On
Syria, Ban's
Report Spoon-Fed
5 Days in
Advance Shows
He's a
Minor Card
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
September 11
-- On Syria
the contrived
leak, five
days in
advance, that
UN Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon will
dutifully
"finger"
Bashar al
Assad in
a report to
the Security
Council on
September 16
proves at
least one
thing.
Ban
is not the
West's ace in
the hole on
Syria, but
merely a minor
card
to be played
as part of a
larger
strategy.
Consider
the
timing, not
explored in
the leaks. If
the unnamed
Western
diplomats
already know
what's in
Ban's report,
why is Ban
withholding
it another
five days?
Well,
US Secretary
of State John
Kerry is
meeting his
Russian
counterpart
Sergey Lavrov
tomorrow.
Although Ban
committed to
speed up the
investigation
and report as
soon as
possible, to
truly release
the
results now
would get
lost, in terms
of leverage
for the West.
And
so it's better
to leak it,
through a well
worn pass
through -- the
same one used
to deny the
Inner City
Press
demonstrated
cover up of
the murder of
UN Security
officer Louis
Maxwell,
and to praise
the
mad cowboy of
Mogadishu
David Bax.
Already
it's
had some
effect. On Fox
News on
Wednesday
night, Senator
Kelly
Ayotte said
she's seen a
report that
the UN finds
Assad guilty.
Who
cares if
that's not
even what the
contrived leak
is saying?
It's the
impact that's
important, not
the words. Or
the truth.
Cynics
among those UN
reporters who
actually ran
up through the
heat along
with Inner
City Press to
the Russian
Mission, where
US Ambassador
Samantha Power
and her French
and UK
counterparts
Gerard Araud
and
Mark Lyall
Grant
spent half an
hour Wednesday
afternoon
wondered why
this
pass-through
and his Mean
Girl friend
weren't there.
Now
it's known:
there was real
pass-through
work to be
done, blind
quotes
to be typed
up. But where
are the
questions? Not
only about the
timing, but
more
fundamentally
about how
these leaks
are consistent
with Ban's
mandate: to
say IF
chemical
weapons were
used, not who
used them?
But
Ban has been
in the bag
throughout. He
allowed the US
to say that
Syria blocked
the Ake
Sellstrom team
for four or
even five
days, when
his envoy Angela
Kane didn't
even made the
request to
visit Ghouta
until August
24.
Then
his
spokespeople
in New York
began to use a
new phrase:
the "evidence
based
narrative."
They would not
say who used
chemical
weapons
-- but their "evidence
based
narrative"
would allow
that.
What did the
phrase mean?
Inner City
Press asked.
It was never
explained. And
now we see:
the narrative
begins even
before the
report is
released, on
delay, as a
small card in
a large deck.
To
what end?
Watch this
site.
, 
