Masters of War [Song]

Uploaded by ForeverMoreTatiana
MASTERS OF WAR
Composed by Bob Dylan (1963)
Performed by Tatiana Moroz

Come you masters of war, you the builder of guns
You that build the death planes, you that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls, you that hide behind desks
I just want you to know I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothing but build to destroy
You play with my world like it's your little toy
You put a gun in his hand and you hide from his eyes
And you turn and run farther when the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old, you lie and deceive
A world war can be won, you want me to believe
But I see through your eyes and I see through your brain
Like I see through the water that runs down my drain.

You fasten all the triggers for the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch when the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion as young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies and is buried in the mud.

You've thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children into the world
For threatening my baby, unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins.

How much do I know to talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young, you might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know, though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question, "Is your money that good?"
"Will it buy you forgiveness? Do you think that it could?"
And I think you will find when your death takes its toll
All the money you made will never buy back your soul.

And I hope that you die and your death will come soon
I will follow your casket on a pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered down into your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead.

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance! ..............................................................................................................................  

 

A Note From The Gull

Thank you, Bob Dylan...and the way things are going, this song is going to be relevant until this world ends or we end it. This song expresses the anguish that is sown in people's souls when governments that are allowed too much power by their citizens and by the rest of the world, are bent on bringing death and destruction to those who displease them.

Why this rush to attack Syria? With the knowledge of all that has gone before, why am I even asking this question? Why not wait for the UN Weapons Inspectors to do their investigations and present their findings? Like many people with imperfect information, at this point I cannot point an accusing finger with any confidence. What makes you so certain? Rebels or Syrian government? Unlike some, however, I am not afraid of what the inspectors could find.

Reports: U.S.-led Rebels Sent into Syria Before Chemical Attack.
By Alex Newman | New American | Monday, 26 August 2013 11:30

Then see this report by the US government "Government Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013", which begins:

"The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013. We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack. These all-source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open source reporting. Our classified assessments have been shared with the U.S. Congress and key international partners. To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence – but what follows is an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis of what took place."

..."The body of information used to make this assessment includes intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition."

..."We have intelligence that leads us to assess that Syrian chemical weapons personnel – including personnel assessed to be associated with the SSRC – were preparing chemical munitions prior to the attack. In the three days prior to the attack, we collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence that reveal regime activities that we assess were associated with preparations for a chemical weapons attack.

"Syrian chemical weapons personnel were operating in the Damascus suburb of ‘Adra from Sunday, August 18 until early in the morning on Wednesday, August 21 near an area that the regime uses to mix chemical weapons, including sarin. On August 21, a Syrian regime element prepared for a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus area, including through the utilization of gas masks. Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons." SOURCE

So, what they are alleging is that using their spying...pardon me, their intelligence gathering capability, they knew about the plans to carry out the chemical weapons attack three days in advance? AND????.....What did they do to prevent it? Why didn't they threaten the Syrian government at that point? Why didn't they threaten that government, tell them that their plot had been uncovered and blow the whistle so the whole world would be on alert? Why didn't they warn the Syrian people? Why did they just sit back and wait so that complicity is the only word now to describe their inaction when all the citizens and especially the children that they are crying over now needed them to exercise their conveniently absent responsibility to protect? Their only excuse now will be that there was a long delay in making sense of the "intelligence" and even that excuse is hard to accept considering that especially at this time, they must take information gathering and analysis in this part of the world very seriously.

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

"Scoundrel Time: The Situation In Syria."

Scoundrel Time: The Situation In Syria.
By Jeremy Salt
Palestine Chronicle | February 15, 2012

Even though we are used to double standards, the moral posturing over Syria in recent weeks has been quite a spectacle. At the UN Security Council, Susan Rice bellows her disgust at the use of the veto by Russia and China, when the US has used the veto more than 60 times, mostly to protect Israel. Horror at the violence is sounded by the delegates of the same powers that have dismantled Libya and ended the lives of an estimated two million Iraqis through warfare and sanctions since 1991. When Saudi Arabia and Qatar call for political reform in Syria and an end to the violence, hypocrisy is displaced by farce. Their gulf ally, King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa of Bahrain, told Der Spiegel that Bashar al Assad should listen to his people. There is no opposition in Bahrain, according to His Majesty: ‘we only have people with different views’. If he had to declare a state of emergency it was because ‘our women were very scared and it is the duty of a gentleman to protect women, so I had to protect them’. Apparently the head-scarfed women in the front ranks of the demonstrators needed protecting from themselves.

These two gulf sponsors of salafism across the region sabotaged the Arab League monitors’ mission in Syria the moment it came up with findings they didn’t like and now they want a second bite at the cherry, a joint UN/Arab League ‘peace-keeping’ mission set up in its place. Syria has said no and if this proposal goes before the UNSC Russia and China will probably use their veto again. The airing of the issue at the UN General Assembly might be useful on the propaganda front but will not change the basic situation one way or the other. The only avenue for positive action at the UN is the Security Council and now that the US and its allies are being blocked there they are having to think of alternatives. By eschewing the role of constructive arbiter in favor of active support for the policy of regime change being pursued by the US, Britain, France and their regional allies, the Arab League has disqualified itself from the right to play any role at all. It is simultaneously shutting Syria out and then demanding that it be let back into Syria. It says it does not want international intervention in Syria but then it calls for it through the presence of UN ‘peacekeepers’. An organization which has never put itself on the line for Arab causes has now blatantly turned itself into the pliant instrument of the most regressive governments in the Arab world and their western backers.

In the past year the governments which have now withdrawn their ambassadors from Damascus have not come up with one constructive solution to the crisis in Syria. They have blocked dialogue and negotiations and done everything they can to deepen the turmoil, in the clear hope that chaos would culminate in the collapse of a regime that is Iran’s most important regional ally. Their willing helpers include Ayman al Zawahiri, Shaikh Yusuf Qaradawi and the takfiri gangs they are urging on to destroy the Alawi heretics. Those so blinded by their hatred of the Baathist regime that they are calling for open outside intervention to destroy it need to look at history. Not once in the past 200 years has western intervention ended well for the local people. The record is consistent from the appearance of Napoleon’s army off the Egyptian coast in 1798 up to the destruction of Iraq as a secular unified state, and the establishment of the Kurdish north as a springboard for Israeli-US sabotage and assassination in Iran. Libya is a complete mess, a melange of squabbling militias fighting for territory and still taking revenge on those identified as ‘Gaddafi loyalists’. The transitional government in Tripoli is a phantom. Hardly surprising that this phantom has recognized another phantom, the Syrian National Council, as the legitimate government of Syria. Fighting amongst itself, stacked with exiles close to the US State Department, at odds with the internal opposition and accused of corruption by the head of the Free Syrian Army, Riad al Assad, this council is completely dysfunctional.

The moral posturing over Syria contrasts with the moral indifference of western governments when killing suits their purposes. Recall the exchange in 1996 between US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and CBS 60 Minutes interviewer Lesley Stahl on the human cost of the sanctions imposed on Iraq:

“Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

“Albright: I think this is a very hard choice but the price – we think the price is worth it.”

Yes, ‘we’ always do. About 50,000 Libyans were killed during the attack on their country by the US, Britain and France, with Qatar and other states playing a supporting role. During Israel’s onslaught on Lebanon in 2006 Condoleezza Rice held the door open week after week in the hope that Hezbollah could be destroyed no matter how many civilians were killed. In 2008 the US, the EU and distant western acolytes such as Australia blamed Hamas for an Israeli attack on Gaza which pulverized the civilian population. Where was the Arab League then – where has it ever been when it comes to mobilizing support for the Palestinians? When it voted for the ‘peacekeeper’ mission, did it even notice the storming of the Haram al Sharif on the same day by dozens of settlers determined to build the third temple on the ruins of the Aqsa mosque?

In Iraq wars and sanctions have accounted for the lives of about two million people since 1991 plus, following the invasion of 2003, the greatest refugee outflow in the Middle East since Palestine in 1948. Who was it who kept the sanctions going? The US and Britain. Under whose aegis were they maintained? The UN. Does anyone have to ask why this institution and these governments are distrusted across the Middle East? Mr Jose Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, where is your moral conscience and sense of justice when it comes to the victims of wars launched by the US, Britain and France? Why do you show no interest in prosecuting the heads of the government of Israel for its violations of international law? Why are you not following up the prima facie evidence of war crimes committed in Libya during missile attacks by British, French and American aircraft? Why were you so eager to prosecute Muammar Qadhafi when no crime he is said to have committed in his 40 years compares even remotely to the crimes for which George Bush and Tony Blair were responsible in Iraq? Of course, these are questions for which we do not need an answer because the ICC is yet another instrument in the toolbox of western governments, to be used only when it serves their interests. The most recent measurement of the value of Iraqi lives spent with such abandon was handed down by the US military court which imposed a reduction in the rank of the soldier who participated in the massacre of 24 people at Haditha, young and old and a man in a wheelchair among them. That was all he got – a reduction in his rank for a crime that would have automatically warranted the death sentence in a civilian court had it been committed in his own country. The spectacle of American soldiers pissing on the bodies of dead Afghans is a perfect metaphor for the decision of this court and the demonstrable indifference of the US government behind pro forma expressions of regret towards the killing of civilians in countries it thinks necessary to attack.

Torrents of propaganda continue to pour through the western mainstream media. Anything that will damage Syria will do, no matter how farfetched (i.e. the claim in the London Guardian that the Syrian government is packing detainees into shipping containers and dumping them at sea) or unverifiable. Except for occasional faceless references, the civilian and military victims of the Free Syrian Army and the armed gangs are entirely invisible. There are no images of their bodies and their funerals and no reporting of the grief of their relatives, yet amidst the dross some nuggets of the alternative truth are appearing. The following passages are taken from a report by BBC correspondent Paul Woods, reporting from in and near Homs (BBC News web site, ‘Syria’s slide towards civil war’, February 12, 2012):

“The [Free Syrian Army] commander near Qusayr told me they were fighting for all of Syria’s religions and sects: Christian, Muslim, Alawite, Sunni, Druze, Shia. ‘We are experiencing freedom for the first time’, said Maj Ahmad Yaya. But his next words left no doubt, either, that for many, this is a religious – and Islamic – struggle against the secular Baath regime. ‘For the first time’, he went on, ‘we are able to proclaim the word of God throughout this land’. The official doctrine of the FSA is that it is only there to protect the unarmed demonstrators. In fact, the FSA is waging an escalating guerrilla war.

“We followed Maj Yaya’s group of fighters as they attacked an army base near the town [Qusayr]. The attack was big, more than 60 men. In contrast to the fighters in Libya, they were trained, disciplined and followed a plan …

“Inevitably they failed. After an hour of firing on the base they had to flee when the government started using heavy weapons, dropping mortar shells on the hill. Afterwards one of the FSA fighters showed me a video he had filmed in December. They had ambushed a convoy of armoured vehicles. Eight of the security forces were killed, 11 captured. The video showed the prisoners, in camouflage uniform, lined up facing a wall. Some were bleeding after the battle. Their arms were raised. One turned to the camera, looking petrified. The man who’d taken the pictures said that despite their uniforms their ID cards showed that they were shabiha (or ghosts), the hated government paramilitary force.

“’We killed them’, he told me
‘You killed your prisoners?’
‘Yes, of course. They were executed later. That is the policy for Shabiha.’”

I checked with an officer. While soldiers were released, he said, members of the Shabiha were ‘executed’ after a hearing before a panel of FSA military judges. To explain, they showed me a film taken from the mobile phone of a captured Shabiha. Prisoners lay face down on the ground, hands tied behind their backs. One by-one, their heads were cut off. The man wielding the knife said, tauntingly, to the first: ‘This is for freedom’. As the victim’s neck opened up, he went on: ‘This is for our martyrs. And this is for collaborating with Israel’.

These are the people who have been holed up inside Homs. The city itself is no more in the hands of the ‘rebels’ any more than Zabadani ever was but large numbers of armed men have succeeded in entrenching themselves inside certain quarters and the Syrian army has been told to get them out. Civilians are obviously being caught in between. According to latest reports, British and Qatari special forces are operating alongside them. Seeing that they were on the ground in Libya, this should surprise no-one. Augmenting the violence between the ‘rebels’ and the army are the bombings in Damascus and Aleppo and the murders of large numbers of civilians by home-grown takfiris and imports from other countries, urged on by Ayman al Zawahiri and the bloodthirsty clerics given a home and air time in Doha.

Syria is now the focal point of a standoff between Russia and China on one side and the US and its allies on the other. Russia and China are calling for a solution through negotiations but for the US anything less than the downfall of the Syrian government will be a defeat. For Russia and China the issue is not just Syria or the attempt by the US to use the Arab spring for a little spring-cleaning of its own in the Middle East, but the way in which the US is pressing hard against Russian strategic concerns in the Caucasus and Central Asia and against Chinese interests in Central Asia and the Far East. Syria is where Russia and China have drawn their own line in the sand. The west got away with it in Iraq and Libya but enough is enough. That is the message coming from Moscow and Beijing.

The same governments that are calling for an end to the violence in Syria are stimulating it, while keeping open armed intervention on the table as an option they may eventually choose to pick up. Given that it is only across the borders of Turkey or Jordan (or both simultaneously) that such an operation could be launched, the ball will land in their court if the decision is taken. As a major regional player with a big army, Turkey’s position is a critical component in western planning. In the past 12 months its regional policy has been significantly refigured. The onset of the ‘Arab spring’ precipitated the abandonment of the ‘zero problem’ policy fashioned largely by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu. This had worked well, resolving outstanding problems with Syria and Iran and leading to visa-less travel across borders for Turks and the citizens of neighboring countries.

Turkey’s initial response to the ‘Arab spring’ was cautious. It only called on Mubarak to step down when it was clear that he was finished. In Libya it refused to support the no-fly resolution before coming in behind the campaign to destroy the government in Tripoli. When Syria’s turn came, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan and his Foreign Minister staked out a position which has proven to be fraught with domestic, regional and global difficulties. They claim to have given Bashar al Assad advice last summer which he did not accept. This was probably the case but as the advice they reportedly gave was for him to bring the Muslim Brotherhood into government, this was not advice he could have accepted. Syria is a secular state and the Muslim Brotherhood is a proscribed organization. However, declaring that they had done all they could to bring him around, they joined the governments calling on Bashar to step down. They clearly wanted to be seen as riding the wave of reform, although the rhetoric of taking on authoritarian regimes obviously raised the question of why Turkey had nothing to say about repression and the lack of basic human rights in Saudi Arabia and other autocratic gulf states.

The architects of Turkey’s new policy imposed sanctions on Syria (damaging long-distance hauliers and the interests of merchants on the other side of the Syrian border in southeastern Turkey) and threw their weight behind the Syrian National Council (the Syrian equivalent of the Iraqi National Congress) and the ‘rebels’ calling themselves the Free Syrian Army. Their guest, Riad al Assad, openly declared that the mission of the armed men under his command was to kill Syrian soldiers. This is what they have been doing. In a country which purports to live by the slogan of ‘peace at home and peace in the world’ and has had more than its fair share of violence originating from beyond its borders, this would seem to be a questionable position for any Turkish government to be taking. The narrative coming from the top in Turkey has been dominated by the theme of one-way violence directed by the Syrian state against civilians. The scale of the violence directed against Syrian soldiers and civilians by armed gangs and armed men described as ‘defectors’ from the Syrian army (with no evidence ever being provided that all or most of them are), along with their sabotage of railways, power stations and oil pipelines, has never been acknowledged.

In confronting Syria, Turkey has complicated relations with Iran, Lebanon and Iraq. Relations with Iraq have been further aggravated by accusations from Nuri al Maliki of Turkish interference in Iraq’s affairs. The additional irritant in the relationship with Iran is Turkey’s decision to allow the US to install a ‘defensive’ anti-missile’ radar base in the eastern province of Malatya. In aligning itself with the US, the EU and the gulf states on Syria the Turkish Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister have placed their country in an awkward and potentially very dangerous position. The quarrel is not just with Bashar any longer but with Russia and China. Three basic policy choices would seem to lie ahead of Turkey. One is to continue support for the war of attrition being waged by the Syrian ‘rebels’ in the hope that eventually the government will disintegrate. As there is no prospect of this happening in the near future, Turkey is tied to a policy which has no end point in sight. The second is to back off and formulate a new position based on herding the Syrian opposition into a process of dialogue whether they like it or not. This choice would put prudence before loss of face. The third choice depends on decisions that will be taken elsewhere. If the US does eventually raise the stakes to the highest level and picks up the option of open armed intervention – the militarization of this conflict as Obama calls it – Turkey will be asked to deliver.

The Turkish Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister clearly have a sense of mission about Turkey’s place in the world and their personal place in history but they would scarcely be the first successful politicians to be led astray by folie de grandeur into biting off more than they can chew. Turkey is an important regional player with a lot to contribute, but is intervention in the affairs of a neighboring country, covert or overt, and support for a ‘rebel’ force whose sense of justice and standards of behavior have been described above, really the kind of contribution the Turkish people want their government to make?

- Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.

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A Note From The Gull

On the same day when the Trinidad Express was directing our attention to the Prime Minister's footwear, our country's representative in the UN General Assembly was voting YES along with 137 other countries in the United Nations General Assembly to interfere in the internal affairs of another country by backing a resolution supporting an Arab League plan calling for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down and strongly condemning human rights violations by his regime.

We should have refused to vote along with the seventeen other abstainers, if we were not sufficiently informed or confident enough to vote NO like the following countries: Bolivia, Belarus, Cuba, China, Ecuador, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. But I guess "we" were confident based on "reliable sources" that our vote was based on facts and the exercise was not just the usual going along to get along. I say "We" even though I know that our votes in international fora are not necessarily always representative of the will of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.

As Libya attempts to collect its entrails and is the scene of more carnage since its "liberation" in October 2011, than was ever the case under the assassinated Gaddafi, I would have expected Trinidad and Tobago to be wiser.

But it's all good, not so? We do to others what we happily invite others to do to us.

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

This Is What It Sounds Like When Hawks Cry.

Susan Rice (USA) on Syria - Security Council Media Stakeout | 04 February 2012

Straddling the moral high ground with spurs on... Some hollow righteous indignation and testicular comments to the media by H.E. Ms. Susan Rice, Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations on Syria following the 6711th meeting of the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East.

My lady, you are good enough to impress starved rodents and perhaps wilted lettuce but many of us remember all the other resolutions which your country voted against, and will continue to block, because the ones standing in need of help are not your buddies or cannot help to further your goals. By the way, Obama must be silently thanking Russia and China for stalling the process. I wonder how the American people would respond to the additional expense of him sticking his beak into yet another country's internal affairs in this election year.

Below is the text of the proposed UN Security Council resolution on Syria vetoed today by Russia and China. The co-sponsors were unsurprisingly:- Morocco [Dictatorship], France, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Portugal, Colombia, Togo, Libya, Bahrain [Dictatorship], Jordan [Dictatorship], Kuwait [Dictatorship], Qatar [Dictatorship], Saudi Arabia [Dictatorship], United Arab Emirates [Dictatorship], Oman [Dictatorship], Turkey.

The Security Council,

Recalling its presidential statement of 3 August 2011,

Recalling General Assembly resolution A/RES/66/176 of 19 December 2011, as well as Human Rights Council resolutions S/16-1, S/17-1 and S/18-1,

Noting the League of Arab States’ request in its decision of 22 January 2012,

Expressing grave concern at the deterioration of the situation in Syria, and profound concern at the death of thousands of people and calling for an immediate end to all violence,

Welcoming the League of Arab States’ Action Plan of 2 November 2011 and its subsequent decisions, including its decision of 22 January 2012, which aims to achieve a peaceful resolution of the crisis,

Noting the deployment of the League of Arab States’ observer mission, commending its efforts, regretting that, due to the escalation in violence, the observer mission was not in a position to monitor the full implementation of the League of Arab States’ Action Plan of 2 November 2011, and noting the subsequent decision of the League of Arab states to suspend the mission,

Underscoring the importance of ensuring the voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes in safety and with dignity,

Mindful that stability in Syria is key to peace and stability in the region,

Noting the announced commitments by the Syrian authorities to reform, and regretting the lack of progress in implementation,

Reaffirming its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria, emphasizing its intention to resolve the current political crisis in Syria peacefully, and noting that nothing in this resolution authorizes measures under Article 42 of the Charter,

Welcoming the engagement of the Secretary-General and all diplomatic efforts aimed at addressing the situation, and noting in this regard the offer of the Russian Federation to host a meeting in Moscow, in consultation with the League of Arab States,

1. Condemns the continued widespread and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, such as the use of force against civilians, arbitrary executions, killing and persecution of protestors and members of the media, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, interference with access to medical treatment, torture, sexual violence, and ill-treatment, including against children;

2. Demands that the Syrian government immediately put an end to all human rights violations and attacks against those exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, protect its population, fully comply with its obligations under applicable international law and fully implement the Human Rights Council resolutions S-16/1, S-17/1, S-18/1 and the General Assembly resolution A/RES/66/176;

3. Condemns all violence, irrespective of where it comes from, and in this regard demands that all parties in Syria, including armed groups, immediately stop all violence or reprisals, including attacks against State institutions, in accordance with the League of Arab States’ initiative;

4. Recalls that all those responsible for human rights violations, including acts of violence, must be held accountable;

5. Demands that the Syrian government, in accordance with the Plan of Action of the League of Arab States of 2 November 2011 and its decision of 22 January 2012, without delay:

(a) cease all violence and protect its population;

(b) release all persons detained arbitrarily due to the recent incidents;

(c) withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks;

(d) guarantee the freedom of peaceful demonstrations;

(e) allow full and unhindered access and movement for all relevant League of Arab States’ institutions and Arab and international media in all parts of Syria to determine the truth about the situation on the ground and monitor the incidents taking place; and

(f) allow full and unhindered access to the League of Arab States’ observer mission;

6. Calls for an inclusive Syrian-led political process conducted in an environment free from violence, fear, intimidation and extremism, and aimed at effectively addressing the legitimate aspirations and concerns of Syria’s people, without prejudging the outcome;

7. Fully supports in this regard the League of Arab States’ 22 January 2012 decision to facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system, in which citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations or ethnicities or beliefs, including through commencing a serious political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition under the League of Arab States’ auspices, in accordance with the timetable set out by the League of Arab States;

8. Encourages the League of Arab States to continue its efforts in cooperation with all Syrian stakeholders;

9. Calls upon the Syrian authorities, in the event of a resumption of the observer mission, to cooperate fully with the League of Arab States’ observer mission, in accordance with the League of Arabs States’ Protocol of 19 December 2011, including through granting full and unhindered access and freedom of movement to the observers, facilitating the entry of technical equipment necessary for the mission, guaranteeing the mission’s right to interview, freely or in private, any individual and guaranteeing also not to punish, harass, or retaliate against, any person who has cooperated with the mission;

10. Stresses the need for all to provide all necessary assistance to the mission in accordance with the League of Arab States’ Protocol of 19 December 2011 and its decision of 22 January 2012;

11. Demands that the Syrian authorities cooperate fully with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and with the Commission of Inquiry dispatched by the Human Rights Council, including by granting it full and unimpeded access to the country;

12. Calls upon the Syrian authorities to allow safe and unhindered access for humanitarian assistance in order to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to persons in need of assistance;

13. Welcomes the Secretary-General’s efforts to provide support to the League of Arab States, including its observer mission, in promoting a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis;

14. Requests the Secretary General to report on the implementation of this resolution, in consultation with the League of Arab States, within 21 days after its adoption and to report every 30 days thereafter;

15. Decides to review implementation of this resolution within 21 days and, in the event of non-compliance, to consider further measures;

16. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.

Speech by Bashar Ja’afari, Ambassador of the Syrian Arab Republic
to the United Nations, at the Security Council on February 4, 2012,
on the draft resolution on Syria.

See full text of this speech.

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"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare