On Syria, Obama Wants to Strike, Will Take It to Congress, UN Irrelevant?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 31 -- Why did the UN hold a rare Saturday press conference on August 31? To try to make itself relevant on Syria. To summarize a meeting in an undisclosed location between Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his High Representative on Disarmament Angela Kane. To say it cannot say when its report on chemical weapons will be completed.

That report is not supposed to, according to its mandate, say WHO used chemical weapons. When Inner City Press asked this week, Ban's associate spokesperson Farhan Haq said there would however be an "evidence based narrative." When Ban's lead spokesperson Martin Nesirky returned on August 30, Inner City Press asked him what the phrase meant. It will include interviews with witnesses and survivors.

On August 31, Gulf media told Nesirky Ban should "step up to the plate" and say who used the weapons. Nesirky pushed back; he also noted that a US State Department correspondent who quoted John Kerry on August 30 might again be watching TV, to see what Obama said.

When Obama belated started up, he said he has decided to use force, but to seek Congressional approval. He said he'll act without UN Security Council approval. And what of Sellstrom's report? Watch this site.

   

UN's Ban Ki-moon, Spoken To By Obama, Will Pull Chemical Weapons Team from Syria on Saturday, Narrative Prepared

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 29 -- On Syria, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has announced from Vienna that he spoke with, or was spoken to, by US President Barack Obama, and he will pull the UN chemical weapons investigation team out of Damascus on Saturday.

  When Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Farhan Haq about the team earlier this week, Haq said they would produce an "evidence based narrative." Initially their mandate was to determine only if chemical weapons had been used, not who used them.

  But every narrative has a plot, and this plot appears already written, at least on the American side.

  The UK plot thickened on August 28, with David Cameron modifying his proposal after Labor's proposed amendments to provide for a second, later parliamentary vote. In France there will be a September 4 "emergency debate," but no vote.

From the transcript of what Ban said in Vienna:

"I have spoken to President Obama yesterday. We discussed how the UN and the world can work together particularly with the United States, how we can expedite the process of the investigation. I have also expressed my wish that this investigation team.. will continue their investigation activities until tomorrow, Friday, and will come out of Syria by Saturday morning and will report to me as soon as they come out of Syria."

   Inner City Press had  asked UN spokesperson Farhan Haq at Tuesday's noon briefing when it was that the UN formally requested access to al Ghouta -- on Saturday, August 24 or before? Video here, from Minute 12. Video with captions, on Inner City Press YouTube channel, here and embedded below, with transcript.

Haq read out a press statement from August 22, in which Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said a request is being sent. Then, Haq said, Ban's High Representative on Disarmament Angela Kane "stepped forward with the request" -- on August 24, Saturday.

It was granted the next day.

Inner City Press asked again, was there any formal request by the UN other than Ban's press statement, before August 24? Haq called this "semantics." But when Inner City Press asked Ban's spokespeople to respond to widely circulated press releases about a request being made to Ban, the UN says the actual formal request had not been received yet, and so: no comment. Why should the UN say it must be different for Syria?

How could the UN be so sloppy? Or was it sloppy?

  While the delay to Sunday (or Monday, when the team got out and said, if this YouTube video on which Haq declined comment when Inner City Press asked 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, the UN didn't formally ASK until Saturday, in the person of Angela Kane

   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 UNagainst 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, wasJudith 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.

   

On Syria, UN Tells Inner City Press It Will Do "Evidence Based Narrative," No Words Against Missile

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 26 -- With leaders from the US, UK, France and others talking about military action on Syria, Inner City Press at the UN's August 26 noon briefing asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's associate spokesperson Farhan Haq for the UN position on such a military strike. Video here and embedded below

  Haq said the UN will not engage in speculative comment. But it's not speculative. UK foreign minister William Hague, for example, that morning said on the radio that military action on Syria without UN Security Council approval "would be legal, I would argue." 

  Hague did not specify under what legal theory: self-defense under UN Charter Article 51? Retaliation or retribution?

  Haq said the UN is still trying to put together the Geneva Two talks. But that no longer seems to be the US' interest. Inner City Press' question of whether Ban would at least seek notification before a missile strike, since there are UN staff members inside Syria, went unanswered.

  On a second round, Inner City Press asked Haq whether Ake Sellstrom has any mandate to say WHO used chemical weapons, and how his findings will be conveyed. Haq first confirmed that "responsibility" is not in Sellstrom's mandate.

  But then, after a pause, Haq added something, an If-Asked, about the team constructing "an evidenced based narrative." Every story has a plot. Watch this video of the Q&A. Watch this site.