Claims Bolivian Presidential Plane Denied Airspace Is Bullshit. IT HAD FUEL GAUGE PROBLEMS

[MADem]

199. Portugal didn't want Evo dumping Snowden off on their tarmac.

They denied him landing/refueling from RUSSIA, from what I understand. It wasn't that, mid-air, they stiff armed him. They told the pilot when he was still in Russia, a day before they took off, that he could fly over but not refuel. Same with Spain--they wanted to land IN Spain to refuel, and Spain said--when they were still in Russia-- that they best they could do was the Canaries. I have no doubt the reason for this was all the joking about Snowden--the Canary Islands isn't the best place to ask for asylum; certainly not the most affordable, at any rate. So the pilot filed the flight plan thusly, and then, after they took off, the whole "fuel gauge" business came to the fore. Evo's pilot knew where he was supposed to refuel; so one has to ask, was there really a problem with the fuel gauge, or was Evo looking for a little attention, a way to say "How dare you deny me refueling? Let's see what we can do to shake things up?"

It wasn't a "fuck you" by the EU --it was more of a "What do you think you are trying to pull?"

Evo spent half his time in Moscow yukking it up about Snowden, as did Maduro. And when he got to Austria he didn't shun the spotlight by a long shot. This whole faux drama has given him more international press than he's gotten in the last decade. He now has potential to be a question on JEOPARDY, he's gone from regional actor to International Player. He's getting more attention than he ever has:








Hollande managed to provide France with plausible deniability by being away in Belgium--he probably knew what was going on as it happened, but no way to prove that. So he was able to talk, believably, about a "delay" as opposed to a denial. I'll bet he didn't want the possibility of "Snowden on a French tarmac" happening, either.


I also can't help but notice that the bulk of the video news reports available on the net are from RT and RT in Espanol....I do not think this is an accident. Pootie Poot must be having quite the laugh...he'd better watch himself, though, because he's got the Olympics coming up, and a scheduled visit with POTUS coming up in Sep. He doesn't want to be acting like doofus Bush, jerking chains and mocking overmuch.

The upshot of this all is that Morales, and a few of his neighbors as well, are using this incident to try to distract from domestic issues. It may work for a few days. It won't over the long haul, though.