Footage Of Boy In Aleppo Is Opportunistic, Vile Propaganda From Western Media

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
August 19, 2016

It’s August, 2016 and the Western mainstream press is parading yet another injured child in front of a population of normally uncompassionate audiences in order to drum up support for some type of NATO military action against the secular government of Bashar al-Assad.

The picture of a little boy, seemingly injured in some type of bombing incident, sitting alone in an orange chair in the back of an ambulance, blood stains on his face and covered in dust from cracked concrete also comes in video form, footage that lasts for about two minutes, showing the boy being carried to a well-equipped ambulance (with English writing on some of the equipment). The boy’s story is also accompanied by “heart wrenching” stories from “activists” in east Aleppo alleging the crimes of the Syrian government and the horrific situation in the area.

The story as presented in the Western press goes as follows:

The video shows a child after he was pulled from rubble in Aleppo, a Syrian city that has been devastated by constant bombardment. 

A man carried the boy away from the rubble after a suspected Russian or Syrian regime airstrike in the neighborhood of rebel-held Qaterji. 

He placed him in an orange seat, and the boy brushed his eye and face after the man walked away. 

Looking dazed, he then wiped the blood and debris on the seat. 

After the airstrike, which reportedly shook the northern Syrian city Wednesday night during a call to prayer, the boy was rescued from the rubble that was once his home. 

Mahmoud Raslan, a photojournalist who captured the image, told the Associated Press that emergency workers and journalists tried to help the child, identified as 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh, along with his parents and his three siblings, who are 1, 6 and 11 years old. 

"We were passing them from one balcony to the other," Raslan said, adding: "We sent the younger children immediately to the ambulance, but the 11-year-old girl waited for her mother to be rescued. Her ankle was pinned beneath the rubble."
Omran was taken to a hospital for a wound on his head.
. . . . .

"This picture of a wounded Syrian boy captures just a fragment of the horrors of Aleppo," read a Telegraph headline about the picture. 

The International Business Times said: "Heartbreaking video of little boy dragged from Aleppo rubble shows Syrian children's suffering."
. . . . .

The haunting image was also shared by David Miliband, former British foreign secretary and now president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee. 

At least 400,000 people have died and millions have been displaced as the Syrian conflict has stretched on for years.

It is rather clear that the child is being used as a stage prop. After being passed to the medical “attendants,” little Omran is placed in an orange chair facing the camera and immediately left alone. He is not treated, no one else is being lifted into the ambulance, and no one is even in the vehicle with him. Instead, he is left to face the “activists” outside the vehicle and their cameras for what seems like too long a time to be anything other than a photo op for the “activists” videotaping him.

While some more discerning alternative media outlets are questioning the credibility of the footage – suggesting that the entire affair was simply staged by “activists” (meaning terrorists and terrorist supporters like the White Helmets) for propaganda purposes – one need not go so far in order to destroy the narrative being pushed by Western outlets. It is, of course, quite possible that the footage was simply created from beginning to end by propagandists but there is also no shortage of injured and dying children in Syria. Thus, the possibility that this footage is completely real and merely seized upon by the propagandists is incredibly real as well. It is even possible that the child was injured as a result of errant bombs dropped by Syrian or Russian planes. Generally, however, when children are killed or injured by American bombs or by bearded freaks receiving a paycheck from the U.S. government, those children are simply labeled “collateral damage” or “unfortunate realities of war.” Even if the bombing targets were intentionally civilian areas, the results are excused. When children are unintentionally injured by a Syrian or Russian plane – despite have taken all the appropriate measures to avoid these types of incidents – the Western press refers to the results as “crimes against humanity,” “intentional targeting of civilians,” and Assad “killing his own people.”

It should also be noted that, while all of the above may be the source of the child’s injuries, it is just as likely that his injuries came as a result of the men seen handling him. After all, America’s “rebels” have long killed children in the most grotesque manner, even beheading a young boy on camera in recent weeks.

But regardless of the nature of the child’s injuries, the photo and the footage is clearly a propaganda stunt. At best, it was seized by propagandists in the West and their foot soldiers in “rebel held” areas of Syria, ) i.e. terrorist support operations such as the White Helmets). One need only examine the “photographer” and this push by mainstream outlets to see that little Omran is being used as the latest bit of war porn propaganda, designed to create sympathy and moral outrage in an audience devoid of both until they are told to have one or the other by mass media outlets.

Mahmoud Raslan, "Activist," "Journalist," Terrorist

Raslan describes himself to be a “Syrian media activist,” which, in and of itself, is a red flag to anyone who has studied the Syrian crisis. In the world of Western media, anyone defining themselves as an “activist” in Syria should immediately be translated to mean “terrorist.” Calling “terrorists” “activists” has been an important mode of operation by the Western media since day one in Syria since “activists” can be quoted while actual terrorists are not seen as credible enough in the minds of the general public. In other words, “activist” is merely a moniker assumed by terrorists when propaganda outfits need “on the ground” confirmation of what they are already peddling.

Raslan, the “Syrian media activist” certainly fits the bill. Despite being hailed a true journalist or selfless “activist,” Raslan’s terror-supporting history is easily revealed via social media. Raslan has repeatedly made public statements praising terrorists and suicide bombers. In a post on Raslan’s facebook page (translated by The Canary) reads:

With the suicide fighters, from the land of battles and butchery, from Aleppo of the martyrs, we bring you tidings of impending joy, with God’s permission

Another post reads:

Thousands of suicide fighters and tens of booby-traps are being prepared for the great battle in Aleppo, the first battle where I see men weeping because they can’t participate on account of the number of attackers.

Raslan’s Twitter page is full of pictures and footage of him standing next to captured Syrian tanks, marching with terrorists flying the French mandate flag (white, black, and green), taking selfies with terrorists, and celebrating terrorist victories. His Twitter page alone carries a cover photo that says “Stop Russia.” Why would anyone want to stop Russia from bombing terrorists unless they themselves were terrorists? This is a question more and more Americans should be asking themselves.

Videos on Raslan’s social media also show celebrations with other terrorists, praising suicide bombers on camera.



As Miri Wood writes in her article, “Oscar Nominations For War Porn With Child Has New Nomination,” “That one woman with a Twitter account can immediately expose this heinous relationship, while paid msm reporters cheer this scum, if further indictment of the criminal intentions of western media against the Syrian Arab Republic.”

Wood and Afraa Dagher continue by writing,

True, Gray Boy might not be the best competition for Aylan, but how many drowned babies’ bodies that have been desecrated by repositioning for maximum emotional impact are we to expect? Besides,Aylan’s defiled corpse was needed to propagate the myth of the external Syrian refugee — part of the plan to strategically depopulate the country (which is why msm neglected to mention Aylan’s father was the human trafficking boat ‘captain’) — while Gray Boy is to be used for an increased bombing campaign against Syria, by the same NATO forces which have funded terrorism in the SAR, and which obliterated Libya in 2011.

As Mnar A. Muhawesh of Mint Press News stated,

Since when does the corporate or mainstream media care about the people of Syria let alone the children of Syria? The answer is never. Watching CNN anchors cry crocodile tears over the Aleppo boy lifted from rubble serves one purpose only: to play with our emotions to justify more US intervention. MEDIA and their pundits are now calling for the US to help these people, as if our actions haven't done enough damage. And by help, they mean bomb. But, I have been poking around to find the original source of this video of the heart-wrenching Syrian boy. It brought me to tears and I'm seeing everyone post about it. CNN cited the original source as coming from the Aleppo Media Center. The website is in Arabic but I read it, and it's a pro rebel website referring to Al-qaeda rebels that behead civilians as "revolutionaries". I doubt many people looked up the original source, but I did and it wasn't hard to find. What the media is not telling us is that many parts of Aleppo is currently occupied by Al-qaeda rebels including al-Nusra Front and Noor alzinki -- including the area this boy is from. 

. . . . .

Consider this: CNN and other media and NGO's that are funded by NATO county's like the US and the UK have embedded reporters, rescue workers and doctors in al-Qaeda held areas like we see with the White Helmets. These are the sources the media is using for interviews and sources for information to control the narrative. But the Assad government is bombing the Al-qaeda held areas. Three years ago the media referred to these areas as al-qaeda held. Today, they're referring to these same terrorists as "opposition" . These groups are starving the areas they occupy and hog up all aid sent into the areas set to them for civilians. This gives these institutions an opportunity to show the West how the Assad government and the Syrian army are airstriking "opposition" held areas without the context that these are al- qaeda held or that many times the Al-qaeda rebels are starving the population. Doesn't the US want to get rid of Al-qaeda and ISIS? You'd think that but instead, they are defending them to the world and legitimizing them. These "sources" are simply controlling the narrative  

Indeed, the award-winning performance of CNN news anchor Kate Bolduan crying, hyperventilating, and indignantly insinuating that someone should “do something” to stop these airstrikes against terrorist forces has caught the attention of many people who couldn’t find Syria on a map before or after her report. But we haven’t see Bolduan crying for any other Syrian children over the course of the last five years. Did she cry over the young boy beheaded by America’s “moderate” rebels? Did she cry at any other child’s death at the hands of the “rebels?” There is no shortage of dead children in Syria and certainly no shortage of them killed in the most horrific and sadistic ways by the “activists” and “rebels” her employer has been pimping to the American people since day one. So why the tears for this child?

Bolduan’s carefully scripted performance and excellent follow-through should earn her a serious acting job one day. But we would kindly ask she leave journalism to someone else.

Little Omran is unfortunately the rehash of baby Aylan, a child for whom Western audiences wept and wailed for days, becoming more and more willing to allow the West to increase its intervention in Syria and allow hordes of non-Syrian immigrants into their country but who, only a year later, would scarcely warrant a head scratch at the familiarity of the name. But it would be virtually impossible to ask any American to recount the name of the little girl killed by Obama’s rebels in Lattakia, car bombed to death by “moderates” and democracy-loving Sharia fanatics, around the same time as baby Aylan. Why? Because not one mainstream media outlet reported her death.

Indeed, some children are more equal than others and children killed by America’s terrorists aren’t worthy of even a mention by the mainstream press. Forgive me if I am unconvinced and unmoved by CNN’s crying anchors or America’s temporary fickle and hypocritical moral outrage.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 andvolume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 650 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

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