Who are Bellingcat?

Or rather, and more to the point, what are they for?

The big argument (and in a sense it's their argument) for Bellingcat's activities, nay the organisation's very existence, is that they can do things that the state's intelligence services can't.

Whatever that means, frankly I'm calling bullshit. State intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic break the law almost routinely (or in our case try to find ways of getting around it). And obviously the state has resources available to it (especially money) that the dear old private sector can only ever dream of.

The only resource that the state's intelligence services currently lack - and they have done for fifteen years or so - is public trust. Blair's politicization of the UK civil service and the collective failure of the US "intelligence community" to stop 9/11, closely followed by the debacle over Iraq's WMDs (not to mention the joint decision by Blair's top spin-doctor and the BBC's even more sinister agents to hound a UN weapons inspector into an early grave), all served to damage ordinary people's image of the once proud guardians of freedom and democracy. And yes, the conspiracy to try and stop Trump, which included elements from within both the American "Deep State" and the British Establishment only served to deepen that tarnishing when (a) it failed and (b) it was also quite brutally exposed

So, with James Bond and George Smiley (not to mention Jack Ryan, Jack Bauer, and even Mulder and Scully) all on the naughty step, who was going to help when politicians in Pennsylvania Avenue or Downing Street need their smoking guns? Where are we to turn when we need an authoritative voice to denounce our enemies overseas - and by enemies I mean New Cold War foes (i.e. what remains of the "Axis of Evil", plus Russia)? The answer of course is those cool techy-type hipster kids with their laptops who know how to code. I mean, who doesn't trust hipsters? Am I right? Especially if they're funded by George Soros! And if they leaven their anti-Assad and anti-Putin stuff with the occasional shocking revelation about the US military, well that's even better.* 

So it should come as no surprise that besides Uncle George they're also funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (i.e. with money from the American government - i.e. the White House and Congress, just in case there's any doubt about what people even mean anymore when they refer to that famously nebulous entity).

And of course as well as the authority of political "independence", the Establishment also get deniability when the cool kids fuck up. I don't know whether Peter Hitchens's "leak" from the OPCW about problems with their report about the Douma gas attack was for real or not. (My basic feeling is that in these international organisations there'll always be enough people on all sides for someone to be able to cough up a minority report about pretty much anything. You can't fool all the people all the time, but by the same token there are some people who really are just fools. And without getting into Hillary-type conspiracy theories one should always be alert for the smell of Russian bullshit as well as our own.) But we'll see. At least this time they'll be able to spread the egg over a couple more faces.

And of course they'll be able to blame Trump.

*That old vendetta between Langley and the Pentagon is never going to blow over.

Are Vox spreading American propaganda?

I couldn't honestly watch this and think that they aren't. Indeed, at 6:44 there's a real head-spinner of (at best!) a half-truth!

The Iraq War was stage one in Saudi Arabia's undeclared project to dispose of its various unfriendly neighbours, starting with Saddam but with the Ayatollahs and/or Assad to follow. The deal with Uncle Sam - whether explicit or implicit - was obvious: you deal with Saddam Hussein and we'll deal with al-Qa'eda.

Initially my attitude to this video was wryly amused agreement. (I.e. Vox wouldn't have dared say any of this when Obama was on the throne, but now that it's Trump, well, who cares? Yes, American memories really are that short!) Now though, I'm wondering.

They do seem to be getting a lot of their info from one Mr Kenneth Pollack, a man who "used to" work at Langley as an "analyst". I suppose it's to their credit that they at least admit that. Because, duh, Iran-Contra, and America's covert support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq War = NOT MENTIONED. The Sunni Awakening, and Gen Petraeus's role in arming the "Sunni tribesmen" who would go on to form Isis's Iraqi backbone = NOT MENTIONED.

See where I'm going with this? This may have the cool hip Vox logo in the corner, but this is the CIA's version of history. And yes, Mr Pollack even uses the phrase "no one could have predicted". It's effing textbook.

And the final LOL? Describing the "rebels" in Syria (who only murder soldiers and policemen, so that's alright then!!!) as Saudi proxies! I mean, really? Yes, the Saudis are in it up to their necks. And FFS we (the British) are in it up to our elbows. But the Qataris are in it up to the hairs on their heads.

My standing thesis is that the ongoing Saudi-Qatari stand-off (aka "the Second Arab Cold War"*) is down to the Saudis' getting cold feet about the Syria project and trying to get the Qataris (who own Harrods, and half of London, and are friends with the Prince of Wales, and who in a couple of years' time are going to host the World Cup - and no one knows how that happened) to JUST DROP IT! Yes, Trump and the Israelis are supporting the House of Saud. And yes, Iran is supporting the other side (as has Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, for some reason). But the truth is clear enough.

The election of Trump heralded a blip not just in the long march through the institutions of the western world but also the end of the West's barmy "Arab Spring" project in the Middle East. For now they're sitting tight†. (And, perhaps, thinking of something else.)

So, is Sam Ellis formerly of the CSIS? Google would seem to suggest that why, yes, he is. So why, then, is he now writing for a supposedly impeccably left-leaning website like Vox, and indeed scripting their flagship current affairs vids on YouTube?

You may very well ask!

*Actually it does sort of fit. After the 1952 revolution in Egypt, the Arab world was split along a fairly straightforward left-right axis - dodgy oily monarchies with America, dodgy revolutionary tyrants with the other guy. It was only after the 1979 revolution in Iran threw the West a curveball that the Arabs started playing friendly with each other again. And now that Trump is not so sure that Iran's section of the Axis of Evil really is the Big Bad (because, duh, ISIS!) they're back to having their feuds and spats again.
†The occasional assassination notwithstanding!