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.
Yes but it has not “been assembled to deal with starving and homeless people in the streets of America”, Clark.
Back on topic, I recently watched a short film about “barrel bombs”, the improvised explosives used by the Assad regime to terrorize civilian populations. Crudely put together by filling an oil drum or water tank with TNT, oil and shrapnel, these bombs are rolled out the back of helicopters on towns and villages where they cause massive and indiscriminate destruction.
I wonder if some of the Assad supporters on here could provide justification for this. Please note, “Oh but Israel does this and whatabout Saudi doing that” are not acceptable answers.
Clark
I have never denied that Islamist militants are involved in Syria – or that I would prefer they were not. Perhaps if the Russians/Iran/Hezbollah could be pressured to remove support from Assad then the quid pro quo would be that pressure would be applied on those who are backing the Islamists?
“I wonder if some of the Assad supporters on here could provide justification for this. Please note, “Oh but Israel does this and whatabout Saudi doing that” are not acceptable answers.”
What about Britain? Haven’t we dropped a few bombs on people out of aeroplanes in our time? Come to think of it, didn’t we invent it?
@ Fred
Had ESLO thought for a minute that you would be that stupid, he would probably have added “Oh but what about Britain..etc” to his little list of unacceptable answers.
You really are shameless. If you don’t feel like answering his legitimate question, why don’t you just keep your trap shut?
More good news for everyone, including John Goss, to add to the good news of UK economic growth : UK unemployment rate down to 7,1% (and the biggest single drop in the rate since 1997)!
Still too high, but all who wish the UK well will rejoice with me at this good news!
****************
Life is getting better, life is getting merrier! (J.Stalin, ca. 1932)
Good news indeed, Habbabkuk, and I am noticing much more confidence in the economy in my line of work. Needless to say, most of the Murrayistas will be utterly miserable at the thought, preferring and perhaps secretly hoping for a collapse.
“I wonder if some of the Assad supporters on here could provide justification for this.” — anon
I wonder if you could provide some evidence of these “barrel bombs”?
And the fact that it’s Assad’s forces that are using them?
Totally predictable responses from the twisting Eslo 3.28 and Anon 5.25. They would say that wouldn’t they and both sound like mouthpieces from the newly combined press offices of Her Maj and P Charles. I know that I am living in a rotten power system when there has never been so much evil here and abroad. Wonder how the increasingly large P Andrew got on in his arms sales trip to Bahrain? He is living on the fat of the land.
I do not hate the royal mob. I despise them as scroungers and parasites on the people.
btw I am reliably informed that ESLO was once one of the many “Anons” here, then “I am the lizard Habbabkuk” and then “For the return of Habba and Free Speech”. Perhaps ESLO could verify that this is correct.
In reply to the Tory propagandist above on the unemployment figures. Many of those jobs will be part time on the minimum wage and with zero hours contracts. Note the non response of Agent Cameron today at PMQs. All he can do is to recite the same propaganda.
Edward Miliband:
[..]
I want to move on to another subject. Today’s welcome fall in unemployment is good for the people concerned—[Interruption.] We welcome the fall in unemployment because whenever an individual gets back into work it is good for them and good for their family. [Interruption.] I have to say to hon. Members that just braying like that does not do anybody any good. Can the Prime Minister confirm that today’s figures also show that average wages are down by £1,600 a year since the election, meaning that for many ordinary families life is getting harder?
The Prime Minister:
It is worth pausing for a moment over what these statistics show today. They show youth unemployment coming down, long-term unemployment coming down, the claimant count coming down, and unemployment overall coming down—but above all, what we see today is the biggest ever quarterly increase in the number of people in work in our country. There should not be one ounce of complacency—there is still a huge amount of work to do to get Britain back to work—but there are 280,000 more people in work: that is 280,000 more people with the security of a regular pay packet coming in for themselves and their family. Now of course we are seeing a slow growth in wages—why? Because we are recovering from the longest and deepest recession in living memory. Because the Leader of the Opposition keeps quoting the figure without the tax cuts that we have put in place, he is not recognising that actually this year people are better off because we have controlled spending and cut taxes.
Edward Miliband:
All the Prime Minister has done is show that he is absolutely complacent about the situation, because he is trying to tell millions of families around this country that they are better off when they know they are worse off, and it does not help for him to tell them the opposite. Let me take this figure: in Britain today, there are 13 million people living in poverty—that is a shocking figure. What is scandalous is that for the first time ever the majority of those people are living not in jobless families but in working families. What is his explanation for that?
The Prime Minister:
The explanation is what the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said, which is that wages have increased much less quickly than inflation. As I say, that is not surprising. We have had the biggest recession in 100 years. It would be astonishing if household incomes had not fallen and earnings had not fallen. The fact is that we are recovering from the mess that Labour left us. Every week the Leader of the Opposition comes here and raises a new problem that he created. We had the betting problem, then we had the banking problem, then we had the deficit problem, and now we have the cost of living problem. He is like an arsonist who goes round setting fire after fire and then complains when the fire brigade are not putting out the fires fast enough. Why does he not start with an apology for the mess that he left us?
Edward Miliband:
The Prime Minister comes here every week and does his Bullingdon club routine, and all he shows is that he has absolutely no understanding of the lives of people up and down this country. That is the reality: ordinary families are working harder for longer for less; he is cutting taxes for millionaires and not helping those families; and the minimum wage is falling in value. He cannot be the solution to the cost of living crisis, because he just does not understand the problem.
~~~~
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab):
A report on the food aid crisis in the UK was commissioned by the Government last February, was given to Ministers early last summer, and yet is still being suppressed. What is the Prime Minister afraid of, and why does he not now publish and be damned?
The Prime Minister:
What the Government are publishing today is the fact that hundreds of thousands more people are getting into work and able to provide for their families and get the peace of mind and security that people in this country want. That is what we are publishing today, and that is real progress for our nation.
~~~~
Stephen Timms:
[..]
The Trussell Trust co-ordinates the fast-growing network, now numbering some 400, of church-based food banks, which between them provided food for half a million people, just between April and December last year. Will the Prime Minister be willing to meet representatives of the Trussell Trust to discuss the big challenges with which they are grappling?
The Prime Minister:
I would be happy to meet them. We have listened carefully to the Trussell Trust. One thing that it wanted to see done by this Government and the previous Government was to allow food banks to be promoted in jobcentres. We have allowed that to happen. That has increased the use of food banks, but it is important to do the right thing rather than something that might just seem politically convenient.
~~~~
No further words are necessary.
As for all peoples self determination to democracy should be the realisation for their struggle.
I think the market forces seeking control thus are simply a conglomeration of the greater force that in it’s entirety presumes the whole anyway.
Let’s hope that normality can at some point continue to function for the poor sods involved.
“Good news indeed, Habbabkuk, and I am noticing much more confidence in the economy in my line of work. Needless to say, most of the Murrayistas will be utterly miserable at the thought, preferring and perhaps secretly hoping for a collapse.”
_________________________
Good to hear that there is more confidence in your line of work, Anon.
Of course, I could also have mentioned a number of other encouraging statistics, such as the increase in business confidence and investment across the board (ie, in all sectors of the economy) and the govt’s intention to raise the minimum wage above the rate of inflation (this is truly excellent news), but I didn’t want to make the Denigrators even more miserable than they already seem to be at the two bits of good news I brought yesterday and today….
I was looking up Lord Norton of Louth earlier on a separate matter and discovered that he is on the advisory board of the Margaret Thatcher School of Government!!! based at the private university, The University of Buckingham.
https://extranet.buckingham.ac.uk/alumnet/news-donor.aspx Note Bercow
The University website http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/
Wikipedia here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Buckingham
This is all that comes up in a search for ‘Margaret Thatcher School of Government’.
http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/?s=margaret+thatcher+school+of+government
Note the Rothschild donation.
“Unpaid workers on Jobcentre schemes are conveniently disappeared from the official tally of the unemployed.”
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/no-matter-how-you-spin-the-figures-theres-still-no-fucking-jobs/
@ Mary
“In reply to the Tory propagandist above on the unemployment figures. Many of those jobs will be part time on the minimum wage and with zero hours contracts.”
__________________
I am not a Tory – and that’s official. Would you now confirm, in return, that you are not, and have never been, a supporter of the Socialist Workers Party and Militant?
But to the more important point. Certainly full-time jobs are better than part-time ones (except for the many people – mostly women, I suppose – who actually prefer to work part-time for a variety of reasons), the minimum wage is not necessarily a living wage (this is where various state benefits come in useful) and zero-hours contracts would probably not be many people’s first choice, but…..are such jobs nevertheless better than no jobs? Is it better – whilst awaiting better days – for some people to have jobs like those or would it be better for them to remain on the dole queue?
I naturally don’t expect an answer from you because, apart from being deficient in debating skills, your conceit is that Habbabkuk can be wished away by not responding to him/her/it, but one of your fellow Denigrators might care to respond.
“…based at the private university, The University of Buckingham.”
___________________
I’ve heard of that university. Is it not the university which makes students work harder than students at public universities by having longer terms and shorter holidays, thus enabling them to graduate (or not) in 2 rather than 3 years? I believe that the cost differential between it and state universities has also narrowed considerably as a result of the increase in tuition fees to £9.000 at public universities.
Important disclaimer – I did not attend the University of Buckingham and have no connection of any sort with that establishment. Nor am I a donor and am not related in any way to the late Baroness Thatcher or the Royal Family. Finally, my surname is not Rothschild. Hope I haven’t forgotten anything!
Good to see you back, Craig. And on the money as ever.
Also writeon at 21 Jan, 2014 – 8:15 pm – very true and well put.
Resident Dissident
Just to let you know I have replied to your posting of 20 Jan, 2014 – 10:46 pm on The War Criminals on TV thread.
You may want to react to my views (No pressure though).
“Had ESLO thought for a minute that you would be that stupid”
Who you calling stupid shit for brains?
I don’t think the country that invented the heavy bomber to bomb Kurd villages in Iraq as any place criticising people for dropping bombs out of helicopters.
That’s a valid point if you weren’t too pig ignorant to see it.
Now be a good boy and go fuck yourself.
Fred I have always remembered the name of this brave officer who opposed the British bombing of the Iraqi people in 1923.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Charlton
Fred
Feeling better now? Got relief? Did the earth move for you? 🙂
Good to see you back Habbabkuk. Been out celebrating the IMF predictions. So what do you understand by economic growth? I want to celebrate with you?
Mary, very astute observations about the royals.
Part of –
Minister al-Moallem said at the opening session of the conference:
……..”Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Syrian people, like other people of the region, aspire to more freedom, justice and human rights; they aspire to more plurality and democracy, to a better Syria, a safe, prosperous and healthy Syria. They aspire to building strong institutions not destroying them, to safeguarding our national artifacts and heritage sites not looting and demolishing them. They aspire to a strong national army, which protects our honour, our people and our national wealth, an army that defends Syria’s borders, her sovereignty and independence. They do not, Ladies and Gentlemen, aspire to a mercenary army ‘Free’ to kidnap civilians for ransom or to use them as human shields, ‘Free’ to steal humanitarian aid, extort the poor and illegally trade in the organs of living women and children, ‘Free’ to canibalise human hearts and livers, barbequing heads, recruiting child soldiers and raping women. All of this is done with the might of arms; arms provided by countries, represented here, who claim to be championing “moderate groups”. Tell us, for God’s sake, where is the moderation in everything I have described?
Where are these vague moderate groups that you are hiding behind? Are they the same old groups that continue to be supported militarily and publicly by the West, that have undergone an even uglier face-lift in the hope of convincing us that they are fighting terrorism? We all know that no matter how hard their propaganda machine tries to polish their image under the name of moderation, their extremism and terrorism is one and the same. They know, as we all do, that under the pretext of supporting these groups, al-Qaeda and its affiliates are being armed in Syria, Iraq and other countries in the region.
This is the reality, Ladies and Gentlemen, so wake up to the undeniable reality that the West is supporting some Arab countries to supply lethal weapons to al-Qaeda. The West publically claims to be fighting terrorism, whilst in fact it is covertly nourishing it. Anyone who cannot see this truth is either ignorantly blind or willfully so in order to finish what they have begun”.
Re my Post above of a section of Walid al-Moallem’s Opening Speech at Geneva2 conference…. i forgot the Link –
http://www.globalresearch.ca/geneva-ii-syrian-foreign-minister-the-west-publicly-claims-to-be-fighting-terrorism-whilst-it-is-covertly-nourishing-it/5365833
‘Back on topic, I recently watched a short film about “barrel bombs”, the improvised explosives used by the Assad regime to terrorize civilian populations. Crudely put together by filling an oil drum or water tank with TNT, oil and shrapnel, these bombs are rolled out the back of helicopters on towns and villages where they cause massive and indiscriminate destruction,’
Yes Anon… sounds like a low tech version of ‘shock and awe’.
If you get Assad to the ICC (which of course the US doesn’t recognise) perhaps you’d like to add breach of copyright to his charge sheet ?
This is partially off topic (in that it’s about BBC bias in Scotland, not Syria), but Craig has spoken about this before, and I reckon it’s of interest to you guys here.
John Robertson, of West of Scotland University recently published a report on bias in terrestrial Scottish Television relating to the Scottish Independence debate, by quantitatively measuring mentions of the subject on early evening news repots. It seems that anti-Independence statements tend to get about three times as much of a hearing as pro-Independence ones – for every broadcastable report of a pro-Independence view, or presentation in a pro-Independence manner, there are three reports doing the same for the anti-Independence campaign. Furthermore, despite a deafening silence from the broadcast media on the subject of this particular report, the BBC has allegedly contacted the academic concerned, and demanded his raw data, presumably so that they can prepare their hatchet job before they let anyone hear about the original report.
The report itself is here.
Derek Bateman’s blog commenting on the brouhaha is here.
Enjoy!
The “University of West Scotland”?
[Once an employee of a Scottish University]
“If you get Assad to the ICC (which of course the US doesn’t recognise) perhaps you’d like to add breach of copyright to his charge sheet ?”
Russia refuses to support sending Assad to the ICC; but of course nobody wants to hear that. Nor the fact that they and the Chinese have vetoed three resolutions designed to put pressure on Assad.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/2013320164619306786.html
Now of course had it been the US using it’s veto….
Before anyone posts a link of course I know it exists. That wasn’t the point.
Kempe,
http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/scact_veto_en.shtml
Who is the veto king over the last 30 years say?