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.
Brian and all.
“The people who think the world is ending, imminently, should not be confused with the people who think the world is on a bad path, and needs to get on the right one, imminently. The two groups have plenty in common. They don’t like large parts of the society we live in. They may dress funny. They may be strident and intolerant of gradualism. But while the former are in retreat from reality, the latter most decidedly are not. They are the Quaker abolitionists smuggling slaves to freedom, the women’s suffragettes being dragged off to jail, the marchers on Selma and Washington braving the fire hoses and the dogs. And they are also, very proudly, the scientist arrested fighting mountaintop coal mining and the activist laying down in front of trucks to stop pipelines.
There is the judicious weighing of risks by armchair intellectuals, and there is action by those who have weighed the risks to those that cannot defend or protect themselves and chose to act, according to their own moral code. The latter may or may not succeed in affecting significant change; the former never will.”
From : http://theidiottracker.blogspot.ie/?wref=bif
BTW. As I prepare for another day dimantling fallen trees with the chainsaw I can’t believe nothing is changing. I do wonder however about all the polarisation around the issue of climate chaos. Does it have to be another either / or scanario or may there be two processes, man-made and natural cycles, amplifying each other?
Further analysis on that strange tie up between the Guardian and Unilever. Wonder where and when it was hatched and who led it.
The Guardian Now Shares “Values” With Unilever
Feb 13 2014
Much of the media isn’t covering the grotesque transformation of journalism into corporate public relations – well, they’re all in on it, aren’t they? – but the latest example is really rich. The Guardian – that lefty, anti-corporate, “comment-is-free” trans-Atlantic behemoth – is now merging with Unilever to produce “content”. What does that mean exactly? Well, follow the newspeak:
Guardian News and Media has signed a seven-figure deal to provide content about sustainability under the brand of household goods giant Unilever. It is the first deal for the new Guardian Labs division – which describes itself as a “branded content and innovation agency which offers brands bold and compelling new ways to tell their stories and engage with influential Guardian audiences”.
Guardian Labs employ some 133 staff including designers, video producers, writers and strategists who will work with The Guardian’s editorial, marketing and digital development teams.
/..
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/02/13/the-guardian-now-shares-values-with-unilever/
FYI
http://www.unilever.co.uk/aboutus/companystructure/unileverexecutive/
http://www.gmgplc.co.uk/the-scott-trust/the-scott-trust-board/
Glenn, in the event of engine failure, helicopters can be ‘glided’ to a safe landing using autorotation.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Polish_Air_Force_Mi-8_crash
Glenn, re the camel and needle –
“So the parable suggests that a rich man can get into heaven, just like a camel can get through the eye of a needle, by unloading their riches first.”
An interesting socialist take on it, but seeing as all of us ‘unload’ our wealth on dying, I understand it not be an exhortation that you must relinquish your wealth as a condition of gaining entry into heaven, but rather to be pointing out that no one can bring their wealth with them to heaven – ie there are no rich or poor in Paradise, you leave all your earthly possessions at the door.
Above post meant to be by Anon. Godalming BDS was going to write something amusing about Mary’s night out, but the joke’s over now.
@Anode
There are of course those who look at what Dieudonne says and does and then come to the obvious conclusion that he is anti semitic e.g.
Lets look at the words of his theme song
“Shoah pineapple, sho sho sho pineapple, you take me by the shoah, I take you by the pineapple, Shoah pineapple.
We mustn’t forget. There’s a way to make money. Sho sho sho pineapple.
Shoah pineapple, shoah apricot. Shoah anise, shoah maggot, shoah artichoke. Shoah strawberry, shoah ice cream. Shoah chocolate. Shoah.
Shoah pineapple, sho sho sho pineapple. You take me by the shoah, I’ll take you by the pineapple, sho sho sho pineapple.
Darling pineapple I’ll never forget you. You’ve suffered so much. And for everything that you’ve suffered we want to give you reparations. We want you to be given a country in the sun, and millions of dollars for the millions of pineapples that were deported: for the millions of pineapples who lost their families let’s sing forever. Sho sho sho pineapple.”
Or all these quotes
“Zionism is dividing humanity. It’s trying to rule by making us fight one another. They have organised all the wars and organised all the disorders on this planet. They were involved in the Slave Trade. We should know that ninety percent of the ships that relocated the Africans to the West Indies belonged to Jews, and the majority of slave traders were Jews. Obviously, Jews today are not responsible for what happened; but this is a reality and this, for example, is something we are not allowed to talk about. ”
“We’ve seen this happen to unjust systems like the stock market, where a small number of people get to ruin a country; eliminate jobs of many people… this system is a Zionist system. I would like to point to Mr. [Bernie] Madoff, who managed to make a lot of money, and much of it went to Israel. So, actually, Israel has turned into a place where gangsters and the thieves, who rob the world, not to mention liars. I think that Israel has brought them together. Of course, I do acknowledge that there are some honest people and people who have been deceived. But the greatest mafia in mankind has been located there.”
“When I hear about Patrick Cohen, I say to myself: You see, the gas chambers … It’s a shame.”
Or this from an Independent review of his stage act
“In one skit, Bernard-Henri Lévy, the Jewish-French philosopher, haggles with a street potato seller. Dieudonné/Lévy says: “How can you ask me to pay so much when six million of us died in the Holocaust?” Roars of delight from the audience. There is also a Hitler-in-his-bunker sketch which is moderately funny until the closing line: “You will see, in the future, people will come to realise that I, Adolf Hitler, was really a moderate.”
Or we could look at all those lovely people suing his quenelle who he never seems to discourage
http://k00ls.overblog.com/2013/12/pour-ceux-qui-pr%C3%A9tendent-que-la-quenelle-n-est-pas-un-geste-antis%C3%A9mite.html
Or we could start looking into the background of the godparent to one of children a certain Jean Marie Le Pen.
If all that doesn’t amount to anti-Semitism (as defined in the dictionary for the pedants) it is hard to know what would ever fall into that definition.
The only obvious conclusion that can be reached by those who do not see Dieudonne as an anti-Semite is that they are also anti-semites. Might I suggest that now is the time for some to come clean on where they stand on Dieudonne rather than dodging the issue (both Mary and Scourge have commented on him in the past but as always their opinions are rather elusive) – at least A node isn’t a coward.
Thanks Mary for pointing out the absurdity Anders Brevik is allowed to rehabilitate I imagine being well fed clothed and warmed while many an innocent is suffering hardship because of the dire situation that they were born into.
We have got to end this PC bullshit Brevik should be dead now or in hard labour repaying his debt to society for his madness.
And as a society we should be moving mountains to help the needy.
Let’s hope there is a afterlife bacause Karma is very sobering here with scum like Brevik unjustly sitting on the naughty step.
Madness. Demonise and defy reason aka devise and conquer.
Re “climate change” (previously AGW), here is a handy link for the Malthusian “End is Nigh”-ers among us, should they think there is anything unusual in autumn gales, winter storms and flooded floodplains in the greater scheme of things
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1703
…There was extensive and prolonged flooding in the West Country, particularly around Bristol. Hundreds of people drowned in flooding on the Somerset Levels, along with thousands of sheep and cattle, and one ship was found 15 miles inland…
The other day Mary was castigating Princes William and Harry for planning a shooting trip instead of helping out with the flood relief effort.
Good news!
“UK floods: Princes William and Harry shift sandbags”
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26191532
Moreover, it was meant to be a low-key affair, so when a Guardian journo turned up, the Princes promptly told him to put down his notebook and help out!
That’s the spirit, wouldn’t you say Mary?
Jay
I very much doubt that Mary linked to the Breivik article on her beloved Murdoch sponsored Sky because of an interest in Norwegian prison conditions. Just Google (or Go-ogle as Mary prefers to know it) Breivik and conspiracy and you should get where she is coming from – or failing that one of lieutentants should be along to explain shortly.
Yes, you can’t in more or less the same breath on the one hand criticise the Princes for helping or Prince Charles for visiting to expresss sympathy and on the other criticise them and other members of the Royal Family for remaining aloof and not helping/visiting.
Schizophrenia rules!
re Breivik
“….or failing that one of lieutentants should be along to explain shortly.”
_________________
I’ll put my money on Mr Scourgie or Herbie.
Res Diss, I was informed by Aangirfan (beloved of many here), that the Breivik we saw in court was, in fact, a body double! (As was the hanged Saddam, OBL, Gaddafi and a whole host of others). Is this the conspiracy you are referring to?
Possibly Anon – but just sit back, relax and wait for the service to kick in. You could even have a little bet on the side with Habba.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!
12 Feb, 2014 – 5:12 pm
Says:
“…what has been revealed recently is that Mary, Nevermind and Mr Scourgie believe that Israel has no right to exist. Fact!”
Habbabkuk, I do not support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
I do accept the right of Israel to exist within the 1967 borders; not as a Jewish state but a state for its entire people, with equal rights in every aspect of life, within Israel enshrined in law.
Anon, 9:38 am:
From a link on the 2003 Polish Air Force Mi-8 crash Wikipedia page Anon linked to:
But the Eurocopter EC 135 T2+ helicopter that destroyed the Clutha Vaults in Glasgow was twin-engined, so we need to ask if that model could achieve a safe landing by autorotation.
If I can’t trust Anon to check his facts on that simple matter, can I trust him with the whole world’s climate?
Maybe Anders Breivik would be happier in Gauntanamo?
Sorgie
Well at least that is at least clear – it does however run counter to the original UN resolution establishing Israel and to international law.
Would you also extend your prescription that no state is allowed to enshrine religion into its constitution to all other states – including most Islamic states and even the UK. The USA on the other hand has an avowedly secular constitution. And do you think it is right for outside parties such as yourself to impose such conditions for your recognition (not that I suspect the states themselves are unduly worried) – it does seem a tad imperialist.
Doug Scorgie
Perhaps you might care to answer my question – do you consider Dieudonne to be an anti-Semite (dictionary definition)? yes or no will suffice.
Clark, I was not getting into a debate about the abilities of the Eurocopter to glide. I was answering Glenn, who wrote:
“Helicopters are not like light planes, which can be glided without power to a suitable crash site.”
They can.
Sometimes you can be as dim as an eco-friendly light bulb, Clark.
Godalming BDS, 10:08 am, all that “dying and going to heaven” lark is a distraction. Jesus of Nazareth disposed all of his wealth so he could enter the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
Is there anything you don’t misunderstand?
“If I can’t trust Anon to check his facts on that simple matter, can I trust him with the whole world’s climate?”
I’m not that influential, Clark.
Anon
It has just struck me that in my day the counter culture lot (i.e the hippies) were quite relaxed with the concept that “shit happened” – but nowadays there has to be a conspiracy theory – what changed?
Ignoring the invasion of trolls blowing like last night’s SSWesterlies.
They are like London buses. They come in threes.
The lessons of Russell Brand’s TV clash 15 February 2014
Russell Brand is back, with another incredible performance – and that is what it has to be, given the paradigm of debate he is forced into. This 15-minute interview with Ch4′s Jon Snow starts slowly, focusing on Brand’s efforts to change Britain’s primitive drugs laws. But it rapidly widens out into a fascinating ideological clash between the old order and the new. Again, the old order wants to discredit his argument that we should not legitimise our corrupt political systems by voting for them.
The most interesting thing about these confrontations is watching Brand’s skilful manoeuvring as he refuses to allow himself to be intellectually sidetracked or cornered. It’s like watching an Olympic athlete. He has to use every skill in his considerable emotional and intellectual armoury: humour, matiness, intelligence, quick-wittedness, compassion, muted anger. So few of us have quite such a complete range of talents.
/..
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-02-15/the-lessons-of-russell-brands-tv-clash/#sthash.xmDiO7tn.dpuf
Res Dis,
“What changed?”
The progression from mild hashish to high-grade skunk and the Internet.
Thanks for mthat goosd news Mary, lets hope they do not force feed Breivig should he have the guts to go on hunger strike.
They know how to deal with marius in Danemark, poor thing, so I trust they will know what to do with Breivigs body, although his daddy diplomat who sporned this wretched being, will object.
feed him to the sharks for all I care.
Clark
When you base your religion on an instruction manual written many centuries ago, and often many years after the events being described by those who were not eye witnesses and who did not have access to corroborative evidence, you have to accept that many interpretations of the same text are possible. The whole study of theology relies on such ambiguities and you just have to have faith as to which of the opposing interpreations is the correct one – the greedy bastards are equally capable of generating a logical case for their position.
Anon
LOL
One for Mr Dross:
http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/floods-and-storms-explained.html?m=1
Nothing just happens. Everything is planned. Join the Awakened.
“Well at least that is at least clear – it does however run counter to the original UN resolution establishing Israel and to international law.”
There has never been a UN resolution establishing Israel.