US Espionage and Blatant Hypocrisy

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/225789/us-espionage-and-blatant-hypocrisy/



These days, it is better to be a potential enemy of the U.S. than a friend; it is less cynical and presumptuous for enemies than friends to deal with counterespionage.

US Espionage and Blatant Hypocrisy
La Jornada, Mexico
By Guillermo Almerya
Translated By Patricia O'Connor
27 October 2013
Edited by Jane Lee

The government of France and its president, Francois Hollande, just lodged a formal protest with their friend and ally, the United States, because it was intercepting and recording millions of verbal and written messages communicated by French authorities, politicians, businesses and other groups of citizens and individuals. After the German secret service found out that Chancellor Merkel’s personal cellphone had been tapped, the German government and Chancellor Merkel personally sent similar messages to the U.S. The Argentine and Mexican governments, as well as Felipe Calderon, who had been spied upon continuously during his administration, also protested. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff cancelled a trip she had planned to make to the U.S. and sent a formal complaint for such unacceptable meddling. The European Union and the Germany-France duo are responding collectively to the U.S. government. However, at the end of the day, the impact of this wave of indignation will not amount to much.

In effect, the U.S. appears unfazed when justifying its espionage program, insisting it is key to national security. The U.S. has not asked forgiveness; nor has it said it will stop committing such transgressions. Rather, the U.S. continues to extend with impunity its policing powers wherever possible. It is integrating its industrial espionage on foreign business competitors with its political espionage, using the information it gathers to blackmail corruptible public servants and military employees in its vassal states and their allies. These days, it is better to be a potential enemy of the U.S. (such as Russia and China) than a friend; it is less cynical and presumptuous for enemies than friends to deal with counterespionage.

The U.S. deploys groups of assassins to enter its vassal states and execute people like bin Laden who, after serving U.S. interests for a while, may turn into unfortunate witnesses and obstacles to its policies. Exercising what it dares to term extraterritoriality, the U.S. forcibly and illegally goes into sovereign nations such as Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, kidnapping people who are then interrogated and held in floating prisons located in international waters. They are no longer held at Guantanamo (on Cuban soil) because it has become a politically untenable torture center.

The targets of espionage (who believe they are important people) are speaking up about the use of the same tactics that they used against semicolonial governments, knowing that phone tapping is part and parcel of Washington’s pretension to be judge, cop and executioner anywhere in the world, far exceeding Leonid Brezhnev’s theory of limited sovereignty.