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.
‘Are you referring to his natural or to his adoptive mother?’
Can’t you fucking read, tool? Parentage, I said.
‘Remarkable how often the Eminences and the fleas that live on them claim that people they have taken against are of Jewish origin.’
Maybe so. Perhaps they appreciate the irony of a strident (now nominally Christian)Zionist – though he has removed any reference to this from his Wiki entry – listening to the ‘music’ of the decadent antisemite Wagner, too. I do.
‘Probably some kind of mental illness for which they should seek treatment on the NHS.’
As anyone should who disagrees with you, obviously. Stringing them up is too good for them. Everyone should read and believe the Daily Mail….knobhead.
Beelzebub, could it be possible that our minor socket in the toolbox is of the jewish persuasion? You must have seriously dislodged his cappie this morning, but he deserves it.
Gove is a well spoken oik, always curteous in public, but he is snidey in private, a priviledged and somehow daft oik, why else did he join the Atlantic bridge charity run by the two Shiners Fox and Werritty. Now in a move to destroy gender balance, he appointed a Norfolk yokel and a yes man to support his bullying of local authorities into more unsustainable and taxfunded academies.
Academies that then take on the allures of corporate companies aping their wage structures and fleecing academy trusts of money that shoulkd have been invested in pupils.
If he really wanted to open education, why use this military style uniform basting, pretending that we all can be emulating the Asian style of education here, when it is clear that we can’t.
He has no answer to truancy except putting the whole family into debt and more poverty, his Victorian gin alley agenda, at least the vituallers have his ears, has brought strife to schools, parents and teachers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/04/16/truancy-parents-of-children-school-pupils-benefits_n_1427508.html
Given that Mary appears to support Atzmon’s view that Dieudonné is a “definitive hero of genuine socialist thinking” despite his many anti semitic pronouncements and his relationship with Jean Marie Le Pen who is a godparent to his children and other fascists such as Soral, I wonder how many others here are in agreement? I also not the somewhat ambiguous attitude to Jobbik.
It is of course not the first time in history that those who profess to be of the left have offered their support and been in alliance with anti-Semitic fascists. Those who belong to the real left are of course never fooled by such games.
Nevermind, exactly. We can confidently assume that he is simply opening another channel for taxpayers’ money to flow into the open mouths of enterprises founded with the sole purpose of receiving taxpayers’ money. This is the American model….and then of course, the enterprises donate huge sums of money to thinktanks whose business it is to bitch loudly about big government and hinder any attempt at government regulation.
It’s Bizarro World.
The UK media has been very silent about the trumped-up case against Julian Assange, a journalist who gave them some of the biggest stories of the 21st century. They should be ashamed of stabbing him while he was down and then neglecting him in his hour of need. But while there has been no news in the US/UK media in Sweden the debate is still going on and the whole house of cards is starting to crumble around the prosecution service. Nobody can understand why prosecutors do not come to the UK to interview Assange but almost everybody now believes it is political and there never was a case to answer.
http://www.thelocal.se/20140203/prosecutor-pressed-to-speed-up-assange-case
@ Nevermind
“Beelzebub, could it be possible that our minor socket in the toolbox is of the jewish persuasion? You must have seriously dislodged his cappie this morning, but he deserves it.”
__________________
On the assumption that the above is a reference to me (however, I would consider myself major rather than minor) : I believe I have already stated that I am Catholic and not Jewish. Are you suffering from memory loss by any chance, as well as from a serious loss of balance?
Beelezebub splutters ( à propos Michael Gove)
“‘Are you referring to his natural or to his adoptive mother?’
Can’t you fucking read, tool? Parentage, I said.”
____________________
Calm down for a moment,dear and listen again to the question. Which was : was Michael Gove’s natural or adoptive mother Jewish? Surely an easy question for such an expert on Michael Gove as yourself? 🙂
@ ESLO
“It is of course not the first time in history that those who profess to be of the left have offered their support and been in alliance with anti-Semitic fascists”
__________________
Very true. Egregious examples are the collaboration of the Nazis and the German communists to bring down the Weimar Republic and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939.
I await with great anticipation posts to the effect that the CIA (founded in the late 1940s) and/or the Rothschilds were really pulling the strings.
Chumps!
**********************
“Life is getting better, life is getting merrier” (J. Stalin, ca. 1932)
We seem to have randomly strayed onto Wagner. Wagner was a musical genius, and he had all sorts of dodgy views about the jews. Think this is generally well-known by now. Not uncommon at the time, I believe. And whist Gove is a tit, I think it’s only socialists he hates, regardless of their creed.
Now, anti-socialist thought is actually rather mainstream, isn’t it? Some of the things said about ‘the left’ are defamatory, and borderline hate-speech, but nobody cares about that. I mean, Nick Cohen – no I don’t care if he’s jewish or not, thought I should mention – gets away with all sorts of rabid inventions about leftist islamofacists, and nobody bats an eyelid. Very curious this.
One wonders sometimes if being a socialist, or a Marxist, in the UK is actually legal nowadays. We have all sorts of terror laws now, and ‘anti-democratic’ and ‘anti-constitutional’ are phrases that pop up. A Marxist, of course, has a different view of democracy, and certainly doesn’t think much of our non-constitution. This Marxist may loathe the idea of violent revolution (some do, bear in mind, historical forces and that), but not sure the anti-terror ‘laws’ take that into account. And socialists get infiltrated routinely, beign basically non-people in the UK.
Sorry, sort of off topic. Twas just a meander. As to the peace conference, it seems to be pretty much the usual. I’m reminded of Chomsky on Vietnam, where he tells us the US fucked the peace conference quite cynically. My guess, this one is all for show, and Putin wants something (as do NATO of course), which is what will be decided closed doors. And Kerry, well he’s full of it, but I think this isn’t news to the thread.
‘Calm down for a moment,dear and listen again to the question. Which was : was Michael Gove’s natural or adoptive mother Jewish? Surely an easy question for such an expert on Michael Gove as yourself?’
Dumb troll.
Actually, I don’t care. You do, apparently. So Google will be your friend.
Brendan. I agree with everything you say. (Except about Wagner :-D). The process of demonising the Left, and with it any idea of a just society, has gone much further in the US. Coming to the UK soon…
“Nick Cohen – gets away with all sorts of rabid inventions about leftist islamofacists, and nobody bats an eyelid.”
Just because you say that they are “rabid inventions” doesn’t mean that they are. Could we have some evidence rather than just rubbishing – shouldn’t be to much to ask of a genuine Marxist. I think you will also find that many here bat more than an eyelid when the accusations are made – Nick Cohen is pretty much a common feature on the list of those for ritual denouncement, although I doubt many have actually read much of what he says.
An even better reason to piss off, socket, how dare you talk to us about left and right,or religious issues of caring, when your collaborative and child molesting entity has covered up and betrayed those who decisively entrusted their children to chatholic care for hundreds of years, basically the catholic church f….d itself up the proverbial, for ever.
Sadly the deluded love, the rigamrole and bling the church has garnered over the years from our sufferage, especially in South east Asia, is liked and popular, still, but they will soon find out that not all pathways lead to Banco Ambrosio or Pashe di Sienna, some lead to the sacristy and hell.
There must have been hundreds of thousands child victims since its existence and they must have felt aweful coming home, having received a hiding from dad for even daring to suggest that father x or y had molested or raped them.
What must these lost souls have suffered in silence, cried in their sleep, never able to speak out for fear of parental and societal reprehension and stigmatisation by the powerful.
I think Craigs blog needs exorcising.
Nevermind
It is totally ridiculous to argue that someone who claims to be a Catholic has to take responsibility and guilt for all the offences that body has committed over time – to what organisations/nationalities do you belong so that we can indulge in a similar unfair treatment.
“The process of demonising the Left, and with it any idea of a just society, has gone much further in the US. Coming to the UK soon…”
I realised how ingrained the anti-left bias was in the USA when one of my American relatives referred to a badly designed portaloo as a “commie contraption”. “Communist” has entered their language as an all purpose insult.
Nick Cohen – another turncoat.
Reread that paragraph again. It suggests that the then junior minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, a Muslim, controlled the department from the shadows and used his “power” to advance the sectarian interests of “Islamist” groups and secure Muslim bloc votes. It is deeply offensive, paranoid and wholly inaccurate. Imagine if Cohen had written the following paragraph instead:
If he had written such a paragraph, we would, rightly, all be up in arms. Perhaps Nick Cohen should think about that the next time he chooses to fear-monger about Islam and Muslims.’
( http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/06/cohen-israel-liberal-observer : Cohen quoted from 2009)
And see (detailed refutation of Cohen charge) http://www.nextleft.org/2009/03/fact-checking-nick-cohen.html
Key phrase here –
For me, Nick Cohen often confuses and conflates the fringe left – which he has bang to rights – with the democratic left most of us belong to).
As, of course do the Excrescences.
Bizarro world again. This is what I intended to post, but managed to scramble:
At the Department for Communities, I am told that real power does not rest with the ineffective John Denham, but Shahid Malik, his deputy, who perhaps hopes that appeasing Jamaat and the Brotherhood will help him keep the core vote in his Dewsbury seat and enable a few other desperate Labour MPs to survive a potential Tory landslide as well.
Reread that paragraph again. It suggests that the then junior minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, a Muslim, controlled the department from the shadows and used his “power” to advance the sectarian interests of “Islamist” groups and secure Muslim bloc votes. It is deeply offensive, paranoid and wholly inaccurate. Imagine if Cohen had written the following paragraph instead:
At the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I am told that real power does not rest with the ineffective David Miliband, but Ivan Lewis, his deputy, who perhaps hopes that appeasing Bicom and the Board of Deputies will help him keep the core vote in his Bury South seat and enable a few other desperate Labour MPs to survive a potential Tory landslide as well.
If he had written such a paragraph, we would, rightly, all be up in arms. Perhaps Nick Cohen should think about that the next time he chooses to fear-monger about Islam and Muslims.’
( http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/06/cohen-israel-liberal-observer : Cohen quoted from 2009)
And see (detailed refutation of Cohen charge) http://www.nextleft.org/2009/03/fact-checking-nick-cohen.html
Key phrase here –
For me, Nick Cohen often confuses and conflates the fringe left – which he has bang to rights – with the democratic left most of us belong to).
As, of course do the Excrescences.
Let me think – does someone who thinks Gove’s alleged parentage and musical tastes are of relevance to his political actions belong to the fringe left or the broadstream democratic left?
Not too hard to answer I’m afraid.
A good start?
http://rt.com/business/russell-investments-chief-economist-dead-564/
A Node
I can prove that it’s a Commie contraption because we used one this summer on a site that had no running water. The chemical in the toilet started off the deepest of true Tory Azure blues, and slowly took on a greenish tinge. After 4 days it was crocodile brown turning russet red. After that it was safer to go up the garage for whatever you wanted to do.
Further analysis of BBC Panorama “Saving Syria’s Children”, also submitted as a formal complaint to the BBC: http://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/
Why Israel Fears the Boycott
OMAR BARGHOUTIJAN. 31, 2014
‘Arguing that boycotting Israel is intrinsically anti-Semitic is not only false, but it also presumes that Israel and “the Jews” are one and the same. This is as absurd and bigoted as claiming that a boycott of a self-defined Islamic state like Saudi Arabia, say, because of its horrific human rights record, would of necessity be Islamophobic.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/opinion/sunday/why-the-boycott-movement-scares-israel.html
Israeli Columnist Calls for Extermination of Palestinians
by Richard Silverstein on February 2, 2014 ·
Munich has opened a new front in the Israel-Palestine wars. There John Kerry warned Israel that his peace talks would be the last chance. If they failed, he predicted the rise of BDS and a looming one state solution:
Israeli nationalists, who dominate Israel’s political landscape, have raised a great geschrei over this rhetoric. What? Even John Kerry must weary us with talk of boycotts, Intifadas and delegitimization? We don’t hear this enough from our enemies that we have to hear it from him as well.
The result has been shouts of “anti-Semite” and worse. As only these Israel apologists can muster.
/..
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/02/02/israeli-columnist-calls-for-extermination-of-palestinians/
Beelzebub
If you believe that constitutes a substantial case against the entire body of what Nick Cohen says – rather that the first few pieces against him that you could find by Googling you really are sadly mistaken and just exposing your own piss poor methods
For example the reference to the second piece
“And see (detailed refutation of Cohen charge) http://www.nextleft.org/2009/03/fact-checking-nick-cohen.html ”
Well it could hardly be a detailed refutation since it was written a year before the charge and referred to a totally different set of circumstances.
Kempe
3 Feb, 2014 – 8:55 pm
“Why would Gove admit to a love of Wagner’s music? ”
“Why shouldn’t he? Unless you’re suggesting that anyone who likes Wagner is an anti-Semite and a Nazi. It is possible to enjoy the music without having to subscribe to the composer’s political views”
Kempe I see you and Habbabkuk have deliberately “misunderstood” my comment about Gove.
Zionist trolls at it again
“Key phrase here –
For me, Nick Cohen often confuses and conflates the fringe left – which he has bang to rights – with the democratic left most of us belong to).”
And here is the writer’s (Sunder Katwala’s) view as what the democratic left is made up of http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/feb/02/myleft
Not many takers here I think it would be fair to say – I rest my case.
“Nick Cohen – gets away with all sorts of rabid inventions about leftist islamofacists, and nobody bats an eyelid.”
@ ESLO.
Yeah ok, some people do. I guess when I say ‘nobody bats an eyelid’ I mean, it’s not generally taken as an extreme position, it’s an ‘acceptable’ position, in some circles. Here though, no it isn’t.
And as to rabid inventions, it’s difficult. I find reading Cohen almost unbearable. It hurts my brain to read such putrid trash, and I genuinely do rubbish his ideas. But, the accusations of leftist collusion with islamofacists are routine, I don’t have to bother with a link, you know it to be the case. Whether they are inventions or not, well put it this way, I think he’s a not-great writer who basically makes stuff up. Can I prove this? No. I can merely state that, for me, his ‘arguments’ aren’t worth bothering with, and he doesn’t even remotely make his case. Sorry, I just think Cohen is a hack, with flair for the hatchet job.
And – I’m not a Marxist :). I merely like the spirit of ideas, and think Marx has much to offer, though not in a proscriptive way.
Mr Scourgie
“Kempe I see you and Habbabkuk have deliberately “misunderstood” my comment about Gove.
Zionist trolls at it again”
__________________
It might help people understand the murky ‘thoughts’ that occasionally emanate from what you might fancifully describe as your ‘brain’ if said ‘thoughts’ were expressed with a modicum of clarity?
Mr Scourgie’s credo in 5 easy steps:
1/. I can’t be arsed to be clear
2/. As a result, people don’t understand me
3/. Boo – hoo
4/. Grief turns to outrage
5/. They are therefore Zionist trolls.
There’s a laugh a minute on here!
Nevermind
“An even better reason to piss off, socket, how dare you talk to us about left and right,or religious issues of caring, when your collaborative and child molesting entity…”
______________________
Would you claim that the proportion of child molesters is greater among Catholics in general or Catholic priests in particular than among the general population?
If you do, then I take it you would not object if some one (not I, however) were to claim that the proportion of Muslims grooming and sexually abusing vulnerable young girls in the UK is higher than that in the overall community?
Sorry to be so in-your-face, but sometimes chumps like you deserve a vigorous response.
A fluke ? Let’s hope not;
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/02/03/first-month-without-a-us-drone-strike-in-pakistan-for-over-two-years/
Israel haggles & finally offers US tax payers money as a kiss & make-up pacifier to Turkey;
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-offers-20m-to-turkish-flotilla-victims/