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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Jane, po, Inga, et al
This was heartening to read about.
“PHOTOS: Israeli Women Who Have Stood Up to the Occupation for 26 Years
“In honor of International Women’s Day, Activestills (http://activestills.org/) paid tribute to more than a quarter century of anti-occupation activism by the ‘Women in Black’ group in Israel. Every Friday since 1988, the women have stood in the main squares of cities or at highway junctions with signs calling to end the Israeli occupation. Often spat at, cursed or violently harassed by passersby, they have become a symbol of persistence.”
– See more at: http://portside.org/2015-03-23/photos-israeli-women-who-have-stood-occupation-26-years#sthash.1aItNGrI.dpuf
Jane, it’s good to see women like Sawant in politics, hope she continues to fight the good fight, who knows maybe one day she’ll run for President.
@ Jane and po
Thanks for the kind words, and thank *you* both for your own posts, which reflect a humane concern for all the people who are suffering from man’s inhumanity to man.
Speaking of “The Most Dangerous Woman in America.” another one to keep an eye on is the inimitable Roseanne Barr. I didn’t know that she had run for President as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate, until I ran across this TV interview of her in which she demonstrates a very good grasp of the “benefits” to all of us of 1%, patriarchal, sexist culture.
Roseanne, si. Hillary, no.
Check her out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLTsdC0lasc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF2iaqg1J5w&index=2&list=PLotR79s1nrEa5AA5uw-U2QevtyKGzy0Pi
I voted for Roseanne Barr in the last presidential election for her campaign promise to jail the banksters. BUT, I would not vote for her seriously because well, she has…issues. My daughter and her husband went to see Tom Arnold at a comedy show and he told the story of how his marriage to Roseanne was going poorly so he had a picture of her face tattooed onto his chest over his heart. He said the tattoo did not save his marriage but it did save his life. The story goes thusly: he and Roseanne had been offered 10 million dollars by Jenny Craig to lose 20 pounds in one month using their weight loss system. They agreed. They were gaining weight on the Jenny Craig food. Tom came home one day to find Roseanne sitting in the kitchen downing a bag of Jenny Craig chocolate chip cookies. He grabbed them away from her and crushed them to powder, she picked up a steak knife and lunged at his heart, but simply could not stab the picture of her face, and at the last moment swerved slightly to the left, plunging the knife into the left side of his chest. SO, a big NO there! LOL A clip from that show is online.
“I voted for Roseanne Barr in the last presidential election for her campaign promise to jail the banksters.”
Did you know that the government of Iceland actually prosecuted and jailed some of their banksters?
http://rt.com/op-edge/iceland-bank-sentence-model-246/
Whoops! forgot the link. And that was just America;-)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_most_dangerous_woman_in_america_20150315
Ken
I second Don de drain’s appreciation of your posts. Intellectually, they have done the impossible, which is to lift the level of discussion on this blog above the cesspool in which it dwells.
The tide is indeed turning against Israel. Its relentless propaganda has hit the wall of public awareness and outrage.
More and more people are now speaking out who were cowed into silence before. The BDS movement is building up, young people on college campus are tying the plight of Palestinians to their own ethnic/generational issues, as evidenced recently in the Ferguson protests. European countries are passing resolutions supporting Palestine as a state and a people, and as for most issues affecting the globe right now, the US and Israel are being pushed into an international law corner of their own making.
Although AIPAC still yields great influence, Bibi’s stunts of late are making sure to undermine their influence on the social and, better yet, on the political level. When Congressmen, senators and the White house itself are daring to criticize Bibi as vehemently as they have lately, the media is sure to follow, which will be the effective turning point.
It is a damn shame however that with that tide turning, antisemitism will reappear stronger and more lethal, sure to impact not only Israel, but Jewry worldwide.
I think that ISIS should join the International Court of Criminal Justice. Or is that the similar group trying to join which calls itself Palestine or Palestinian?
There is a group of American Indians who are of a tribe driven out of what is now New York City back in Colonial Days. They call themselves Yorkies and wish to form their own nation state in Central Park. In Saint Louis, Missouri there is a group which calls itself Cardinal Nation. They have a religion which centers around some thing called a baseball. I think that both the Yorkies and Cardinal Nation should join the International Court and the United Nations. The Yorkies will take over New York someday. They do not like all the English, Italians, Germans and Jews who live in NYC. The Yorkies were there first. Just like the Palestinians were the first to be in what is now Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank. Germany went through this in the 1930s and it ended tragically with the end of WWII. The Palestinians learned some things from the German Bund and Nazi Party. They are not making the same mistake of offending the Russians. Sieg Heil.
Ken Rogers
Thanks for some interesting posts. I really enjoyed reading and posting at Greenwald’s blog in his pre-Salon days. Can’t say I always agreed with him, but the level of discourse there was high. Keep posting here. It will keep me coming back.
@ Don de Drain
Thanks for the complimentary feedback. I’m glad to hear my posts didn’t just go don de drain. 🙂
The level of discourse was pretty high on Glenn’s Salon blog, too. Glenn’s ego got in the way some of the time and he’d ban commenters, and there were a few boorish liberal and conservative talking-points ideologues, but overall the experience was worth the expenditure of time and energy.
And I third Don de Drain’s appreciation of Ken’s posts.
Personally, I would like to see “The Most Dangerous Woman in the World”s ideas get traction.
To clarify my last post, I neglected to put in quotation marks Kagan’s own words in his op-ed, which were as follow:
“The fact that [advocates for more spending] face a steep uphill battle to get even that lower number passed by a Republican-controlled Congress says a lot — about Republican hypocrisy. Republicans may be full-throated in denouncing [President Barack] Obama for weakening the nation’s security, yet when it comes to paying for the foreign policy that all their tough rhetoric implies, too many of them are nowhere to be found. …
“The editorial writers and columnists who have been beating up Obama and cheering the Republicans need to tell those Republicans, and their own readers, that national security costs money and that letters and speeches are worse than meaningless without it. …
“It will annoy the part of the Republican base that wants to see the government shrink, loves the sequester and doesn’t care what it does to defense. But leadership occasionally means telling people what they don’t want to hear. Those who propose to lead the United States in the coming years, Republicans and Democrats, need to show what kind of political courage they have, right now, when the crucial budget decisions are being made.”
Here’s a good example of how the War Party makes the world safe for the Military-Industrial Complex:
Note that Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland was promoted during the tenure of Sec State Hillary “We Came, We Saw, He Died” Clinton and has been supported by Sec State John “I Served in Vietnam for My Political Career” Kerry:
“Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia – and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending so America can meet these new security threats.
“This extraordinary husband-and-wife duo makes quite a one-two punch for the Military-Industrial Complex, an inside-outside team that creates the need for more military spending, applies political pressure to ensure higher appropriations, and watches as thankful weapons manufacturers lavish grants on like-minded hawkish Washington think tanks.
“Not only does the broader community of neoconservatives stand to benefit but so do other members of the Kagan clan, including Robert’s brother Frederick at the American Enterprise Institute and his wife Kimberly, who runs her own shop called the Institute for the Study of War.
“Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (which doesn’t disclose details on its funders), used his prized perch on the Washington Post’s op-ed page on Friday to bait Republicans into abandoning the sequester caps limiting the Pentagon’s budget, which he calculated at about $523 billion (apparently not counting extra war spending). Kagan called on the GOP legislators to add at least $38 billion and preferably more like $54 billion to $117 billion:
“The fact that [advocates for more spending] face a steep uphill battle to get even that lower number passed by a Republican-controlled Congress says a lot — about Republican hypocrisy. Republicans may be full-throated in denouncing [President Barack] Obama for weakening the nation’s security, yet when it comes to paying for the foreign policy that all their tough rhetoric implies, too many of them are nowhere to be found. …
“The editorial writers and columnists who have been beating up Obama and cheering the Republicans need to tell those Republicans, and their own readers, that national security costs money and that letters and speeches are worse than meaningless without it. …
“It will annoy the part of the Republican base that wants to see the government shrink, loves the sequester and doesn’t care what it does to defense. But leadership occasionally means telling people what they don’t want to hear. Those who propose to lead the United States in the coming years, Republicans and Democrats, need to show what kind of political courage they have, right now, when the crucial budget decisions are being made.”
“So, the way to show ‘courage’ – in Kagan’s view – is to ladle ever more billions into the Military-Industrial Complex, thus putting money where the Republican mouths are regarding the need to ‘defend Ukraine’ and resist ‘a bad nuclear deal with Iran.’
“Yet, if it weren’t for Nuland’s efforts as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, the Ukraine crisis might not exist. A neocon holdover who advised Vice President Dick Cheney, Nuland gained promotions under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and received backing, too, from current Secretary of State John Kerry.”
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29219-a-family-business-of-perpetual-war
Mr. Rogers
Chinggis’ great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather practice diversity of religion. Destroy city if not tolerate different religions. Pretty good guy except he kill people if they not obey him. I guess no one perfect.
You should go university. Learn Mongol history. If not for long ago typhoon, USA fight WWII in Asia against Chinggis’ cousin.
Ken Rogers,
“Let me add that Democrat, Republican, Left, Right, Liberal, Conservative, Progressive are superficial labels that inhibit thinking and perception of the basic divide between those who are least concerned with controlling others (individualists) and those most concerned with doing so for self-interested reasons (collectivists).”
Well said!
Thanks for the feedback, Prairie Rose.
No surprises here. Incredibly disappointing that the Man of Change has overseen the least transparent administration in modern times.
I have a book on the shelf: Three spots on the wall. – by Who Flug Foo.
One spot is Hillary.
Second spot is Snowden.
Third spot is Hitler.
If my choice for president had to be one of the three I might choose Snowden. Hitler has been renamed McCain.
@ Max-1
“Ken Rogers,
“Think Christian Coalition and US politics and you get Ronald Reagan/George HW Bush. History writes itself from there… ”
The only thing wrong with the flag-draped, cross-bearing elephant is that its rear half should be that of a donkey. *Then* it would be an appropriate symbol of the War Party that governs this country.
@ TJustice
“SamFox,
“You’re right, I couldn’t find a better quote! Although I should have known, Madison is much more of a heavyweight when it comes to political theory comparatively.
“So cheers to ken Rogers’ original post and [James Madison] quote.
Thanks, TJ. I’m glad you came around to realizing that no matter what his shortcomings may have been, Madison nailed it with respect to the incompatibility of domestic freedom and war. He isn’t referred to as the “Father of the Constitution” for nothing.
And speaking of organized homicide, here’s a link to a truly excellent video of a discussion of the perpetual war policy of the USG. If you don’t watch another video this month, watch this one:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/28014.html
Agreed, Max and Ken.
I tend to watch/listen to my daily Democracy Now much later in the day, savoring in advance a moment of pure, unadulterated joy. For those of us for whom learning is pleasurable, there is little better.
There has been stories making the round of newsmedia of every cloth, which tell me what happened. It is only through Democracy Now that I do know why it happened, how it happened, that it happened before and especially why it will happen again.
it was not surprising at all to learn that Jeremy Scahill went through Democracy Now.
Regarding Matt Taibbi, that he hasn’t won the Pulitzer on the strength of his expose of the banking industry’s malfeasance is malfeasance enough.
Ken Rogers,
Think Christian Coalition and US politics and you get Ronald Reagan/George HW Bush. History writes itself from there…
http://all-len-all.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/elephant-flag-cross.jpg
@ DrSigne
“Ken Rogers: ‘When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag (and carrying a cross)’ is a quotation from Sinclair Lewis”
Thanks for your response.
I understand that there is scholarly doubt regarding the attributions to either Long or Lewis, inasmuch as research into their writings and speeches hasn’t been able to document either quotation.
As far as I’m concerned, the lack of documentation in no way whatsoever affects the truth value of the statements, the one including “carrying a cross” being more comprehensively accurate.
I say that regarding “carrying a cross,” because in addition to producing a great deal of rhetoric touting American exceptionalism and imperialism, so many Christian churches prominently display an American flag near the Cross in an idolatrous conflation of symbols of Christ and Caesar.
Ken Rogers: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag (and carrying a cross)” is a quotation from Sinclair Lewis