The Hunt for Snowden US Foreign Policy Fiasco

Fatal conceit unmasked as exhibited by the US government’s hunt for the whistleblower Edward Snowden

From Austrian economist Gary North at his website: (hat tip lewrockwell.com) [bold mine]

Last week, some bonehead in the Obama administration -- the media did not bother to find out who -- decided that he would issue an order to France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal to forbid the overflight of the presidential jet the President of Bolivia.

Did he do this on his own authority? Bureaucrats do not put their careers on the line because some low-level political hack tells them to. They want orders from the top.

They got these orders.

That forced the pilot of the plane to land in Vienna. At that point, the next phase of the bonehead's plan involved the use of Austrian officials, meaning either the police or the military, to board the plane and search it to find Edward Snowden. The problem was, Edward Snowden was not on the plane.

That immediately caused a sensation around the world. Especially in Latin America, heads of state criticized the U.S. government's interference with the presidential jet of the Bolivian President. At that point, Venezuela's President finally jumped off the fence, and offered Snowden asylum. He had resisted doing this prior to the decision of the bonehead to interfere with the Bolivian jet. Not to be outdone, the President of Bolivia then offered him asylum, and then the President of Nicaragua did the same. The President of Nicaragua is Danny Ortega, the Sandinista.

So, before the bonehead made his decision, no country was willing to offer Snowden asylum. But, because the bonehead decided to risk making a fool of the United States government, Snowden now has three places he can flee to.

This is a classic political mistake. The hack had almost no understanding of the potential fallout from his decision. This particular hack never bothered to consider the fallout in Latin America from the decision of the United States to pressure its toadies in Europe to forbid the jet from flying over their air space. Next, the toadies in Europe were exposed as exactly what they are, namely, toadies of the United States, so they are much less likely to cooperate in any further interference with Snowden's travel plans. Third, the Austrian government looks even worse than the other four governments, because it sent armed officials onto the plane in a fruitless search for a man who was not there.

This makes leftists in Latin American look like courageous heroes, because they are standing up to the United States government. But they decided to do this only because of the bonehead's decision to make the United States government look bad in front of the whole world. Now they can present themselves as standing tall. But they only stood up because of the bonehead.

The bonehead should have been fired within hours. But that was not done. This indicates that the decision was made by a political advisor in the Obama administration. He is not some low-level twerp. He is somebody close to the President, which means close enough to have gotten official approval from Obama for what is now obviously a bonehead move.

The decision had to be implemented by the bureaucracy. No one is saying which one.

Once again, we see how power makes operational idiots out of smart people. They do not count the full costs of their decisions. They are protected by the system, and they make decisions throughout their careers in terms of these protections. Then, without warning, the protections collapse in the face of public reaction against the bonehead decision.

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