On
Syria at UNSC,
Meeting
Canceled in
Race of Texts,
Singing
Ambassadors
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 10
-- In a news
cycle hungry
for anything
on
Syria, the
scheduling of
a 4 pm
consultation
of the UN
Security
Council was
given big
play.
On the UK's
Sky News, for
example, it
was
called an
emergency
meeting that
might somehow
in one fell
swoop nail
down one of
the various
proposals on
chemical
weapons in
Syria.
But
then the
consultations
were canceled.
It was by an
e-mail from
the
Russian
mission, which
had requested
the meeting in
the first
place.
Security
Council
sources tell
Inner City
Press that the
idea was to
propose a
statement, to
pre-empt
France's loud
plan for a
Security
Council
resolution.
It would have
made the
Council look
like a
kindergarten,
one Council
member said.
Now that race
has been put
on
hold --
another
Council member
said, in
deference to
Obama's speech
tonight.
But
it's the UN
Secretariat
that seems
most
obsequious to
the US.
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon is
eager to serve
the US. Only
last
night, in the
middle of all
this, he gave
a speech in
honor of US
Ambassador
Samantha
Power. (Some
wonder, since
Ban
golfs with the
Permanent
Representatives
of the UK, San
Marino and
South Korea,
if
Power might
hit the
links.)
There
is also the
question of
how UN
Peacekeeping
could secure
anything,
much less
chemical
weapons, in a
war zone.
Inner
City Press
asked about UN
Peacekeeping
planning for
this at the
day's
noon briefing.
But as of 4
pm, no answer
had been
provided.
And in the
Security Council,
rather than a
meeting about
Syria, there
was a meeting
about the Democratic
Republic of
the Congo, on
which we will
have more.
Watch
this site.
Footnote:
the
US' list of 33
countries
supporting its
joint
statement on
Syria
includes
Kosovo, which
is not a UN
member state.
But the UN is
just
"hocus pocus,"
as Obama put
it after the
G-20.
Two of the
countries on
the list of 33
are set to
sing at the UN
on Tuesday
night: Canada
and Romania.
The US does
not have Nauru
on the list
yet, and
fellow singer
Costa Rica is
all about
peace (and now
releasing all
animals from
zoos). Watch
this site.
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