Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire
Nepotism and corruption are nothing new, particularly in the corporate or political sphere. In 2013 Boris Johnson’s brother Jo was appointed head of No 10’s policy unit under David Cameron. As the Guardian article noted, this appointment did not appear to be a crucial necessity: “it’s not as if anyone had complained of a dire shortage of Johnsons in the public eye, or of Old Etonians in the cabinet.”
Bullingdon Club, Oxford 1987. Boris Johnson seated on right, Cameron second from left standing at back. (Photo: Telegraph)
Cameron and Johnson are both “Old Etonians” and shared the notoriety of being members of the elite Bullingdon Club at Oxford, whose members were renonwned for ostentatious displays of wealth, raucous, hard-drinking dinners and the exclusion of women from their ranks.
I am not going to dwell upon the vagaries of such clubs and networks that united the establishment elite into an exclusive consortium of wealth and privilege that has served them well throughout their careers and countless falls from grace.
However, now the White Helmets are involved believe it or not in a way that fully exposes the nepotism and corruption at the highest levels of policy making and intervention into the affairs of a sovereign nation, in this case, Syria.
Mayday Rescue
Mayday Rescue is the allegedly Netherlands based NGO funded by a number of the governments that have a very transparent objective of regime change in Syria. Mayday Rescue was established by James Le Mesurier, a British ex-Sandhurst private security “expert”, who had previously set up the White Helmets in Turkey and Jordan while employed by the ARK Group DMCC.
Both ARK Group and Mayday Rescue are funded by the UK FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Conflict Stability and Security Fund that coincidentally was created in 2015 and allowed Mayday Rescue to take over the financing of the White Helmets, providing valuable plausible deniability for the government of “Global Britain” – the term coined by Theresa May and echoed by Boris Johnson. Prior to the creation of the CSSF, it appears that the ARK Group’s establishment of the White Helmets was funded by CSSF’s predecessor, the Syria Conflict Pool.
The CEO of ARK, Alistair Harris, also works in collaboration with the UK’s National Security complex. He is also CEO of The Stabilisation Network DMCC, based in Dubai, which is listed as one of the CSSF approved contractors. Both Harris and Le Mesurier have been awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) – Harris for services in Lebanon. Le Mesurier was rewarded for “services to Syria Civil Defence and the protection of civilians in Syria“.
Both men, therefore, have close ties to the UK National Security apparatus and an expertise in implementing security solutions, working in private sector military circles and imposing “stabilisation” projects upon UK FCO designated nations, including Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon and in the case of Le Mesurier, Kosovo. Both men work out of Dubai. The initial register of Mayday Rescue was in Dubai before it was relocated to the more neutral Netherlands and Le Mesurier works for Bush’s ex-terror advisor, the Terror Czar himself, Richard A. Clark, at Good Harbour International in Dubai.
The links between these players in the Global Britain subcontracter market are clearly defined.
The Eton Mess
Andrew Gilmour with Ban Ki-Moon (UN Press)
In October 2016 a young man left Oxford University and walked straight into a position as Operations manager at Mayday Rescue. His name is Archie Gilmour. He is the son of Andrew Gilmour – “United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Andrew Gilmour of the United Kingdom as Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and Head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in New York.”
According to the UN Press release:
“Since joining the United Nations in 1989, he has held a variety of positions at United Nations Headquarters and in the field, including in Afghanistan-Pakistan, Kosovo, State of Palestine and West Africa. In recent years, he has served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Iraq, and later, in South Sudan. Prior to his current position, he was the Representative of the Secretary-General in Belgrade.”
Perhaps more importantly, Gilmour was at Eton College with Boris Johnson and then they were reunited at Balliol College, Oxford:
“Johnson arrived at Eton as a scholar in the autumn of 1977, aged 13. He was part of the school’s intellectual elite, accommodated in a separate house and marked out by being made to wear gowns. By the time he left, at the end of 1982, he had become a commanding figure with a reputation as a star performer. His speciality was forgetting his lines. One of his friends, Andrew Gilmour, remembers Johnson reciting the first page of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, which begins: “Mr Sniggs, the Junior Dean, and Mr Postlethwaite, the Domestic Bursar . . .” ~ Daily Mail
Johnson’s return to Balliol in May 2017 was not the victorious homecomeing to his alma mater that he may have wished for:
Boris wanted a quiet visit to his old college for lunch today. Students found out and had other ideas. pic.twitter.com/2gCtglTyXW
— Novara Media (@novaramedia) May 28, 2017
Archie Gilmour of Mayday Rescue is also Boris Johnson’s Godson. The nepotism circle is closed.
London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is also Archie’s Godfather (second from right) in 2011. (Photo: Portugal News Online)
Why Should this Matter?
It should matter very much. Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson is responsible for the continued presence of Global Britain’s troops in Syria on the extraordinary pretext of “defending Iraq from ISIS” – based upon Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon’s reply to Baroness Cox on 22nd February 2018:
Johnson has publicly heaped praise upon the White Helmets despite the growing mountain of evidence that they are embedded with a number of terrorist (Al Qaeda) and extremist factions inside Syria and are responsible for producing the bulk of the propaganda that serves to criminalise the Syrian government and its allies. Johnson has increased funding to this sectarian group of British produced and trained pseudo-“humanitarians” and the UK FCO has recently admitted to financing the White Helmets almost £ 39m since their creation in 2013.
…
The Foreign Secretary of Global Britain, the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and Head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York and an Operations Manager at the White Helmet-financing Mayday Rescue are intrinsically linked, when viewed through the elite network prism that has secured jobs for the boys for centuries. Old Etonians and Oxford graduates united behind an organisation destined to be an integral part of the Syria whose future does not include the elected President, Bashar Al Assad, according to these Global Britain acolytes.
Where will complaints from the Syrian people against the White Helmets go within the UN? They will be swept into the memory hole that will secure Archie’s future in the Global Britain security and stabilisation industry. No dissent against the White Helmets will be tolerated by the Eton guild. Corruption at this level should not surprise us, nepotism should not come as a shock but the benefits reaped by the initiated come at the expense of innocent people whose blood is being shed while the champagne glasses clink over another appointment made by the privileged for the privileged.
Archie Gilmour is very unlikely to question the hidden agenda of the White Helmets, he would prefer not to derail his own career path in favour of truth, not when his Godfather and father are a part of the apparatus that requires the image of the White Helmets to remain untarnished and credible, both in Syria and in future destabilization zones where Archie will deploy his rebranded stabilization teams to repair the damage brought about by Global Britain’s colonialist zeal.
This is a simple story, a revealing one, and one that goes to the heart of the corrosion of our society in the West. Our institutions, including the UN, are owned and controlled by those who will exploit their founding principles for their own gains, not for the “humantarian” principles they claim to uphold. These plutocrats are violently inflicting a faux “democracy” upon nations who courageously defend their right to decide their own future according to the “international” laws put in place by those who now violate them at will because they know the establishment has their back.
On the other hand:
What elitist education gets you. A #BritishEmpire gimp with a self-cultivated blind spot the size of the sun on his own country's connivance with, and sponsorship of, terrorists. pic.twitter.com/OjMiqaajdO
— Syricide (@Syricide) July 4, 2018
***
Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire. Vanessa was a finalist for one of the most prestigious journalism awards – the 2017 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism – whose winners have included the likes of Robert Parry in 2017, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Nick Davies and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism team.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WHITE HELMETS BY READING THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES:
BBC and Guardian Whitewash of UK FCO Funding Scandal in Syria
What to Expect From BBC Panorama and Guardian’s Whitewash of UK Gov’t Funding Terrorists in Syria
White Helmets Evidence Presented at Geneva Press Club:
Vanessa Beeley Presents Exposé on White Helmets at Swiss Press Club in Geneva
‘Global Britain’ – UK Funding a Shadow State in Syria
‘Global Britain’ is Financing Terrorism and Bloodshed in Syria and Calling it ‘Aid’
White Helmets – Hollywood Poster Boys:
WHITE HELMETS: State Sanctioned Terrorism and Hollywood Poster Boys for War
21st Century Wire:
New Report Destroys Fabricated Myth of Syria’s ‘White Helmets’
Initial Investigation into White Helmets:
Who are Syria’s White Helmets?
21st Century Wire article on the White Helmets:
Syria’s White Helmets: War by Way of Deception ~ the “Moderate” Executioners
Who Funds the White Helmets?
Secret £1bn UK War Chest Used to Fund the White Helmets and Other ‘Initiatives’
Original investigative report:
The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake White Helmets as Terrorist-Linked Imposters
Irish Peace Prize Farce
Tipperary’s White Helmets Peace Prize: A Judas Kiss to the Antiwar Movement and Syria
White Helmets Executions
WHITE HELMETS: Severed Heads of Syrian Arab Army Soldiers Paraded as Trophies
CNN Fabricate News About the White Helmets
A NOBEL LIE: CNN’s Claim That ‘White Helmets Center in Damascus’ Was Hit by a Barrel Bomb
White Helmets Links to Al Nusra
WHITE HELMETS: Hand in Hand with Al Qaeda and Extremist Child Beheaders in Aleppo
Report by Patrick Henningsen
AN INTRODUCTION: Smart Power & The Human Rights Industrial Complex
Open Letter by Vanessa Beeley
White Helmets Campaign for War NOT Peace – Retract RLA & Nobel Peace Prize Nominations
Staged Rescue Videos
(VIDEO) White Helmets: Miraculous ‘Rag Doll Rescue’
White Helmets Oscar Award Farce:
Forget Oscar: Give The White Helmets the Leni Riefenstahl Award for Best War Propaganda Film
Cory Morningstar report:
Investigation into the funding sources of the White Helmets, including Avaaz, Purpose, The Syria Campaign
Open letter to Canadian MPs from Stop the War Hamilton (Canada):
Letter from the Hamilton Coalition to Stop War to the New Democratic Party in Canada ref the White Helmet nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize:
Open letter to Canada’s NDP Leader on Nobel Prize:
Letter to NDP from Prof. John Ryan protesting White Helmet nomination for RLA and Nobel Peace Prize.
READ MORE WHITE HELMETS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire White Helmets Files
READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria Files
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