The Geneva II peace conference in Switzerland is attended by forty States, including the Vatican. The purpose? To provide a venue for the Syrian people and the factions dividing them to solve their differences over a conference table, using diplomacy instead of arms? No, anything but. It is a microscope on an emasculated UNO, controlled by the USA.
It is just as well that the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China and Brazil are present at the Geneva II talks, providing at least a chance of a counterweight to an agenda evidently controlled by the Washington-Saudi Axis, as was visible in the invitation to Iran and then its withdrawal, just because Iran stated that it did not come to the conference with any preconceived position or demands and that the onus should be on a venue to provide the Syrians with the means of finding a domestic solution to their issues, a solution made by Syrians for Syrians.
Syrian "Oppositon" or "National Coalition" President Ahmad Jarba, who has close ties to Saudi Arabia, had said before the Conference that its aim should be to depose President al-Assad, a position echoed by Washington and its poodles. Under what right, and who are they to impose conditions? Jarba himself, an ex-con, had been imprisoned twice for treacherous activities and stands as a figure closely linked to arms trafficking to the terrorist forces inflicting so much suffering on the Syrian people.
Without so much support from abroad, namely Washington and its poodles and the Middle East Cooperation Council, namely Saudi Arabia and Qatar, there would be no civil war in Syria and so the claim by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, representing Damascus, that some of those attending have Syrian blood on their hands is true.
While the face-to-face talks begin only on Friday, the outcome is not difficult to see. In fact, the meeting at Geneva is a classic example of how not to organize a peace conference.
For a start, Washington, as usual one of the key players in the conflict due to its belligerence, proxy supporting of terrorist groups and anti-Assad rhetoric, has already called the remarks by Walid Muallem "inflammatory", while saying nothing of the activities of the terrorist groups that Walid Muallem's Government has been combatting heroically, and nothing, indeed, of the part played in these activities by Washington and its minions. What right does Washington have to make any claims over human rights, when it controls the concentration and torture camp at Guantanamo Bay which is a paragon of human rights abuses, where prisoners are held for years without any semblance of due legal process? It is like having a serial rapist presiding over the trial of a paedophile.
Secondly, while Algeria is present, while Morocco is present, along with Belgium, Norway and Greece, and Indonesia, where is Iran, one of the key players in the region as a regional power with direct influence over all the events taking place? Nowhere. Why not invite Burkina Faso and Albania? Why is Iran not present? Maybe because Teheran announced on the same day it was invited that it was going to reveal evidence, documentary evidence, of those with links behind terrorist activities in Syria? The "un"-invitation presented to Iran by Ban Ki-Moon proves whose bed the Secretary-General sleeps in. If this is how the UN behaves, what right does this organization have to present itself as a venue for crisis management? Having such a biased organization hosting such an event is like asking the Inquisition to mastermind the protection of religious minorities or those holding unorthodox beliefs.
Thirdly, Jarba represents exactly whom? A fraction of those taking up arms against the Syrian Government? Or the entire Syrian Opposition? Obviously the former, in which case he is at the talks in what capacity and what right does he have either to represent those who do not recognize him as their representative, or indeed present himself as a credible spokesperson when all he is in fact, is a traitor and a criminal? It is like inviting Jesse James to be sheriff of a town housing a large deposit of banknotes.
Fourthly, let us finish on a constructive note. The way to solve the Syrian civil war is for external forces such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and their masters overseas, to cease aiding, arming, training and financing terrorist groups operating within Syria, to allow the Syrian government forces to exterminate the terrorist elements slicing the breasts off women, raping girls before or after they are beheaded, roasting men alive in ovens or playing football with the heads of decapitated boys, to allow the Syrian people to decide for themselves what they want to do and to stop being so hypocritical. Interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state is illegal.
Well, it is supposed to be. But then again on law-of-the-jungle Planet Earth 2014, anything goes. Including arming terrorists.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru