White Helmets Whitewash: founder’s death, OPCW scandal lift mask on al-Qaeda’s ally in Syria

The recent death of White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier, and an unfolding cover-up at the OPCW of an apparently staged chemical weapons incident, has shed new light on the group’s shadowy role in the Syria proxy war.

We speak to The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal, whose reporting has exposed the White Helmets’ ties to jihadists groups and its use as a PR tool for Western military intervention in Syria.

“We don’t know if there’s a cover-up around his [Le Mesurier’s] death — I can’t go that far,” Blumenthal says. “The real cover-up is around his life, as he’s being celebrated everywhere from the Guardian to the New York Times as this heroic figure, this kind of Gandhi of conflict stabilization; when his legacy is actually very dark and stained with blood.”

Guest: Max Blumenthal, Editor of The Grayzone and author of The Management of Savagery.