By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 20 -- After Lakhdar Brahimi was named Joint Special Representative on Syria he quickly began a flurry of interviews including with a wire service which inaccurately deemed him "a Nobel Peace Laureate," as noted by Inner City Press, opining that "it is too early to say whether President Bashar al-Assad should step down."
Not surprisingly, the opposition Syrian National Congress quickly said it was "shocked and dismayed" and called on Brahimi" to apologize to our people for taking this unacceptable position."
Instead of just letting this go or ignoring it, Brahimi "went playground," retorting that "I ask that (he) apologizes to me," referring to SNC spokesman George Sabra.
Ah, mediation.
Brahimi wrote his sins and secrets of mediation, along with Salman Ahmed who is now adviser to US Ambassador Susan Rice. Were these moves among their secrets?
In belated spin, Brahimi insisted, "What I have said is that it's early for me to say anything related to the content of this issue." But, the obvious question is, then why do the flurry of interviews?
And why not correct factual errors that appeared in the write-ups?
Two days after Brahimi was deemed "a Nobel Peace Laureate," and a day after Inner City Press twice questioned this designation, the Nobel Foundation told Inner City Press that Brahimi "has not been awarded a Nobel Prize and should therefore not be referred to as a Nobel Laureate."
It seems clear: the initial wire story wasn't fact checked -- in fact, that Brahimi is not a Nobel laureate is clear from asimple search of the Nobel web site -- and those who ran it did not check either.
The "Brahimi as Nobel Peace laureate" phrase continued to proliferate, from Reuters to SABC, Malta Today,Euronews, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Eyewitness News, Channel 4 and more since.
As Inner City Press has previously asked without answer, how are these things supposed to work? Watch this site.
