Statesmanship can be hard work

That could be why the likes of Prime Minister Stephen Harper might prefer the company of the "Post-UN" crowd. How much more convivial to share the smug superiority of the like-minded while exchanging "humanitarian" awards.

To attend at the General Assembly on the other hand could entail hearing unpleasant truths. Just yesterday, for example, Syria's Foreign Minister accused certain of the Nations of Virtue of "supporting terrorism."

If one defines "supporting terrorism" as the out-fitting, organizing, funding, and leading of armed insurgents in a pre-meditated campaign to overthrow the government of a sovereign nation, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem is quite correct. The countries he referred to in his speech have acknowledged as much.

In today's The Independent Kim Sengupta writes at length about the dilema facing the terror facilitators as they try to pick and choose which of the terrorists they are spiriting into Syria can be relied upon to return the heavy weapons that await them in Turkish warehouses. It is one thing to claim that you are supporting "Syrian freedom-fighters."

It's quite another when those fighters aren't Syrian and would be, under other circumstances, more than happy to turn those weapons on their benefactors. Not every lesson of the Libyan adventure has been entirely lost on the Nations of Virtue.

It is beyond dispute that a great number of the foreigners the West has been empowering in Syria would in other circumstances be labelled "al Qaeda." It has also been apparent for some time that it's exactly those fighters who have been doing by far the lions share of the heavy lifting in the armed struggle against Assad.

Syrian National Council boss Radwan Ziadeh was of course quick to denounce al-Moallem as a liar. The SNC needs to preserve what few shreds of credibility it has, and rallying the West to the support of al-Qaeda terror attacks doesn't cut it. Therefore those who speak the truth are shouted down as liars, while the liars boycott the UN and spend their time showering one another with humanitarian prizes.

This would be a great time for true statesmen to stand up for truth at the United Nations. It would be a great opportunity for the Canadian delegation to prove that they are something other than docile poodles in the NATO/US/Israel axis.

Alas, that would take courage. That would be hard work. Better to close the Iranian embassy, delegate Canadian diplomatic functions to Italy and the UK, and generally disengage from the world.