Obama Cancels Putin Meeting Because Of Snowden, Because Diplomacy Is Like Kindergarten

from the petty-disputes dept

The White House had hinted at this earlier, but now it's been confirmed that President Obama has cancelled a planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin because of Russia's decision to grant temporary asylum to Ed Snowden. This seems petty in the extreme. No one honestly thought that Putin would simply hand over Snowden. And, really, of all the things to cancel a meeting about, this is the one that pushes him over the edge? He could have cancelled it over Putin's recent homophobic remarks or Russia's latest focus on censoring the internet or putting activists in jail or any number of other things that generally should offend American sensibilities. But using the Snowden asylum as the reason just seems like the federal government is really losing perspective in this whole NSA surveillance debate -- the one Obama claimed he "welcomed."

Honestly, this whole thing feels like kindergarten-style diplomacy. The Russians took "our ball" and so now we're mad at them and won't talk to them. In an adult world, cancelling a meeting over something like this just looks incredibly immature and petty. It's all for show, rather than any legitimate purpose. I'd rather we had a government that didn't do things for show, but for legitimate reasons. Unfortunately, it seems we're well past having that kind of government.

Filed Under: barack obama, diplomacy, ed snowden, vladimir putin

US Officials Freak Out Over Russia Giving Snowden Temporary Visa

from the well-of-course dept

The news of the morning, of course, was that Russia had agreed to grant Ed Snowden a temporary one-year visa, so that he could at least leave the airport (which he promptly did). In response, US government officials seem to have lost all perspective in making it sound like this is the worst offense ever:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called it a "slap in the face of all Americans." Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., called the development a "setback to U.S.-Russia relations."

[....]

"If these reports are accurate, Americans in Washington should consider this a game changer in our relationship with Russia," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement, calling Russia's decision "provocative" and "a sign of Vladimir Putin's clear lack of respect for President Obama."

A slap in the face? A game changer? Who do they think they're kidding? The White House is being equally ridiculous if only slightly less hyperbolic, in suggesting it may cancel an upcoming Putin/Obama summit:

"We're extremely disappointed," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. "We're evaluating the utility of a summit in light of this and other issues."

You know what? These arguments would have a lot more weight if they didn't come a day after the US government was able to successfully convict a guy who leaked classified documents to the press in order to blow the whistle on government wrongdoing. And the fact is that the American public is increasingly realizing that, yes, Ed Snowden is a whistleblower, not someone guilty of "espionage." And yet the US government is trying to paint him as some sort of evil hacker spy.

However, the very fact that Congress is actually having the debate about these programs, that the NSA and the FISA Court are declassifying various documents, and that it's clear that the NSA's surveillance powers are going to be somehow limited, seems to support, very strongly, the claim that Snowden was, in fact, a whistleblower. The defenders of the government can whine and moan about this or that, but if they wanted to have any credibility on this topic at all, perhaps they shouldn't have tried to brand Snowden as a criminal when everything that's happened since has proven he's a whistleblower.

Filed Under: asylum, barack obama, bradley manning, ed snowden, russia, visa, vladimir putin

Russia Confirms To The World That It's Not A Fan Of Free Speech: Pussy Riot Gets Two Years In Jail

from the pussy-riot-in-jail dept

Hopefully, many of you have been following the legal fight in Russia over the band/collective Pussy Riot, who performed an anti-Putin song inside a key Moscow cathedral. If so, then you know that, today, the band was sentenced to two years in jail. The sentence could have been worse, but just the fact that they're being punished, at all, for expressing their views is troubling enough. The three women have already been in jail since March, while the case moved forward. At the beginning, it was assumed that they would end up with jail sentences, but there had been some hope that the Russian judiciary would recognize the general horror of the rest of the world at the case and perhaps back down. The women are planning to appeal, so this isn't over yet.

Either way, the verdict is unfortunate in many ways. We talk about free speech issues all the time around here, and we recognize that other countries don't always view freedom of speech as being as central or as important as the US does. That said, the whole idea that a band would end up in jail over political speech should be distressing and problematic to anyone with a developed sense of "right" and "wrong." Some will say this isn't surprising, or that this is the way that some countries operate, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still be offended by the decision on principle.

Filed Under: free speech, protests, pussy riot, russia, vladimir putin