On
Syria, Hot Air
at UN, No Talk
of UK Spying
from Cyprus or
France's Libya
Weapons
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 30 --
It is late
August and at
the UN there
is hot
air on Syria,
kicked off
Thursday by a
joint press
conference by
the
foreign
ministers of
France and the
UK.
Laurent
Fabius
spoke of being
in refugee
camps in
Jordan. He
said, this
afternoon we
will hear from
Assad's
representative
but it doesn't
matter, our
mind is fixed.
What is the
purpose of the
debate?
He
said that
having nine
ministers
present speaks
volume; he
argued that
while Hillary
Clinton has
not come,
Ambassador
Susan Rice is
at the
ministerial
level. She
gets listed as
a member of
the Obama
cabinet,
thus higher
than mere
Permanent
Representatives
like France's
Gerard
Araud, who
stood against
the wall of
the briefing
room while
Fabius
was speaking.
The
position of
the US was one
mystery at the
press
conference. It
was
said that
France and the
UK will be
calling on UN
Secretary
General
Ban Ki-moon to
be ready to
inspect Syria
for chemical
weapons. Not
to
list the US as
part of that
call seemed
strange, after
Obama's
pre-RNC
announcement
of chemical
weapons as his
"red line."
In
an interview
before coming,
Fabius had
acknowledged
that weapons
put
into Libya
have ended up
with
"extremists,"
including in
northern Mali.
Was he
referring to
the weapons
that France
air
dropped in
Libya's Nafusa
Mountains? No
such question
was asked.
There
is an
inordinate
sensitivity at
the UN to
media
critique, so
we will
for now only
say that all
of the five
questions
selected went
in the
same
direction.
One does not
have to be a
supporter of
Bashar al
Assad to ask
William Hague,
for example,
about reports
of the UK
spying on
Syria from
Cyprus. Click
here for
Inner City
Press story
on that.
But no such
question was
asked. Nor
anything about
the Kurdish
areas of
Syria. It's
said that
Turkey's
foreign
minister will
speak with the
press after
the
afternoon's
Security
Council
meeting. Watch
this site.
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