On September 30th
2015 (30/9/15) Russia joined the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.
This immediately
tipped the momentum of the conflict against those groups and created the near
certainty that they would soon be defeated.
The international
community responded to this by doing the same thing that it's done at any point
over the past five years where it looks like these groups will be defeated and
the war will finally be over. It demanded peace talks and 'humanitarian'
ceasefires to protect these groups from defeat and keep the war going.
This latest round of
talks did not get off to a particularly stellar start. Amid much confusion and
threats of boycott groups started trickling into Geneva, Switzerland on Friday (29/1/16). After preliminary meetings the talks themselves officially opened
on Tuesday (2/2/16).
Keen to be the centre
of attention alongside the Geneva talks the UK convened a donors conference in
London today in order raise money for Syria and the region. This is a genuine
attempt to raise money with the UK alone pledging USD1.9bn. Unlike the Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia when nations like the UK, Norway and the European Union (EU)
pledge money it has a tendency to actually turn up.
However I don't think
that raising money was the only item on today's agenda. For example British
delegates such as former Prime Minister Gordon Brown have spoken about the need
for a "Marshall Plan" for Syria. The Marshall Plan was a huge
spending program to rebuild Europe - particularly Germany - at the end of the
Second World War. After Russia had liberated Berlin from the Nazis and war had been won.
Today many people in
the UK woke up to an investigation by the Sun newspaper into the activities of
a charity for older people called "Age UK." Essentially the charity
has been taking kick-backs for a utility supplier to bully the older people it
is supposed to be helping onto gas and electricity contracts that cost as much
as three times the market rate.
This obviously raises
questions about the integrity of the charity sector. Today of course is World Cancer Day when the ever present whine from the UK's cancer charites reaches fever pitch.
Today also saw the
news that a business man with a certainly Muslim sounding name had been shot
and killed in what is presumed to be an attempted robbery in the UK city of
Birmingham. Although it is nowhere near as bad as Donald Trump likes to claim
Birmingham does have the rather dubious honour of sending more recruits to ISIL
then any other British city. The fact that it's strict gun control laws did
nothing to prevent this shooting raises the issue of the terror threat to the
UK.
The deceased man -
Akhtar Javeed - is said to have operated a food import and distribution business. With
the shooting being described as "targeted" it seems obvious that one
of the first questions the police will be asking is; "What else was Mr Javeed importing and distributing?"
This of course raises
the issue of those highly questionable Sunni-Muslim charities that are raising
money to provide 'humanitarian assistance' within Syria.
It also raises the
question of why formally respectable international aid organisations such as
the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent (ICRC) and the UN's World
Food Program (WFP) are effectively gun-running for groups like the Army of
Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) in places like Madaya under the guise of peace
negotiations.
According to some
reports Mr Javeed's business specialised in soft-drinks. The world's largest
manufacturer of soft-drinks is Coca-Cola.
The Turkish
government has something of an odd relationship with Coca-Cola. During the 2014
Gaza war many Turkish government officials made a point of switching from Coke
to drinking the Coca-Cola owned "Fanta" brand. Having absolutely no
impact on the profits of Coca-Cola this was the Turkish government signalling
its support for what Nazi Germany did to the Jews during the holocaust. After
all Fanta was invented to circumvent sanctions on Nazi Germany.
Turkey is currently
trying to repair its diplomatic relationship with Israel which for some reason
has deteriorated in recent years. Turkey is claiming that what is slowing down
negotiations is Israel's refusal to lift its blockade of Gaza. That blockade
was of course largely lifted prior to the 2014 war. As a result Coca-Cola are
in the process of opening a bottling plant in Gaza.
As such the
soft-drink angle seems to be specifically singling out Turkey's 'humanitarian'
efforts in Syria. Without much prompting Turkey has responded with two small -
roughly soft-drink can sized - firebombs in Istanbul.
The UK of course
rather had its thunder stolen because although they are negotiating in good
faith this time around Russia and the Syrian government aren't halting military
operations for this latest round of talks. Just yesterday (3/2/16) the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) finally broke the years long siege on the villages of Nubul and Zahraa in Aleppo Province. This leaves Aleppo City surrounded on three sides and the SAA seemingly poised to move in to liberate it.
It almost goes without say that Turkey are less than happy about this. The Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu effectively used today's summit to threaten to flood the EU with even more refugees unless the SAA's advance is halted.
As they are negotiating in bad faith
groups like JAI have responded to the denial of this pre-condition by
effectively storming out of Geneva. They've promised to end the ceasefire they had supposedly called for the Geneva talks in the next two days. However with 10 civilians being killed in JAI rocket barrages on Damascus and Deraa just yesterday (3/2/16) I think we would struggle to notice the difference.
As a result yesterday (3/2/16) the Geneva
talks were suspended until February 25th (25/2/16).
Hopefully that
suspension will go on for much longer because amid all this diplomacy trying to
getting anything done in regards to ISIL is a bit like tap dancing in a
minefield. John Kerry is certainly no Fed Astaire.
20:25 on 4/2/16 (UK date).
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