Just another example of what makes Canada so much better a country - in spite   
   of the haters that we seem to have no shortage of.   
   __________________________________   
   by Terry Glavin - Jul 23, 2018   
      
      
   Rescuing Syria’s ‘White Helmets’ was the least the world could do   
      
   A daring plan kickstarted by Canada's Chrystia Freeland saved hundreds of   
   civil defence workers—but only after they survived slander, persecution and   
   bombs   
      
   It was high drama, the Israeli Defence Forces’ weekend evacuation of more   
   than 400 Syrian “White Helmetâ€� workers and their families, in the middle   
   of the night, from the rapidly shrinking rebel zone in Syria’s Quneitra   
   governate adjacent to the    
   Israeli-held Golan Heights.   
      
   The top-secret rescue operation was forcefully kickstarted by Foreign Affairs   
   Minister Chrystia Freeland during the July 11-12 NATO summit in Brussels, and   
   Freeland deserves much credit for that, despite the tragedy involved.   
      
   Backed mainly by the United Kingdom and Germany, the plan Freeland proposed   
   was supposed to rescue 1,200 people, in three groups, but only one group made   
   it to the Israeli border.   
      
   However gallant and thrilling the operation might otherwise seem, the   
   backstory amply illustrates the uselessness of the international community in   
   general and the worthlessness of the United States, in particular, in response   
   to the ongoing atrocities    
   in Syria.   
      
   Last month, in a crisis that was barely noticed in the NATO capitals and only   
   rarely made the front pages, more than 300,000 people fled the cities and   
   towns of Daraa governate, south of Quneitra.  The two governates were supposed   
   to be protected in a    
   July 2017 “de-escalationâ€� agreement between Donald Trump’s White House,   
   Bashar Assad, and Assad’s backers in the Kremlin.   
      
   The agreement, like so many other “ceasefiresâ€� Assad and the Russians have   
   signed, was soon ignored. For weeks this spring, Assad’s troops were   
   observed massing in Daraa and Quneitra.  On May 25 the U.S. State Department   
   issued a warning against “   
   any actions that risk broadening the conflict.â€�     
      
   The American warning was, as usual, hollow.  Only days later, leaflets began   
   to fall from the sky above Daraa City: “The men of the Syrian army are   
   coming.â€�     
   And they came, backed by Vladimir Putin’s air force.   
      
   Encircled by Bashar Assad’s army, bombarded by rockets and bombed by the   
   Russian air force in a relentless barrage that reached 600 airstrikes over a   
   15-hour period on July 4, tens of thousands of people streamed towards   
   Jordan—but Assad’s forces    
   had routed rebel groups from the frontier and the border was sealed.  Fleeing   
   north, the exodus stalled in Quneitra, and people started dying of   
   hypothermia.  The IDF sent in 300 tents, 30 tons of clothes and shoes, and 28   
   tons of food.   
      
   It was in Daraa that the Syrian revolution, first encouraged and then betrayed   
   by U.S. president Barack Obama, erupted seven years ago.  Roughly half a   
   million Syrians have been killed.  More than six million have been made   
   refugees, and at least as many    
   Syrians are trapped inside the country, displaced from their homes.   
      
   In the hours and days following the July 6 surrender in Daraa and Quneitra,   
   rebels who agreed to surrender their heaviest weapons were put on buses bound   
   for Idlib, a northern governate that is slowly being transformed into a kind   
   of vast, open-air    
   concentration camp.  The White Helmets had no weapons to surrender, and   
   nowhere to run.   
      
   â€œWe feel a deep moral responsibility towards these brave and selfless   
   people,â€� Freeland explained, and to any reputable observer of the Syrian   
   catastrophe, the White Helmets of the Syria Civil Defence organization are   
   every bit as heroic as Freeland    
   says. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the grassroots first   
   responders dig survivors from the rubble of bomb-collapsed buildings.     
      
   They conduct training in how to survive chemical weapons attacks, oversee   
   essential-service delivery and coordinate the evacuation of civilians from the   
   front lines.   
      
   Besides their humanitarian work, the White Helmets have gained a reputation   
   for their meticulous documentation of war crimes—and this is what has made   
   them susceptible to summary execution by Assad’s forces.  It has also made   
   them the object of the    
   most grotesque of the Kremlin’s various disinformation operations.   
      
   As soon as Russia began bombing Syria in September 2015, the White Helmets   
   became the target of a massive Kremlin-inspired propaganda campaign, aided by   
   a loose network of far-right and “anti-imperialistâ€� activists in Europe   
   and North America.   
      
   Although consistently debunked by Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty   
   International, Medecins Sans Frontières and others, lurid slanders about the   
   White Helmets remain in circulation—including fabricated accounts of the   
   White Helmets’ participation    
   in “false flagâ€� chemical weapons attacks, operating as adjuncts to   
   al-Qaida, and so on.   
      
   The analytics firm Graphika has identified a network of 14,000 Twitter   
   accounts that have spread these lies. Many of the accounts have been linked to   
   users involved in the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential   
   election.   
      
   The Graphika research shows that Kremlin-linked bots and trolls slandering the   
   White Helmets reached roughly 56 million Twitter users in 2016 and 2017.   
   Conspiracy theories targeting the White Helmets have also been circulated by   
   pro-Assad “journalists†  
   � such as Canada’s Eva Bartlett, Britain’s Vanessa Beeley and the American   
   â€œanti-Zionistâ€� Max Blumenthal.   
      
   More than 200 White Helmets workers have been killed since the organization   
   was founded four years ago.  About 3,000 members are still active in the ruins   
   of Syria’s cities.  The organization is funded by a variety of governments   
   and charities. Canada    
   has contributed about $7.5 million to the organization since 2015.   
      
   After crossing into Israel in the early hours of Sunday morning, the White   
   Helmets families were taken by bus to a refugee camp in Jordan, where they are   
   expected to remain for up to three months while Canada and several European   
   countries prepare for    
   their resettlement.   
      
   The least we can do for these brave people is offer them refuge. And a   
   heartfelt, abject apology for mostly just standing around and watching while   
   their country was destroyed.   
      
      
   https://www.macleans.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/19468469-810x445.jpg   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)