Syria
Run-Up for UN
Has Germany's
Kane, at CFR
Judith Miller,
Qs
UNanswered
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 27 --
Amid the drums
of war and the
UN
Secretariat's
wan
accompanying
music, a few
connections
are worth
noting, a few
more questions
asked. (Here's video of some from August 26.)
For
August 27: when
did
the UN ask to
visit the site
at Ghouta?
While the
delay from
Wednesday to
Sunday (or
Monday, when
the team got
out and said,
if
this
YouTube video
is not false,
that they are
not even
looking at
what
type of
munition was
used in part
because they
didn't want to
put it
in their white
UN 4 by 4) is
now an element
in the case
for missile
strikes, Syria
says the UN
didn't even
ASK until
Saturday.
Is that
true? Even if
the UK, for
example, asked
earlier, it is
a UN team. So
when did the
UN make the
request?
Saturday
August
24 is when UN
Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon's
High
Representative
on
Disarmament
Angela
Kane
re-arrived in
Damascus.
Inner City
Press
covered Kane
when she was
head of Ban's
Department of
Management,
including an investigation
by the UN
Office of
Internal
Oversight
Services for
favoritism in
the UN's
so-called
UMOJA
computer
management
system.
When
Japan's Yukio
Takasu returned
after a pause
from being his
country's
Ambassador to
the UN to
take over
Kane's job,
Kane's native
Germany
lobbied for
her
to get another
top UN job.
She was offered
one in Lebanon,
as Inner
City Press reported,
but did not
want it. So
she "got"
Disarmament.
This
connection
must be noted:
it was Germany
which got Kane
this job, in
the same way
that France
installed Herve Ladsous as the fourth
French head of
UN
Peacekeeping
in a row,
and the US picked
Jeffrey
Feltman,
formerly the
State
Department's
chief on the
Middle East to
replace B.
Lynn Pascoe as
Ban's
political
chief.
So
the fact that
Germany has
expressed a
willingness to
join a
coalition
to strike
Syria, without
UN Security
Council
approval, and
the
Germany's
Angela Kane's
role in the
"UN's"
chemical
weapons
inspection
team should be
noted.
But
by most media
covering the
UN, it is not.
When Inner
City Press
even
mentions
Ladsous' and
UN
Peacekeeping's
French
connection,
Ladsous
refuses to
answer
questions, and
some media,
including the
French
wire service
Agence France
Presse on one
of whose
management
boards Ladsous
served,
have even filed
complaints
with the UN
against Inner
City Press.
This
is dysfunction,
and is now
being
countered by
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
@FUNCA_info.
Another
major
wire service,
Reuters,
joined in the
second of
AFP's
complaints. On
August 26
Reuters based
a piece
essentially
selling or
planning for
the legality
of military
strikes on
Syria without
Security
Council or
even General
Assembly
approval
around, as
lead, a
comment by the
Council on
Foreign
Relations' Richard Haass.
But
on that CFR
call, as noted
by Inner City
Press, was Judith
Miller.
Given her role
during the
lead up to the
US
intervention
in Iraq,
one
might think
this would
have been
included in an
overly-long
rehash
story. But no.
Notably,
Reuters' UN
bureau has
been shown to
have
spied for the
UN, handing
over an
internal
anti-Press
document
of the
UN
Correspondents
Association
(which under
2013 president
Pamela Falk of
CBS hosted
Syrian rebel
Jarba for
what it called
a "UN
briefing")
to UN official
Stephane
Dujarric. Story
here, audio here,
document
here.
This
beat just goes
on. Watch this
site.
, 
