{"id":298649,"date":"2017-03-12T02:23:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T01:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-flawed-un-investigation-on-syria\/"},"modified":"2017-03-12T02:23:03","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T01:23:03","slug":"a-flawed-un-investigation-on-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/a-flawed-un-investigation-on-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"A Flawed UN Investigation on Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> U.N. investigators increasingly make their conclusions fall in line with Western propaganda, especially on the war in Syria, as occurred in a distorted report about last year\u2019s attack on an aid convoy, explains Gareth Porter.<\/p>\n<p>By Gareth Porter<\/p>\n<p>The March 1 <u><a href=\"http:\/\/ap.ohchr.org\/documents\/dpage_e.aspx?si=A\/HRC\/34\/64\">report by the United Nations\u2019 \u201cIndependent International Commission of Inquiry<\/a>\u201c<\/u> asserted that the bloody attack on a humanitarian aid convoy west of Aleppo City on Sept. 19, 2016, was an airstrike by Syrian government planes. But an analysis of the U.N. panel\u2019s report shows that it was based on an account of the attack from the pro-rebel Syrian \u201cWhite Helmets\u201d civil defense organization that was full of internal contradictions.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22929\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM-300x154.png\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22929\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"154\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM-300x154.png 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM-160x82.png 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM.png 394w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22929\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM-300x154.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"154\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM-300x154.png 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM-160x82.png 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-11-at-12.51.14-PM.png 394w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A White Helmets member pointing to the aftermath of a military attack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The U.N. account also was not supported by either the photographic evidence that the White Helmets provided or by satellite imagery that was available to the commission, according to independent experts. Further undermining the U.N. report\u2019s credibility, the White Helmets now acknowledge that rockets they photographed were not fired from Russian or Syrian planes but from the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Like last December\u2019s summary of the U.N.\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/dpa-ps.atavist.com\/summary-of-un-headquarters-board-of-inquiry-report\"><u>Headquarters Board of Inquiry report<\/u><\/a>\u00a0on the same incident, the Commission\u2019s report described the attack as having begun with \u201cbarrel bombs\u201d dropped by Syrian helicopters, followed by further bombing by fixed-wing planes and, finally, strafing by machine guns from the air.<\/p>\n<p>The March 1 report did not identify any specific source for its narrative, citing only \u201c[c]ommunications from governments and non-government organizations.\u201d But in fact the U.N. investigators accepted the version of events provided by the White Helmets chief in Aleppo province as well as specific evidence that the White Helmets had made public.<\/p>\n<p>The White Helmets, which are heavily funded by Western governments and operate only in rebel-controlled areas, are famous for using social media to upload videos purporting to show injured children and other civilian victims of the war.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, a well-organized campaign pushed the group\u2019s nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/03\/03\/an-oscar-for-a-propaganda-flick\/\"><u>a&#8230;<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/03\/11\/a-flawed-un-investigation-on-syria\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: U.N. investigators increasingly make their conclusions fall in line with Western propaganda, especially on the war in Syria, as occurred in a distorted report about last year\u2019s attack on an aid convoy, explains Gareth Porter. By Gareth Porter The March 1 report by the United Nations\u2019 \u201cIndependent International Commission of Inquiry\u201c asserted that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-298649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}