If Snowden accepts asylum
in Venezuela, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua told state-run VTV over the
weekend, "we will have to be in contact with the government of the
Russian Federation. He is there. Obviously, he is not in Venezuelan
territory. We would have to get the opinion of the Russian government
about it."
Venezuela is one of three
left-leaning Latin American nations that, to varying degrees, have said
they'd welcome Snowden. The others are Bolivia, which has offered
asylum, and Nicaragua, which has said it would consider it.
Forcing Evo Morales plane down was about the stupidest thing the US government could have done. It wasn't just illegal and offensive, it was also deeply, deeply stupid and proof that yet again the administration does not know what it's doing. This is year five for the Barack Obama administration. At what point does it get its house in order?
Bill Van Auken (WSWS) observes:
The international bullying and gangsterism of the Obama administration have only made more convincing the case for Edward Snowden’s unconditional right to asylum against the persecution that he faces at the hands of the US government.
This was made abundantly clear with the forcing down last week of the airplane carrying Bolivia’s President Evo Morales by several European powers acting at the behest of the US Central Intelligence Agency. The rationale for this extraordinary action—tantamount to an act of war—was supposedly the suspicion that Snowden was aboard the aircraft.
It is not clear whether such suspicions actually existed, or whether Washington decided to make an example of Morales for saying that Snowden deserved asylum and Bolivia was prepared to give it, and thereby send a message to any head of state contemplating such action.
One thing is certain, if the US government was willing to risk the life of the Bolivian president by aborting his flight plan as his plane was in midair and running low on fuel, it is obviously prepared to murder Snowden himself to stop his disclosures.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) broke the first story on the NSA spying and many since. Democracy Now! posted an interview that Amy Goodman did with him (online exclusive -- transcript and video). Excerpt.
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I mean, it’s amazing that the minute any country thinks about giving asylum to somebody whom the United States has declared to be a bad person, that country instantly gets viciously attacked by the American government, its media servants and people who support government conduct. It is true that Venezuela has certain serious imperfections in its political system, as do most countries around the world, probably all countries around the world, but it’s also true that the United States, if you want to talk about things like supporting terrorism, supporting violence around the world and the like, has at least as bad as a record, and I think you could argue, a much worse record. And the United States government has continuously sheltered all kinds of people that other countries around the world have viewed, quite justifiably and reasonably, as being criminals and who they wanted to be returned to their countries to prosecute them in their courts. And the position of the United States government has long been that asylum is a well-recognized right in international law, and if someone is being persecuted the court system or by the government with unjust prosecution, that they will—the United States will shield them. And apparently a lot of people think that this is a right that only the United States has, but no other country, and that isn’t how international law or human rights functions. And if you want to say that the United States has the right to give asylum to people who are wanted by other countries, then other countries have that same right.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about Edward Snowden right now. We believe—is this correct—that he’s still at the airport in Moscow?
GLENN GREENWALD: Yeah. I actually had the opportunity to speak with him for the first time on Saturday, the first time since he left Hong Kong. I had a good, long conversation with him. And although I’m not interested in divulging where he is, he, you know, is enthused about the developments over the last week, both in terms of ongoing revelations and the ongoing debate that he helped trigger about surveillance policy worldwide, as well as the support that he’s getting from around the world and from, as of the moment, three different governments who have all independently offered him asylum. So the question of how he’s going to get there, what’s going to happen once he arrives, those are still in the process of being worked out. But he’s doing very well in terms of his mindset, his demeanor. He’s able to follow things online, the debates, as they unfold. And he’s very—feeling very good about the choices that he made.
And if he's following things online, he's aware he was awarded the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award yesterday:
When secrecy is misused to hide unconstitutional activities, fealty to that oath — and higher duty as citizens of conscience — dictate support for truth tellers who summon the courage to blow the whistle. Edward Snowden’s disclosures fit the classic definition of whistle blowing.
Former senior NSA executive Thomas Drake, who won the Sam Adams award in 2011, has called what Snowden did “an amazingly brave act of civil disobedience.” Drake knows whereof he speaks. As a whistleblower he reported waste, fraud, and abuse — as well as serious violations of the Fourth Amendment — through official channels and, subsequently, to a reporter. He wound up indicted under the Espionage Act.
After a lengthy, grueling pre-trial proceeding, he was exonerated of all ten felony charges and pleaded out to the misdemeanor of “exceeding authorized use of a government computer.” The presiding judge branded the four years of prosecutorial conduct against Drake “unconscionable.”
The invective hurled at Snowden by the corporate and government influenced media reflects understandable embarrassment that he would dare expose the collusion of all three branches of government in perpetrating and then covering up their abuse of the Constitution. This same collusion has thwarted all attempts to pass laws that would protect genuine truth tellers like Snowden who see and wish to stop unconstitutional activities.
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” warned Thomas Paine in 1776, adding that “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
It is in this spirit that Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence are proud to confer on Edward Snowden the Sam Adams Award for 2013.
The Sam Adams Award has been given in previous years to truth tellers Coleen Rowley of the FBI; Katharine Gun of British Intelligence; Sibel Edmonds of the FBI; Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; Sam Provance; former US Army Sgt. at Abu Ghraib; Maj. Frank Grevil of Danish Army Intelligence; Larry Wilkerson, Col., US Army (ret.), former chief of staff to Colin Powell at State; Julian Assange of WikiLeaks; Thomas Drake, former senior NSA official; Jesselyn Radack, Director of National Security and Human Rights, Government Accountability Project; and Thomas Fingar, former Assistant Secretary of State and Director, National Intelligence Council.
Declan McCullagh (CNet) reports that Ed had insight into how the government would respond to his whistle-blowing:
But they show that Snowden predicted how the documents he divulged would be received by Washington officialdom: "I think the government's going to launch an investigation. I think they're going to say I committed grave crimes, [that] I violated the Espionage Act. They're going to say I aided our enemies."
Which is exactly what happened. The U.S. government has alleged that Snowden violated the Espionage Act, and a Washington Post op-ed claimed he "has aided America's enemies." Secretary of State John Kerry has branded Snowden, who has not been convicted of a crime, as a "traitor to his country."
A traitor to his country? This from last week's liar to his country? Why did John Kerry have to lie about the fact that he went boating on Wednesday? I think most people were aware he'd been out of the country on a long trip and everyone knows he's not Hillary -- who would run herself ragged and still keep going. So why lie? And then to only tell the truth after photos emerged proving he wasn't in DC as the State Dept was insisting.
See, that's what happens when you start playing the fool in public. You start making baseless charges that you should be ashamed of.
John Kerry did not like being called a traitor when he criticized the ongoing war on Vietnam. So he should be especially careful about calling someone else a traitor. In the context it's being used, that's a very serious charge -- one that you can be sentenced to death for if convicted.
But John had to shoot off his mouth and the end result is that he looked like a fool at the end of the week due to the lie that he was in DC and then Teresa took ill. John Kerry really needs to find a new topic before he's given any more karmic demerits.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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