Following a day of frantic politics the UK government has finally
released the text of the motion it is going to present to the lower
house of the UK Parliament for debate and possible vote. The publication
came after the opposition Labour Party took the unusual step of tabling
an amendment to an unseen motion. The Labour amendment has yet to be
published in full but it is said to require Parliament to wait for and
debate the United Nations (UN) inspection team's report before voting on
direct British military intervention in Syria. Labour also indicated
that unless their amendment was accepted they would vote against the
government's motion most likely defeating it.
Therefore the government's motion that can be read here;
http://www.itv.com/news/2013-08-28/the-full-text-of-the-governments-motion-on-syria/
seems to have been hastily rewritten to assuage the Labour Party's
concerns and ensure that the motion is passed. Therefore the 9th
paragraph ends with the clear guarantee that; "Before any direct British
involvement in such action a further vote of the House of Commons will
take place." However this watered down motion is still deeply flawed, in
violation of international and reads like a recipe for the continuation
of the conflict in Syria.
For example the opening paragraph reads; "Deplores the use of chemical
weapons in Syria on 21 August 2013 by the Assad regime." There is
absolutely no evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons
on August 21st or any other date and the description of the Syrian
government as "the Assad regime" is clearly intended to undermine the
legitimacy of the Syrian government violating the sovereignty of the
Syrian state.
The 4th paragraph talks about the need for a strong humanitarian support
that is focused on saving lives and deterring the further use of
Syria's chemical weapons. The government intends to use this as a
justification to supply the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) with
equipment such as gas masks to protect them from chemical weapons. This
will of course better equips the SQIA to use their chemical weapon
stockpiles without risk to themselves. This represents a clear violation
of the international prohibition on using chemical weapons against a
civilian population and the 2nd paragraph of this very motion.
Paragraph 5 is simply factually inaccurate. The SQIA are considered as
unlawful combatants under the customary law (article 4, 3rd Geneva
Convention) and as such are deemed to be less then human meaning that no
crime against humanity including the use of chemical weapons can be
committed against them. Therefore international law provides no basis
for their protection and attempts to protect them actually threatens the
entire basis of international law by normalising their unlawful and
immoral conduct.
The 7th to 9th paragraphs merely concedes that there is never going to
be a UN resolution authorising foreign military intervention in Syria
under the current circumstances because to do so would violate a host of
international laws and the UN's own charter. Therefore it attempts to
pave the way for the UK to take hostile and unlawful military action
against Syria inspite of the opposition of the UN.
For these reasons I think it is quite clear that I believe this motion
should be rejected by UK Members of Parliament (MP's). In fact I would
go further and say that the person tabling this motion in the House
should immediately arrested and expelled from Parliament.
(Originally Posted) 20:15 on 28/8/13.
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