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.
@ Ballszeup:
“‘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.”
_______________________
But it seems you do care about Michael Gove being Jewish (according to you, anyway)? Why do you care so much?
For our edification, please establish clear links between Michael Gove’s alleged Jewishness and his views and policies on education in the UK. Thanks in advance!
ESLO:”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.”
Those catholics who are still supporting their nclergy with silence bare as guilty as those who carry out the crime. The catholic church had a chance to reform itself, but choose dogma, now they are suffocating themselves.
As for having a go, fine, be my guest, best start with some Nazi jibes,always works for the media. Support for the third Reich and its brutality is another dark chapter in catholic history, supporting fascists and their deeds, blessing those soldiers who killed in Dachau, what fine body of men.
“Those catholics who are still supporting their nclergy with silence bare as guilty as those who carry out the crime. ”
Thoughtcrime has arrived!
Black jelly
3 Feb, 2014 – 10:22 am
@Habs
Seeing that you are a strident sayanim, the Holocaust figure of 6m has had to be revised down to 4m after a camp where 4m were supposed to have been exterminated has had its total revised down to 2.1m. Does this mean the 6m figure may now be regarded as a genuine Holohoax and 4m as the new genuine Holocaust figure?
Can we have Black Jelly barred please
@ Brendan
“And – I’m not a Marxist”. That was pretty evident having read your preceding paragraph – which at least had the benefit of honesty.
“Can we have Black Jelly barred please”
I don’t think that is going to happen – I’d follow Craig’s advice for holocaust deniers of exposure and ridicule.
“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?”
No, I do not, but I would not deny that the public has such soul destroying practises and crimes from their clergy, after it was obvious that they got away with it because they were priests.
“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?”
I do not object to anybody being hauled before the law for their crimes against children and minors, whatever persuasion they are off, but politics has no place in such considerations.
“Sorry to be so in-your-face, but sometimes chumps like you deserve a vigorous response.”
No sweat, socket, I don’t expect you to ever face me for the vigourous response you deserve, we can’t be lucky all the time.
But since you are up for talking about you for a change, why have you supported this filth with your money and soul? were you forced into believing, at a young age, like so many? were you abused by figures you trusted?
As one of the better contributors pointed out yesterday Gove was one of the Atlantic Bridge neocon brigade funded by Jewish money in a pseudo-charity to pay for Werritty’s unsanctioned visits on behalf of HM ministry of defence. These Tories have forever been full of the same shit. Few believe it anymore. Thanks to the release of Home Office documents it is now clear that Arthur Scargill was telling the truth while Thatcher was lying through her teeth. Cameron lies through his teeth when he says he wants to get Shaker Aamer home. I don’t expect a response from him to this open letter.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/01/24/free-shaker-aamer-from-gitmo-an-open-letter-to-british-pm-david-cameron/
@DS There is a difference between a holohoax denier and a holocaust denier, I was simply saying the revised “camp” arithmetic means the figure should now be revised down to 4.1m, unless there is a backup camp like a belsen that history can supply for the 2 million hole in the totakl of 6m lost souls.
sorry, mistake, no editing button here, second sentence add ‘learned’ after ‘public has’.
I’m off in the garden now, enjoy the trolls.
Thanks for that good news on Julian Assange’s position, Arbed and John Goss, finally the Wallenberg loving placemen are getting their trousers pulled down, by their own public.
Further to my comment on the previous page, especially about the relative truth-telling of Thatcher and Scargill, remember how the Zionist-owned media denigrated Scargill and praised Thatcher throughout the disintegration of the mining industry. How shameful.
Never mind the trolls Nevermind. They are among the few people in paid work! They can’t be pumping out this garbage for nothing. Can they?
“Those Socialists who are still supporting the Soviet Union with silence are as guilty as those who carry out the crime. ”
Slightly tailored from Nevermind, but I’m sure a reasonable comparision can be made between the crimes of the leaders of the Soviet Union and the Catholic Church
“If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.” Guess who
Goss
If the Stalinist idiot Scargill had balloted the Union on strike action the miners would have won against Thatcher – and I speak as one who spent a lot of time and effort supporting mining communities throughout the strikes. Zionism had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
And who pays you for your garbage Mr Goss – the problem with Stalinists is that they just don’t understand that people are able to disagree and express their disagreement because they wish to do so – they have to attribute it to either money or madness.
Buggerlugs…
If you don’t stop asking silly questions, Daddy won’t take you for a Happy Meal. And let Mummy wipe your face. You’re drooling again.
“There is a difference between a holohoax denier and a holocaust denier”
I am sure there is in your warped mind – please read some reputable historians rather than those silly links on whatever sewer you inhabit at the moment. You’ll be telling us that Nick Griffin is a very very nice boy next or some other similar garbage.
ESLO you are a twonk. You’re repeating what the media said at the time. It was the National Executive Council of the Miners’ Union that made the decision. That’s not Stalinist. Arthur Scargill was their spokesman. Your ignorance is bliss to witness. Thanks.
Scargill told the miners that 80 pits were up for closure. That’s what HM government documents reveal. He told the truth. She lied.
Prince Charles has visited the village of Muchelney. “That will be uplifting for them” said the reporter. Why? Are the floods going to go away now HRH has paid them a visit.
ESLO you are a twonk. You’re repeating what the media said at the time.
No I am repeating what miners I knew at the time said. If you think that the NUM Executive at the time had a reputation of standing up to Scargill you are sadly mistaken.
She was a Zionist Thatcher. She was President of that spoof charity, Atlantic Bridge, funded by Zionist money.
If you think Thatchers views on Zionism informed her actions during the miners strike you really are living in parallel universe.
This will be like holding up a mirror for many of you but I hope you will enjoy this video of a party in Trafalgar Square celebrating Thatcher’s death:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjx-pOsZYk0
According to David Icke both the US and UK economies in their entirety are spoof charities designed to funnel national tax and borrowings to the purposes of the Rothschilds.
Thatcher closed down the mining industry turning nearly 200 collieries to a handful, and that handful is in private hands today. Success Tory-style. I had been brought up for some of my childhood in a village which defied the NUM (sad to say). Whereas another village of my childhood went on strike. All the pits are no longer working. It was the plan. Thatcher was evil personified. I would not do it myself but I can understand why certain mining villages celebrated when the old bag died.
From Nevermind (13h13) to me:
“..were you abused by figures you trusted?..”
_______________
I dimly recall that Jon the Moderator once took a somewhat similar remark of mine (but made with a different purpose)as a low pretext to ban me briefly…..
Howls of indignation from those who howled at the time, please. I’m not waiting 🙂
John Goss
“Jobs were lost in numbers that dwarfed anything under Thatcher. 264 pits closed between 1957 and 1963. 346,000 miners left the industry between 1963 and 1968. In 1967 alone there were 12,900 forced redundancies. Under Harold Wilson one pit closed every week.”
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1497/thatcher_s_achievements_will_long_outlive_the_spite_of_sheffield_s_sons_and_daughters
Miners’ strike / Thatcher / coal, etc
Happy to see that this topic has popped up because it enables me to say again that far more pits were closed under the Wilson and Callaghan govts than under Mr Heath and Baroness Thatcher. That is FACT. No one is going to challenge that, I think.
Secondly, I shall repeat a question I put before – without getting a reply, of course. It is : what should the Thatcher govt have DONE about the UK coal industry?
Thank you, Anon, for backing up my point about pit closures (hadn’t seen your post when I posted)!