Muslim Press had conducted an interview with Tim Anderson, the author of The Dirty War on Syria, to discuss the White Helmets and the war propaganda that had been used against the Syrian government.
The White Helmets “took selfies of themselves ‘saving’ children, only to fool gullible people. But there was no such thing as a humanitarian terrorist,” Tim Anderson had said.
Below, the full transcript of the interview was presented.
Muslim Press: You had referred to the White Helmets as a “fake humanitarian group”. Would you clarify what you had meant by that?
Tim Anderson: They and their sponsors had pretended they had humanitarian motives, but they were the same people who had murdered civilians for their beliefs, or because they had supported the Syrian Government. They took selfies of themselves ‘saving’ children, only to fool gullible people. But there was no such thing as a humanitarian terrorist.
MP: How did you assess their role in the war propaganda against the Syrian government?
Tim Anderson: Along with the lies about the Syrian Government bombing its own hospitals and schools, the role of the US-UK sponsored White Helmets had been quite important. It had not been possible for the imperial powers to run a long term war of aggression without fooling their own people that that was done for some higher purpose.
Naked aggression had irritated most people and had created a reaction. If there had been no fake humanitarian pretext, it would have been hard to sustain the blatant violation of international law and human rights, which had been explicit in the arming of terrorist groups against a sovereign country.
MP: What was your take on The White Helmets documentary that won an Oscar?
Tim Anderson: It was a culmination of PR marketing in the context of US culture, which said everything had a price. It was a master stroke of marketing, but it created its own reaction – later more people would look more critically at that Frankenstein’s monster. I believed al Qaeda’s Oscar was more a triumph of marketing than one of acting or documentary making.
MP: What points did that documentary insinuate?
Tim Anderson: The overt message was: keep supporting the lovely moderate head-choppers (and their child welfare branch) against the evil Syrian government.
The underlying message was: imperial cynicism had no real boundaries; vicious terrorism could be sold to the gullible masses as saintly benevolence.
MP: Some had said the Oscars awarded to The White Helmets and The Salesman were purely because of political reasons. What was your take on this?
Tim Anderson: Yes I agreed. But Hollywood had always had a role in promoting war and the delusion of US ‘exceptionalism’. Imperial politics and soul-less culture had gone hand in hand.
Tim Anderson held degrees in economics and international politics, and a doctorate on the political economy of economic liberalisation in Australia. His research interests at the time had related to (i) Development strategy and rights in development, (ii) Melanesian land and livelihoods, and (iii) Economic Integration in Latin America. He was a Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Sydney. He had studied the Syrian conflict since 2011.
