John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“The Hitler Diaries: How hoax documents became the most infamous fake news ever
“Thirty-five years after forensic tests showed the diaries to have been forged, Adam Lusher recalls an extraordinary story of deception, delusion and incredulity”
Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper got things wrong a number of times.
The case of his authenticating the forged diaries is, of course, the most glaring.
Obviously, he should have backed off doing it if he could not do it, and the now recognized shoddiness of the forgery tells us clearly that he could not.
But further, his book "The Last Days of Hitler," commissioned by British intelligence at the end of WWII, is now known to be terribly flawed.
Just shows you, even experts fall flat on their faces, like circus clowns into cream pies.
How much more so in the case of mediocre politicians like Theresa May and Boris Johnson, experts in absolutely nothing, claiming to authenticate what they cannot possibly authenticate, events in Douma, Syria, and those of the Skripal Affair in Salisbury?
In the Skripal Affair, we still have not been offered one shred of real evidence. The “victims” still aren’t even allowed to talk to anyone. And the President of the Czech Republic has only just confirmed his country used to make the very nerve poison in question. Undoubtedly just one of many countries and scientific establishments which have done so.
Already we know to a certainty that the Douma Incident was a cheap fraud by the White Helmets. In case you hadn’t heard, the United States just quietly dropped funding this propaganda branch of al-Qaeda.
It is a remarkable case where independent reporters, actually working in Syria, had already conclusively shown with photos and interviews what not a single major newspaper or broadcaster ever hinted at, the White Helmets were frauds. But then, why would major newspapers and broadcasters discover that when they do absolutely no reporting from Syria and work assiduously to buttress the unsupported claims of the American and British governments? Journalism at its finest.
In the best traditions of Professor Trever-Roper, a shabbily-assembled fraud from Douma didn’t stop Theresa May and Donald Trump from concluding Syria was responsible and hurling a fleet of missiles at an innocent country, a war crime in and of itself.
In retrospect, Professor Trevor-Roper’s errors look pretty harmless.
