By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 8 -- After US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke on September 8, it was the White House and not the UN which put out a read-out. The US read-out mentioned ISIL, but not whether Security Council approval should be sought for any bombing in Syria without the government's consent.
On Ukraine, the US said “they discussed the importance of an effective monitoring mechanism for the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine.” Previously, leaked audio discussed former US, now UN official Jeffrey Feltman “getting” Ban to send Robert Serry to Ukraine.
The issue here is the UN's (declining fig leaf of) independence.
One wonders why the UN didn't put out its own read out. Could it be because the US agreed to mention “the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit”?
Or could it be the US' praise of Ban on ebola? The US read-out began “President Obama spoke today with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the need for greater international assistance to contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. President Obama thanked the Secretary-General for recent steps taken by the United Nations to coordinate the global response and pledged additional U.S. assistance to bring the outbreak under control.” A 25-bed hospital?
Meanwhile, it's reported that “the United Nations Security Council session on foreign terrorist fighters that the President will chair,” as the US read-out puts it, will be at 3 pm on September 24 (rather than on September 25). The afternoon of the 24th would overlap or preempt the speeches of the heads of state of Bolivia, Rwanda, Jordan, the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Costa Rica, Mongolia, Nigeria, Honduras, Montenegro, South Africa, Switzerland, Chad, Estonia, Equatorial Guinea and maybe even Sri Lanka. We'll have more on this.
