by B. R. GOWANI
Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee, who released US government documents to the Guardian newspaper which shows how vast is the US surveillance of its citizens. PHOTO/DPA/Spiegel Online The United States NSA (National Security Agency) listening facility in Bad Aibling, Germany. The US has been accused of gathering information about German businesses through the above station.
PHOTO/AP/Spiegel Online
Power
Many a times people ask: “Why so much greed? We just need a little quantity of food, certain basic things, and a place to live. When we depart from this world nothing comes with us.” Tell that thing to a CEO of a big company or an imperial power.
More money means more power. More power means more control. More control means more people are scared of you. That means you can get away with lots of things. The same principle applies to countries, and more so to countries who were/are imperial and colonial powers.
Bahadur Shah Zafar and Britain
In the not too distant past, Britain was the colonial power which had colonies all over the world. India was one of its colonies too.
In 1857, there was an uprising in certain parts of India, supported by Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775-1862), the last Mughal Emperor. The British sent him into exile to Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar). He was also a poet and would write on the walls of his room, where he was captive, with burnt sticks because the British refused to give him pen and paper. One of the couplets from one of his ghazals depicts the pain of exile:
“Kitna hai badnaseeb Zafar dafn ke liye
Do gaz zameen bhi na mili koo-e-yaar mein“
“How unfortunate is Zafar! For his burial
Not even two yards of land were to be had, in the land of his beloved.”
Edward Snowden and United States
At present, we have the imperial power United States which is much more powerful and has an almost worldwide reach. The extent of its power can be gauged from the fact that Edward Snowden is hiding somewhere in Moscow, Russia (probably at the Sheremetyevo airport waiting that Ecuador would grant him an asylum.
Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, leaked to the press the details of the British and US mass surveillance programs. He escaped to Hong Kong and from there to Russia. It was a wise move on part of Snowden. He gave his reasons:
“… “I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target. Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash. Congress hasn’t declared war on the countries – the majority of them are our allies – but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we’re not even fighting? So we can potentially reveal a potential terrorist with the potential to kill fewer Americans than our own Police? No, the public needs to know the kinds of things a government does in its name, or the “consent of the governed” is meaningless.”
Ecuador
Meanwhile, the US has threatened Ecuador that granting an asylum to Snowden will result in a lose of preferential trade status. But Ecuador is in no mood to entertain US threats and has in a preemptive strike rejected the preferential trade status itself. Ecuador’s government spokesperson Fernando Alvarado said:
“Ecuador unilaterally and irrevocably renounces these preferential customs tariff rights.”
“Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests.”
People’s reaction in US
Fifty-four percent of the people in the United States favor criminal prosecution of Edward Snowden. But 57% of the liberals, 56% of the Tea Partyers, and 60% of the people, between the ages of 18 to 29, believe that Snowden did a great service to the US people.
Then there is this insane and scoundrel patriot billionaire Donald Trump who has this to say:
“This guy is a bad guy.” “You know there is still a thing called execution. You really have thousands of people with access to the kind of material like this. We’re not going to have a country any longer.”
You can smell George Bush Jr. in Trump’s words.
Obama
President Barack Obama has downplayed Snowden’s importance and said:
“I’m not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker”.
Obama is a liar and is not to be trusted.
3 out of more than 200
There are more than 200 countries and out of that only three countries, Ecuador and Venezuela officially, and Iceland unofficially have offered asylum to Snowden. It’s a pity.
Olafur Vignir Sigurvinsson of Iceland had a plane ready for Snowden in Hong Kong.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com