Syria and Diplomacy 2917


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.

 

 

 


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2,917 thoughts on “Syria and Diplomacy

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  • John Goss

    Shin Bet almost certainly did hack Jonathan Cook’s computer. Get rid of secret societies, secret services and all other secret organisations, get rid of border controls and IDs, the Yanks’ HARP programme changing the world’s weather and poisoning the atmosphere and there is a chance the world will recover. What they are secretly doing with HARP is spreading chemtrails of sulphuric acid to change the climate.

    Have they got the ‘fallen angel” there in creating an atmosphere in which the serpent can thrive and in which humans die? The Yanks so love Satan they do his every bidding: drones, wars, imprisonment of political opponents, climate-change, new diseases, capital punishments, meddling with nature . . . Come on you trolls defend despicable Uncle Sam.

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    Mary. 7 44pm

    What a silly troll!

    Please be patient with him. He’s a bit confused right now. When Dr Bullstrode gave him his new (stronger) pills this morning he took away Dad’s bottle of Sherry and told him it was a bad idea mixing the two. Well the old fool took it a bit too literally and simply substituted G&Ts for his usual tipple.

    Gary emailed to say he found him sat in the launderette arguing with one of the machines. He thinks its logic is “a trifle circular” and six months of national service would show it how the world really works. He scared all the other customers away and Gary only just stopped the manager calling the police.

    Anyway he got him home, cleaned up a bit and left him booting up Adrian’s laptop. He says it’s probably safest to leave him to it.

    What a blessing to find myself camped by the fishwier tonight with Wassamada and the women, a world away from Surbiton.

    ….

    More news from the Middle East’s beacon of democracy and justice.

    “Palestinians and Jordanians may end up buying back water from Israel, that should rightfully be theirs, at grossly inflated prices.”

    http://electronicintifada.net/

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    @ Mr Goss, re Bullingdon boys ‘running the country’ :

    “And the Chancellor of the Exchequer!”
    ___________________

    So that makes three.

    Just the three of them, ‘running the country’?

    Any more you’d care to mention?

  • Mary

    A useful list here. Hard to imagine Dimblebore trashing the place. Note little Nat is there, pal of Mandelslime and Deripaska. Don’t hear much about the latter these days.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullingdon_Club#Notable_members

    Speaking of Dimblebore, he has Galloway, Jowell, Starkey (expert on royal chamberpots and privies), Matthew Hancock LD Skills minister (who?) and Alison Wolf* from King’s College on tonight’s QT BBC1. Should be a rave. Not.

    *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Wolf

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Mary

    It’s true, I don’t post on this blog all day long (no names mentioned).

    And as for the fowls, I think the image rather fits. You are foul, you are a bit of a goose, and, like the Capitol geese, you make an almighty noise.

    PS – can we have another two or three posts on Israel/Palestine before you retire for the night?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Mary

    “I would dispute the use of the term ‘Israel proper’ above.”
    _______________________

    Why would you dispute that term?

    Are you one of those people who believe Israel shouldn’t exist?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Since she posts about Israel / Palestine all the time, I feel that Mary should tell us

    — whether she thinks Israel has a right to exist or not.

  • nevermind

    You give it…… and you don’t want to take it, Anon? fine for you to derigate others but when,boooohoooo, it is you that is slured, you cry foul.
    Piss off!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    “That’s another Three In a Row jackpot for ‘Israel’ within 6 minutes! Well done.”

    __________________

    Well, Mary, I thought you might answer if I asked you three times.

    So here it is again :

    In your opinion, does Israel have a right to exist?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    @ Nevermind

    “Piss off!”
    _______________________

    Lot of bad language, insults and insinuations (drug-taker, sexual deviant..) and even threats from you lately, Nevermind.

    Stop being such an UnKraut.

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    Dad.

    If some Welsh people occupied Surbiton and the Home counties as a result of a successful terrorist campaign, chased most of the native population off, then spent the next 60 years killing the survivors and their children aswell as developing illegal nuclear weapons and ignoring all UN resolutions, would their state, in your opinion, have any moral right to exist?

  • nevermind

    The UN, and the world commumnity gave it,socket, with the proviso that they respect and cooperate with the existing Arab and Palestinian communities.

    We all know what happened then, people like Sharon were let loose on villages, genocide occured as much as was done to those millions killed by the Nazi’s, was dished out at Palestinians and it still is being dished out, daily harrassment, far more that the millions of stop and search orders the Met harrasses Londons black population with, far more.

    Now looking at the recent history and at what historian such as Avi Shlaim say about Israels mistaken path and unhealthy alliances, the support for Israel, wolrd wide, due to its tragic history, it is hard to see how it has refused to be part of the world communmity, thumbing most of the UN resolutions for restraint, a truly rogue state that does at it likes and acts as if superior to others.

    No it does not deserve to be called a state, firstly, because it fails to declare its borders, secondly, because it occupies territories of other states without impunity or signs to give them back, a pirate state.

    Further, France and Britain , as well as the Dolphin class deals with Germany, have equipped this rogue state, currently funding/equiping Al Nusra in Syria, with nuclear equipment, know how and ICBM capabilities.

    No its not a state as we have come to know them around the world, it is a nightmare, a malester, led by a minority that uses fear to induce the public with, to give its support for psychopath like Bibi.
    Thankfully they are waking up to it, they are fed up being a nation of debtors, never to have peacefull relations with your neighbours, they had enough of being ostracised by the world, they want to live in peace with Palestinians.
    Sadly the fascist’s at the helm have other plans, damn them!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!

    Nevermind

    The conclusion one must draw from your post is that you do not think Israel has the right to exist. Thank you for being so clear. You may be mistaken, but at least you’re honest.

    Anyone else?

  • John Goss

    Mary your list of mainly past masters (sorry past members) and a few present members of the Bullingdon Club one sticks out as representative of the whole nasty evil lot, and it is not so much Rothschild as the man his family funded, Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes raped Africa on behalf of the British Empire, but more on behalf of De Beers, a company which probably funded the bombing of Pan Am 103 which killed 270 people at Lockerbie including the target, Bernt Carlsson, a good man who De Beers did not want around. No wonder Cameron (another Bullindon . . .) does not want a public inquiry into Lockerbie now it’s known that al Megrahi had nothing to do with it. But there again Thatcher did not want a public inquiry, nor John Major, nor Tony Blair, nor Gordon Brown. You need to ask why. Blair called a public inquiry on the death of one man, when there should have been a proper inquest, against the law of the land. He has been supported by all subsequent prime ministers and attorney generals. The world is sick. These sick people who have caused the world sickness need to go. Otherwise there will never be any justice.

  • BrianFujisan

    John yes Brent C. was certainly going after them all over illegal mining activities in Namibia….

    When asked if he would be taking action against other companies such as De Beers, the diamond mining conglomerate, Bernt Carlsson replied:

    “All the companies which are carrying out activities in Namibia which have not been authorised by the United Nations are being studied at present.

    “As far as De Beers is concerned, the corporation has been trying to skim the cream which means they have gone for the large diamonds at the expense of the steady pace. In this way they have really shortened the lifespan of the mines.

    “One would expect from a worldwide corporation like De Beers and Anglo-American that they would behave with an element of social and political responsibility. But their behaviour in the specific case of Namibia has been one of profit maximation regardless of its social, economic, political and even legal responsibility.”

    and yes too…the world is Sick, and sad… the peoples of the world Do not want wars that only spread the sickness… there is a Carl Sagan quote that i like…

    “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

    The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

    Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

    The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

    It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

    ― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

  • John Goss

    Brian, the UK expert on the assassination of Bernt Carlsson and 269 other passengers, much criticised by establishment figures who may have a lot of reason not to want him to be right, is Patrick Haseldine. Take a look at Wikispooks on Lockerbie. It is a wealth of information.

    Thanks for Carl Sagen’s comments.

  • John Goss

    As to the dot that is planet earth it is the macrocosm/microcosm argument as far as I’m concerned. I well understand my own insignificance. We are probably the only animals concerned about high achievement, beyond sexual procreation, which too is selfish. The best book for me is Raspad Atoma by emigrant poet George Ivanov (1938). Man is an atom. This work has more to recommend it than any prose-poem I have ever read. It was his major work around which all his other verse-poems were based. I shall be writing about this one day.

  • BrianFujisan

    Someone @ 12;51…

    Thanks for that…

    At the end of 2013 we saw at least three major events that could have sent America spiraling into total collapse. The first was the announcement of possible taper measures by the Fed, which have now begun. The second was the possible invasion of Syria which the Obama Administration is still desperate for despite successful efforts by the liberty movement to deny him public support for war. And, the third event was the last debt ceiling debate (or debt ceiling theater depending on how you look at it), which placed the U.S. squarely on the edge of fiscal default.

    As we begin 2014, these same threatening issues remain (along with many others), only at greater levels and with more prominence. New developments reinforce my original position that this year will be remembered by historians as the year in which the final breakdown of the U.S. monetary dynamic was set in motion. Here are some of those developments explained…

    I think it was Macky that once said to me… if it’s good, it’s worth repeating.

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