By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unsc1boilerplate102509.html
UNITED NATIONS, October 25 -- Suicide bombings on successive Sundays in Iran and Iraq drew nearly identical press statements from the UN Security Council in New York. Beyond the boiler plate, the difference was speed: the bombing in Baghdad was immediately condemned by the United States, via a statement in the name of Ambassador Susan Rice, following by a press statement emailed out in the name of the Council's 15 members.
The Council's more delayed response to bombing in Iran, which killed Revolutionary Guard officials among others on October 18, was in the form of a four minute press stakeout on October 20 by this month's Council president Le Luong Minh, the Ambassador of Viet Nam.
Inner City Press asked him if the Council had discussed Iran's accusation of involvement by the U.S. and United Kingdom, and request for permission to pursue Jundallah into Pakistan. Video here, from Minute 3:04.
"We did not discuss that particular attack," said Le Luong Minh. But then what attack was the Council discussing? Perhaps that is the problem with the Council's cookie-cutter press statements about bombings. As George Orwell might have said, a failure to consider new words leads to a lack of thinking.
A correspondent asked if the phrase about human rights was added with specific reference to Iran. But the phrase is just part of the boiler plate template, repeated word for word five days later about Iraq.
Inner City Press also asked Le Luong Minh, "Who wrote the statement?" He replied, "The Presidency did." But which Presidency? How far back?
These two bombings are significant, as well as tragic for the victims and their families. The boiler plate only devalues them.
Footnote: After the Iran statement stakeout, a European Council member's staffer handed out copies of the statement. "On behalf of the Vietnamese Presidency," he hastened to point out, smiling.
More seriously, some pundits are so eager to see the government in Tehran under fire that they have portrayed the bombing of the Revolutionary Guards as related to the street protests of the contested election. But sometimes the enemy of one's enemy shouldn't be presented as a friend...
