Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Syrian Rebels Stand Tall in the Negotiating Fields of Geneva
The Syrian peace talks in Geneva have adjourned early as the opposition demands that the government address the question of a transition of power. Opposition spokesmen said they wanted the Syrian government to take time to come up with a proposal on the issue. The talks are stalled over the issue, especially over the future role of President Bashar al-Assad. UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi also said that there had been no breakthrough on getting aid to the city of Homs. Government and opposition delegates held a joint session with Brahimi on Tuesday morning. On previous days that has been followed be separate meetings with each delegation in the afternoon, but the opposition has said it will not meet today. Opposition delegate Rima Fleihan told the French AFP agency : "The regime is not co-operating on any subject, not on humanitarian issues and not on a transitional governing body." Another opposition delegate, Murhaf Jouejati, told AP the delay would give the government time "to come out with their own vision for a future Syria." At a news conference later today, Brahimi said : "We have not had any breakthrough but we are still at it and this is good enough as far as I am concerned." He said that he had cancelled the meeting "with no request or pressure from either side." Brahimi also said that a convoy bearing humanitarian aid was still waiting to enter Homs, reporting that the al-Assad government has not given permission. Concerning the evacuation of women and children from Homs, the al-Assad regime continues to say that they are always free to leave, adding that men may also leave, if their names are given to the government. The opposition calls this a ruse meant to arrest the men and bring retribution down upon their families. Some 2,500 people have been trapped in the Old City of Homs since June 2012, without access to food and medical supplies. On Tuesday, the governor of Homs province said a UN official was in contact with rebel fighters in besieged parts of the city concerning the evacuation of civilians, while the UN's World Food Program said it was ready to deliver a month of rations when it gets clearance from both sides. Opposition delegate in Geneva, Louay Safi, said that the rebel Free Syria Army was prepared to lift a siege on three shia villages in the north, allegedly being used as bases by the government from which to attack Aleppo, if this came as part of a wider deal to lift sieges across the country. Western diplomats are now warning that if an agreement on aid to Homs is not reached by next week, they will prepare a resolution for the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, fighting goes on in Syria. The opposition says al-Assad attacks and bombing are killing on average 100 people every day, to add to the 130,000 already dead and the 9.5 million displaced in the civil war that started in 2011. ~~~~~ Dear readers, are we surprised? No, but what does surprise me is the complete collapse of the al-Assad-Russia-Iran axis public face. The world has been fed a public relations tale that paints al-Assad as the reasonable leader of a nation filled with desperate, wild-eyed "terrorists" determined to bring down civilization in Syria. What we were also told was that the opposition is a barely organized amalgam of various factions who could not agree on anything, never mind negotiate. The reality on the negotiating grounds of Geneva? An al-Assad regime that has stonewalled - refused humanitarian aid to starving Syrians unless it receives a bloodlist of rebels - a refusal even to address transition, which was the basis for the Geneva I communique, by saying that the rebels should forget their dreams of a Syria without al-Assad. Match this with a serious, organized, flexible opposition that is trying to save lives, remove seiges, and feed starving Syrians. Are we surprised? Of course not. All the PR and soft words in the world cannot paper over the tyrannical, autocratic, inhuman bullies that make up the axis of al-Assad, Iran and Russia.
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The Syrian Civil War will not be settled anyplace other than in Syria among the Syrians. With no clause in any peace treaty that guarantees the Assad goes - better yet that Assad stays in Syria and stands trial , judged by those he has betrayed and murdered so brutality.
ReplyDeleteAssad is one of the true "monster" in this world that ever came to power. Autocratic governments seem to be predestined to end up this way.
"Absolut power corrupts absolutely"
Syria is the visible tip of the iceberg that is made up of nearly 75% of the other Arab world nations and nations that have over 10% Muslin population.
ReplyDeleteWhat we see and are seeing in Syria is functionally possible to be in the headlines in every nation that is comprised of a growing minority of Shiite followers. One only needs to read the accounts of conflict and confrontations in China, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, South America, Northern Africa, and certainly the Arab Peninsula.
If the western nations can quiet the eruptions in Syria, and do it quickly then there is an opportunity to be a force against this moving tide of radical Islamic terror and force.
Autocratic governments rule by fear and violence, murder and force, death and destruction.
Treachery knows NO limits. This is a theocratic civil war that for the most part must be allowed to run it's contained course and reach a final decision by one side or the other.
ReplyDeleteSyrians against Syrians started this war against the autocratic power structure within Syria. What did the world expect from Assad when this all started except rifling up of his terrorism and vindictive murdering response that has been Assad's trade mark for these many long years.
Don't articulate a war you don't have any chance of winning. And right now without outside intervention on a massive scale the defeat of Assad seems to be far out of reach for the rebel forces.
Economic history does have a role in Syria. Is the answer to Syria’s problem more military aid or is it to let history take its path and destroy Syria monetary structure and then go in and re-build the country?
ReplyDeleteWars inflict devastation; life, property, and dreams are destroyed. In the process civil wars — including wars, like Syria’s progressively consume a country’s accumulated capital stock, too. In other words, as wars rage on, the destructive war economy gradually eats away at productive assets like land, factory capacity, and raw materials.
Over time, war consumption and inflation eat up the economy’s physical capital. And, without capital, peoples of war-torn lands face a bleak future. Regrettably, when the dust finally settles in Syria, new questions will have to be addressed. Indeed, Syrians will be left asking, "where’s our capital?" Yes, Syria’s "seed corn" will be nowhere to be found.
Some of the costs of war are hidden under a shroud of inflation. But, inflation, too, is a problem — one that always accompanies civil wars
So, what about the real causes of inflation during civil war? During a war, government expenditures typically must increase, or at least remain the same. After all, the army must be fed, war materiel must be purchased, and civil servants must be paid, subsidies for basic food and fuel items must continue, and so on… While government expenditures remain robust during civil war, the sources of government finance become, well, problematic. The tax system and government administration begin to break down, and tax revenues dry up. Bond financing is nowhere to be found, since investors don’t want to invest in a country that is at war with itself.
Often, combatants, including the central government, pass the begging bowl, seeking foreign aid to fill the fiscal gap. In the case of Syria, officials claim that the government has been receiving a total of $500 million per month from China, Iran, and Russia.
How long will China, Iran & Russia continue to underwrite this Civil War? When will they throw Assad to the dogs? When is his usefulness over?
The release of the White House “Government Assessment” on August 30, providing the purported evidence to support a bombing attack on Syria, defused a conflict with the intelligence community that had threatened to become public through the mass resignation of a significant number of analysts. The intelligence community’s consensus view on the status of the Syrian chemical-weapons program was derived from a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) completed late last year and hurriedly updated this past summer to reflect the suspected use of chemical weapons against rebels and civilians.
ReplyDeleteThe report maintained that there were some indications that the regime was using chemicals, while conceding that there was no conclusive proof. There was considerable dissent from even that equivocation, including by many analysts who felt that the evidence for a Syrian government role was subject to interpretation and possibly even fabricated. Some believed the complete absence of U.S. satellite intelligence on the extensive preparations that the government would have needed to make in order to mix its binary chemical system and deliver it on target was particularly disturbing. These concerns were reinforced by subsequent UN reports suggesting that the rebels might have access to their own chemical weapons. The White House, meanwhile, considered the somewhat ambiguous conclusion of the NIE to be unsatisfactory, resulting in considerable push back against the senior analysts who had authored the report.