The (Mental) Case For War.

Today the British government has published the motion it intends to introduce to Parliament tomorrow (2/12/15) seeking authorisation for air-strikes in Syria.

It can be read here; http://news.sky.com/story/1597767/syria-airstrikes-full-text-of-motion

The first thing that strikes me about this motion is that it is a single sentence. A sentence that is 236 words long.

I know that it is a bit rich for me to suddenly come over all Grammar Nazi.

However this motion has been written by highly educated and highly paid civil servants. It has also been signed off by a Prime Minister who it the product of some of the most expensive - and supposedly best - education that this country can offer.

As a result I can only conclude that it is the product of an extremely disordered mind.

This is a problem when we are planning to go to war. After all if the government is unable to coherently communicate it's objectives it stands little chance of being able to achieve those objectives.

Beyond its rather scatty presentation there are also several significant problems with its content.

The first of these is that it cites United Nations Security Council (UNSC) - erm, something - 2249 (2015) as the legal basis for military action. I covered this when it was passed on November 20th (20/11/15); http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/unsc-says-what-now.html

The main problem with it is that it only calls on "Member States that have the capacity to do so" to take action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

This contradicts Chapter 7 of the United Nations (UN) Charter  which was invoked by UNSC Resolution 2170 (2014) and makes clear that all UN member states are obligated to take action against ISIL. Their capacity or will to do so does not come into the equation.

Without the UN Charter there is no UNSC and therefore no UNSC Resolutions. As such the UN Charter is the superior document and by trying to contradict it 2249 (2015) invalidates itself.

The second problem is that the motion invokes the right of self-defence as per the UN Charter. The problem with this is that "Self-Defence" is not a meaningless term you can throw about as you please. Instead it has a strict legal definition as laid out in Chapter 7, Article 51 of the UN Charter.

This makes clear that "Self-Defence" can only be invoked until such a time as the UNSC can meet to address the threat. In the case of ISIL the UNSC met on August 15th 2014 (15/8/14) and passed resolution 2170.

Therefore Article 51 "Self-Defence" can no longer be invoked as authorisation for action against ISIL or action in either Syria or Iraq.

Despite this Turkey has felt it appropriate to invoke Article 51 as grounds to attack anti-ISIL forces in both Syria and Iraq.

If the UK acknowledges the use of Article 51 through the passing of this motion then it is throwing its full support behind those Turkish attacks on anti-ISIL forces. This makes it extremely difficult for the UK to  object to those Turkish attacks in the future.

If the UK wishes to use the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as its 70,000 strong anti-ISIL ground-force in Syria then it is going to have to object to Turkey's attacks on the SDF.

The third significant structural problem with the motion is that it acknowledges what has become know as the "Vienna Process." This is a mechanism in which 60 nations negotiate the overthrow of the Syrian government.

It is in complete violation of Chapter 1 of the UN Charter which makes quite clear that the governance of Syria is an internal matter that cannot be dictated by nations that are not Syria - the concept of "Sovereignty & Territorial Integrity."

This goes to the fundamental question of how we end the Syrian War.

While BBC News and others have told many a torrid tale of a Syrian people yearning to be free only to be cut down by the brutal Assad 'regime' those of us who've actually been paying attention have been seeing a very different story.

We have seen Sunni-Muslim dictators such as Turkey's President/Prime Minister/Emperor itching to expand their fiefdoms across the entire Middle-East. To this end they have sent terrorists into Syria to do battle with its Shia-Muslim government.

In the early days a  favourite tactic of these terrorists was to gather civilians together for a protest march. They then stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these civilians while hiding an AK-47 beneath their jackets. The terrorists would then open fire on the Syrian police forcing them to return fire into the crowd.

As soon as the bullets start to fly the terrorist run and hide while filming the entire scene. This is then posted online as atrocity propaganda to call all Sunnis to the slaughter of the Shia.

They have now progressed to locking civilians in cages on top of buildings in order to boost the body count from these infamous "barrel bombs."

However good luck finding a mainstream media outlet prepared to tell you that these atrocity videos are frequently staged  by an organisation calling itself "Syrian Civil Defence (White Helmets)".

Even better luck finding a news outlet prepared to admit that "Syrian Civil Defence" is simply a trading name of a Dubai based firm of Private Military Contractors (PMC's) headed by British Mercenary James Le Mesurier.

Therefore if the international community was serious about ending the Syrian war it would do now what it should have done in 2011 and make clear that Chapter 1 of the UN Charter is to be enforced under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.

That means that any individual or nation calling for the overthrow of the Syrian government is to be sanctioned. Assets are to be seized, criminal charges filed and if necessary assassinations carried out.

As soon as it is made clear that support for terrorism weakens nations rather then strengthens them then the Syria war would end in the blink of an eye or the click of your fingers.

The UK motion however does the opposite by disregarding the UN Charter and endorsing the illegal overthrow of the Syrian government. This is nothing more then a recipe for war without end.

Therefore not only can I not support this motion as it represents a gross violation of international law it simply cannot be introduced to Parliament for debate or vote.

In fact there seems to be no other option then for the motions 6 sponsors - Cameron, Osborne, May, Hammond, Fallon, Greening - to be permanently expelled from the House of Commons for attempting to bring it into disrepute.

However what I suspect will happen is the exact same thing that happened with the March 2011 vote to attack Libya.

That is to say that I will lay out in great detail exactly why such a motion is both legal and impractical only for MP's to vote for it anyway.

Then in about six months to a year the entire country will be sitting around utterly baffled by why their plan has failed.

22:00 on 1/12/15 (UK date).