Vanessa Beeley
COMMENTARY BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
We feel privileged to join Vanessa Beeley in her homage to the Syrian Arab Army (yes, the army defending the Syrian nation, the army shielding Damascus, the army of Bashir al-Assad, from its many brutal enemies summoned by the empire). We said so in 2016, when we supported The Saker's 2013 decision to choose the Syrian soldier for his own "man of the year" award. Our intro note read as follows:
"Pacifists" in other countries will never understand the heroism of Resistance. When your country, your people, your families, your children, your beliefs, your existence, your freedom are under attack, you have no choice but to defend yourselves and the Syrian Arab Army has done that for a punishing ten years. They have died and sustained dreadful injuries so that externally fomented terrorism will be defeated for all our sakes. I thank these doctors, nurses, students, farmers, dentists, veterinarians, civilians (who joined the Army to defend Syria) and all these heroes for taking up arms against the greatest threat faced by this world - the psychopathic minds of the criminals who rule us in the rogue-state-hemisphere. —Vanessa Beeley
Probably the most hideous propaganda to be spewed by the establishment media cartel in the West is that which portrays the Syrian Arab Army as some kind of militia, "Assad's gang", disconnecting these defenders of homeland from the people they are fighting for and dying for every day.
I travelled to #Aleppo by Pullman bus a few days ago, it was full of young soldiers heading to the frontlines in West Aleppo and Idlib. Young men from all areas of Syria, all communities, united in the common cause - to liberate their country from the infestation of extremism and sectarian terrorism, to bring peace back to a country that everyone in Syria describes as "the safest place in the Middle East before 2011".
Most of them slept, curled up in their seats, exhausted.. others hopped off the bus when we stopped, to have a coffee or a cigarette. All of them polite, friendly and tired.
I was in Layramoun, an industrial area to the north of Aleppo two days ago as the SAA soldiers prepared for the military campaign to liberate the areas surrounding the factories that are occupied by the West's "moderates" - Al Qaeda in Syria - it was freezing cold, a biting wind cutting to the bone, not one of the soldiers had really warm clothing or boots. They arrived one by one, their faces full of purpose, their weapons slung over their shoulder, greeting each other with grim camaraderie before the battle begins. Tanks nestling inside open garages, hidden from view, artillery trucks carrying missile launchers parked on the roadside, groups of soliders discussing plans... there was a feeling of calm before the storm.
These soldiers do not have the equipment or food that the terrorist groups have. Turkey ensures that their proxies have everything they need, including US manufactured TOW missiles (anti-tank). The SAA soldiers often do not have food for weeks/months, they survive literally on what they can forage except when local people risk their own lives to bring them sandwiches & tea. The illegal US/EU sanctions are a major part of the war waged against these soldiers who defy all this hardship until victory is the sweetest taste in their mouths.
Their weapons are old and battered compared to the sophisticated equipment supplied to groups like #ISIS - BUT these young men are winning their battles, because they believe in their cause, they know they must win or die and that if they do not win, their people will die at the hands of these monsters camped on their land.
To reduce these heroes, these brave Resistance fighters to some kind of homogenous brigade of government militia is a crime in itself. Every young man (and woman) has dreams, hopes and ambitions that they put on hold to fight a war that has shattered their dreams.
When we see videos of terrorist missiles scything through these young people to cries of "Allah Akhbar", more lives are lost, more blood is shed and more hopes are destroyed. Every single soldier is an individual fighting side by side with a thousand other individuals to defeat the enemy that would see them divided. They do not fight for one man, they fight for us all.
God bless the Syrian Arab Army and their allies.
Here are some messages from supporters of the Resistance from many countries in the world, showing that there are those who recognise the magnitude of the war being fought by the Syrian Arab Army on behalf of us all.
"We would like to thank the courageous soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army and we wish to show you that you are supported even behind the enemy lines in the countries who are so hostile towards your people. We thank you for your valiant battle against these imperialist nations because we understand you fight for us also.
We understand that if Syria is lost or destroyed, we are all facing the end of civilization. A victory for Syria will mean the end of the imperialist construct as we know it and there will be the opportunity for humanity to evolve away from endless war to protect the supremacy of one nation and its allies. We know you are our brave soldiers on the frontlines for humanity and wherever we live, wherever we come from we love and support you."
[...]"The Syrian Arab Army has resisted economic, media and military terrorism for 7 years. We call upon all peoples of the world to stand in solidarity with these courageous men & women of Syria in their stand against International terrorism. History will honour them in the future, but we must honour them now and not turn away from our duty to support them.
On behalf of all the awake in this world, I wish to recognise the sacrifices made by the SAA and their allies, sacrifices made with their blood that has mingled with the soil of their beloved nation, Syria. The soil from which all our futures will grow.
You gave up your families, your homes, your careers, your futures, to fight for the honour & freedom of your people, we will not ever let this sacrifice be in vain. The Syrian people live in our hearts, your kindness, generosity and compassion in the face of such adversity is the flame that will never be extinguished by the cold hand of oppression that is outstretched by our governments towards your country. Instead we extend our hands and place them inside your’s so we are one hand in this war for all our sakes. May God protect you in your mission which is our mission also.”
https://
21stcenturywire.com/2018/ 05/02/ in-honour-of-the-syrian-ara b-army-and-allies-war-on-t error/
Eloquent words indeed. Proffered by an incorruptible witness.
Regarding Vanessa and her immensely valuable work in Syria, work of truthful testimony on the ground, at her personal risk, something no Western journo has done, no better endorsement can be found than the poisonous CIA-redacted "official" bio blurb circulating on Wikipedia. See if you can count all the tendentious bits they packed in this hatchet job filled with dog whistles, directed at someone they obviously hate and fear. (They also show their hand by trying to rescue the character of the White Helmets, a terrorist / propaganda organization useful in imperialist adventures, founded and funded by British intelligence, and logically supported by the US/UK deep state):
Vanessa Beeley is a British activist and blogger. She is known for her pro-Bashar al-Assad advocacy, and for promoting conspiracy theories and falsehoods about the Syrian Civil War, in particular the White Helmets who she falsely claims are a terrorist organization.
The imperialists are up in arms against people like Vanessa because through sheer commitment to truth, irrevocable decency, and an intelligent grasp of world events, they succeed in exposing the empire's crimes, just as Assange, Manning and Snowden did, at great cost to themselves. People of this kind are basically counter-disinformers. Just like bomb squads go around detecting and dismantling bombs, these journalistic heroes zero in on disinformation—the lifeblood of the imperial Big Lie—and expose it. Their salutary effect would be much greater if even a fraction of the whore media did its job, and gave them a bit of space, but, of course, such a thing is by definition unthinkable. Independent counter-disinformers like Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Aaron Maté, Caitlin Johnstone, John Pilger, Jonathan Cook and others of similar caliber exist precisely because the corporate media—uniformly owned by criminal billionaires—is not even remotely doing its job. They are not the cure, they are the disease.
In the appendix below we expand on this topic, the battle of communications between the Big Lie and truth, with an analysis published by The Communists, official organ of the Communist Part of Great Britain (ML).—PG
The ‘independent media’ that exist to attack independent media
The enemy’s supposed to hate it: Beeley and Bartlett under attack again.
A disturbing (but not surprising) new phenomenon has been brought to our attention recently: the emergence of new and apparently ‘independent’ media, whose journalists present themselves as being opposed to and outside of the corporate narrative, but who then go on to use whatever credentials this appearance gives them to train their fire on the few voices that really are prepared to call out the lies of the warmongering ‘mainstream’ imperialist media.
In a recent article in Proletarian, we analysed the Guardian’s vicious attack on Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett and others whose work has done so much to expose the lies that are put out to ‘justify’ the unjustifiable war against Syria. (See Blunt hatchets: Guardian attempts to discredit real journalism on Syria, February 2018)
Who is behind Newsbud?
The vitriolic voices of the corporate liberal warmongers at the Guardian, Independent, Channel 4 and the BBC have recently been swelled by another, less obviously imperialist-aligned source: the apparently independent outfit Newsbud, whose tagline is ‘Where media integrity matters’, and which claims to be completely non-partisan and audience-funded. It also presents itself as being on the side of the Syrian people and government, and against the imperialist war against Syria.
A recent video entitled Syria under siege: guarding against wolves in sheep’s clothing, Newsbud’s founding editor Sibel Edmonds started by presenting the situation in Syria as one that is so complex and ‘multifaceted’ as to be impenetrable to outsiders. (Note Newsbud's insidious warning about the character of Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett): "Vanessa Beeley & Eva Bartlett vs. Ethical Journalism & Human Decency in the Age of Social Media Reporting"
Having made such banal but apparently unarguable observations as that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, she went on to talk emotionally about the fate of babies and children who are killed in war, and proceeded, with her co-presenter Spiro Skouras, to deliver an increasingly hysterical 75-minute tirade against the independent reporters Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett, who, she claims, have fundamentally failed to abide by the essential standards and ethics of independent journalism, and who are guilty of the most heinous crimes and disinformation besides.
For a detailed deconstruction of the malicious content contained in the report, we recommend our readers watch Fact checking Newsbud’s ‘Syria under siege’ video by James Corbett of the Corbett Report website.
The only conclusion one can come to having watched both Corbett’s video and the Newsbud piece is that Newsbud is not at all what it pretends to be. No doubt an investigation into these investigators is overdue.
Singing from the imperialist hymnsheet
Tellingly, the main points that the Newsbud report made about Eva and Vanessa are along identical lines to those that were made in the Guardian hit-piece back in January. These include:
– That the two reporters have no journalistic qualifications and are not well versed in middle-eastern politics.
– That they spread ‘disinformation’ that harms the Syrian cause.
– That their pointing out that there are doctors in such organisations as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), etc working to support the terrorist agenda is an outrageous lie and absolutely beyond the pale. Doctors are, it is maintained by Edmonds, completely beyond reproach and are all motivated entirely by humanitarian concerns and the Hippocratic oath, and to call this into question is the most horrendous crime against journalism and human decency. (It is worth noting here that MSF was described recently by Syrian ambassador to the UN Dr Bashar al-Jaafari as a branch of the French intelligence service.)
– That they are denouncing innocent journalists online (“issuing fatwas”), and also reporting them to the authorities in Britain, the US and Syria, and asking for them to be jailed
– That they are 100 percent supportive of the Syrian government to the point of losing all credibility.
– That their funding is mysterious and dodgy, and that their claims to be self or crowd-funded are bogus.
– That they haven’t really seen what they claim to have seen, but spend their time in Syria in plush hotels in Damascus and the odd package tour and day trip.
– That they are arrogant ego-maniacs, with a personal agenda of self-promotion, who hope to get famous and make money out of the war in Syria.
– That they wrongly describe all those whom they oppose, or who oppose them, as being ‘not real Syrians’.
– That any useful work they have done was all plagiarised (a charge denied by at least one of the authors – Cory Morningstar – they are alleged to have ‘stolen’ from!)
In summation, the Newsbud team would appear to share the imperialist media’s outrage that a few independent voices have been able, through dogged work and the systematic use of social media, to bring true information to those who are keen enough to search it out, that they have exposed the imperialist lie machine and its presstitutes for what they are, and that their audience is growing as the national-liberation forces in Syria win victory after victory.
Going one step further than the hints in the Guardian hit-piece, the Newsbud report ended with an explicit call to the Syrian government to stop allowing Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett into Syria, to the independent media to stop giving them a platform, and to social media outlets to ban their content, including an impassioned call for systematic censorship of social media, whether self-censorship instituted by platforms such as Facebook and Twitter or censorship imposed by governments from outside.
The video has been followed up by a concerted campaign by Sibel Edmonds on Twitter to try to get various independent media outlets to drop all connection with the two reporters, where she describes them as ‘fake activists’, ‘communists’ and embezzlers, besides hurling the most egregious of personal insults at them (all in the interests of promoting ‘ethical journalism’, of course).
Connections to communists
The report also referred to the two having received funding from the ‘Communist Party of Great Britain’. Since we assume that Ms Edmonds is referring to our party, the CPGB-ML, we wish to make it quite clear, for the record, that we do not fund and have never funded the work of either Vanessa Beeley or Eva Bartlett.
This is not because we do not think their work is worth funding, or because we would be ashamed to be connected with them. Quite the reverse. We make no secret of the fact that we consider the work they have done in smashing the narrative of the imperialist war propaganda machine to be more useful and more effective in laying the groundwork for a real anti-war movement than anything that has been done in 15 years by the Stop the War coalition (StW). Presumably, this is why StW never invites either of them to speak on its platform.
This is why we have helped to organise meetings at which they have spoken (one for Vanessa in Birmingham last year; one for Eva in London this January), and have mobilised for meetings in Bristol, Frome, London and Derry put on by other organisations. Unfortunately, since we are a small party and very low on funds, although we would have liked to have given more, the most either Vanessa or Eva received from us on each occasion was a train ticket, a meal and a bed for the night.
We make this clear not because we feel there would be anything wrong in our funding their work to a greater extent, but to illustrate how the “triple fact-checking” Sibel and her colleagues go about their business. We have no idea who informed her that we were funding Vanessa and Eva, but it was not a member of our party’s leadership, none of whom has been contacted to verify the claim.
No doubt such claims are also meant to discourage people from paying any attention to the testimony of Vanessa or Eva on the basis that if they receive funding from or associate in any way with communists, anything they have to say must necessarily be suspect. This is a well-worn bourgeois trope that doesn’t need dissecting in this article, except to note in passing that affiliation to the bourgeois Labour party, with the blood of millions on its hands, is never used in this way by such anti-communists.
A plea for censorship and repression
Accusing Vanessa and Eva of being “fake activists” and of conducting “vicious violent and malicious operations”, Edmonds goes on to call on “you the people, who value human decency”, and ends her report by making an impassioned plea for action to be taken against the “dangerous duo”:
“Any of you who is against online violence, profanity and terrorising, take it upon yourself to make it your priority to stop this operation. Do whatever you deem appropriate, for the sake of thousands of Syrian civilians, hundreds of decent journalists and activists, whose lives have been endangered, dozens of doctors who have been facing death threats …”
As James Corbett pointed out in the video cited above: “This is a concerted 75-minute in-depth hate piece that then ends with the launching of this campaign for ‘ethical journalism’ and ‘human decency’, which so far has only been and only is a drive to get Beeley and Bartlett expunged from the internet.”
Imperialism in trouble
The Newsbud report actually illustrates the weakness of the imperialists: they are on the run in Syria and their impotent rage is showing in such crude hit-pieces as we are now witnessing. The fact that such ‘mainstream’ outlets as the Guardian are no longer sufficient to the task of destroying an opponent’s credibility speaks volumes about the increasing lack of trust of official news outlets and the growing audience for independent sources of information about the world.
The campaign against media channels such as RT and Press TV, the growing clamour for censorship of social media, and the direct attacks on reporter-activists like Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett are all symptoms of this rage and of the imperialists’ fear that they are losing their hold on the minds of the workers at home.
For our part, we can only see this latest attack as a sign that Ms Beeley and Ms Bartlett, and others like them, are doing useful and effective work, and they should take it as a compliment that they are being singled out for such treatment.
As the 19th-century Russian poet Nikolay Nekrasov wrote:
I hear the sound of approbation
Not in the dulcet tones of praise,
But in the roar of irritation.
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