SNOWDEN USA’S BIG ‘BLACKEYE’

SNOWDEN USA’S BIG ‘BLACKEYE’

 News item: Human rights foes cheered by Edward Snowden fiasco http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2013/07/human_rights_foes_cheered_by_edward_snowden_fiasco

The global hunt for Edward Snowden is damaging U.S. interests in ways that go far beyond the intelligence data he leaked.

The wild flight of the fugitive leaker — from Hong Kong to the transit area of Moscow’s Sherymetyvo Airport, and perhaps on to Ecuador — has turned into a public humiliation for the White House. U.S. officials publicly threatened “consequences” if Snowden wasn’t returned, only to be openly rebuffed by Chinese officials and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. This made embarrassingly clear how little leverage President Obama has in Moscow or Beijing .

And what hurts more, the Snowden affair has turned some of the world’s worst human rights offenders to portray themselves as champions of freedom by defending Snowden while denouncing America as a massive violator of rights.

China’s Xinhua news agency tagged the United States as “the biggest (cyber) villain in our age.” Russian parliamentarians said the samne. You might think that such self-righteous claims would be dismissed as political posturing. Yet in today’s world, with America’s image sullied by Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and by our paralyzed politics, these charges can find a receptive audience, not only abroad but at home.

So let’s look at the records of the countries that are offering Snowden the greatest support.

For starters, there is something bizarre about the list. While Snowden claims to be defending personal freedoms, he has sought shelter from egregious violators of human rights, including China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador. Whatever his motives, this lends an air of hypocrisy to his claims.

He took refuge in Hong Kong, which is part of China, whose leaders control the country’s Internet portals, block content and monitor individual access. The Chinese censor print and electronic media and have “the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world,” according to Amnesty International. Chinese government hackers have conducted massive commercial and military espionage in the United States (and presumably elsewhere) and even breached Google’s computers.

In China, no Congress or courts govern surveillance nor can Chinese citizens oppose it. Government hackers break into the software of international companies such as Apple to steal industrial secrets — on a massive scale. As Obama noted, that’s not normal intelligence gathering; “that’s theft.”

Then there’s Russia, where the state controls all major newspapers and national TV networks, which are still the major news source for the bulk of the population. Journalists are beaten up or murdered, and the perpetrators, conveniently, are never found. Political dissenters are cowed, arrested, or driven into exile.

As for Ecuador, its populist president, Rafael Correa, has criminalized reporting that is critical of his government — and prosecuted journalists who attempt it.

That brings us to the heart of the matter. Snowden’s saviors have seized a delicious opportunity to deflect U.S. criticism of their own cyberattacks and rights violations by branding the United States as the real sinner. Dogged by images from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Washington has become an easy target. Even some allies have tired of America’s human rights demands (which are readily ignored when strategic concerns trump them, as in Syria).

Whatmore, USA became the laughing staff of the netizens around the world. They have derided and portayed America as the villain who tripped itself down with its own toe.

What is next?

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