by Stewart Stogel
UNITED NATIONS – Two terrorist attacks on United States diplomatic missions and a national day to honor those fallen during 9/11, and the United Nations remained curiously muted.
Neither Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon nor the Security Council issued any immediate reaction to the Tuesday attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo or the storming of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, by Muslim extremists.
By late Wednesday morning, the Security Council did convene a previously scheduled briefing on Libya, but even that brought a muted action.
The gathering opened with a brief statement by council president Peter Wittig, of Germany, who “strongly condemned” the attack and offered condolences to the U.S. delegation.
It lasted less than 10 seconds.
Wittig’s brief condolences were followed by a similar statement by U.N. Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman.
Incredibly, Feltman told the council “security remains the biggest challenge for the Libyan government.”
But there was nothing directly from Ban or the 193-member U.N. General Assembly.
General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, of Qatar, has been silent.
In the Libyan attack, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. It was the first death of a U.S. ambassador in the line of duty in more than 30 years.
Yet last month, Ban issued several quick condemnations of “terrorist attacks” in Pakistan, the Sinai Desert and Darfur.
In the council meeting, Libya’s U.N. ambassador, Mohamed Shalgham, a holdover from the Gadhafi regime, explained that the “new provisional government was still in the process of establishing security throughout the country.”
He went on to call Ambassador Stevens “a great friend of the Libyan people who stood with them shoulder-to-shoulder in their war against the tyrant.”
Shalgham informed the council his government will seek to capture and punish those behind the attack.
He went on to state that any Libyan security forces who might have been lax in performing their duties would be prosecuted.
Yesterday, all three U.N. bodies remained silent on the 11th anniversary of 9/11.
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told WND: “We don’t offer a statement every year. We issued one last year. It still stands.”
In 2001, it took then Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Security Council more than three months to visit Ground Zero.
At the time, Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard explained “security considerations” kept the U.N. personnel from paying their respects at the World Trade Center site.
What Eckhard ignored was the fact that President George W. Bush visited Ground Zero within days of the attack. The president was followed by President Jacques Chirac of France and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair the same month.
Security issues did not seem to concern them or other world leaders who appeared long before the United Nations.
Richard Grenell, former director of communications at the U.S. mission at the U.N., criticized the world body, asserting “it is always appropriate to quickly defend America.”
Th U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, refused to comment on the U.N. reaction.
UNITED NATIONS – Two terrorist attacks on United States diplomatic missions and a national day to honor those fallen during 9/11, and the United Nations remained curiously muted.
Neither Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon nor the Security Council issued any immediate reaction to the Tuesday attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo or the storming of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, by Muslim extremists.
By late Wednesday morning, the Security Council did convene a previously scheduled briefing on Libya, but even that brought a muted action.
The gathering opened with a brief statement by council president Peter Wittig, of Germany, who “strongly condemned” the attack and offered condolences to the U.S. delegation.
It lasted less than 10 seconds.
Wittig’s brief condolences were followed by a similar statement by U.N. Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman.
Incredibly, Feltman told the council “security remains the biggest challenge for the Libyan government.”
But there was nothing directly from Ban or the 193-member U.N. General Assembly.
General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, of Qatar, has been silent.
In the Libyan attack, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. It was the first death of a U.S. ambassador in the line of duty in more than 30 years.
Yet last month, Ban issued several quick condemnations of “terrorist attacks” in Pakistan, the Sinai Desert and Darfur.
In the council meeting, Libya’s U.N. ambassador, Mohamed Shalgham, a holdover from the Gadhafi regime, explained that the “new provisional government was still in the process of establishing security throughout the country.”
He went on to call Ambassador Stevens “a great friend of the Libyan people who stood with them shoulder-to-shoulder in their war against the tyrant.”
Shalgham informed the council his government will seek to capture and punish those behind the attack.
He went on to state that any Libyan security forces who might have been lax in performing their duties would be prosecuted.
Yesterday, all three U.N. bodies remained silent on the 11th anniversary of 9/11.
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told WND: “We don’t offer a statement every year. We issued one last year. It still stands.”
In 2001, it took then Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Security Council more than three months to visit Ground Zero.
At the time, Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard explained “security considerations” kept the U.N. personnel from paying their respects at the World Trade Center site.
What Eckhard ignored was the fact that President George W. Bush visited Ground Zero within days of the attack. The president was followed by President Jacques Chirac of France and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair the same month.
Security issues did not seem to concern them or other world leaders who appeared long before the United Nations.
Richard Grenell, former director of communications at the U.S. mission at the U.N., criticized the world body, asserting “it is always appropriate to quickly defend America.”
Th U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, refused to comment on the U.N. reaction.
No comments:
Post a Comment