Obama’s Diplomatic Blunder, the Cowardice of Western Democracies and What Sweden Should Do
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 12 Aug 2013
President Obama’s decision to cancel the meeting with Putin is yet another indicator of Washington’s intellectual weakness and the U.S. empire’s future dissolution. People like Assange, Manning and Snowden should be seen as heroes and treated with respect. Before the Swedish prime minister meets Obama he should announce that Sweden is willing to host Snowden.
President Obama’s decision to cancel a scheduled meeting with President Putin is extraordinarily short-sighted and counterproductive.
The decision lacks conflict-resolution competence as well as statesmanship. It’s a sign of the increasing powerlessness and desperation in Washington.
There would have been more than enough to talk about such as BRICS, Syria, nuclear abolition – remember Obama’s vision? – ballistic missile ”defence”, Iran, Egypt, and climate change.
The time for talks or consultations – for the face-to-face meeting to facilitate deeper mutual understanding – is precisely when there are problems, not when a relationship is in harmony.
The United States is upset about Russia’s protection of Edward Snowden. But does anyone seriously believe that Washington would have handed back a Russian dissident to Moscow? No, he would have been treated as a hero of freedom.
And why does Snowden have to stay put in Moscow? Because – shamefully – no European democratic, freedom-loving country inside or outside NATO and the EU has stood up for this courageous man and invited him to come and stay.
Sweden’s prime minister ought to have the courage to offer asylum to Mr. Snowden when he, instead of Putin, meets the U.S. president.
Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have revealed how arrogantly exceptionalist, human rights-defying and illegal the US policy has become in its search for a security that is unattainable predominantly because of its own foreign policy.
They’ve shown how Washington disregards citizens’ rights among both foes and friends. In black political humour the U.S. has been changed to the ”United Stasi of America” and Obama’s slogan to ”Yes We Scan”.
How sad for the world leader that embodied a vision of a better world and was admired almost all over the world from 1945 onwards: today considered by millions and millions to be both broke, militarist and in moral decay.
Thanks to Assange, Manning and Snowden – and decades ago Daniel Ellsberg – the world knows what Washington of course hoped we would never know. They should be considered heroes in the best American tradition.
25 years ago, the Soviet Union reached its imperial limits. In fewer years from now, the United States will too: ideals and de facto behaviour too far apart.
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Submitted by TFF Director, Prof. Jan Oberg, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.
The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF in Lund, Sweden is independent of government and corporate funding and thus conducts truly free research. Thanks to its 60 expert Associates around the world, it has a well-respected capacity from on-the-ground conflict analysis and mediation work in places such as Georgia, ex-Yugoslavia, Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Burundi and Iran. Since 1986 TFF has worked for the UN Charter goal of peace by peaceful means. TFF produces truthful, comprehensive analyses and critiques the exaggerated use of violent means. That’s diagnosis and prognosis. But we also do treatment because the world will not become a better place without constructive dialogue and ideas.
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