EU Faith in US May Be "Shattered" over Snowden, But US Pre-emptively Leaks to Show Where Bread is Buttered

A Russian journalist looking to find quotes from Americans for an article, asks:

 

He Catherine, how are? What do you think about overhearing of phone conversations of Europe leaders by CIA, Could this to change relationship between the USA and European countries? Best

To which I reply:

 

I don't run with the pack on Snowden as you surely know by now. I think it's an active measure by the Russians to stir up all this hysteria.

1) We don't know for a fact that these conversations are under surveillance.

2) Even if they are, there is very good reason to watch the French and Germans, they have grown close to Russia which continues to make itself our enemy and therefore needs containment.

3) These hysterical stories ignore the growing influence of Russia and its pervasive surveillance which has far less checks and balance and remedies and

4) the French and German spy too.

So it's nothing, and if it serves as an excuse to change the relationship, it's because the West Europeans who have already been long accommodationist to Russia now have an excuse to cave completely. Enjoy.

I'm trying hard to care about the "shattered allies' trust" and...I'm not caring. You know why? Because I get nothing but hate and sneers much of the time online from Europeans.

I studied in Canada and graduated from the University of Toronto, and I studied at Leningrad State University. So I know what it is to be an American abroad, and see hatred of Americans as a form of identity and bonding. And I think the Europeans are going through a real seizure of it now.

Let  them.

The more this goes on, the more clearly we can establish what both Snowden -- and the Europeans -- are really about. Helping Russia break up the Atlantic alliance which they see as undermining their power. Of course, undermining the Kremlin's power is a good thing, not only due to their history of mass crimes against humanity never punished, and ongoing criminality and human rights abuse, but because they continue to make us an enemy themselves in everything they do, whether threatening with nuclear weapons, kicking out USAID or halting foreign adoptions -- not to mention not cooperating in international fora and engaging in outright subterfuge (Syria). Oh, remember Syria? Is Syria saved  due to Putin's initiative?

We can see that far from being a "whistleblower's act" to help "reform" the NSA to protect privacy, we see that what all of this is about is hammering away at this alliance.

Of course, few are trying to determine if this story is even true:

The White House may soon face other irked heads of state and government. The British newspaper The Guardian said Thursday it obtained a confidential memo suggesting the NSA was able to monitor 35 world leaders' communications in 2006. The memo said the NSA encouraged senior officials at the White House, Pentagon and other agencies to share their contacts so the spy agency could add foreign leaders' phone numbers to its surveillance systems, the report said.

The Guardian did not identify who reportedly was eavesdropped on, but said the memo termed the payoff very meager: "Little reportable intelligence" was obtained, it said.

Merkel needs to posture on this for her domestic audience, of course, and that's also why she has ensured that there is not even any police questioning and quiet issuing of resident papers to two American exiles now from WikiLeaks key to the Snowden case in Germany -- Laura Poitras and Jacob Appelbaum. The US doesn't even complain about this because evidently, they can't make their case -- or are biding their time.

It's interesting that so far, despite whining that they are victims, the leaders of France and Germany want to "fix" things and "make it right":

"It's become clear that for the future, something must change — and significantly," Merkel said. "We will put all efforts into forging a joint understanding by the end of the year for the cooperation of the (intelligence) agencies between Germany and the U.S., and France and the U.S., to create a framework for the cooperation."

Meanwhile, Brie has gotten incredibly expensive. A tiny chunk sells for $4.00. I'm going to buy Lithuanian cheese.

I think the US would do well to show staunch indifference to tears about loss of privacy and use this occasion to demand that both these countries plug up the holes that enables Russia to influence them and spy on them so handily.

There's also this other related story about a Snowden leak regarding a NATO member spying on Russia. Did you wonder when he would start leaking things directly useful to Russia? (Everything has been useful to Russia, of course, but this is most direct!).

Snowden, U.S. officials said, took tens of thousands of military intelligence documents, some of which contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China. Some refer to operations that in some cases involve countries not publicly allied with the United States.

Oh, but wait. This isn't a Glenn Greenwald or Snowden leak per say, it's the US saying "This is what we know he has." So in that sense, it's like the time the Independent leaked that the British had a station in the Middle East and made it seem like this came from cracked documents in David Miranda's possession.

Once again, this is a pre-emptive measure. Look what this official says -- not a former official, not a briefed Congress person, but an active official:

In one case, for instance, the files contain information about a program run from a NATO country against Russia that provides valuable intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and Navy, said one U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. Snowden faces theft and espionage charges.

“If the Russians knew about it, it wouldn’t be hard for them to take appropriate measures to put a stop to it,” the official said.

So what's up with that? Are they trying to deflect EU anger by pointing out that they have the goods on them helping the US to spy on Russia, which they've been growing closer to, and if they make too much of this latest Greenwald leak, they will regret it?

That's what it sounds like to me. I think the US basically wants to make the point that the EU has an opportunity to choose which civilization it prefers, Western or Eurasian, and it should choose wisely.

Lavrov says this won't change anything. But relations are chilly anyway. And Russia has made so much bank from all things Snowden that this latest maneuver with a US pre-emptive leak can't dent that.