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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  • Mary

    Just checked to see if Hollande’s mob are still in Mali. Yes. He is reducing the invading army to 1,600.

    France to cut Mali troops to 1,600 next month
    http://en.cihan.com.tr/news/France-to-cut-Mali-troops-to-1-600-next-month-Hollande_9050-CHMTI5OTA1MC80

    Nasty little warmonger.

    Now he’s off to the US to get instructions from Obomber.

    Hollande banking on redemption
    Feb 10, 2014

    French leader hopes US state visit will do enough to restore popularity dented by affair and economic style.
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11199022

  • A Node

    Mary

    Your mention of Mali reminded me of our old friend Laurent Louis. You’ll remember he was the MP from Belgium who made a wonderful speech to his parliament, ridiculing and condemning the west’s attack on Mali about a year ago. Turns out he hasn’t mellowed one bit, more power to him. Before I tell you his latest exploit, here’s an extract from that brave speech:

    “Noone dares to speak, but I will not shut up! And if my battle makes me look like an enemy of this system who flaunts the Human Rights in the name of financial, geo-strategic and neo-colonialist interests, so be it! Flaunting and exposting this regime is a duty and makes me proud. And honestly, I apologize for my low class speech, but fuck you, all the so-called do gooders, both left and right wingers or from the center who are today licking the boots of our corrupted powers and who will be pleased to ridicule me. Fuck you all, leaders who are playing with your bombs as kids do in a playground! Fuck you! – you who pretend to be democrats while you are nothing more than low class criminals. I don’t have much respect either for the journalists who have the audacity to label the opponents as mentally retarded while basically, they know very well that these opponents are right. Finally, I despise at the highest point those who believe they are the kings of the world and who are dictating their laws because I am on the side of the truth, the side of justice, the side of innocent victims of looting at all costs.”

    That’s telling them. Full speech and video here:
    http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_65346.shtml

    He may have gone too far this time, though. He apparently said to parliament on Jan 16 2014 “the Holocaust was orchestrated and financed by the pioneers of Zionism.” and then did a quenelle salute. I’m having difficulty finding a transcript. and the only reports I can find are in the Jewish press, eg:
    http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Belgian-lawmaker-Zionists-bankrolled-the-Holocaust-339892

    He also recently trampled on an Israeli flag at a pro-Assad rally. Oops.

  • Mary

    Back to the bankers and their pay.

    Barclays Faces New Pay Row Over Remco Chair
    The bank risks a new conflict with investors over the independence of the director in charge of its pay policies, Sky News learns.
    http://news.sky.com/story/1209070/barclays-faces-new-pay-row-over-remco-chair

    Of course they don’t want him to go. He will come up with the answers. Resident in many niches, past and present.

    Sir John is currently Chairman of Merlin Entertainments Group, a non-Executive Director of Barclays plc, a non-Executive Director of AFC Energy PLC, a Director of the Financial Reporting Council, an adviser to CVC Capital Partners, an Association Member of BUPA, and a member of Council at Reading University. Until his appointment as Chancellor, he was also a member of Council at Aston. He has held a number of Presidencies of trade bodies, including the Confederation of British Industry, the Chartered Management Institute, the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers and the UK Food and Drink Federation. He is a former non-Executive Director of the Rank Group plc and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

  • Herbie

    “A sporting estate is an artificial habitat, managed to maintain a breeding stock plus a certain number of excess creatures which can be shot for sport.”

    Yes. It’s primarily practice in managing a population, its productivity and surpluses etc.

    You may think that whilst culling these critters they’re at least leaving us in peace, but don’t be too surprised to have it pointed out that they’re also honing their skills.

    Meanwhile, here’s an excellent analysis of how our own animal farm works:

    http://vimeo.com/75472359

  • Mary

    I actually think that they are laughing in our faces yet again with the timing of their save the wildlife campaign and the news of the shooting party. They will look for any signs of strong reaction to their antics from the people, which there won’t be as they are so brainwashed. Their position is thus reinforced. Another turn of the screw is made.

  • Mary

    What do you think of these articles? Food for thought.

    Flooding: “The Mail on Sunday can reveal”
    Richard North, 09/02/2014
    http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84695

    Flooding: Somerset Levels disaster is being driven by EU policy
    EU directives actually require certain plains to become flooded http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/10625663/Flooding-Somerset-Levels-disaster-is-being-driven-by-EU-policy.html

    Booker: the EU floods Somerset
    http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84694

    The first and third are written by Richard North

    Richard North has in recent years won a reputation as one of Britain s most expert defence analysts, through his Defence of the Realm blog. Formerly a research director in the European Parliament, North is also a political analyst through his EU Referendum blog, which examines Britain’s place in the world with particular reference to its membership of the European Union. He has co-authored four bestselling books with the Sunday Telegraph columnist Christopher Booker, including Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming, How Scares Are Costing Us The Earth (2007) and The Great Deception (2005), a comprehensive history of the European Union. He is the author of Ministry of Defeat (2009).

  • Black jelly

    And the gays too, as both are working in sync now, the jews have their back (pun intended) – after the gay marriage legislation, a national gay pride holiday may actually be in the offing.

  • BrianFujisan

    A Node

    glad you caught the P. Floyd concert indeed a treat…my text fone got busy, and the t.v wasn’t even on – till a most welcome alert from Friends…

    Sofia, sorry for not getting back to you on that… i got absorbed in ze music… 🙂

    Some months ago, i posted about a project to take a bus load of Palestinian Children to see the ocean/sea… but they were only permitted to look, and Not to set foot on the Jews only beach… some of the kids went into the water regardless…

    i missed this the first time round…From Counter Punch –

    “The US Jewish Establishment’s onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. All this is done in order to keep an eye on the population’s movements and to make its life difficult. Israel even imposes a total curfew whenever the settlers, who have illegally usurped the Palestinians’ land, celebrate their holidays or conduct their parades.

    If that were not enough, the generals commanding the region frequently issue further orders, regulations, instructions and rules (let us not forget: they are the lords of the land). By now they have requisitioned further lands for the purpose of constructing “Jewish only” roads. Wonderful roads, wide roads, well-paved roads, brightly lit at night–all that on stolen land. When a Palestinian drives on such a road, his vehicle is confiscated and he is sent on his way.

    On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. “Why?” I asked the soldier. “It’s an order–this is a Jews-only road”, he replied. I inquired as to where was the sign indicating this fact and instructing [other] drivers not to use it. His answer was nothing short of amazing. “It is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and let some antisemitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that can show the world that Apartheid exists here?”

    SHULAMIT ALONI @

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/01/08/yes-there-is-apartheid-in-israel/

  • BrianFujisan

    thanks Mary

    i had a wee search for my original source…but no luck

    can’t recall which thread it was on either… i know how i would feel though…if i were told i could not go to to the Atlantic, or the mountains.

  • Clark

    Shulamit Aloni Hebrew: שולמית אלוני‎

    She wrote that seven years ago. She died just seventeen days ago.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shulamit_Aloni

    (29 November 1928 – 24 January 2014) was an Israeli politician. She founded the Ratz party, was leader of the Meretz party, and served as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993. In 2000, she won the Israel Prize.

    Aloni was a board member of Yesh Din, an organisation focussing on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

    In a 2002 interview with American journalist Amy Goodman, Aloni said that charges of antisemitism are used to suppress criticism of Israel.

    As Education Minister, she also criticized organized tours by Israeli high school pupils to Holocaust concentration camps on grounds that such visits were turning Israeli youth into aggressive, nationalistic xenophobes, claiming that students “march with unfurled flags, as if they’ve come to conquer Poland”.

  • Clark

    It can be worth searching through the History of interesting Wikipedia pages, looking for large deletions. This was removed by Gilabrand for being a “cherry picked quote; WP:UNDUE”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shulamit_Aloni&oldid=514986192#On_suppression_of_criticism_of_Israel

    In an 14 August 2002 interview with American journalist Amy Goodman, Shulamit Aloni described how she believes the charge of antisemitism is used to suppress criticism of Israel

    http://www.democracynow.org/2002/8/14/stream Aloni on use of the anti-semitism charges to suppress criticism of Israel] (approx. 50 min into the interview)

    Goodman:

    Yours is a voice of criticism we don’t often hear in the United States. Often when there is dissent expressed in the United States against policies of the Israeli government, people here are called anti-semitic. What is your response to that as an Israeli Jew ?

    Aloni:

    Well, it’s a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country people are criticizing Israel, then they are anti-Semitic. And the organization is strong, and has a lot of money, and the ties between Israel and the American Jewish establishment are very strong and they are strong in this country, as you know. And they have power, which is OK. They are talented people and they have power and money, and the media and other things, and their attitude is “Israel, my country right or wrong”, identification. And they are not ready to hear criticism. And it’s very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic, and to bring up the Holocaust, and the suffering of the Jewish people, and that is justify everything we do to the Palestinians.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUGVPBO9_cA

  • BrianFujisan

    Clark

    Thanks for that Additional info…

    died 17 days ago… wonder if thats why counter punch had that piece up… a loss to justice, n peace, n reason…

    Those trips to Poland…cannot be at all good for the kids mental well being… but they are taken there to learn anger and Rage.

  • Clark

    Wikipedia editor Gilabrand; highly active, seems to have a lot of awards:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gilabrand

    Here’s Gilabrand wiping Palestine off the record to make way for a regional branch of a Jewish* university:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ariel_University&diff=593744628&oldid=593740903

    And here’s Gilabrand getting caught:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gilabrand#February_2014

    * I wrote “Israeli” at first, but it does seem to declare itself Jewish:

    http://www.biu.ac.il/General/mission.html

    Bar-Ilan University, Israel’s largest academic community of students, scientists and staff (32,000 in total), seeks to produce students of moral and intellectual aptitude; students who adopt the highest standards of excellence in scientific and academic research; and students who bear a deep commitment to Jewish community.

  • Mary

    Thanks for those links Clark.

    It’s a great wonder that ‘Gilabrand’ has not taken his/her black marker pen to these entries.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kastner_train
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Kastner

    Perdition – Jim Allen

    Like A Choice of Evil, Allen’s play Perdition is also based on historical events in the closing months of the Second World War. Despite the fact that Germany was losing the war, half a million Hungarian Jews were transported to the concentration camps and murdered because of the collaboration of leading members of the Jewish community in Budapest. The Zionist leaders in Hungary did a deal with the Nazis that allowed certain selected people to leave the country, provided that instructions were given to the vast majority of Jews to board the trains going to the camps. The truth came out in a trial held in Israel after the war.
    Every national newspaper attacked Allen and Loach. In the Evening Standard Lord Goodman accused them of peddling anti-Semitic lies and suggested that they were trying to deny the Holocaust ever happened. Bernard Levin of the Times attacked the play, whilst admitting he had never read it. Most critics argued that if you attacked Zionism you were attacking the Jews as a people. Under pressure from the Zionists, the play was called off by the board of the Royal Court the day before it was due to open.

    In an interview with myself and Vicky Short three years ago, Allen explained what happened: “It was a very bad experience. We never got it on the stage except a shortened version at the Edinburgh Film Festival, where it appeared for one night. It is just impossible to explain the pressure. The bloke who put it on said, ‘I’ve never known such pressure, I’m a nervous wreck. The phone never stopped ringing from all over the world.’

    “After it was blackballed, one Zionist leader in London said to Ken Loach, ‘I’ve got six friends who are very powerful, and we’ll stop it going out.’

    “One man—a big producer in the West End—did agree to put it on. Within 24 hours he phoned back to Ken and said to Ken, ‘I’m sorry, forget it. I’ve had phone calls telling me if I put Perdition on I will never open on Broadway again. And I am responsible to directors and so on. I’m sorry.’

    “And so it went on. They followed us to Ireland. Wherever we went they followed us. The campaign they orchestrated with the press was incredible—the Times, the Guardian, the Telegraph … and it reached so far out. It was attacked in America…. And I was getting calls from Germany. It was an orchestrated campaign and it terrorised people. And arising out of that came the libel action. For two years I think my earnings were about £10 a week. Plus I was going through a bad time personally because of my wife’s illness—phone calls, abuse. You’ve no idea what it was like….

    “Then we, a group of us, put it on for a week in London, in some secular society, I forget its name. We showed the shortened version and it appeared for a week. It was packed, mainly with Jewish people, because this was a chapter of their history they didn’t know, like Land and Freedom for the Spanish people.

    “I’m not exaggerating, there were some people there crying—old people—because of some of the facts that came out in the play about the Zionists doing everything they could to disorganise the Jews in Hungary.”

    Bringing the lessons home
    An interview with Jim Allen conducted in 1995

    11 August 1999

    Immediately following the release of Land and Freedom, Barbara Slaughter and Vicky Short interviewed playwright and scriptwriter Jim Allen. He spoke of his views on the betrayal of the Spanish Revolution by the Stalinist bureaucracy and his long history of collaboration with the film’s director, Ken Loach

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/08/alle-a11.html

    His obituary
    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/08/obit-a11.html

  • Sofia Kibo Noh

    “Make no mistake, if the Holy See was an actual country, we would be at the least boycotting its fruit and at the most sending in the tanks. Here is a state that has institutionalised homophobia, discrimination against women and children, that has systematically overseen the protection of the abusers of tens of thousands of children, protecting abusers from the laws of their host countries. Here is a state that has overseen mass scale trafficking of babies, a state that opposes modern health and sexual education for young women, a state that forces secrecy on children, even those who are victims of sexual abuse.”

    From, http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/brendan-oconnor/un-names-church-for-what-it-is-a-rogue-state-29992797.html

    Another rogue state, same behaviour, http://rt.com/news/us-military-sex-abuse-281/

  • nevermind

    Its all the EA/EU/ somebody elses mistake that we are being flooded.
    NO, its down to not having a policy of retaining land and decades of non investment, sticky plasters and buck passing.

    The EA has moved mountains with diminishing staff, they have the expertise but are hampered by Governments who ‘listen’ to groups like the RSPB, who postpone dredging, here in Norfolk, because the spoils are contaminated and need special dumps, any reasons not to dredge is acceptable by the Broads authority/EA because it costs them money, so, if they can point to some ecological reason or powerfull million voters RSPB to justify their actions, politicians crumble and turn to putty, because these ecological/green groups are powerfull voices, they are part of the establishment so to speak.

    So the buck passing by Pickles this morning is damage control, odious electioneering, elections are coming up in May and UKIP is waving flags in the background, so he is concerned.

    What about you may asked? well the Thames valley will be flooded for the second time this winter, full of blue blooded Tories and million pound mansions by the river, all along the Thames, thats were they will have to spent billions to keep them sweet, and they will, nevermind the Somerset levels. Derisable electioneering of the worst kind is now visible to all.

    If we don’t have the money? something I doubt somehow, then we have to stop spending elsewhere and what better than to curtail our MOD budget, cut it by the amount it bwastes every year on overpriced items.

    Or enpower large insurance companies with a specific project, they have a vested interest in bringing our contributions down. Why should the majority pay for the unproffessional laxity of Government through their insuirance policies, again and again and again? Government who is forever electioneering their small minorities with which they govern, who do anything to get re elected?

    I predict that Eric pickles will not give the go ahead for the Norfolk incinerator, he will wait until end of April and then make a big announcement on ‘how he saved Norfolk compensation money of 5 million’ to get one over on UKIP in Norfolk. there are 60.500 objectors to Tory plans to pollute half of kings Lynn and they are revolting.

    To be honest, if the Tories carry on alienating their own membership they will soon loose all their members to the not so clever sloganisers. They like simple messages like ‘lets get out of Europe’ and they will not vote or vote for UKIP just to make their voices heard.

    I will not!

  • nevermind

    Ms Newland’s remarks, not surprising for an immigrant to this young country of America, should make it clear to all here what the US thinks of the EU at large, Otherwise her work in the Ukraine would nbot have any support at all from Obama’s Government.

    Were did these Americans come from? and why are some pissing on their ancestral countries, after not getting on with their own locals, do they think the world is the new wild west?
    The slurs and bad mouthing of the Sochi Olympics by US broadcasters are disgusting, In hope that this will not spread over here and drown out the flood effort for the rich in the Thames valley.

    The US won 2 gold and two bronze medals so far and they are talking about broken toilets, bed linnen deficits etc.,propaganda shite and denigration.

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