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In reply to the discussion: BREAKING: Venezuelan President Maduro WILL GIVE political asylum to Snowden (updated) [View all]Catherina
(35,568 posts)He's not the only little neocon playing a part either.
During the last Venezuelan elections, when there was so much US interference, Colombian paramilitaries, Maduro (and before him Chavez) pointed their fingers at Otto Reich and his merry band of neocons. The day before the Morales plane incident, I bookmarked this link because I wondered why Spain was even reporting Otta Reich's opinion.
Otto Reich and other neocons heavily involved in the recent attempts to destabilize Venezuela have been very busy lately. One of their contacts, Alek Boyd, is another one who's been busy. And the same journalists who were subtly misrepresenting Latin American events before have now gone all out, in unison, with no subtlety whatsover. Remember the recent articles by Rory Carroll that Correa was cooling on offering Snowden asylum? All lies and cleverly re-arranged, snipped quotations, with old stuff mixed in with the new. The videos of the interview Correa gave that snake, disproving those "shameful lies" have repeatedly been posted underneath the article and sent to the journalist who wrote them. He refuses to correct his story. Correa finally denounced him for it publicly. Meanwhile the US and UK presses run with the lies.
Anyway, why is Otto Reich being dragged out to weigh in on Morales taking Snowden to Bolivia in his plane, the day before all hell breaks loose? And the little neocon Spanish Ambassador running around inviting Morales for :lmao: coffee so he can try to force his way on the plane?
Is Edward Snowden Bound for Bolivia? Evo Morales Sure Seems to Hope So
by Eli Lake, Mac Margolis Jul 2, 2013 5:48 PM EDT
The Bolivian president says hed be pleased to give the NSA leaker asylum. And since hes in Moscow, he could even give him a lift.
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Bolivia is one of the countries where we have some of the fewest pressure points in Latin America, says Otto Reich, a former top American diplomat who has worked on Latin America for more than 30 years. We have not had an ambassador in Bolivia in five years.
[center] He could just show up back home with Snowden and make a big splash.[/center]
Bolivia has said it didn't receive an asylum request from Snowden. But for Morales himself, Snowden could provide a public-relations boost back home. A former Bolivian ambassador to Washington, Jaime Aparício Otero, said he wasnt surprised Morales would hint that his government would grant Snowden asylum. Granting asylum to someone like Snowden would guarantee him a place in the news cycle, said Aparício. He could just show up back home [on his presidential plane] with Snowden and make a big splash. Snowden might prefer to go to another country, but if he has no other possibility, who knows?
A plus for Snowden of settling in La Paz: It would be very difficult for the U.S. to extradite him. The 1995 treaty between the two countries contains an exception for political offenses. This exception is assumed under international law to include purely political crimes like espionage. Last month, the Justice Department charged Snowden at first in secret with violating the Espionage Act by disclosing defense information.
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Reich, the former American diplomat, says he thinks Morales might just be crazy enough to ferret Snowden to La Paz. This guy is capable of harboring a Snowden, he said. It may also be that cooler heads in his government will prevail and say, Wait a second, we have enough problems with America. Why are we doing this? Morales was scheduled to leave Moscow on Wednesday, according to Bolivias Ministry of Communication in La Paz.
Eli Lake is the senior national-security correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He previously covered national security and intelligence for The Washington Times. Lake has also been a contributing editor at The New Republic since 2008 and covered diplomacy, intelligence, and the military for the late New York Sun. He has lived in Cairo and traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq, and Gaza. He is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President Bushs axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
A longtime correspondent for Newsweek, Mac Margolis has traveled extensively in Brazil and Latin America. He has contributed to The Economist, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor, and is the author of The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/02/is-edward-snowden-bound-for-bolivia-evo-morales-sure-seems-to-hope-so.html