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.