According to Plotinus, knowledge has three degrees, opinion, science and illumination. The instrument of the first is sense, of the second dialectics, of the third, illumination.
International law regulates the diverse relations of states that are subjects of international law. There should be no derogation from the norms of jus cogens.
International law operates on the principles of equality, respect for the territorial integrity and political independence of states, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other state, restraint in the use of force, peaceful co-existence among states, economic and fair trading, respect for human rights, the right of nations to self-determination , diplomatic respect for all states big or small and their right to adopt any social system they deem fit to conduct their national affairs.
Any President, Prime Minister or Foreign Minister, who is not a Hague Academy certified international lawyer, is not likely to understand why the rules and norms of international should over-ride municipal law.
If he or she lacks this relevant knowledge of this very crucial subject of statecraft, he or she is conducting the international affairs of his state, half blind and half deaf.
I make these statements with incandescent, intellectual arrogance and dogmatism. Oh Yes!
I have painfully observed that some Foreign Ministers in NATO display a shocking ignorance of international law and diplomatic ettique and just respond to issues from shallow subjectivism that is hollow, unlearned and have no dialectic content.
So, instead of directing the nation’s diplomatic affairs with some degree of erudition, they allow unreason, irrationality, insipid national pride to lead their nations into military engagements, from which they emerge, bloodied, humiliated and financially the poorer for it, with attendant loss of the souls of the children of God, who satan hates inexorably and executes their deaths, using his human agents.
International law developed exponentially, after the Second World War. The massive violations of human rights by Hitler’s Germany, the struggle against colonialism, imperialism and the EVILS OF APARTHEID, were subjects that needed international legislations.
In 1960, the Soviet Union, whose diplomatic stance was formidable under the learned Andre Gromyko, Anatoly Dobrinin, Molotov and a host of Soviet international lawyers, put before the United Nations Organization, a Resolution on the “Right of Nations to Self-Determination Up to Independence.” This was the magic Resolution that brought down the colonial system and enabled the “Third World” to shake off the imperial bondages.
After that Resolution, India, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and seventeen African states became independence.
The United States supported this Resolution, remembering its tutelage under Imperial Britain under George the Third.
The United States promoted the respect of human rights and strengthened the development of international law, more than any other state.
>From the Brian-Kellogg Pact to the various Vienna Diplomatic Conferences of 1961 and the Vienna Consular Conferences of 1963, the US led the pack. This is why it is surprising that under George Bush, international law was disregarded inexorably.
There were violations of the Laws of War, the violations of the Geneva Conventions on Armed Conflict, interventions in the internal affairs of other states, using the promotion of democracy as a guiding principle.
The question is, “Is the successful holding of elections Democracy?” A gang of terrorists also elect their leaders. Are they democratic?
Very often, states that regard their leaders as made-gods are too pliant and subservience to put out superior arguments against puerile, but leading opinion.
These fearful scholars later engage in post-mortem analysis of policies they tacitly endorsed.
Who did not see the disaster in the “The Axis of Evil “speech, but which received a standing ovation in Congress?
Today, it is clear that North Korea, Iran and other states that pursue nuclear capability, are doing so because of that speech. So, after the euphoric and cacophonic hand-clapping, the issues remain.
Who does not see the Joseph Pierre Proudhon political thought that anarchy and syndicalism are the culmination of social progress in the Arab world?
Those, who help to laminate the views of Bakunin on the Arab world, are wrong.
Calling it the Arab Spring is a misnomer, an aberration, and ignorant assertion, peddled by poorly equipped ideologists/producers and anchors.
Why is there no Turkish Spring, when what happened in Syria and in Turkey are on all fours?
Insipid political analysis of world affairs, tailor-made with fine verbiage, which Fareed Zakaria wants “to get” his listeners to imbibe is pure intellectual arrogance. He gathers star-studded ideologists of the old American school of prophecies to tell the world as it should be!
Diplomatic etiquette demands that states do not denigrate one another. One good insult always invites retaliation, which may be more devastating than the initial one.
Some examples from diplomatic history will serve to illustrate the point. A Turkish diplomat in Constantinople once engaged the Russian Ambassador in a chat and in the process had asked the Russian Ambassador whether it was true that Russians were stupid.
The Russian Ambassador replied that in Russia, every stupid man is called a Turk.
An African Ambassador was asked whether African males had tails like monkeys. The Ambassador cynically replied that their “tails are in the front” and so they need no Viagra, which is a European aid mechanism.
Four Russian diplomats were sent to the Court of St. James. They caused laughter when they were introduced to the Queen as Strong Enough, Long Enough, Putyatin and Never Off.
When Ronald Regan called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire” because of Soviet atheism of the Communist Party of the USSR, little did he know that a religious turn-around will take place in Russia, whose leaders now openly honour and worship God and who pose serious diplomatic concerns to the American state in diplomatic confrontations.
Just like the Berlin Wall was an issue in American demands against the USSR, so has Guantanamo Bay prison yard become a constant remainder of human rights appraisals by Russia.
When the Turkish Prime Minister was criticizing Kaddafi and Assad, he did not ever think that he would have an emergency. You see, the future is always pregnant with uncertainties.
I agree with Euclid and Pythagoras that “Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. “Judge not that you may not be judged.”
The practice of playing up opposition groups, arming or encouraging individuals to say damaging things against their governments is a clear violation of diplomatic etiquette.
Any hack writer, producer, anchor or journalist, who reports half-truths, untruths and outright lies hurts the historical documentation of events as they transpired.
They sentence future generations to live off their propaganda. These lies keep effervescing till time indefinite carrying the bye-line of the occult perpetrator. Only the truth shall set the world free from negativism.
The classic remedy for world disorder is not a regular call to arms but adroit use of diplomacy and human intelligence to solve inter-racial, inter-ethnic, inter-religious, international conflicts.
Solutions can be found like the Great Madiba of South Africa, who demonstrated after 27 years of incarceration, which greatly impaired his health, that that universal brotherhood has become a reality.
God has used Madiba to teach green-eyed Apartheid wicked souls that He is Almighty.
The impediments to
world peace are to be traced to the works of satan, who uses his human agents on earth to destroy the souls of the sons and daughters of God through mindless violence, using religion, senseless disagreements to inflame passions leading to wars and diplomatic stand-offs.
Abdul Karim, an Arab socialist, googled that the Syrian uprising was initially not conceived as a revolution but was designed to rattle the Assad Government and squeeze out some humanitarian concessions from it.
The demonstrations spring-leaped into an unexpected, multi-pronged movement, with groups, with different demands and agenda getting into it. The more vocal sectors could not agree on the direction to go, which has resulted in confusion.
So, protests dovetailed into open rebellion, with the “friends of Syria” rendering a helping hand. The “enemies of the rebels”, also chipped in their lot.
That is how the human tragedy in Syria came about. The tragedy has resulted in terrible refugee problems while the leaders cool off in neat surroundings behaving patriotic.
The prospects of the “Geneva Diplomatic Conference on Syria” seems to have dimmed as the Assad party declares progress and the rebel leader puts the Conference on hold until they recover lost territory.
The Curatorium of BOSAS INTERNATIONAL LAW BUREAU deliberated extensively on Syria and suggested the following:
A Declaration by the UN SECURITY COUNCIL that the UN Military High Command will henceforth create a buffer zone, where all arms and ammunitions will be detained.
-A debate by the General Assembly of the United Nations, so that a Resolution on the Syrian crisis can be passed, with concrete and relevant directives to the warring parties and meddlesome interlopers.
A cessation of hostilities to be monitored by soldiers from neutral states.
A MORATORIUM ON INCITING SPEECHES AND CURSES.
The book, “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E Lawrence was a narration of great length of how he “aroused the Arab tribes in the Middle East to fight against Turkish rulers” The book is a brilliant exhibition of erudition, philosophy, diplomacy and human drama”.
The Syrian crisis is not only unfortunate; it is an ill-wind that blows no-one any good.
Diplomats, who sailed the seven seas about two hundred years ago, in pursuit of international peace and security, concluding international treaties, which were strictly respected, would raise their eyebrows that states now openly support rebellion, the intervention and destruction of cities, with impunity.
Instead of diplomatic conferences that regulate the activities of states, partisan affiliations prevail.
Whichever party “wins”, there is the possibility of other struggles, other “revolutions”, other irresistible calls on leaders to steer Syria towards the Ahura Mazda.
Subjective assessments of political disputes, without recourse to logical determinism and international legal rules and diplomatic law, obfuscate the issues.
In Turkey, Brazil and Spain, demonstrations are on-going. People suffer from ptosis, a medical condition, “in which victims suffer from inability to raise their eyelids resulting from tear-gas. It produces paralysis of the nerve, which supplies the eyelid, locomotor ataxia being the most common.”
It can be recalled that the Seven Years War (1756-63) was “fought between Britain and Prussia, allied against France and Austria. It was caused by the rivalry between Britain and France in America and India and the resolve of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria to regain Silesia, which had been seized by Fredrick of Prussia in 1740. Fighters were plagued by that medical condition from gun-powder fumes.
During the Seven Years War, very many developments took place, which involved diplomatic alliances and wars that retarded the industrial revolution and economic co-operation among European states.
Resources were frittered away in building war-
ships and ammunitions. They were lucky that nuclear weapons were not available at the time, so diplomacy eventually triumphed.
Euro-American governments may wish to take a hard look at the practice, whereby fighters engage in the technical re-working of shafts and torsion, improving upon their axis of symmetry, giving them deadly inertia.
As the Shoguns are back in power in Japan, the Chinese will remember Nanjing. The Russians are “gatov.” The Pakistanis still face insecurity and India is vigilant. The Latin American leftists are waxing more defiant.
The economies of Euro-American states do not leave much financial excess to spend in geo-political rescues of ancient regimes. The age of chivalry is receding fast.
The need for diplomatic and consular practice has become very important.
As mediaocracy and peopleocracy occupy the air-waves and the streets, the need to consult with the sovereign peoples of all nations has become imperative.
As a world citizen, who has observed the workings of the international systems from both socialist and capitalist stand-points, I am aware of their inherent advantages and disadvantages.
Since I have an insurable interest in the peaceful co-existence of the world, I permit myself the indulgence of making fair comments on issues concerning the human race, where “some people run, some people crawl and some people do not move at all.”
As nations rise against nations, as people rise against their states, as states rise against their people, may the Good Lord deliver us.
