By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
During a conference held to award Journalist Glenn Greenwald the Siebenpfeiffer Prize for Journalism, Greenwald reported a conversation in which German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. In this the Vice Chancellor commented to him that the United States threatened Germany with withholding vital intelligence of terrorist activity if the nation granted asylum to Edward Snowden or otherwise allowed him to travel to Germany.
The event shows the extreme measures the Administration is willing to take regarding whistleblowers and others labeled as threats.
The revelation began when Vice Chancellor Gabriel, speaking of the plight of Edward Snowden, was interrupted by an audience member who asked why Snowden was not offered asylum in Germany. Gabriel replied that Germany would be required to extradite Snowden to the United States.
Here is a video via Saarbrücker Zeitung containing excerpts of the Vice Chancellor’s and Mr. Greenwald’s speeches.
Later, when Greenwald had an opportunity to speak to the Vice Chancellor in person, he enquired about the asylum issue. Greenwald later revealed to the public this conversation via Greenwald’s news service.
In the article, Mr. Greenwald wrote of some truly troubling behavior on behalf of the Obama Administration:
Afterward [the ceremony], however, when I pressed the vice chancellor (who is also head of the Social Democratic Party, as well as the country’s economy and energy minister) as to why the German government could not and would not offer Snowden asylum — which, under international law, negates the asylee’s status as a fugitive — he told me that the U.S. government had aggressively threatened the Germans that if they did so, they would be “cut off” from all intelligence sharing. That would mean, if the threat were carried out, that the Americans would literally allow the German population to remain vulnerable to a brewing attack discovered by the Americans by withholding that information from their government.
This is not the first time the U.S. has purportedly threatened an allied government to withhold evidence of possible terror plots as punishment. In 2009, a British national, Binyam Mohamed, sued the U.K. government for complicity in his torture at Bagram and Guantánamo. The High Court ordered the U.K. government to provide Mohamed’s lawyers with notes and other documents reflecting what the CIA told British intelligence agents about Mohamed’s abuse.
In response, the U.K. government insisted that the High Court must reverse that ruling because the safety of British subjects would be endangered if the ruling stood. Their reasoning: the U.S. government had threatened the British that they would stop sharing intelligence, including evidence of terror plots, if they disclosed what the Americans had told them in confidence about Mohamed’s treatment — even if the disclosure were ordered by the High Court as part of a lawsuit brought by a torture victim. British government lawyers even produced a letter from an unnamed Obama official laying out that threat.
The full article may be read HERE.
Later, the Vice Chancellor’s office declined to comment to the German medium Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about the asylum issue and declared there was no legal basis to offer Edward Snowden asylum.
Deutsche Welle reported the Obama administration has denied the accusation of threatening to withhold information from Berlin, according to Washington newspaper The Hill, which quotes a statement from a senior official calling the suggestion that the US threatened to withhold intelligence “baseless.”
But the question of how “baseless” Glenn Greenwald’s or Vice Chancellor Gabriel’s assertions are is not certainly arguable considering the actions of the Obama Administration in the Snowden matter. All one has to do is look at the past actions of The Administration for guidance.
We have an Administration that declares that the accusations are baseless, yet the same administration’s NSA tapped into Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, ordered the grounding and search of the aircraft of a head of state on mere suspicion that Edward Snowden might be aboard, and made a similar threat to another NATO ally, the United Kingdom.
The row comes down to a matter of credibility of either side in the Edward Snowden controversy. Who is the more trustworthy, The Obama Administration or Glenn Greenwald?
Sources:
The Intercept
Deutsche Welle
Saarbrücker Zeitung via YouTube
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Sam, po hates Jews. Don’t even bother talking w/ him. You won’t get that time back. Just ignore haters like him.
Po wrote–in an apparent swipe at Israel– “Over two thousand civilians were killed, one quarter of them children, in last summer’s “resumption of violence” in Gaza …”
What were the circumstances surrounding this? Would it have anything to do with the Pals firing rockets from school & hospitals & using civvies as shields?? Did the Jews end the cease fire peace by firing first? Or was it rocket launches from Gaza by the Pals that Israel responded to?
SamFox
And, that’s the best the fat, lesbian, Hillary has ever looked. She might get some real action from that photo.
I think some people have problems w/ satire of their heroes and heroines. They like it only one way. Better brace yourself, pansies, we’re only getting warmed up.
Correction & addition: …what war is it that…
And– I’d trust Greenwald more than this administrations ‘word’ any time.
If whistle blowers were listened to & their info investigated, Snowden would still be in the USA. Many who were outing the govt, govt agencies like the FDA & so on DID try to go through ‘proper channels’.
What happened to them? There is a nice list of articles on the subject under the search term I used–US Whistle Blowers Persecuted
That list of articles is WHY Snowden fled the US BEFORE releasing his information.
From a blurb I found on the list, from the WashingtonBlog–“Obama Aggressively Prosecutes Whistleblowers … But Refuses to Go After White Collar Criminals. Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton each prosecuted financial crime more aggressively than Barack Obama.”
0 is a poster child for cronyism.
I note some animosity against Israel. Ever look at a map to see how big Israel is in relation to their surrounding countries? After the holocaust…gee, I wonder why they would like to have their own country…and such a huge swath of land they occupy. Is that the reason Jews are still being persecuted?
SamFox
Very sad indeed Raff. He and his alter-ego are making sure every discussion ends up in the ghetto of ideas.
But since they made it about Israel…
————————-
“Israeli war is as about as representative of the Jewish faith as Islamic State terror is of Islamic values. Terror committed by both Israel and Islamic State should be equally loathed. Unfortunately, they are not. When the so-called Islamic State torched a helpless young Jordanian pilot, the whole world understandably reacted with disgust. An almost universal outpouring of grief commenced, from Muslims, Jews and atheists alike. So why then do some people find it hard to muster even a hint of outrage at murder committed in the name of Israel? Worse still, why do they defend it?
Over two thousand civilians were killed, one quarter of them children, in last summer’s “resumption of violence” in Gaza (Jonathan Freedland’s words, not mine). If 500 children had been slaughtered by Muslims armed with zeal and hell bent on territorial expansion, defending a religious state drunk on supremacy, you can bet the language used by the Guardian’s executive editor would have been a little more suggestively charged. Maybe he would have used his new favourite term “fascist death cult”, which he exclusively attaches to terror perpetrated by those who purportedly claim to represent Islam. In the world of white liberalism only certain people are black enough to make it into the death cult.
Five hundred innocent children left the world last summer in a haze of disintegrated concrete. Tens of thousands more were left to breathe in the aftermath. Disabled and mentally scarred they watched the dust settle, until another day an Israeli leader wishing to win an election decides to mow the lawn.
But something was unique about this war and it wasn’t just an increase in body count. New technology had enabled Palestinians to bypass a media sieve that all too often refines terror committed by Western allies. News now came direct from source, the victim. Uploaded to Twitter and Facebook shock was shared socially. The smartphone stripped us of any defence of pleading ignorance. Of course, the BBC tried its hardest to sell us a narrative of equals. But even the heaviest of make-up failed to hide the bodies as they mounted up; fractured and limp, children were plucked from the rubble, limbless.
Some people tried to bury their heads in the sand, making a conscious and cowardly decision to remain mute. As much as I find silence a guilty party in aiding ascents of terror – 1930s European fascism is testament – there were much more worrying acts afoot. Loud and proud voices unmoved by images of bloodied children armed themselves with myths of supremacy, cheerleading death from the comfort of their centrally heated homes. Industrialised violence and mass murder are perfectly rational if they exterminate future terrorists: an operative word for Palestinian children.
– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/if-islamic-state-terror-not-islam-why-israeli-war-judaism-932538868#sthash.9DtcciWV.dpuf
I am astonished the various false and disgusting posts and pictures by Trooper are not considered to be unacceptable on this site. Very sad.
TJustice said ” “War is the statesman’s game”. Madison was aware of the trials and tribulations of war, but the actions taken and policies supported by him undercut the idea that he actually believed what he said in practice. Wonderful statesman and politician, though…”
TJ, what war is that undercut Madison?
SamFox
From Wikipedia, citing Garry Wills, historian and commentator.
In his later years, Madison became extremely concerned about his historic legacy. He took to modifying letters and other documents in his possession: changing days and dates, adding and deleting words and sentences, and shifting characters. By the time he had reached his late seventies, this “straightening out” had become almost an obsession. As an example, he edited a letter written to Jefferson criticizing Lafayette: Madison not only inked out original passages, but imitated Jefferson’s handwriting as well in making changes.
How about this? Glenn Greenwald vs the last two administrations: yes, Glenn all the way!
Whaddya know!Trooper can write more than 2 sentences!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ken Rogers,
“Please feel free to come up with a better one. I look forward to seeing it, and I mean that sincerely.”
It’s important to note that Madison is in power at this point, the oppressor if you will, from the quote perspective. For him, war was certainly a threat since his state could lose one day, making it and him vulnerable. An entrenched, stable system was better for him personally, his race, his gender, and his class, etc.
Also, I don’t think that freedom exists because a nation-state’s leader says so. When he said this, the vast majority of persons in his own nation-state was not free.
From Malcolm X:
“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has freedom.”
From Percy Bysshe Shelley:
“War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, the lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade.”
From Noam Chomsky:
“Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.”
These three quotes, together capture the point you were making. Although not as technically detailed (discussion of taxes, executive branch powers, etc.) the sentiment and understanding is there.
And all one has to do it take a look at Madison’s life to see that he fits in Shelley’s category almost precisely: “War is the statesman’s game”. Madison was aware of the trials and tribulations of war, but the actions taken and policies supported by him undercut the idea that he actually believed what he said in practice. Wonderful statesman and politician, though…
“Obama has destroyed our relationships w/ our allies, and cozied up w/ our enemies. The MSM are cultists, just like the lapdogs here.”
Any proof of such an absurd claim, or is it just good enough for you to pretend, ya know, it’s true?
All those who label the “47” as traitors. Please reread the history of congressional interference with presidential foreign policy.
Congress acts politically against presidents from both parties; be fair enough to recognize that it isn’t just an Obama or a Republican thing.
trooperyork
Re your 8:05 post.
What has been seen can never be unseen. Yuck!!!
mespo727272
Hadn’t really noticed you before, but as I posted earlier I got the impression of significant animus from that one post.
Now that I have read a number of your posts, I am underwhelmed – both with the quality of your intellect and with your ability to associate with others.
Please tone down the bitterness and the vitriol.
@TJustice
“Your point, in substance, is well taken about war being a main threat to freedom. However, I’m not sure Madison is your best quote.”
Please feel free to come up with a better one. I look forward to seeing it, and I mean that sincerely.
Ken Rogers
Your point, in substance, is well taken about war being a main threat to freedom. However, I’m not sure Madison is your best quote. He helped craft a government that was anti-democratic, a legacy that lives on today.
And as always: freedom for whom? Madison and his friends. Sure he wanted that. But not for many others.
Max-1,
“Been following Greenwald since before Salon at his old site.
Unclaimed Terroritory http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/
Long time fan of his…”
I caught on to him right before he left Salon for the Guardian.
One of the few legal commentators with an actual backbone.
Holding back real time terrorist intelligence is tantamount to terrorism itself. It is an outrage to think that our government would use a terrorist threat as leverage to demand compliance from any potential victim let alone an ally.
Benedict Arnold was an active duty general in the colonial army, Trooper, didn’t stop him.