Mr. Conservative – by Bookworm
John Kerry’s rules of the road: Open mouth; insert foot. Our Secretary of State set off an international fire storm when, in response to Edward Snowden’s leaks about the U.S. spying on the European Union and on the nation states within the EU, Kerry stated that it’s “not unusual” for governments to bug their allies’ offices. He’s right, but nobody in the business of international government relations is ever foolish enough to say that out loud – except for John Kerry. Oh, wait! There’s one other person who stays this, and that would be President Barack Obama himself. Neither seems familiar with a useful concept in the world of diplomacy: the polite fiction.
Perhaps, though, the truth was the only option. This was no little spying in which the US engaged. One of Snowden’s leaked documents showed that the NSA had bugged EU internal computer networks in Washington, D.C., as well as the EU’s office at the UN. The NSA also installed microphones in the building. In this way, it had full access to all conversations and emails. It appears that the NSA’s goal wasn’t national security but was, instead, to discover policy disagreements between EU member states.
When Snowden revealed that America was using electronic spying on her allies, the appropriate thing to have done would have been a public apology and a promise never to do it again, followed by (of course) doing it again, because that’s what nations do. Instead, Kerry said at a press conference “I will say that every country in the world that is engaged in international affairs and national security undertakes lots of activities to protect its national security and all kinds of information contributes to that. All I know is that is not unusual for lots of nations.” Someone just failed Diplomacy 101.
The European response was swift and angry. German Chancellor Angela Merkel had harsh words for the United States:
If it is confirmed that diplomatic representations of the European Union and individual European countries have been spied upon, we will clearly say that bugging friends is unacceptable.
We are no longer in the Cold War.
Martin Schultz, the president of the European Union Parliament, was equally outraged:
I was always sure that dictatorships, some authoritarian systems, tried to listen … but that measures like that are now practiced by an ally, by a friend, that is shocking, in the case that it is true.
The whole sordid situation is made worse by the fact that Obama is so aloof and condescending that he has no friends amongst world leaders, with the exception of Turkey’s increasingly tyrannical Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. While George Bush, whom European leaders liked (even if the people on the ground enjoyed protesting against him), could have talked privately with leaders and reached some sort of face-saving statement for all concerned, this option isn’t open to the Obama Administration. All Obama has is John Kerry, who suffers from the same terminal foot-in-mouth-disease that plagues Obama himself.
Open mouth, insert foot.
Sorry, I just can’t see this clown as president.
EVER.