to ease the burden of war in Syria, but have fomented it by underpinning the very propaganda that has kept the conflict raging on for over six years, as well as undermined the ability of the Syrian and Russian governments to secure diplomatic alternatives to continued fighting.<\/p>\n

Indeed, despite their claim of \u201cimpartiality,\u201d the White Helmets were instrumental<\/a> in Western attempts to bolster international support for Western intervention and a \u201cno-fly zone\u201d in Syria. However, such intervention will bring much more devastation to Syria, something the White Helmets profess to want to end.<\/p>\n

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Read Saleh left, the head of the civil defense units in the northern city of Idlib, and Farouk al-Habib, right, a media campaigner for the White Helmets, sit on a panel to draw attention to their work in Syria in midtown New York, September, 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n

Training the White Helmets<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the White Helmets have successfully been framed as a professionally-trained first responder group active in Syria, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that their training was entirely different. First responders and doctors in other countries have been skeptical about the \u201caid\u201d the White Helmets have delivered.<\/p>\n

For instance, Dr. Leif Elinder, a Swedish pediatrician,<\/em> told the Indicter<\/em><\/a> that \u201cafter examination of the video material [of the White Helmets], I found that the measures inflicted upon those children, some of them lifeless, are bizarre, non-medical, non-lifesaving, and even counterproductive in terms of life-saving purposes of children.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other medical doctors have stated that other procedures conducted by the White Helmets as seen in the previously mentioned Netflix documentary were performed so poorly they would have killed the children, who were already deceased when the footage was taken.<\/p>\n

In addition, first responder groups have also found flaws<\/a> with the White Helmet\u2019s trained rescues. Questions have been raised such as: how did the White Helmets know the bodies would be exactly where they found them?; Why are no attacks heard or seen in White Helmet videos \u2013 only the \u201caftermath\u201d?; and why have the White Helmets chosen to \u201crecycle\u201d footage<\/a> of the people they are allegedly helping?<\/p>\n

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Unbelievable! Must watch video showing White Helmets fakery. On cue, he starts screaming in pain for the camera #Syria<\/a> via @JohnDelacour<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/6kXNEFRrov<\/a><\/p>\n

— Ibn Walid (@walid970721) November 21, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n