USA KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES IN HUNT FOR SNOWDEN.

The refusal by a number of European countries for a Bolivian aeroplane to fly over their airspace signalled an alarming development in international relations. That the aeroplane carried the Bolivian President and was, in effect, Bolivian territory opens up a whole new chapter in world affairs.

 

There can be little doubt that the European nations were acting at the behest of that arch advocate of democracy and fair play, the United States; it's reported that one country stated that it would allow the plane to cross its territory but only if it also landed and a search of it was allowed. The intention of such a search would have been to determine if Edward Snowden, a man desperately sought by the paranoid US authorities, was on board, but the Bolivian government has said that no search was conducted. They have also pointed out that any such search would have been a violation of any number of international laws regarding sovereignty and that the whole episode was a shocking disgrace; they will be taking the matter up at the United Nations, for all the good that will do.

 

Mr Snowden's crime is that he 'leaked' information which the US authorities would rather have kept secret. Many countries would probably consider at least some of similar information to be fully accessible to their citizens but not the USA; the paranoia and secretiveness of their government knows no such bounds. Should poor Mr Snowden fall into their hands, he can expect no mercy and will almost certainly spend the rest of his life, which could be many decades, in some grim penal institution.

 

No one can be certain that the US was involved in this affair but "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck", it almost certainly is a duck. As with the Wikileaks founder, Julain Assange, Snowden has made the mistake of upsetting the US government and is now paying the price. In the UK, whistleblowers, for that is what Assange and Snowden really are, are offered protection and generally applauded for bringing government misdeeds to public notice; in the US, they are vilified as traitors, hounded and condemned. The US thinks nothing of riding roughshod over international laws and violating diplomatic treaties whenever it suits their own internal purposes and yet no one says a word.

 

One has to wonder what is the point of the United Nations when one of its members is so powerful and cannot be sanctioned.