A lesson from Syria: it's crucial not to fuel far-right conspiracy theories

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: November 15, 2017 at 1:24:15 PM EST
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A lesson from Syria: it's crucial not to fuel far-right conspiracy theories
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> A lesson from Syria: it’s crucial not to fuel far-right conspiracy theories
> The way discredited stories spread after a chemical weapons massacre in Syria should be a matter of serious concern
> By George Monbiot
> Nov 15 2017
> <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/15/lesson-from-syria-chemical-weapons-conspiracy-theories-alt-right>
>
> What do we believe? This is the crucial democratic question. Without informed choice, democracy is meaningless. This 
> is why dictators and billionaires invest so heavily in fake news. Our only defence is constant vigilance, rigour and 
> scepticism. But when some of the world’s most famous crusaders against propaganda appear to give credence to 
> conspiracy theories, you wonder where to turn.
>
> The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) last month published its investigation into the 
> chemical weapons attack on the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun, which killed almost 100 people on 4 April and injured 
> around 200. After examining the competing theories and conducting wide-ranging interviews, laboratory tests and 
> forensic analysis of videos and photos, it concluded that the atrocity was caused by a bomb filled with sarin, 
> dropped by the government of Syria.
>
> There is nothing surprising about this. The Syrian government has a long history of chemical weapons use, and the 
> OPCW’s conclusions concur with a wealth of witness testimony. But a major propaganda effort has sought to discredit 
> such testimony, and characterise the atrocity as a “false-flag attack”.
>
> This effort began with an article published on the website Al-Masdar news, run by the Syrian government loyalist 
> Leith Abou Fadel. It suggested that either the attack had been staged by “terrorist forces”, or chemicals stored in a 
> missile factory had inadvertently been released when the Syrian government bombed it.
>
> The story was then embellished on Infowars – the notorious far-right conspiracy forum. The Infowars article claimed 
> that the attack was staged by the Syrian first responder group, the White Helmets. This is a reiteration of a 
> repeatedly discredited conspiracy theory, casting these rescuers in the role of perpetrators. It suggested that the 
> victims were people who had been kidnapped by al-Qaida from a nearby city, brought to Khan Shaykhun and murdered, 
> perhaps with the help of the UK and French governments, “to lay blame on the Syrian government”. The author of this 
> article was Mimi Al-Laham, also known as Maram Susli, PartisanGirl, Syrian Girl and Syrian Sister. She is a loyalist 
> of the Assad government who has appeared on podcasts hosted by David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux 
> Klan. She has another role: as an “expert” used by a retired professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
> called Theodore Postol. He has produced a wide range of claims casting doubt on the Syrian government’s complicity in 
> chemical weapons attacks.
>
> In correspondence with the chemical weapons expert Dan Kaszeta, Postol revealed that the “solid scientific source” he 
> used to support his theory about the origin of sarin used in Syria was “Syrian Sister”. When Postol and Susli both 
> appeared on a podcast run by the Holocaust “revisionist” Ryan Dawson, Postol explained why he had chosen to work with 
> her: “I was watching her on Twitter. I could see from her voice … that she was a trained chemist.” First, Postol 
> claimed that the crater from which the sarin in Khan Shaykhun had emanated was most probably caused not by a bomb 
> dropped from the air but by an explosive device laid on the ground (a hypothesis examined and thoroughly debunked by 
> the OPCW report). Then he claimed that there was “no evidence to support” the notion that sarin had been released 
> from the air, and proposed there was strong evidence to suggest that the mass poisoning had been caused by a bomb 
> that hit a rebel weapons depot.
>
> He further claimed that a French intelligence report contradicted the story that sarin had been dropped from a plane, 
> as it suggested that sarin had been dropped by helicopters in a different place. (In reality, he had confused the 
> attack in April 2017 with one in April 2013). Each of these contradictory hypotheses was patiently explored and 
> demolished at the time by bloggers and analysts.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp



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