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On genocide-denial, red-brownism, and British academia—a thread.
The man on this far-right, anti-refugee youtube channel spinning an insane, victims-blaming conspiracy theory about a chemical attack in Syria is a professor at @UoBrisSPS @BristolUni
The man on this far-right, anti-refugee youtube channel spinning an insane, victims-blaming conspiracy theory about a chemical attack in Syria is a professor at @UoBrisSPS @BristolUni
The man is using his credentials as a Bristol University academic to absolve Assad of the horrific chemical attack on Douma. Assad's responsibility for the attack is well-established, and confirmed last March by a comprehensive @OPCW investigation. opcw.org/media-centre/n…
Long before the OPCW reached its considered judgment, the facts of the attack were already established by journalists, witnesses, researchers, and open-source investigators.
The Bristol University academic is part of a pro-Kremlin/pro-Assad propaganda network that includes two 9/11 truthers, one anti-vaxxer, at least two members of the LM-network (Revolutionary Communist Party). They routinely amplify white supremacists and climate change deniers.
The man on whose show this @UoBrisSPS professor is sharing his conspiracy theory is the social media director for the German far right MP Markus Fröhnmaier. He is a pro-Assad Syrian who came to Germany as a refugee before joining the AfD to become an anti-refugee activist.
The man also works for the Duginist (Russian fascist) think tank Center of Eurasian Studies. He's part of the nexus between the German far-right, Russian fascists, and the Syrian Ba'ath regime. More about him in this excellent piece by @SashRu88 international-review.org/an-authoritari…
The professor's network has been part of a year long campaign against junior academics across the UK who are critics of the Assad regime. I was myself targeted twice and I wrote about it here. @thetimes described them as "Assad's useful idiots" opendemocracy.net/north-africa-w…
One member of this network, the 9/11 truther Piers Robinson, who co-founded the pro-Kremlin letterhead organisation, had to leave his job at Sheffield University after he repeatedly embarrassed the university with his conspiracy theories.
On the AfD-linked show, the @BristolUni academic makes many wild claims. Not content with denying Assad's crimes, he alleges that the victims of the chemical attack were actually killed by Syrian rescuers who "hung them upside down" put "goggles on their eyes" before gassing them
They've built their conspiracy theory out of the testimony of a child survivor extracted under duress at a Russian military facility and a leaked opinion with an alternative hypothesis that the @OPCW considered and found implausible.
All such research considers and deliberately seeks out alternative hypothesis to test the strength of the main hypothesis. The ones that don't withstand scrutiny are discarded. It is standard practice. But in the paranoid mind this process has become evidence of a conspiracy.
Here is @thetimes on the far-right Youtuber thetimes.co.uk/article/assad-…
Note also the kind of a strange nexus forming here. This is Miller retweeting Sharmine Narwani, a columnist for the Hizbullah paper al Akhbar, sharing an article by Caitlin Johnstone, an Australian astrologer. The article, as you notice, is attacking me and Eliot Higgins.
Narwani has a history of pro-Assad apologia that is so extreme that even within the pro-Assad camp she is seen as a liability (Max Blumenthal actually denounced her). She also has a history of promoting forged documents to try to discredit @amnesty
Caitlin Johnstone is known for her cozy relations with American alt-righter Mike Cernovich; and for calling for an alliance between the left and the alt-right. medium.com/@caityjohnston…
The nexus also includes an alliance with the LM-network and climate change deniers. One person whose pro-Assad conspiracy theories Miller frequently retweets is Stephen McIntyre.
McIntyre is a leading climate change denier. He's linked to the right wing Heartland Institute which has been fighting climate change legislation & denies the health hazards of atmospheric tobacco. McIntyre was behind the very similar "Climategate" scandal
sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stev…
sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stev…
Another person this @UoBrisSPS professor frequently retweets is Patrick Henningsen, a former editor of Alex Jones's "Infowars"—the conspiracy site which was banned by Youtube and Facebook for its use of the "crisis actor" trope to describe victims which Miller has now embraced.
Four degrees of denialism. This is Miller retweeting the climate change denier Stephen McIntyre, who is is tweeting white supremacist Tucker Carlson interviewing pro-Modi Tulsi Gabbard, all of them claiming that the Henderson leak has vindicated their belief in Assad's innocence.
