Manufacturing State Propaganda at the BBC: “The Corbett Report (Interview 1587: Vanessa Beeley Debunks a BBC Hit Piece)”

James Corbett, “The Corbett Report (Interview 1587: Vanessa Beeley Debunks a BBC Hit Piece)” (20 October 2020)

Recorded 16 October 2020, this conversation between James Corbett and investigative British journalist Vanessa Beeley can be viewed online or heard as an audio-only version. This interview comes on the eve of a BBC Radio 4 series lasting some 10 weeks on James le Mesurier and the White Helmets, the supposed Syrian civil defence organisation (in reality, a fake humanitarian front supporting regime-change terrorists in Syria) he founded. Beeley had been approached by BBC reporter Chloe Hadjimatheou for an interview that would be broadcast during the radio series but declined the offer when she realised the questions to be put to her were a trap to discredit her.

The interview ranges over a number of related issues: the radio series is intended as a retrospective damage exercise by the BBC to whitewash the White Helmets; the targeting of Beeley by the BBC and the UK government by insinuating that legal action may be taken against her for stating that the White Helmets are a “legitimate target” for retaliation by the Syrian government due to the organisation’s association and embedment with terrorists, its involvement in child abductions and killings and other atrocities, and its travels with terrorist groups; and the ridiculous way in which the mainstream news media portrays Beeley as a lone-wolf blogger / “non-journalist” on the one hand and on the other a significant influence on Syrian government policy! The interview also covers how the White Helmets is part of a drive by a project known as the Integrity Initiative (an initiative of Scottish-based thinktank the Institute for Statecraft), ostensibly established to combat disinformation and support British foreign policy, but which in fact aims to destabilise nations like Syria by supporting groups like the White Helmets which give terrorists and other regime-change groups and organisations a favourable public image. The White Helmets give terrorists a positive humanitarian touch and support a drive for Western military intervention in Syria, supposedly based on “Responsibility to Protect” principles, which has as its ulterior aim the overthrow of the Syrian government and its replacement by a government favourable to Western political, military and corporate interests. Significantly Corbett and Beeley mention that the Red Cross / Red Cresent in Syria does not recognise the White Helmets as Syria’s legitimate civil defence organisation.

On a positive note, Beeley explains her plan to counter this series by researching the backgrounds of the series producer and others involved in its making, and the sources used, and making her research known publicly. Beeley notes that the BBC’s reputation has been falling rapidly, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and that the general public in Britain and beyond increasingly recognise that the BBC is the propaganda outlet for the UK state, itself becoming a more openly repressive police state with no regard for free speech, democracy or the rule of law.

The BBC’s targeting of Beeley and other independent reporters and organisations, such as the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, that question how Syria and its war against Western invasion (with terrorist groups like ISIS and Jabhat al Nustra among others acting as a de facto army of mercenaries) are portrayed in mainstream media, to the extent that it would produce a 10-week (!) series lionising James le Mesurier (who even stole money intended for the organisation he founded) and the White Helmets, demonstrates just how squalid this British institution has become, and by implication, how Britain itself has declined culturally and intellectually in concert with its political and economic decline. By going after Beeley, the BBC shows how its values now mirror those of the UK state itself, and these values surely include cowardice and mean-spiritedness.