>Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, promised Wednesday that he would block renewal of the pact should Snowden be granted asylum.
>"Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior," he said in a statement, following other lawmakers who have spent years saying that the pact should be allowed to lapse, partly down to the country's links with Iran. [1]
If my tentative understanding of events is correct, this economic act of aggression (which would have hurt innocent civilians - does the US even care about that anymore?) was the main form of likely retaliation the US would have pulled in response to Snowden being granted asylum. Preempting this move by giving up the preferential treatment is, IMO, a very astute move by the Ecuadorian government, and puts America in a position of not having that leg to stand on.
I'm ashamed to say that Menendez is my ass of a senator.
For the American people, this is also adding insult to injury. This punishment doesn't only hit the Ecuadorian people, it also hits Americans. Not only are we being spied on, but in the government's fight for its authority to spy, it's also now forbidding Americans from purchasing products that they want (or forcing us to pay higher prices).
Menendez either (a) doesn't understand economics well enough to understand that in trade both sides profit; or (b) really does view this as a war [of the US government] against the American people. Personally, I think it's likely that both are true.
I'll be writing him another letter, this time saying not only that isn't PRISM and other domestic spying unacceptable, but that the necessary remedy is, at a minimum, the repeal of USA PATRIOT and of the AUMF.
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this... (snip)
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.
> or (b) really does view this as a war against the American people
I think CWuestefeld meant that the senator thinks that Ecuador's snub to the US regarding Edward Snowden is the 'war' - not that he and the US government is waging war against the American people.
Well it's always better to go "You can't fire me! I QUIT!" as you get booted from the door.
> (which would have hurt innocent civilians - does the US even care about that anymore?)
There are two sides to that particular story bub, and only one side has taken actual action so far to hurt those civilians... and it was the government charged with protecting those same civilians.
So what you're basically saying is that Ecuador has decided to harm their own innocent civilians in order to head toward granting asylum to a U.S. citizen to poke their thumb in Uncle Sam's face (again).
In what sense? If a member of the Ecuadorian opposition party infiltrated their government and stole classified information, then fled to the United States, wouldn't they demand to get him back?
The US didn't demand him back (and he isn't even there yet). They are threatening to remove some economic benefit that is completely unrelated to the issue at hand to coerce the Ecuadorean government to fall in line. That's pretty obviously bullying, and the Ecuadorean government has simply called uncle sam's bluff.
"Economic benefits" are generally not free. Why should the U.S. reward a country that has shown a willingness to embarrass them on the world stage (twice, now) when there are a hundred other countries that would be just as deserving (not to mention the millions of Americans here at home who could benefit from a bit of largesse)?
Why should they "reward" them? ... Because the U.S. always claims to have the moral high grounds? Because they offered asylum to people declared criminals by other countries (Russia, China, ...) many times in the past? You don't have the moral high grounds by stating you do; you do so by your actions.
Let's look at a slightly different viewpoint. The US is threatening MY (a US citizen) rights to trade with someone in this. Why is my government saying "we won't allow our people to trade with you without penalty". That is not an action on my behalf. That is threatening me with punishment over something they do.
If I believed for a second that Ecuador's government had genuine friendship-based concern for the U.S. and its actions I think I'd agree with you. But that's not what this is.
That doesn't change the fact that the more any entity relies on threats, the less it can have have real friends. This is like the physics of relationships and just how it is. Wether or not it applies here doesn't even matter for it being generally true, and the US seems to threaten friend and foe alike, if in doubt. Why, it even treats its own citizens like subjects quite often.
I agree that threats are not how friendly countries carry on friendly business. What I do not agree on is that Ecuador is acting at all as a "friend" to the U.S. in this matter, for the reasons I stated above.
The best friends are those that don't allow you to make mistakes.
The ones that aren't really your friends are the ones that pander to you, for fear of embarrassing you. They are doing you a disservice.
Which is of greater embarrassment, the alleged behaviour of the NSA, or an offer of asylum to a whistle blower destined for death or Guantanamo?
Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006:
"So was I right not just in supporting the war, but in actively prosecuting it? I’ve been asked a million times since the invasion whether, knowing then what I know now, I would have made the same decision.
And no, I wouldn’t. How could we have agreed to invade Iraq if we had known that there were no WMD there?"[1]
Earlier in the same article:
"As I spelt out the seriousness of the situation and my conviction that we now had to confront Saddam Hussein militarily, my wife Alice and children Will and Charlotte were up in the gallery listening.
None of them shared my view. Each of them would have been among the million or so demonstrators on the recent protest march through London against the war if it had not been for their loyalty to me and their wish not to embarrass me."
Jack Straw, Blair and Straw's family would have been better friends had they caused embarrassment.
> Which is of greater embarrassment, the alleged behaviour of the NSA, or an offer of asylum to a whistle blower destined for death or Guantanamo?
Given that Snowden is not destined for either death or Guantanamo I'm not sure how to take your question. The NSA's alleged behavior is at least consistent with what we've known and thought it able to do since the Cold War. The worst I can say about it is that they are pushing right up on the edge of the law and court precedent... but is that worse than flat-out breaking the law or doing things like actually focusing specific IRS attention on specific political-interest groups? Or passing laws to disenfranchise minority voters?
I'm not sure of the answer to that question, but I don't think it's "Yes", given what I know of what our law enforcement and national security teams have already had the fully-legal ability to do.
---
As for the friendship question, for me that goes back to who is really the 'friend' here. A 'friend' would certainly not castigate another about 'human rights abuses' (as if Snowden were clearly innocent) while at the same time having an asylum process that itself violates basic human rights as claimed by Human Rights Watch [1].
A "friend" would at least take the stick out of their eye before pointing to others' flaws. And this is why I say that the government of Ecuador has no legitimate friendly intent here. Even if I agreed with Snowden 100%, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, and neither is the friend of my friend.
Well none of us can predict the future, all we can do is guess. So that's your opinion. I doubt you hold your own opinion on the matter in higher regard than William Binney's. [1]
Q: He'll be prosecuted?
Binney: First tortured, then maybe even rendered and tortured and then incarcerated and then tried and incarcerated or even executed. [2]
We certainly haven't known what the NSA capabilities are. We may have thought or suspected. Even now we don't really know, note Nadler's turnaround and the language used:
"Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed on Thursday that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that." "
then:
"I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, _as I have always believed_, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans' phone calls without a specific warrant."
Did he not believe what he said in the first statement?
You're saying that because this fresh new, now known abuse, is no worse than other existing abuses, it's not an embarrassment. That seems like fallacious reasoning to me.
See Clapper's lying on camera to the senate here, and his subsequent claim that lying was the 'least untruthful' option. An embarrassment. [5]
The allegation that all calls are recorded for playback is startling, that would also be very embarrassing if it were proven.
Asylum has nothing to do with innocence, rather: evading persecution, i.e. the law in one place being an ass.
America is no slouch in the human rights hypocrisy department either.[4] Having a clean slate in that department is not a prerequisite for doing the right thing. Ecuador would be doing the right thing to grant asylum, and it would be an act of mercy and friendship, and truer friendship than simple pandering.
Regarding [2], I suggest you lookup the treatment meted out to actual spies like Hanssen and John Walker. The last spies to be executed were the Rosenbergs, and even that did not go off without a fight by a certain Supreme Court justice.
Ecuador hasn't embarrassed the US, the US has embarrassed itself. After a run of such events over the last 10ish years you'd thing an approach with less aggression could be tried. See the Afghanistan and Iraq adventures for the best examples.
I don't know, would they? This idea that a government would demand that another, non-allied government return someone whose crime is leaking secret information doesn't make any sense to me. I get why you'd extradite an accused murderer or similar, but an accused leaker? Why would another country listen to such a demand?
Especially given that the US government has made it extremely clear that such spying was targeting foreigners, including, most likely, Ecuadorian people.
> only one side has taken actual action so far to hurt those civilians... and it was the government charged with protecting those same civilians.
A meaningless technicality. You can't seriously be arguing that the US' continued hegemonic paternalism toward Ecuador isn't a major source of their population's problems.
It feels satisfying to go "You can't fire me! I QUIT!" but it's usually a bad idea. Removing a point of leverage before its attempted use is a slightly different scenario, though.
How should the US punish Ecuador? Assume you are in the government and your job is to try and get Ecuador to hand over someone? Clearly going to war is off the table.
By the way, Ecuador is a cool country. It's quite poor and they use the US dollar. I spent several weeks in Quito and everyone was quite friendly.
Saying "I wouldn't do anything" isn't an answer. You are running a country and you want a "crimminal" returned to the US for prosecution. This isn't the first time in history that this has happened. And the US isn't the only country that does stuff like this. If this happened in China, the UK, Russia, France, etc., I think they'd want their guy back too.
From the WSJ:
Mr. Obama said he hasn't called Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping concerning Mr. Snowden, who has been charged by U.S. authorities with stealing and passing on government secrets.
President Barack Obama dismissed the idea of using the U.S. military to pursue NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
"I shouldn't have to," Mr. Obama said, addressing a question raised during a news conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall. "This is something that is routine."
Well, you asked what they should do. They should make their case diplomatically and non-threateningly, and hope that they can persuade Ecuador to agree. If they can't, they should respect that this "criminal" is outside of their jurisdiction and there's nothing they can do. They should not attempt to leverage their size and muscle to force compliance, like a bully or tyrant.
Of course, as you noted, it never works like that, here or anywhere else.
And economic treaties are diplomatic tools. They always have been part-and-parcel of diplomacy and it's silly to act like that has suddenly changed in 2013.
Right. I interpreted the original question as "what, ideally, would be the right thing to do?" as opposed to "what would you expect them to do?"
It's not really about the mere involvement of an economic treaty, that can certainly be a part of the negotiations. It's just that, in this particular situation, it's a blatant attempt to use our economic muscle to bend a smaller entity to our will on a completely unrelated matter. (Again, I don't find it surprising or unexpected in any way)
Well I'd argue the minimum proportional response to achieve the ends (i.e. there's some carrot/stick combinations that would not be 'right', or worth the international outcry... and even in that window why go for overkill?)
The problem is that I don't think the U.S. has a lot of carrots at any given time (what are we going to do, lodge a formal protest?), and you'd certainly not want to start off with the stick.
Because we've set a precedent for meddling/policing for over a century, and to stop now would be certain death to the current political party via a media assault.
Our two party (err, one party) system is set up to preserve the status quo in its entirety. To not do so is certain death, politically.
While I agree with you that the US government has overstepped its bounds for too long and they should not be policing anything but their own arrogance, it is inevitable for our government to have to do some sort of ridiculous posturing over this.
It's too bad Snowden didn't go to China. The parallel would be funny: China - we don't care about our favored trade/tariff status! (as if); US Govt - up yours, import taxes then! (as if).
> * which would have hurt innocent civilians - does the US even care about that anymore?*
There own innocent civilians? Generally yes, though they consider them all to be potentially not at all innocent.
Other country's innocent civilians? Not unless it is politically or industrially/commercially expedient to seem to care. This has always been the case, and is the same for any other power.
Ecuador's fight against Chevron is likely the largest obstacle to the renewal of the trade preference, not Snowden. Ecuador likely opted to retain the claim for potential billions instead of the trade privilege allegedly worth $23 millions.
When does it become a not classy move? What if he kicks out all currently present US nationals from his country? What if he shuts down the US embassy in Quito? What if he takes military action against the US?
When do I stop getting excited when someone hurts my country?
I think a better question to ask is what is reasonable and fair to expect my country to do on my behalf.
I'm all for the USG to try to improve the position economically and politically in the world so long as they respect certain bounds of decency while doing so. Spying the the politicians and citizens of other countries in order to gain advantage is not decent or fair, the same way you wouldn't want your boss or your co-workers to spy on you to keep you from a raise or promotion.
The US, China, Russia and the UK are among the biggest sociopaths insofar as countries interacting with other countries go. I'm not proud of that, and I would hope we could meet with other countries and their leaders on a fair playing field and discuss things as adults instead or resorting to bullying.
Regardless of what the US does, it's not, in my opinion, something to cheer or be excited about when another country acts aggressively towards the US (to a citizen, anyway; feel however you want about it if you're not a citizen).
What it crosses to me is the boundary between loyalty to one's leaders and loyalty to one's country. Obama is going after Snowden, and I can either support or not support that action, that's my right as a citizen. But when another country takes action against my country, that suddenly becomes an act of agression directed at me, and every other citizen of the US.
And what is your opinion of the act of aggression of the NSA towards you and every other US citizen by surveilling you without a warrant?
Ecuador is providing protection to a whistleblower that is trying to help you question an unconstitutional program and reign in abuses. In a way that makes Ecuador a greater defender of the US Constitution than the USG.
I don't know about you, but my loyalty is to the system of governance and rights laid out by the Constitution before some amorphous geographic shape determined by natural boundaries and history. I see Ecuador as helping the person that is helping protect the Constitution. I don't necessarily know their motivations or agree with the reason they may be acting the way they are, but I do know that the World needs more people like Snowden, and people willing to go to bat for Snowden, if we are going to be able to defend the Bill of Rights and other documents/policies outlining basic human rights.
P.S. Threatening economic sanctions isn't "nice" or "classy" either. The US is as guilty as Ecuador for making this into an adversarial tete-a-tete.
No. When you claim your systems are better, you impose them on others, and you are vastly richer and more powerful, the standards change. The US is, and should be, held to a higher standard than poorer, weaker nations.
> (which would have hurt innocent civilians - does the US even care about that anymore?)
No. This is a standard tactic the US has used to economically intimidate Latin/South America for political, but usually economic reasons. After the disaster in Haiti, the government decided to raise taxes on gas/oil exports(forget really) to help recovery, but that would affect our profit margins so we threatened them economically into submission. I believe something similar happened with raising the minimum wage by a few cents for textile workers in Haiti, but there was no way in hell we'd have that.*
Menendez represents me. Not that I'm surprised that he'd protect his monied interests over the welfare of innocents or anything.
Edit: further context:
>Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, promised Wednesday that he would block renewal of the pact should Snowden be granted asylum.
>"Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior," he said in a statement, following other lawmakers who have spent years saying that the pact should be allowed to lapse, partly down to the country's links with Iran. [1]
If my tentative understanding of events is correct, this economic act of aggression (which would have hurt innocent civilians - does the US even care about that anymore?) was the main form of likely retaliation the US would have pulled in response to Snowden being granted asylum. Preempting this move by giving up the preferential treatment is, IMO, a very astute move by the Ecuadorian government, and puts America in a position of not having that leg to stand on.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/us-usa-security-sn...