The problem with the Geneva Communique from the first Geneva round on Syria is that the government of Syria never subscribed to it. It was jointly chaired by the League of Arab States for Syria, whatever that may mean. Another problem is that it is, as so many diplomatic documents are, highly ambiguous. It plainly advocates a power sharing executive formed by some of the current government plus the opposition to oversee a transition to democracy. But it does not state which elements of the current government, and it does not mention which elements of the opposition, nor does it make plain if President Assad himself is eligible to be part of, or to head, the power-sharing executive, and whether he is eligible to be a candidate in future democratic elections.
Doubtless the British, for example, would argue that the term transition implies that he will go. The Russians will argue there is no such implication and the text does not exclude anybody from the process. Doubtless also diplomats on all sides were fully aware of these differing interpretations and the ambiguity is quite deliberate to enable an agreed text. I would say that the text tends much more to the “western” side, and that this reflects the apparently weak military position of the Assad regime at that time and the then extant threat of western military intervention. There has been a radical shift in those factors against the western side in the interim. Expect Russian interpretations now to get more hardline.
Given the extreme ambiguity of the text, Iran has, as it frequently does, shot itself in the foot diplomatically by refusing to accept the communique as the basis of talks and thus getting excluded from Geneva. Iran should have accepted the communique, and then at Geneva issued its own interpretation of it.
But that is a minor point. The farcical thing about the Geneva conference is that it is attempting to promote into power-sharing in Syria “opposition” members who have no democratic credentials and represent a scarcely significant portion of those actually fighting the Assad regime in Syria. What the West are trying to achieve is what the CIA and Mossad have now achieved in Egypt; replacing the head of the Mubarak regime while keeping all its power structures in place. The West don’t really want democracy in Syria, they just want a less pro-Russian leader of the power structures.
The inability of the British left to understand the Middle East is pathetic. I recall arguing with commenters on this blog who supported the overthrow of the elected President of Egypt Morsi on the grounds that his overthrow was supporting secularism, judicial independence (missing the entirely obvious fact the Egyptian judiciary are almost all puppets of the military) and would lead to a left wing revolutionary outcome. Similarly the demonstrations against Erdogan in Istanbul, orchestrated by very similar pro-military forces to those now in charge in Egypt, were also hailed by commenters here. The word “secularist” seems to obviate all sins when it comes to the Middle East.
Qatar will be present at Geneva, and Qatar has just launched a pre-emptive media offensive by launching a dossier on torture and murder of detainees by the Assad regime, which is being given first headline treatment by the BBC all morning
There would be a good dossier to be issued on torture in detention in Qatar, and the lives of slave workers there, but that is another question.
I do not doubt at all that atrocities have been committed and are being committed by the Assad regime. It is a very unpleasant regime indeed. The fact that atrocities are also being committed by various rebel groups does not make Syrian government atrocities any better.
But whether 11,000 people really were murdered in a single detainee camp I am unsure. What I do know is that the BBC presentation of today’s report has been a disgrace. The report was commissioned by the government of Qatar who commissioned Carter Ruck to do it. Both those organisations are infamous suppressors of free speech. What is reprehensible is that the BBC are presenting the report as though it were produced by neutral experts, whereas the opposite is the case. It is produced not by anti torture campaigners or by human rights activists, but by lawyers who are doing it purely and simply because they are being paid to do it.
The BBC are showing enormous deference to Sir Desmond De Silva, who is introduced as a former UN war crimes prosecutor. He is indeed that, but it is not the capacity in which he is now acting. He is acting as a barrister in private practice. Before he was a UN prosecutor, he was for decades a criminal defence lawyer and has defended many murderers. He has since acted to suppress the truth being published about many celebrities, including John Terry.
If the Assad regime and not the government of Qatar had instructed him and paid him, he would now be on our screens arguing the opposite case to that he is putting. That is his job. He probably regards that as not reprehensible. What is reprehensible is that the BBC do not make it plain, but introduce him as a UN war crimes prosecutor as though he were acting in that capacity or out of concern for human rights. I can find no evidence of his having an especial love for human rights in the abstract, when he is not being paid for it. He produced an official UK government report into the murder of Pat Finucane, a murder organised by British authorities, which Pat Finucane’s widow described as a “sham”. He was also put in charge of quietly sweeping the Israeli murders on the Gaza flotilla under the carpet at the UN.
The question any decent journalist should be asking him is “Sir Desmond De Silva, how much did the government of Qatar pay you for your part in preparing this report? How much did it pay the other experts? Does your fee from the Government of Qatar include this TV interview, or are you charging separately for your time in giving this interview? In short how much are you being paid to say this?”
That is what any decent journalist would ask. Which is why you will never hear those questions on the BBC.
Despite the misery caused by the bankers getting rich by defrauding the people not one individual banker has been charged, they are free to rob again and pay themselves obscene bonuses for doing it.
But the CPS has seen fit to charge three men with taking food from a skip at the back of a supermarket, lied that the food was worth £33 when the fact is it had negative value, the supermarket would have to pay someone to take it and dump it.
Proof if proof were needed that the CPS do not represent the people, they are lackeys of the rich fat cat bastards that are steadily shafting all of us.
I forgot to put the link in.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/three-charged-vagrancy-act-food-skip-iceland
“Fukushima”
http://enenews.com/author/admin
What a wonderful surprise to find Craig blogging again, always worth reading. Also great to find so many of the old reliables commenting away. I’ve missed you all….almost….it seems nothing new has been brewed up in the bowels of Haifa Uni during the lull. Same old strategy….bore the buggers to death!
Re Syria coverage by the BBC ……what a sick joke!
Here in the Great Caldera the sun has just set. Legions of fruit-bats are flapping lazily from their caves and gliding down towards the forest for another noisy night feasting on puki figs and a slow but insistent drumbeat is inviting us to gather for our own feast, to celebrate the adoption of Bitcoin as the reserve currency for all the peoples of the watershed. Except that is, the Usurii of the Swamp of Morg who predatory monopoly as “trusted third parties” in the issuing and manipulating their debt-based fiat currencies.
They claim Bitcoin is nothing but a ponzi scheme with no intrinsic value, that people buy drugs and bad stuff with it and they can’t protect us when we use it. The Usurii Dollar on the other hand has it’s value hanging on our children’s, and their children’s ability to pay the debts, and the confidence instilled by the ferocity of their warriors. Also they assure us, it is never used for anything remotely criminal, and for our own good, our bank and pension deposits can always be tapped into when bankers decide they need the money to “bail us out”. Sadly for them, their warnings are increasingly regarded as comically predictable protests from an irrelevant elite .
Maybe one of the grown-ups here can explain to me why I should put my faith in debt-based curreny when we now have the technology for decentralised, encrypted, peer to peer trading free from parasitic bankers and their political servants.
……..
OT.
Message for Brian Fujisan from the Shaman. He notices you are still using Windows when you could install Linux easier than you could catch a cold. He says Windows is to operating systems something like what fiat currencies are to money.
Finally since it’s almost Happy Hour in the dark, rain-soaked sump of Britania, here’s something to cheer you all up……the best of Israel meets the best of Mali. No aparteid walls here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaCpc7osbek
Makes you wonder why they call that ff-ing piece of IOU a ‘banknote‘…
Fuk-us-hima – they surely do.
Oops!
Correction.
…Except that is, the Usurii of the Swamp of Morg who wish to keep their predatory monopoly as “trusted third parties” in the issuing and manipulating their debt-based fiat currencies….
@Fred, did you note “the CPS responded this month that the case would go ahead, because “we feel there is significant public interest in prosecuting these three individuals” ? Which “Public interest” do they mean ? Corporate interests probably, as I would have thought that the “Public” would prefer desperate people to be resourceful, eco & recycle friendly, rather than turning to crime to feed themselves. It seems that they seek to make an example in this case, so as to deter (ie terrorise), anybody else from undermining the everything can only be sold to make a profit system, ie no freebies, even if it’s literally garbage destined for a landfill.
“Utah solved homelessness by giving people homes.”
http://www.nationofchange.org/utah-ending-homelessness-giving-people-homes-1390056183
The Guardian just launched an online poll on the ScarJo controversy. So far it’s a blowout: 87% of voters (number unspecified) says yes, Oxfam should sever its ties with its recently appointed “brand ambassador.” I suspect, though, that SodaStream’s friends have not yet mobilized their forces – look for a big surge in the “no” column when they do. Still, we should be able to win this one – vote now, and spread the word.
Poll closes in seven days (Tuesday, Feb. 4).
Original article @ http://mondoweiss.net/2014/01/guardian-scarlett-johansson.html
Someone
Meant to say thanks for that Japanfocus Link 26th @ 12;22 pm
Sofia….
Delighted to hear from you…
That’s a right talented Shaman you have there in the Land of the Great Caldera…got a friend taking a look at my pc setup this weekend…. i Love the wonders of science…but very un-techy 🙂
A Node, Macky…most interesting Re Billy Brag…Amazing what one can learn on this Blog…
Obomber repromises all his previous broken promises.
Guantanamo to close
Limit drone warfare
Stop snooping
blah be blah de blah………..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/state-of-the-union-2014-excerpts-from-obamas-speech/2014/01/28/dc8017a0-886e-11e3-a5bd-844629433ba3_story.html
Ref Billy the Bragg and his friend Oona.
I did not know that Oona Tamsyn King was now Baroness King of Bow (that has a nice ring to it) and that:
‘King, who is mixed race, was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, to Preston King, an African-American academic and his wife, Murreil Hazel (née Stern), a white Jewish social justice activist. She is the niece of the medical doctor Miriam Stoppard (her mother’s sister) and her playwright husband Tom Stoppard.[3] Her cousin is the actor Ed Stoppard. On her father’s side, she comes from a line of civil rights activists and successful entrepreneurs. Her paternal grandfather, the civil rights activist, Clennon Washington King, Sr. fathered seven sons.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oona_King
I see she goes whichever way the wind is blowing.
‘King supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was controversial for the constituency’s large Muslim population. This support was used against her in the election campaign of Respect’s George Galloway, a leader of the Stop the War Coalition, who later defeated her in the 2005 general election. This challenge was one of the media highlights of the election.
She subsequently changed her views, after viewing the poor handling of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath by the United States:
it shows that America has no grasp whatever on the activity needed to rebuild a destroyed city. And if they can’t do that in their own country, then it’s obvious why they can’t do it in Iraq. So … I regret that we went to war with a country that has shown itself to be incapable of the very basic actions required to deal with post-conflict reconstruction.
She however maintained that she does not regret voting for the war in Iraq, “I could never have voted against getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He was responsible for the deaths of one million people.”‘
No irony at all in those last words considering the death toll of BLiar’s war.
~~
PS Good to see Macky and Sofia here again.
Bill and Melinda Gates published their annual January letter, no doubt well-read at the World Economic Summit in Davos. They said that ‘many people think the world is getting worse’ – and it demonstrably is, in terms of pollution, social instability and the widening gap between rich and poor.
The crumbs from Gates’ table are not the answer: Martin Luther King has it – ‘We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools’ – a complete change of outlook.
Economist John Kay in the Financial Times challenges Gates’ figures in terms which are not readily accessible to the average reader but then looks beyond the globalised centres of major cities, similar everywhere: “You do not have to venture far from the centre of Nairobi or Shanghai, and only round the corner in Mumbai, to see sights unimaginable in Norway or Switzerland”.
Gates’ big myth – an assertion that people believe the world can’t solve extreme poverty and disease – is completely untrue.
/..
http://politicalcleanup.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/bill-gates-myth/
live links within
Someone, 28 Jan, 10.57pm
Thanks Someone, great link, worth repeating
particularly in view of latest news
‘Re Syria coverage by the BBC ……what a sick joke!’
Nor is it just Syria. A couple of days ago R4 News carried Not Very Old Labour’s proposal to reintroduce a 50% tax band for people who could well afford it were it not that the berthing fees for their yachts have risen disastrously (as a result, obviously, of the previous government’s policies).
The bare announcement was followed by three spokesmen explaining why this was a bad idea and would only raise 30p in extra tax. No-one explained on NVOL’s behalf why it might be a good idea. Contradictorily, in the same piece, a reporter mentioned that the proposed victims already paid 30% of all tax…rather destroying the argument that raising the level would not produce much revenue.
How Pete Seeger stood up to Messrs Tavenner, Scherer and Walter….. Un Amerikan Activities Committee…
Tue Jan 28, 2014
Testimony of Pete Seeger before the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/28/1273074/-Testimony-of-Pete-Seeger-before-the-House-Un-American-Activities-Committee-August-18-1955
.
.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm
“Huge swath of GCHQ mass surveillance is illegal, says top lawyer:”
I wonder if the CPS will deem it in the public interest to press charges or if it’s only people who eat out of dustbins that are a threat to society.
There’s a full transcript of the report here BTW:
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/APPG-Final.pdf
28 January 2014, 16:26
I am in effect banned from being on the BBC – AMB Craig Murray
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_01_28/I-am-in-effect-banned-from-being-on-the-BBC-AMB-Craig-Murray-7601/
It is obvious that 9/11 was a set up.
? Breaking – also reported on Sky –
Apparently someone doesn’t like Blair. Incredible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gshD6gbGHCw
And –
http://engineeringevil.com/2014/01/25/ira-victims-plan-to-sue-tony-blair-over-libya-conniving/
Re the hypocritical self-serving toadying slimeball
I can’t track down the ‘Any Questions’ broadcast (no it wasn’t 1/7/11, Mary, must’ve been 2009), but I can still honour my promise to let him condemn himself from his own mouth. Check this exercise in forelock-tugging from our champion of the peepul.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-487796/How-Queen-charmed-pants-Confessions-old-Leftie.html
Here’s a taster: “…. when suddenly there [the Queen] was, offering me her hand with a look that seemed to say: “Well, well. I didn’t expect to see you here, Braggy.” There’s plenty more where that came from.
Arise, Sir William Bragg!!!
From today’s Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/28/vladimir-putin-ukraine-crisis-eu
Putin said. “I’m sure the Ukrainian people will sort this out and Russia is not going to interfere.”
A former Ukrainian foreign ministry official said the Kremlin was exerting huge pressure on Yanukovych behind the scenes, urging him to deal more harshly with anti-government protesters. “Ukraine is out of money. If Russia stops financing Yanukovych, he will be unable to pay his loyal supporters,” the official said.
Someone is lying and I know who my money is on. I note the terrorist label is now being applied to the demonstrators.
I am in effect banned from being on the BBC – AMB Craig Murray
So that’s why they played this last July?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qs5x7
“The bare announcement was followed by three spokesmen explaining why this was a bad idea and would only raise 30p in extra tax. No-one explained on NVOL’s behalf why it might be a good idea. Contradictorily, in the same piece, a reporter mentioned that the proposed victims already paid 30% of all tax…rather destroying the argument that raising the level would not produce much revenue.”
Yet strangely enough the OBR say that one of the things creating uncertainty about the public finances for the rest of the fiscal year is regarding the impact of the introduction of the 45% tax rate on the tax take. If the Govt is so certain about the impact of the 50p tax rate then I would have thought that they would have had a pretty good idea about the introduction of the 45% rate 9 months into the tax year – but apparently not.
Shouldn’t Cable have resigned by now for selling off the Post Office on the cheap – he said we should wait 3 months to let the dust settle before commenting on what was a fair price. Well the dust has settled and it is clear that the PO was sold off for £1.8bn less than it was worth. Unlike £30 of stale sandwiches prosecution is not considered to be in the public interest.
It’s the hammer of Justice,
It’s the bell of Freedom,
It’s the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
RIP Pete Seeger
I have many tapes of Seeger’s songs and unlike some I listen to the words.
Mary
Could you explain the relevance of Oona King’s family history to the points you were making?
Perhaps you might wish to reveal your own family tree so that we can see its relevance to your own political stance?
“Trillions Of Dollars In Losses Would Be A Reason? JPMorgan Technology Vice President Dies”
http://investmentwatchblog.com/trillions-of-dollars-in-losses-would-be-a-reason-jpmorgan-technology-vice-president-dies/
Great links, Someone and Daniel, thanks. So Fukushima has officially passed the test, we can call it a sieve now. Its extraordinary that Japan can not be forced to accept outside help, soon the whole place will be so radiated that nobody would want to go and help, what utter fools!
I have taken to use brollies rather a lot in these chaotic days, I also force them on others in the family, cause, whats going up must come down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm10VdKKWDY
Chris Busby in his usual style, adding his twist to opinion. Fair enough he’s been studying it all his life. Some 6.30 min. in.
On the day Mark Carney gave his before and after ‘technical’, in parts critical, advice to Scotlands continued use of Sterling I feel like raising the spirits a little.
These HairyMclarries have been recommended by a fiddler called Rachel, she now and then plays in Edingburghs traditional pubs. Enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z3A5Tgy47M
Good to have you back Sofia, I hope you have been behaving yourselfs during your prolonged absence from that wayward dad of yours…..:)
“Nigeria Central Bank to Shift Reserves Into Yuan From Dollars”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-28/nigeria-central-bank-to-shift-reserves-into-yuan-from-dollars.html