Adam Larson
(aka Caustic Logic, CL4Syr)
February 10, 2020
Another bit of revenge journalism was recently penned by Chris D York at HuffPostUK. As Caitlin Johnstone points out (Nobody Sets Out To Become A War Propagandist. It Just Sort Of Happens.), this is York's 12th attack piece against the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda, and Media (WGSPM) since April 2018. For reference, the full platter of tripe is available here:
The 'Useful Idiots': How These British Academics Helped Russia Deny War Crimes At The UN
Lecturers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Leicester and Bristol have accused rescue workers the White Helmets of mass murder in Syria – to condemnation from Amnesty International and others.
It might be the first to mention me as someone whose non-expert research the WGSPM "relies heavily on," helping explain why we (I'm also a member, if not a core one) must be wrong or whatever. So I jumped in more than usual, but future articles attacking us won't get off my hook just by leaving me out. I'll be fighting back more.
And to be clear I'm speaking only for myself here, not as a representative of the Working Group.
I asked for an explanation from perhaps all the named sources in this article, getting almost zero response. I've been working on a bunch of rebuttal material, and had to split up the response. First up was Amnesty UK. Now I turn to Shadi Hamid, the only one who responded to my initial rebuttals. I may address the rest in one final post. We'll see.
Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow and Middle East expert at the Brookings Institute think tank. Little surprise, this Middle East expert decided our problem, or one of them, was a lack of expertise like his own. He was quoted by York as saying:
“These academics don’t know enough about the Middle East to be able to sort through what is real and what is not real. And because these people don’t know a lot about the Middle East, they are susceptible to these kinds of bonkers ideas.”
Initial rebuttal on Twitter:
Me: We're missing what? How Assad never ratified the laws of physics? If we knew more about the Alawites we'd get how chlorine has different properties there? Can you be both specific please and explain what we're actually missing?
(bolded just because I like it, except that stray "both" - it went with "and honest" but was left in place - oops.) To his credit, Hamid was the only critic that actually responded to my queries at all. His reply to that:
Hamid: The point is almost none of the academics in question are Middle East experts. That's not an accident.
I clicked like and replied: The like is just for replying. Thanks. So science remains science, no relevance there. A lot of our work is there.
Not an accident - I will ask what it indicates. But I already asked for an example where it leads to bad or "bonkers" results. Have you actually seen any?
No reply.
Me: Thanks again for the only reply so far. Unless I hear otherwise in time, I'll be noting soon that you did reply, but did not provide a single example to back up your assertion. Same for York and the others, except it seems I'll have to note their slimy silence too.
[slimEY and yes that was awkward] No reply.
Me, a bit later: also feel free to explain what purpose you suspect is behind our relative lack of Middle East experts. But the main question is if it actually leads to any flawed analysis. You said it does, but that sounded like a biased guess based on not even knowing our findings.
He did click a like on the last one, for whichever reason, but typed out no answer, so I'm left guessing at his exact insinuation.
A deliberate ignorance plot?
Maybe he meant we could have all kinds of ME experts but intentionally rebuffed them, so we could remain ignorant and use that as cover (of ignorance) to invent false claims (then we can say we're idiots, not liars). But that's not the case and again he didn't even have one example of the supposed problem he offered a fake explanation for.
I'm not a core member who sits in on decisions, but as far as I know, the Working Group does not reject experts. It seems to me we just don't have that many asking to join us out here in the line of fire. There was a point not that long ago the group didn't exist - it had no experts and no members at all. As of now15 names are listed under members, still including me after whatever annoyance I may have caused. Louis Allday might count as a rising ME expert - PhD candidate, SOAS University of London, with study on "The British Council in the Persian Gulf c. 1939 - 1971" Other members have no links and I don't already know what they do.
I can add I almost completed a BA majoring in history at Eastern Washington University, focus on China/Asia, then general and some Middle East/Central Asia. But most of the moderate amount I do know was learned in the long years since I was in college. I could have just skipped all the debt. I wouldn't class as an expert by hardly any standard, and bring no evident credibility to evokes the trust of skeptics. But I've never needed trust since I show my work (not at every mention of it, but at least somewhere that could be dug up if there's a dispute).
I think we'd all like to have more people involved, including ME experts. Even more so, in my opinion, we could use a good contact list of qualified professionals in various fields of science to get more authoritative readings of the physical evidence. But this is what we have so far, and we use it quite well, making few if any significant errors that anyone can point to. And when and if they ever do, we'll correct them.
Crazy ideas arising from ignorance?
An example of such "bonkers" ideas was given - apparently not by Hamid, but right below his quote in York's article - in an embedded tweet by fellow WGSPM member Tara McCormack, Feb. 2018. Keep in mind this particular tweet would be chosen for its strong claims on a disputed topic and a lack of in-tweet citations, full explanation, or whatever. Clearly that's not to be expected with one line snipped from an ongoing discussion. It won't be our best example, but let's just take it anyway:
"It is also an established fact that a) the White Helmets are basically Al Q (they provide most of the reporting from Jihadi held areas and b) that hospitals are used as bases by these groups."
https://twitter.com/McCormack_Tara/status/960527482502991875
Hospitals (and schools) as bases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om_x4HG_1Ag
25 March, Lataminah surgical hospital - Dr. Ali Darwish and his child patient died under debatable circumstances, and a third and/or fourth fatality is murkier yet. An unnamed "first responder" died by some sources, and a chlorine cylinder crashed into a van nearby - perhaps a White Helmets one? But then others say a rebel commander was killed in the attack (Abd al-Hamid Ahmad al-Hdairi, with Jaysh al-Izza), and that van has apparent ammunition boxes burned but salvaged from inside, and (in the sort-of confusing comparison view below) two rifle seen nearby, then moved. The location of that is unclear, but apparently in the same cave complex as the hospital that was the target of this strange attack.
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/11/more-on-alleged-chlorine-attack-of-25.html
Otherwise I don't have much information of my own - and I did not dig for more - regarding hospitals as militant bases. But the anti-government militants in Syria also take over schools as I understand. Educating the kids at home or at mosque as they do frees up some large spaces they can use for barracks, storage, and operations. When a school is allegedly bombed to harm the children, demand more proof than a an especially charming child's backpack dropped next to the crater.
Early 2017, east Aleppo: A Syrian delegate at the UN informed the secretary-general and the Security Council (as cited by RIA Novosti). “I would like to inform you that after the liberation of the eastern areas of Aleppo, Syrian authorities have found 23 bodies in Muhaddassa school, located in the of Es-Sukkar area of Aleppo. They were servicemen of the Syrian Army.” He added authorities were able to identify the bodies of 20 recruits so far, and another 37 presumably civilian corpses, some with signs of torture and most with throats cut, had been found nearby and remained unidentified. Munzer added that the school was used as a headquarters for the Dawn of Islam brigade of the "Levant Front" - considered a "moderate" group by the Western coalition.
https://www.rt.com/news/374347-aleppo-syria-attack-un/
And just because schools and hospitals can be militant bases doesn't mean an attack on one is legitimate - OR REAL. Almost daily accusations of Syrian and Russian forces bombing hospitals and schools are simply decried with little to no verification of the facts. A case where this proved unwise was the famous Al-Quds Hospital in Aleppo, reportedly "reduced to rubble" by a Syrian airstrike in April, 2016. It's in the same al-Sukkari neighborhood mentioned above. I don't know how representative an example this is, but it had exceptionally clear evidence and I took a close look. Images show the hospital completely intact without even a puncture wound a bomb could have entered through in the roof or on either exterior wall, unless it flew in through a window. Note both of the images below are "after" the incident in question, no "before." The left image is shortly after. That truck shows signs of a powerful blast out in the street, but that's another story. Did an air bomb hit the lower walls, damage covered by sandbags? The later image says no. The light damage should be from more out in the street.
But there was limited and scattered interior damage visible in some sources, and security camera footage was released via UK Channel 4 News to disprove the "Russian disinformation" by showing bright internal blast(s) to go with that. But when the video is actually analyzed, it reveals a few smaller coordinated blasts in at least 3 and probably four different spots INSIDE the hospital:
1) just inside the entrance, at the security desk, where a guard was reportedly killed and damage is seen
2) in the emergency room (1st floor, left side), where Dr, Maaz and several others were reportedly killed, and burning-damage is briefly glimpsed in one video I saw
3) on the 2nd floor, right side, where at least one woman seems to be badly wounded or killed, and
4?) likely a blast above that on the third floor, right side, a split-second before it.
Work show here: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/03/al-quds-hospital-blast-inside-job.html
The areas in between those spots, as far as they're seen, suffered no damage. That's why the bombing didn't even damage the exterior - someone set the bombs up in advance, in an inside job. The motive - aside from blaming Assad, which seems insufficient in itself - is not clear. (Was reconstruction money paid out by someone? It reportedly took months of re-building.) But the visual evidence is clear. And the supposedly killed Dr. Maaz ("last pediatrician in Aleppo") may be a suspect, judging by his seen and unseen movements at the time of the planned blasts; he leaves and locks the 3rd floor room that might host the first of 4 bombs, just minutes before they all go off, and might leave the emergency room and the hospital during almost two minutes that was edited out of the footage sent to UK Channel 4. But Dr. Maaz aside, the main point is those synchronized blasts had nothing to do with an air-dropped bomb. THAT hospital attack story at least is fake, even if all "credible" sources disagree.
On the WH=AQ debate
While we're on the subject of such controversy ... I wrote a lot and decided to split it off here. In short it's not really my area - I just add pieces (the above confusion over "commander" vs. "first responder" might count as one.)
As for professor McCormack's tweet, I supposed WH=AQ as "established fact" is not the most accurate description, even with "basically" added. A qualifier more like "to some degree" might be better. But again that's in one tweet in a conversation with its own tone, in a wide body of commentary by all our members. The same issue might apply across the field (specific claims could be debated, instances of hyperbole and exaggeration might be found, etc.), and still the idea is not at all "bonkers." Moving on...
What does Shadi Hamid know about the Douma victims?
So back to Shadi Hamid. He had said if we knew more - like if we lived there - we'd know better. Depending where we lived, we might understand how you don't talk about these things in this way or they will cut out your tongue, or leave you in a pit near the former school. In Aleppo it was into the Queiq River (important documentary). If the locals don't speak it, all "reliable sources" ignore it, all trusted experts deny it or even blame the targeted secular regimes ... it can become a lie in the public mind, only spoken in Russian, pro-Assad, other "fringe" media, then laughed back into silence on that basis.
I wonder how much Mr. Hamid knows about Jaysh al-Islam's kidnapping victims - the hundreds of women and children they abducted at once in Adra (in a Dec. 2013 conquest conducted with their allies Jabhat al-Nusa), or the unclear number taken from all over East Ghouta during their six year reign, and kept in subhuman conditions. Does he know more or less than me? Surely less than Vanessa. or FIDH and French authorities. And there's the disappearance of the Douma 4 including Razan Zaitouneh, the founder of the VDC...
My own research on the fatalities of the 2018 Douma chemical incident found - using the VDC's valuable database to start with - at least 1/3 of the 35 seen and publicly identified victims are related; 11 are listed with the family name Bakriyeh ( بكرية ), including children and women, so likely others are wives of Bakriyeh men and children of Bakriyeh women. So this family might be over half or even all of the victims, considering unclear intermarriages. (this and the following are from various sources compiled here.) This could be because they all lived in one building like that, with so few others sharing the space, or because that family shared some other fate that wound up having them all killed and their corpses brought here.
That suggestion of a targeted family pops up a lot in these events, but in most cases the story behind the names is completely unclear. The Douma case is unusual in having a backstory to that effect that's rather compelling, if still uncertain. First Bakriyeh is not a common name - the VDC database lists only 17 people of this name killed in the entire war, almost all of them from Douma. (full list, Arabic), so only SIX that died on days other than 7 April, 2018. That's an average of about one per year.
Out of sympathy or just to get along, DMB cooperated with JaI into 2014, at least until commander Bakriyeh was killed 4 April, 2014, in clashes after JaI reinforcements didn't arrive in time (as reported). But the same day, an Amjad Diab Bakrieh - his brother, or quite a coincidence - coincidentally died from random shelling by the regime (as reported). Was friction brewing?
Within 4 months, DMB was leading an open rebellion against JaI, heading a coalition of groups called Jaysh al-Umma (army of the Muslim community or people, as I read it). This caused problems but was ruthlessly crushed in a matter of weeks, by the end of November, with the captured leaders executed, and "arrest warrants" issued for the rest. The efficiency that suggested to some observers they had the support of a state intelligence agency, which would most logically be Saudi Arabia. Surviving members of the Douma Martyr's Brigade re-grouped in early 2015 and defected to the Government side, ready to roll back their own ruined rebellion and help wipe out JaI's tyranny.
Next: as JaI finally does close shop and prepare to vacate Douma in April, 2018, they might have been dumping any possessions they couldn't take and killing any hostages they didn't want to set free. 35 people wind up possibly gassed and arranged at "location 2" and at least 1/3 of those are apparent relatives of Commander Bakriyeh.
Separately from the story by which JaI might have kidnapped them in punishment for that rebellion, the physical evidence suggests they were held prisoner by someone: as professor Paul McKiegue (WGSPM) recently reiterated, a "hypothesis 3" that the fatalities "were captives killed in a gas chamber, whose bodies were brought to Location 2" is the best (not only) explanation for all the evidence.
https://timhayward.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/portcullis-house-meeting-on-22-jan-2020-opcw-douma-transcript-5-feb-one-name-removed.pdf
Limits of ME knowledge: I had said Bakriyeh translates to "virgins." It did seem to when I plugged it into Google translate. But now it seems Maher Barotchi was right (somewhere on Twitter months back) that I made a bad call there. Bakr alone translates to virgin, singular. But with the "iyeh" it only gives "spool." That's a limit of not being a native Arabic-speaker, plus a copy-paste error. But it's not very relevant. It did give Barotchi ONE mistake to identify. His failure to find any others could mean something for HIS case … which was basically that I should shut up and let people like him explain the Middle East for the uninformed masses.
