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Who needs enemies, indeed
Oct. 24th, 2013 06:09 amSo the latest Snowden revelation is that the US is/was bugging our chancellor's mobile phone. This caused not a few "oh, NOW she gets upset, when we've complaining about the outrage of American spying since July" from our media, but they also agree it's a particularly nasty kick in the teeth in a whole series of same that make for US foreign policy. I mean, as the Guardian puts it in this article, who needs enemies if you have the United States of America as your friend?
"Top of that list of questions is what exactly does it mean to be an American ally in the 21st century. Germany and France are Nato partners. Their soldiers have fought and died alongside American troops in Afghanistan. Mexico is fighting a bloody battle with drug cartels with America and on its behalf. The Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, whose phone was also monitored by the NSA, was an American critic but by no means an adversary."
Mind you, getting your phone bugged seems harmless next to, say, drone strikes - or, as the Guardian also puts it, here:
Take drone attacks, which are Obama's weapon of choice in the new phase of the war on terror. They are reckoned to have killed up to 3,613 (926 of them civilians, including 200 children) in Pakistan alone. Amnesty International this week argued that US officials should stand trial over evidence of war crimes in the Pakistan drone campaign. Human Rights Watch has made a similar case over the slaughter in Yemen.
And given that, yes, all the governments protesting do their own share of spying, it's easier to have sympathy with the case of a private citizen disbarred from entering the US for having been critical (i.e. Ilja Trojanew earlier this month) than with Ms. Merkel, who has been downplaying the whole NSA affair for months until presented with this latest bit of news. But it sticks in the throat nonetheless, as one more bone to swallow.
"Top of that list of questions is what exactly does it mean to be an American ally in the 21st century. Germany and France are Nato partners. Their soldiers have fought and died alongside American troops in Afghanistan. Mexico is fighting a bloody battle with drug cartels with America and on its behalf. The Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, whose phone was also monitored by the NSA, was an American critic but by no means an adversary."
Mind you, getting your phone bugged seems harmless next to, say, drone strikes - or, as the Guardian also puts it, here:
Take drone attacks, which are Obama's weapon of choice in the new phase of the war on terror. They are reckoned to have killed up to 3,613 (926 of them civilians, including 200 children) in Pakistan alone. Amnesty International this week argued that US officials should stand trial over evidence of war crimes in the Pakistan drone campaign. Human Rights Watch has made a similar case over the slaughter in Yemen.
And given that, yes, all the governments protesting do their own share of spying, it's easier to have sympathy with the case of a private citizen disbarred from entering the US for having been critical (i.e. Ilja Trojanew earlier this month) than with Ms. Merkel, who has been downplaying the whole NSA affair for months until presented with this latest bit of news. But it sticks in the throat nonetheless, as one more bone to swallow.
