If you can’t tell, the featured image is not of a doctor treating a child with a traumatic wound. However, the photo showcases a doctor of another kind, that of stage and screen theater production of the Syrian White Helmets. It is not that there is not enough death in Syria, but capturing an iconic photo is what makes an organization heroic to the world. The old adage is that a picture can speak a thousand words, and in matters of war and politics – a million or more.

This game is nothing new to any serious student of business, politics, or warfare. The Syrian White Helmets are playing the same game perfected by the Nazis in World War Two and is now a base model for business theories and principles of professional practices in dominate advertising and marketing campaigns, the Organilationsbuch der NSDAP. In fact, the Syrian White Helmets’ tailor-made, digital marketing campaign of deception has become so successful in communicating their deceptive messaging, that there is now strong support to award the Syrian White Helmets with the Noble Peace Prize. Yet that award continues to be a barometer for how disappointing this world can be. A Peace Prize for a terrorist network, well maybe an Oscar or the D&AD (Design & Art Direction) Gold. A large part of war is propaganda, after all, war, at the root is based on politics – power.

NGOs continue to fund and support terrorism, and reinforce biased humanitarian aid – Syrian White Helmets are actually only one of many such terrorist networks supported by NGOs. In July, the bomber of the Istanbul Airport in Turkey (pre-coup) was given multiple get out of jail free cards by NGOs since 2001, before meeting his demise in Turkey. The Syrian White Helmets, however, claim to be a Syrian Civil Dense Force, boasting 2,900 Syrians as volunteer search and rescue workers from local communities who risk their lives to save others and bring hope, with 60,000+ lives saved.

However, that is already entirely untrue, as foreigners continue to funnel through Syria via the Syrian White Helmets organization, which doesn’t make it very local. In a more bombastic assault on reason, the Syrian White Helmets further claim to “not pledge allegiance to any political party or group.” Maybe they don’t consider terrorist organizations to fall within the guidelines of any political party or group. The group goes on to claim neutrality but is clearly aligned against the Assad regime and with Islamist and Salafist terrorist organization. Nevertheless, evidence continues to mount contrary to the Syrian White Helmets’ claims. Additional sources have also compiled information that suggests that the Syrian White Helmets has never been a Syrian organization.

Scroll through these introductory photos – a few of the images that the Syrian White Helmets omit,

The methods used by the Syrian White Helmets to guilt and shame the West into opening their hearts and their wallets are not guerilla or even insurgent in nature, but par for the course. We live in a world that is often too easily influenced and disconnected, sheltered from any idea of the life beyond their individual needs and understanding. The adaptive modern medium of the Syrian White Helmets continues to simply exploit the public’s perspective along the lines of a guilt for cash narrative in propaganda. A method that is millennia old.

The Syrian White Helmets have situationally modeled their campaign with modern understanding via proven methods in advertising and propaganda. Albeit, they didn’t exactly break the mold and took snippets of history from the Nazis, Niccolò Machiavelli, Charlemagne,  Julius and Augustus Caeser, and in an ancient respect expanded on the teachings of Sun Tzu, all who in warfare stressed deception, espionage, public appeal, and political maneuvers of convenience. Again that is nothing new, and if you step into the private library of any Fortune 1,000 CEO, military commander, or senior politician; you’ll find the tomes of these historical men, well-read.

The Noble Peace Price candidates, in celebration with al-Qaeda,

Directly from the Syrian White Helmets, you may have read a heartwarming story, saw an iconic photograph, noted a public endorsement, or heard of their heroic exploits in the midst of the Syrian Civil War. Even so, and especially right now in America, in election season – we all  should know better than to take such things at face value.

The deception doesn’t stop there, and with the alleged iconic photographs and videos sent around to the world, in a successful media shock doctrine campaign to garner support for the Syrian White Helmets and their networked terrorist affiliates. The photos and video were credited to Mustafa al-Sarout of the Aleppo Media Center, an al-Nusra media affiliate. Nevertheless, if it bleeds, it leads. Mainstream media outlets sprung into action to pick and showcase the low hanging fruit, and with no questions asked.

The video sourcing is also perplexing, with the original Twitter post of the video citing a local time of 15:52 Aleppo time, on Wednesday the 17th of August, yet the original Tweet, shown above, states that the video was filmed on Sunday the 14th of August.

As for the now famous child in question, the allegedly five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, wherein neither he nor his family is reported to be wounded beyond a few scrapes and bruises. This statement on the injuries of the child, as well as the many other inconsistencies, found throughout this summary on the Syrian White Helmets has led me to believe that the incident and the injuries of the child were staged. The timing of the reporters, ambulance, as well as the known propaganda and makeup use by the Syrian White Helmets and affiliated terrorist networks such as al-Nursa, who stage photos and videos to meet their goals and garner support.

The video is clipped together and clearly working in tandem, and the other videographer is listed as photo-journalist for Al-Jazeera Mubasher.  And yet, that is not the really bad part, and if you recall the beheading of a 12-year old boy in Syria, you’ll be able to identify the man photographed in the midst of staging media. You can review the NPR article and video to verify the screenshot, Mahmoud Raslan in the smiling company of child-killers, as a propagandist, and terrorist.

The reality of the Syrian White Helmets, and despite their claims to be unarmed and neutral is that they only operate in the areas controlled by al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, Ahrar al-Sham, Daesh ‘ISIS.’ In these areas, the Syrian White Helmets often accompany these known terrorist organizations with weapons.  Despite this, a blind eye is turned towards many of these groups and especially the Syrian White Helmets who fit the failing Western narrative for regime change in Syria.  After all, you can’t rob Peter to pay Paul.

In-line with the prepackaged, as seen on TV world of ours, is government support for the Syrian White Helmets, with America contributing to upwards of $40 million via USAID and the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office. Although this isn’t the first, second, third, and so on time the U.S. and U.K. backed the wrong group in the mad-mix that is Syria. Most recently, one of our paid fighters decapitated a child. In another forgotten out of convenience note, is our support for the PKK (listed as a terrorist organization,) and its subsidiaries, who the U.S. mainstream media has rebranded the Syrian Defense Force. Because you know how well alliances of convenience work out for America; such as the past alliances with the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and so on.

Albeit, one cannot simply place blame on an intelligence agency or the Defense Department or ministry for these failings. The blame for the failings with the Syrian White Helmets, the aforementioned, and other failings fall on policy-markers; who, and by the time they are forced to pay attention to an issue often fire-back, “Just get it done, and now.’ The elected leadership, and despite their party, tend to not care until they have to about many of these issues. By the time policy-makers are forced to care, they just want results and fast. Hence, the many fiascos, which still have yet to form a lessons-learned pattern for our many policy-makers from Senate subcommittees to the White House.

Policy can get weird when the claiming NGO is inconsistent,

Oddly, though, and despite the recent revival of the Syrian White Helmets, the leader of the organization was stopped and redirected on a connecting flight within the United States. In April of this year. Raed Saleh was on his way to collect payment from the U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Transition Initiatives, a continuation of the $23 million provided to him from the United States since 2013. On a connecting flight from New York to DC, following a nomination for the 2016 Humanitarian Award by the U.S., and U.K. based NGO, Relief International. He was then set to receive a separate humanitarian award from InterAction, an NGO based in Washington, DC. Nevertheless, the highly awarded and dinner-party guest of honor, Raed Saleh may be the figurehead, although James Le Mesurier of Mayday Rescue was the architect behind the Syrian White Helmets, AKA, Syrian Civil Defense.

There is also a fair amount of weird sauce in what happened when Raed Saleh was placed on an aircraft to Istanbul, Turkey. Primarily, the leader of the Syrian organization, for Syrians, operates from his home in Turkey, not in Syria. His actual deportation was a result of an interagency miscommunication or similar happenstance. The US State Department provided a hasty tap-dance in regards to the matter, stating, “While we can’t confirm any possible specific actions, in this case, we do have the ability to immediately coordinate with our interagency partners when new information becomes available.” Outside of the realm of government-speak, a strange but compelling back-channel cites that an American citizen campaign was launched, by Scott Gaulke against Raed Saleh. Wherein, Mr. Gaulke organized a reporting campaign against Raed Saleh to the Department of Homeland Security, citing terrorist activities. This campaign may be the reason behind Raed Saleh’s entry into the United States.