Syria and the Geneva 2 charade
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.
RT
Jan 22, 2014

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (C) opens the so-called Geneva II peace talks next to UN-Arab League envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi (L) on January 22, 2014 in Montreux. (AFP Photo)
In the summertime, people flock to Montreux, Switzerland, to follow the jazz festival. This week, though, the ‘performance’ is by a positively un-swinging lot, part of the (in theory) very serious Geneva 2 conference on Syria.
What is Geneva 2 for? It has nothing to do with ‘peace’. It won’t yield an international deal to end the Syrian tragedy. The horrible war facts on the ground will remain facts, and horrible; many perpetrators won’t be gathering in Montreux. Syrian civil society has not even been invited.
And then the whole charade degenerated into pitiful parody even before it started.
This past Sunday, it seemed that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had decided to spring out of his trademark vegetable slumber, inviting Iran to Geneva 2. The invitation lasted less than 24 hours; after the requisite ‘pressure’ by Washington – instigated by those sterling democrats of the House of Saud – it was duly rescinded.
Thus we had Ban Ki-moon parroting the US State Department, according to which Tehran had not agreed to the principles of the Geneva 1 communiqué, which called for a sustained cessation of armed violence. Iranian diplomats strongly begged to differ, stressing how Tehran understands that the basis of the talks is the full implementation of the previous, June 2012 conference, even if Iran was not part of it.
Ban Ki-moon also invited the Holy See, as well as Australia, Luxembourg, Mexico and the Republic of Korea, among others, to Montreux; as if these actors had any clue about what’s going on in Syria.
But the apex of the farce is that Iran cannot go, while Saudi Arabia and Qatar – who continue to weaponize every Syrian ‘rebel’ in sight, from young adrenaline seekers to Western-supported Takfiris and beheaders – can. And will.
VIDEO — Canadian Children Being Indoctrinated Into Agenda 21
Canadian Awareness Network
Jan 19, 2014
Richard Heathen of Liberty Machine News sent us a document titled “Canadian youth action guide for Agenda 21”.
The document is designed to get Canadian children involved in the United Nations Agenda 21 (sustainable development) movement that is taking over our nation, and bringing us closer to global government.
Full document in pdf: http://www.lsf-lst.ca/media/agenda21….
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Information about agenda 21:
http://canadianawareness.org/?s=agend…
Interview with Rosa Kiore about Agenda 21:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLPfxD…
Canadian Awareness Network:
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VIDEO — Central African Carnage: Kids beheaded as ethnic violence ‘out of control’
RT
Jan 3, 2014
The sectarian slaughter in the Central African Republic has reached a vicious new level according to the UN. Reports are emerging even children are being lynched by marauding mobs.And that’s despite France’s military intervention as RT’s Maria Finoshina reports.
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VIDEO — Oil & Chaos: UN wants to double forces in Sudan amid growing violence
RT
Dec 24, 2013
The former vice-president of South Sudan – who’s now leading an armed rebellion – has said he may negotiate with the government. That’s according to the U.S. special envoy there, who is working frantically to prevent the country from falling apart, a situation that would harm Washington’s interests. Chaos and bloodletting have spiraled over the past two weeks with inter-ethnic killings, and intense battles for control over oil-rich areas. Paula Slier reports. READ MORE http://on.rt.com/ttsdi4
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Hotel shortage may push Syria peace talks out of Geneva
NWO Truth
Dec 3, 2013
The much-anticipated “Geneva II” Syrian peace talks might not be held in Geneva due to insufficient hotel availability, UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said in an interview broadcast Tuesday.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon finally set a date last week for the peace conference, which has been repeatedly postponed since June and is now set to kick off on January 22.
But while UN organisers were glad to finally have a date to work towards, they now find themselves in a pickle, Brahimi acknowledged in an interview with public broadcaster RTS. (Read more…)
The conference is due to begin on the same day the global elite gathers for the annual World Economic Forum at the swank Swiss ski resort of Davos and will also clash with a luxury watch fair in Geneva.
The city’s hotels are fully booked, leading organisers to look for alternatives.
One of them is Montreux — a scenic town at the other end of Lake Geneva and known for its jazz festival — to gather Syria’s warring parties for peace talks.
“If we go to Montreux, it would be for just 24 hours, while waiting for the watch show and Davos to end,” Brahimi told RTS.
Montreux is just over an hour’s train ride from Geneva, but the veteran Algerian diplomat explained that people who come to Geneva are often unwilling to accept a long commute.
“If you go to New York, you know that it will take you an hour or two to get into town, and you accept that,” he said.
“In Geneva you are used to being just 10 minutes from the airport, so if we told people they would have to travel for an hour and 15 minutes, they would say, oh la la.”
UN spokeswoman Corinne Momal-Vanian confirmed that the ministerial-level meeting on January 22 itself “may indeed be held outside of Geneva because of logistics reasons.”
She said no decision had yet been made.
When asked whether the conference would have to be renamed if moved, Momal-Vanian said: “We try not to respond to hypothetical questions.”
[Image via Agence France-Presse]
[VIA The Raw Story]
VIDEO — ‘Terrorists from 83 countries fighting in Syria’ – FM to UN Assembly 2013 (FULL SPEECH)
RT
October 1, 2013
The Syrian government is fighting against “terrorist groups from 83 countries” as part of its “constitutional right” to protect the country’s people, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told the UN General Assembly in New York. READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/p430na
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Preempting The Next Round of Lies Against Syria
What the UN report on Syria will say & what the liars in the West will claim it says.
Tony Cartalucci
Activist Post
September 14, 2013
The bottom line regarding the UN’s upcoming report regarding the August 21, 2013 chemical weapons attack in Damascus, Syria is best summed up by the BBC’s article, “Syria crisis: UN report to confirm chemical arms attack” [emphasis added]:
Ban Ki-moon made no comment on who was to blame for the 21 August attack in the Ghouta area of Damascus, as that is not part of the report’s remit.

image source: http://tinyurl.com/o94to3r
Despite this, the United States and its axis of collaborators are already trying to spin the report as confirmation that the Syrian government was responsible.
Relying entirely on the momentum of its massive media networks and their ability to “will” reality into any shape they please, headlines such as “United Nations’ Syria chemical weapons report “overwhelming,” shamelessly attempt to link two out of context statements by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon regarding the Syria government’s “crimes against humanity” and the confirmed use of chemical weapons in Damascus Syria, to place in the mind of readers assigned blame for the attacks.
In reality, the UN inspectors that were stampeded out of Damascus in the middle of their work, fearing an impending unilateral US military attack, were only attempting to determine how victims in eastern Damascus died, not who killed them. Independent assessments of who was responsible for the attack have not been carried out. The best the US has been able to do is suggest terrorists operating in Syria were incapable of such an attack, leaving only the Syrian government as a possible suspect.
Of course this single point of contention is dispelled by the US’ own policy in the region. CNN’s “Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons,” reported that:
The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday.
The training, which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.
Militant groups operating inside Syria with Western “contractors” (read: mercenaries, see: Blackwater) are more than capable of handling and deploying the weapons, and therefore more than capable of carrying out the attacks in question. The only argument left for the US is whether or not these militants, aligned with Al Qaeda, possess the will or motivation to do so. That doing so and framing the Syrian government would serve as impetus for direct US military intervention and therefore the salvation of the crumbling militant offensive, is more than motivation enough.
UN’s Complicity in Ongoing Syrian Bloodbath
And while Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s comments were taken out of context, that he has seemingly failed to also call for accountability of Syria’s so-called “opposition” smacks of partiality – partiality exhibited by the UN throughout the Syrian conflict. Additionally, the UN’s failure to question who in fact is arming, funding, and logistically supporting verified terrorist organizations within and around Syria’s borders is equally troubling.
Al Qaeda has been active in Syria since the conflict began, and according to the US State Department’s own assessment titled, “Terrorist Designations of the al-Nusrah Front as an Alias for al-Qa’ida in Iraq:”
Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.
Could the UN be so out of touch with reality that it doesn’t realize an operation of this scale surely is state-sponsored, and that the question of who is funding, arming, and otherwise supporting such an extensive operation never seemed important enough to publicly ask?
Examining the UN’s role in the Syrian crisis must also include its 2011 UN Human Rights Council’s report (full text .pdf), and its most recent report published August of this year (.doc). These are nothing more than a collection of “interviews” conducted abroad with “witnesses” provided by Syrian “opposition groups” and alleged defectors, augmented with fabrications and biased spin provided by Western-funded “NGOs” openly working for armed militants inside Syria.
Image: Screenshot from the Washington D.C.-based Middle East Policy Council’s board of directors from which the UN has drawn Karen Koning AbuZayd as head of their recent “expert panel” on Syria. With fellow board members representing the collective interests of the American and Gulf State corporate-financier interests currently underwriting armed militants inside Syria, the conflict of interest resigns the legitimacy of the report – based entirely on “interviews” – as well as the legitimacy of the UN itself.
The UN panel for the 2011 report and the more recent 2013 report were co-headed by Karen Koning AbuZayd, a director of the US Washington-based corporate think-tank, Middle East Policy Council. Its board of directors includes Exxon men, CIA agents, representatives of the Saudi Binladin Group (Osama Bin Laden’s family business), former ambassadors to Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, US military and government representatives, and even the president of the US-Qatar Business Council, which includes amongst its membership, AlJazeera, Chevron, Exxon, munitions manufacturer Raytheon (who supplied the opening salvos during NATO’s operations against Libya), and Boeing.
Image: Just some of the corporate members of the US-Qatar Business Council, whose president just so happens to sit on the same board of directors of the Middle East Policy Center as Karen AbuZayd, co-author of, now multiple, conveniently timed UN reports on Syria.
In other words, the very underwriters of the armed militancy that is consuming Syria, US, Saudi, Qatari, and Israeli interests, are sitting along side the head of the UN commission producing reports portraying the Syrian government as guilty of “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The UN is a diverse organization with both impartial and overtly biased interests busily at work. The utility of the UN’s statements, reports, and investigations must be determined not by the rhetoric that surrounds them, spun either by the Secretary General himself or by media organizations abroad, but rather by whatever solid, verifiable evidence that may be present, if it is indeed even present. The 2011 and 2013 UNHRC reports are throw-away propaganda based solely on biased hearsay. The most recent UN report regarding the August 21, 2013 chemical attacks in Damascus, according to the UN itself, DOES NOT ASSIGN BLAME, but merely confirms that chemical weapons were used – a point that is not contended by either side of the conflict.
This point above all else, must be kept in mind ahead of a predictable barrage of propaganda by faltering Western interests determined to use the UN report to “confirm” their wholly rejected conclusions and prescribed solutions regarding Syria.
Tony Cartalucci’s articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at Land Destroyer Report, Alternative Thai News Network and LocalOrg.
Read other contributed articles by Tony Cartalucci here.

