Saturday, July 06, 2013

Obama's Maximus Mea Culpa - NSA Aftermath



Far from the maddening lights and cameras to which he is accustomed, President Obama has been forced to offer the Maximus Mea Culpa to friends, allies and major investors alike as he is the first world leader caught with his fingers in the cookie jar of cyber scandal.
 
Leave it to the National Security Agency, NSA, the most mysterious of all our intelligence agencies in America, to give a top security clearance to a private NSA contractor who within a matter of months after getting the job was blabbering all the NSA secrets to an English newspaper.
 
 
Unfortunately these were not little secrets but really big stuff like the fact NSA bugged top secret computers of our friends and foes alike.  In fact they were hacked by the US 10-15 years ago and we have been listening in ever since.
 
From Germany and Britain to Russia and China, they were all hacked long ago and we have known all along what they were up to in terms of military, monetary or any other kind of policy.
 
 
Look what happened the past decade and a half.  There was Clinton's good time government with it's focus on strategic initiatives like global warming, alternate energy, legalizing fraudulent housing  mortgage programs, and increasing the duties of White House Interns.
 
Bush brought us the 911 terrorist attack, war in Iraq and Afghanistan and pretty much a collapsed economy, while Obama brought us, well, more of the same.  How many of our decisions were made based on information we "legally stole" from everyone else?
 
 
Better yet, if NSA was tapping phones and emails all these years surely they were aware of the 911 attack in advance.  Were they aware and did they sit on the information?  Let's hope not.
 
Regardless, they did bug all those nations and leaders through phones and the Internet so President Obama is now left with a lot of explaining to do and with a need to demonstrate a sincere Mea Culpa to those friends and allies.
 
Ironically, while it is Germany who demanded the first private meeting with the president people from Britain to the European Union are in the queue wanting similar assurances we have not compromised their national security.
 

Then there is China, our Sugar Daddy yet willing to join with Russia at any time to block Obama initiatives in the United Nations.  Many times Obama has accused the Chinese of "cheating" by hacking American computers.
 
The last time the White House made a big deal of showing how the hack attack had come from a very specific building in China.  I guess we know now how the White House knew about the Chinese hacking connection since the US has been hacking everyone for a very long time.  However, the truth that we were secretly hacking China the last 15 years while protesting Chinese attacks on us is quite disingenuous.
 
 
We need China as an ally to help us in Asia and the Middle East.  That is beyond the fact they are the largest owner of our national debt in the world.  And there is a great deal in import and export trade between the US and China significantly helping both nations.
 
We also need Russia as an ally in the same places.  Yet we accuse them both of all kinds of mischievous behavior.
 
 
Let us hope our national security policy is not guided by paranoid patriotism but by logic, ethics and a respect for individual rights and freedom.  I doubt the record as the NSA mess unfolds will be good news.
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