It's absolutely shocking.
But France? What could possibly be the motive other than bending to pressure from the US?
Now they deny right-of-passage to a flight carrying the president of Bolivia. Because? Well, you know, doing otherwise would upset the American authorities. It's realpolitik.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition#Portug...
I just hope that Americans realise this and demand change sooner than later.
The core piece in dampening a desire for change, in my thinking anyway, is the two-party system. Both parties are complicit and supportive of all this nonsense by an overwhelming internal majority. Outliers who join third parties are historically unsuccessful and outliers as candidates within the Democratic and Republican parties are rare. Even if you are lucky enough to have the chance to vote for someone radically pro-transparency or pro-privacy in federal election, the following still apply:
1. They are likely new, and years away from being in a leadership position of an important committee (where real accountability and change might begin).
2. They often fall into line over time. If they buck the party too often, too publicly and on too central of an issue, it is possible that the party will support them less in future national elections.
3. Any legislation they introduce, if acceptable at all, might well be diluted by amendments and through the committee process. Our congress appears slow and deadlocked because, it is in some ways designed to be. That is not me saying I agree with that design decision, but again just shining a light on the point.
The two-party system is a barrier to expressing (electorally) desire for change beyond a certain delta from the status quo. A multi-party system, though it might be fraught with other issues, would go some distance toward representing more varied sets of concerns.
The US is intimidating. It has made all non-democratic forms of government illegitimate by waging wars of extermination against them, it is a quarter of the world economy by itself, its military black budget is almost certainly larger than anyone else's open budget and its open budget is greater than the rest of the world's military budget summed.
The US is the global hegemon. Russia, China and maybe Iran are independent of it. The US does not truly view the rest of the world as sovereigns but as subjects.
Curious, then, how many Chinese and Russians there are yet. Is the US inefficient, or are you reaching a bit? And the US can be disgustingly good buddies with non-democratic governments: the Greek and Argentine juntas, various Middle Eastern states.
What about all of the dictatorships that the US created or propped up? Saudi Arabia, Iran pre revolution, Panama under Noriega, etc?
I agree with a lot of your post, but it wasn't anything the US government did that made all non-democratic forms of government illegitimate. They have all been illegitimate since the very first time a gang of stronger men beat and killed a weaker one just because they could.
As Snowden says, they want to intimidate the next leaker.
Radio exchange at http://audioboo.fm/boos/1482009-bolivia-air-force-fuerza-aer...
It says the plane was allowed to land in Spain for refueling before flying on to Austria.
It describes the rerouting as a "hostile act" by the US goverment: This is a hostile act by the United States State Department which has used various European governments"
I don't know what went on exactly but all that re-routing a plane with Snowden on it does for the U.S. is... nothing, really. It's not like they're going to stop them from going to Bolivia, and some kind of blackbag shenanigans while the plane refuels on the runway would lead to much more international outcry than I think either Obama or Kerry would want to accept.
Even if we assume some kind of Darth Obama type nonsense I just don't see where this would have any upside for the U.S., which makes it seem a little implausible... even Obama has to be smarter than that.
Edit: As far as the transcript the possibility would make sense if it was a charter flight and not a Bolivian aircrew. It would still be quite insane for the U.S. to ask for that or any of the countries to participate though.
2. Portugal and France don't control airspace needed to fly from Spain to Bolivia. Neither do they control airspace needed or very desirable to fly between Austria and Bolivia.
3. Therefore what we are hearing now is not likely to be the real story.
During the Azores summit, while Bush, Blair and Aznar discussed the Iraq invasion, our PM (Barroso - yeah, the guy from the EU) was more than happy to be their busboy and serve drinks while the Great Leaders talked.
Just victims of the in-house drive-by They say jump, you say how high Just victims of the in-house drive-by They say jump, you say how high...
