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.
Fred
“He already declared victory which means he already knows he lost.”
That’s certainly the way it usually goes. I had hoped he might try the old semantic tactic of radically distinguishing between the PA and Palestine, but not even that it seems.
But anyway.
“In 2010 I edited The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction, a collection of articles by world renowned writers who unveil the genocide taking place in Palestine by the occupying power in this “advanced” civilization of 2014, a slow water torture of constant humiliation, destruction and death as the world watches and nothing is done to bring justice to the people of Palestine. In that text, Dr. Jeff Halper details the quest for “peace” that has been crippled by the state of Israel, the intentional, calculated and indifferent response to the conditions facing the Palestinian people every day. He offers this reality:”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37677.htm
You wouldn’t know it from mainstream media, but things are looking bad for Israel when now even the US is shifting on its feet.
Anon, you asked for an explanation about costs and benefits to the UK from the UNOCAL pipeline.
Did you mean US rather than UK? Whatever, Craig would direct you to J A Hobson’s study of imperialism. The basic principle is that rich organisations such as corporations have undue influence upon politicians. They influence policy such that costs can be borne by the public whilst profits flow to private concerns. So the US/UK taxpayers pay for the cost of war and occupation, while oil companies reap the rewards. The politicians are influenced either through “revolving door” arrangements, or by being granted “consultancy” work by the companies or by connected companies that can be influenced, or informally through personal association, or funding for party campaigns, or other methods I can’t think of right now.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/08/j_a_hobson_impe/
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/the_consequence/
Of course, it’s not just oil companies that can do this. The destruction of Iraq nearly doubled the profits of BAE Systems, for whom Lord Taylor of Blackburn is a “consultant”. That’s Lord Taylor who got off lightly, merely barred from the Lords for some months when he should have gone to prison, when undercover journalists exposed that he offered to accept a bribe in order to change the law; “think of me as a cab for hire”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Taylor,_Baron_Taylor_of_Blackburn#The_.27Cash_for_Influence.27_scandal
As Craig says, there’s good money in death:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/08/theres_good_mon/
Here’s another one getting his arse in a state worrying about The Sanctions!!
And of course John Kerry is an anti-semite, or not, depending on the time of day.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.574276
Comedians, eh.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/john-kerry-isnt-an-anti-semite-bennett-says/
Thanks for the increasingly hysterical feedback guys. Great to know it’s all working:
http://www.boycottisraelnetwork.net/
Herbie You linked to William A Cook’s article on Information Clearing House. He is the author of The Plight of the Palestinians.
The article has also appeared on Dissident Voice.
How about the Do Nothing Machine?
‘Resting on my bookshelf is a cunning little device, an object I’ve had in my office for decades, a curiosity piece that grabs the attention of children and adults, a strange unfamiliar gadget that appears to have a purpose since it has a handle, two gears fastened to small rounded cylinders that crisscross each other as one turns the handle, it’s called a do-nothing machine. Someone conceptualized it and someone created it and someone turns that handle to do nothing. Why? Why go through a process all know will not accomplish anything? Why spend time on an illusion? For whose benefit? To what end?
There it sits next to The Plight of the Palestinians and it seems to me Obama and Kerry must have one just like it since they initiated a process that they know will accomplish nothing, inspired no doubt by the do-nothing machine. Why? Perhaps it’s to pretend that they are not owned by the Israeli state or perhaps to defend themselves against the perception that they have abandoned any thought of a peaceful two state solution in Palestine or perhaps to extend time once again so Israel can steal more land and create more settlements allowing the slow motion genocide to continue. Perhaps an illusion is better than nothing at all.’
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/02/the-do-nothing-peace-machine-why-zionism-negates-peace/
Anon, further to my 5:23 pm comment, I regard convergence of interests to be important in such decisions, too. The US probably wanted a stronger military presence in Afghanistan due to its proximity to both Iran (because it refuses to host US bases) and Pakistan (because it has nukes):
http://www.killick1.plus.com/map.jpg
But the oil companies, the weapons manufacturers, the “reconstruction” companies, the suppliers of mercenaries, and the corporate media were all well placed to benefit from a war in and the occupation of Afghanistan. These powerful interests converged, and the decision for war was made.
As you can see from the map, between them the US and Russia have just about surrounded the Caspian Basin hydrocarbon reserves. You can see why Iraq and Syria matter, too. It’s about long-term control of a diminishing resource until it’s all gone.
Herbie
“Are you arguing that no one recognises Palestine, or that few do, or what is it?”
____________________
No. If you read my post carefully, it asks you to be more precise as to numbers.
No thanks to you for unhelpfully not supplying the numbers, but many thanks to Fred for doing so.
Anon, note that Syria is another country at the edge of the hydrocarbons that refuses to host US military bases. This is why the US have paid billions of dollars to Qatar to destabilise Syria, and why Assad is demonised far more than, say, Karimov of Uzbekistan, who’s even keener on torture than Assad. No no! Karimov / Uzbekistan is officially an ally; they hold the land route into Afghanistan.
Jon once wrote :
“Bah, you’re all at it again. For all our dissidents calling for unrestricted freedom of speech, this is what you wanted. Not very productive though, is it?”
Here –
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/10/edward-snowden-gets-sam-adams-award/comment-page-17/#comment-436922
So I’d like to ask Jon how it is any better now.
Habby
“it asks you to be more precise as to numbers”
Why.
Are you having a dispute as to numbers?
Tell me what your number is and the other bloke’s number, and I’ll tell you who’s right or wrong.
Yet another ‘You Could Not Make It Up’ from Mr Hunt and the ComDems.
Giant NHS database rollout delayed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26239532
~~~~
My correspondence with NHS England.
Dear Mary,
Thank you for your email.
Apologies that you have not received your leaflet as of yet, however, the leaflet drop is still on-going. I will make sure NHS England are aware that you have not received your leaftet. In the meantime, please see the attatched PDF file within this email which I have provided an electronic copy of the leaflet.
Please be advised, NHS England and the HSCIC are ensuring that information is available at a national level. This has taken a number of forms for example using social and digital media e.g. dedicated web support pages for patients through NHS Choices, articles in national newspapers and the cascade of messages via patient and voluntary sector groups. Also GP Practices have been provided with posters and are advised to make leaflets available to paitents including in routine communications such as repeat prescriptions, newletters etc.
If you want to find out more information regarding the care.data programme, please don’t hesitate to visit the NHS England website below:
http://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/tsd/care-data/
Kind Regards,
….. …..
Contact Centre Team
Health and Social Care Information Centre
1 Trevelyan Square
Boar Lane
Leeds
LS1 6AE
0845 300 6016
Email: [email protected]
http://www.hscic.gov.uk
Sent: 14 February 2014 21:14
To: Contactus England (HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE INFORMATION CENTRE)
Subject: Opting out of data sharing from my records
Dear Sirs
I understand from an article on the BBC website that all households should have received an information leaflet. I have lived at this same address for … years and can assure you that I have NOT received the leaflet. Perhaps you will be kind enough to send one to me direct.
Yours faithfully
….
~~~~
I object to being addressed by my Christian name in the reply. I have not corrected the NHS spelling mistakes! The grammar is also appalling.
It’s productive enough, Jemand.
Israel is feeling under increasingly severe pressure due to sanctions from banks, pension funds other corporates, governments and of course NGOs and individuals, disgusted by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
Despite mainstream media not adequately representing this shift in Israel’s fortunes, it’s at least been made very clear here.
Ba’al Zevul (La Vita è Finita)
18 Feb, 2014 – 12:58 pm
“Scroll back, Doug. There’s a sting in the tale. The 1947 UN Resolution supported partition between Arabs and Jews.”
Ba’al Zevul
The U.N. became involved when the British decided to end the mandate.
They requested the UN take up the matter.
A U.N. Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created to examine the issue and offer its recommendation on how to resolve the conflict.
UNSCOP proposed that Palestine be partitioned into two states.
Resolution 181 merely endorsed UNSCOP’s report and conclusions as a RECOMENDATION.
For Palestine to have been officially partitioned, this recommendation would have had to have been accepted by both Jews and Arabs, which it was not.
General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding anyway(only Security Council resolutions are).
And the U.N. had no authority to take land from one people and hand it over to another.
So, the UN did not create Israel.
The Zionists created Israel in a unilateral declaration of independence (i.e. statehood) in May 1948.
John Goss
I don’t do cod psychiatry – you are not in a position to make such diagnoses you have neither the skill or information to make such judgements. A lot of small boys experiment with all sorts of things – not that I ever exploded frogs – so it would be idiotic to read so much into one occurrence.
Yet another example of the lack of intellectual rigour backing your judgements I’m afraid.
Note the word ‘processing’ within this report.
18 February 2014
Australia asylum: One killed in violence at PNG camp
Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison: “This is a tragedy”
Abbott: New asylum policy ‘working’
Why boat people risk it all
Does PNG back Australia asylum deal?
One asylum seeker has been killed and 77 injured during a second night of violence at Australia’s immigration detention centre in Papua New Guinea.
The man died of head injuries on the way to hospital, Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said.
Thirteen people suffered serious injuries, including two who are being transferred to Australia for treatment, one with a gunshot wound.
He said the injuries occurred outside the camp, after the men broke out.
Australia sends asylum seekers arriving by boat for detention and processing in offshore camps in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific territory of Nauru.
Conditions in these camps have been strongly criticised by UN agencies and rights groups.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26236157
herbie
“Habby
“it asks you to be more precise as to numbers”
Why.”
____________________
Simply because the sentence you wrote was vague. Do you have a problem with precision?
The signs. The signs.
Those signal siren signs.
“The last time the nation’s most potent pro-Israel lobbying group lost a major showdown with the White House was when President Ronald Reagan agreed to sell Awacs surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia over the group’s bitter objections.”
Over 30 years ago!!
“Potent Pro-Israel Group Finds Its Momentum Blunted”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/04/world/middleeast/potent-pro-israel-group-finds-its-momentum-blunted.html?_r=0
“In another small but telling contretemps, a group of prominent liberal Jews sent a letter last week to Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, rebuking him for speaking last month at a closed-door gathering of Aipac, which they said “speaks for Israel’s hard-line government and its right-wing supporters.” “
Habby
I ask again.
What, if anything, are you disputing?
There’s so much of this out there now, it reminds me the growing campaign against apartheid Israel’s apartheid mate South Africa, back in the 1980s.
“On sanctions, Israel hasn’t seen anything yet
Clumsy Israeli propaganda campaigns won’t obscure the realization in Europe and among Palestinians that the occupation must cease to be cost-free for Israel.”
“Israel’s governing coalition has been much seized of late by the issue of potential boycotts and sanctions in response to its policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.572776
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!
18 Feb, 2014 – 3:18 pm
Habbabkuk to me:
“In other words, you are denying the right of Israel to exist because, as you well know, the Basic Law of Israel (= its constitution, as with Germany) states that Israel is a Jewish state.”
Habbabkuk, UN member nations, including Germany, recognise the state of Israel as a sovereign state not a Jewish state.
Furthermore, Israel Basic Law does not define Israel as a Jewish state as you claim.
Re Asylum Seekers migrating to Oz by leaky boat
Over a thousand human beings perished at sea under the Labor govt versus one person in a savage attack by Manus Island locals under the present govt. Do the maths.
Definition of the word “processing” (mine) – to put something or someone through a process, eg. a bureaucratic process of determination of eligibility for migration on the basis of seeking asylum. It’s not that sinister when you *think* about it, is it?
PS Herbie, i agree, productive enough for the purpose.
….’processing’…..Worthy of the Third Reich or perhaps the Stasi in later decades.
Read and learn
Australia’s election campaign is driven by a barbarism that dares not speak its name
29 July 2013
The election campaign in Australia is being fought with the lives of men, women and children. Some drown, others are banished without hope to malarial camps. Children are incarcerated behind razor wire in conditions described as “a huge generator of mental illness”. This barbarism is considered a vote-winner by both the Australian government and opposition. Reminiscent of the closing of borders to Jews in the 1930s, it is smashing the façade of a society advertised as benign and lucky.
/..
http://johnpilger.com/articles/australias-election-campaign-is-driven-by-a-barbarism-that-dares-not-speak-its-name
Jemand
Hi. Oz is run by ZiFlyers. Keep them over there, we’ve got problems of our own.
The mosques here are completely infiltrated by MI5/6 arse=licking money=grabbing spies who’re treating us white aborigines like shit and raping our women.
Sound familiar?
It’s called racism mate. You got white on Muslim, we got Muslim on white. Sort your stupid Striney problems out yourselves.
ESLO
Neither do I do cod psychiatry, but if you had ever tried to care for a damaged child you would do the reading too. I learnt a lot from those experiences. But I do not expect you to understand. Once a child has been so badly-damaged in its primary years, particularly its first, there is no return. It was first-hand experience that made me explore RAD syndrome and taught me how balanced and loving families, like the one I came from, have no idea how deeply-disturbed, damaged and abused children have no conscience. To me it makes sense that neglected and unattached children are not likely to be as loving and caring as those children who have known love and care. Sending a child away to prep-school teaches that child that its parents do not love it. Perhaps you would not like to see a solution to how the problems of sociopaths and psychopaths can be addressed. Well you certainly won’t find an answer by burying your head in the sand. You might think it is the job of experts. There is no cure once the damage is done.
Guano, i couldn’t care any less for the opinion of a lonely Islamo-fuckwit than for your mythical ziflyer.
. . .
This blogs very own do-nothing-machine is very good at quoting Pilger (a man I happen to like and admire), but she is utterly hopeless at discerning truth from emotional fiction, and caring about the loss of life by those who circumvent our migration system. If Oz is SOOOOO terrible, why do they come in their hoardes? Makes ya *think* (if you have a brain), don’t it?
Bravo!
Edward Snowden elected as Rector of the University of Glasgow
http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_308232_en.html
My colleague Gilbert Mercier analyses Empires and their falling lifespans, and looks at how the modern colonialists in their striving for world domination and theft of resources do not care any more about what state they leave the target countries in after the invasion.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2014/02/18/engineering-failed-states-the-strategy-of-global-corporate-imperialism/
Mary, I share your happiness that Edward Snowden has been rewarded for his integrity.
This is disturbing. Some sheeple and trolls cannot see a similarity in the USA and Nazi Germany. And Cameron announced this year private high-security prisons in this once green and pleasant land.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/detention-camps-at-undisclosed-locations-in-the-us-rule-by-fear-or-rule-by-law/8067
“Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees. . .
. . . What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?”
” . . What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?”
‘Order in the Court’ and control of the population to protect us from ourselves, John. H1NI? Geologic event? Asteroid impact? There is a plethora of potential extinction events which require the sequestration of individuals into neat compartments for ease of feeding and care, and to control contagion or general Public Unrest. Forcing those needing life’s essentials (water food medicine, shelter) into corrals and livestock barns is very efficient.
John Wasn’t Craig once Rector of Dundee Univ?
~~~
Julian Assange on Being Placed on NSA “Manhunting” List & Secret Targeting of WikiLeaks Supporters
Top-secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden have revealed new details about how the United States and Britain targeted the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks after it published leaked documents about the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. According to a new article by The Intercept, Britain’s top spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, secretly monitored visitors to a WikiLeaks website by collecting their IP addresses in real time, as well as the search terms used to reach the site.
One document from 2010 shows that the National Security Agency added WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to a “manhunting” target list, together with suspected members of al-Qaeda. We speak to Assange live from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has sought political asylum since 2012. Also joining us is his lawyer Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
/..
Video 32 mins plus transcript
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/18/julian_assange_on_being_placed_on
Yes, Mary, he was rector of Dundee University. There appears to be more sense north of the border. And yes, we know they’ve been after Assange for a long while. The honey-trap was predictable. As would be the extradition should he be sent to Sweden.
Well Ben since your government appears to be creating all these what we used to call “acts of God” is a strong possibility, especially since the Rothschilds and Rockefellers have called for a vast reduction of the population, but I suspect it is even worse than that. I shall have to write about this. It certainly fits in with the guillotine story, which I did not want to believe.