I wasn’t alive for the height of the Cold War but I remember my teachers constantly pounding into my head that the Soviet Union was a land where the government spied on everybody and any dissenter was whisked away to a labor camp. America was the land people defected to in order to flee the Soviet Union. The tables have turned. Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on every American for years and, in so doing, was forced to flee to Russia in order to seek asylum from the United States government, which was hunting him down like a rabid dog. Now, as a form of punishment for housing Snowden, Obama is calling off his meeting with Putin:
US President Barack Obama has cancelled a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Russia’s decision to grant asylum to intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, the White House said.
But Mr Obama will still attend the G20 economic talks in St Petersburg.
A White House aide said Mr Snowden’s asylum had deepened the pre-existing tension between the two counties.
The former intelligence contractor has admitted leaking information about US surveillance programmes to the media.
The decision to cancel the talks, announced during a trip by the president to Los Angeles, comes the morning after Mr Obama said he was “disappointed” with Russia’s decision to offer Mr Snowden asylum for a year.
If you ask me it sounds like Obama is rewarding Putin. Seriously, who wants to be stuck in an boring political meeting? Nothing exciting happens during those meetings. Two politicians, who are overly concerned with how they appear to the general public, make continuous bland statements that lack any real content just so they can appear on camera.
But it’s interesting to see how different things are today. Americans, fearing the wrath of the United States government, are forced to flee to Russia. The Cold War may restart because of the United States and its determination to have an all pervasive surveillance state without any dissenters.