
Ecuador offers U.S. rights aid, waives trade benefits - dllthomas
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/27/us-usa-security-ecuador-idUSBRE95Q0L820130627
======
pvnick
Nice! That's a classy move right there.

Edit: further context:

>Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
promised Wednesday that he would block renewal of the pact should Snowden be
granted asylum.

>"Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior," he said in a
statement, following other lawmakers who have spent years saying that the pact
should be allowed to lapse, partly down to the country's links with Iran. [1]

If my tentative understanding of events is correct, this economic act of
aggression (which would have hurt innocent civilians - does the US even care
about that anymore?) was the main form of likely retaliation the US would have
pulled in response to Snowden being granted asylum. Preempting this move by
giving up the preferential treatment is, IMO, a very astute move by the
Ecuadorian government, and puts America in a position of not having that leg
to stand on.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/us-usa-security-
sn...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/us-usa-security-snowden-
congress-idUSBRE95P1DR20130626)

~~~
mpyne
Well it's always better to go "You can't fire me! I QUIT!" as you get booted
from the door.

> (which would have hurt innocent civilians - does the US even care about that
> anymore?)

There are _two_ sides to that particular story bub, and only one side has
taken actual action so far to hurt those civilians... and it was the
government charged with protecting those same civilians.

So what you're basically saying is that Ecuador has decided to harm their own
innocent civilians in order to head toward granting asylum to a U.S. citizen
to poke their thumb in Uncle Sam's face (again).

~~~
lucian1900
They are standing up against the bully that is the US. That is a service to
their own citizens and those of various other countries around the world.

~~~
twoodfin
In what sense? If a member of the Ecuadorian opposition party infiltrated
their government and stole classified information, then fled to the United
States, wouldn't they demand to get him back?

~~~
antoko
The US didn't demand him back (and he isn't even there yet). They are
threatening to remove some economic benefit that is completely unrelated to
the issue at hand to coerce the Ecuadorean government to fall in line. That's
pretty obviously bullying, and the Ecuadorean government has simply called
uncle sam's bluff.

~~~
mpyne
"Economic benefits" are generally not free. Why should the U.S. reward a
country that has shown a willingness to embarrass them on the world stage
(twice, now) when there are a hundred other countries that would be just as
deserving (not to mention the millions of Americans here at home who could
benefit from a bit of largesse)?

~~~
eliasmacpherson
your best friends are the ones that are allowed to tell you what you are like.
the people who don't do that, they are not your best friends.

~~~
mpyne
If I believed for a second that Ecuador's government had genuine friendship-
based concern for the U.S. and its actions I think I'd agree with you. But
that's not what this is.

~~~
PavlovsCat
That doesn't change the fact that the more any entity relies on threats, the
less it can have have real friends. This is like the physics of relationships
and just how it is. Wether or not it applies here doesn't even matter for it
being generally true, and the US seems to threaten friend and foe alike, if in
doubt. Why, it even treats its own citizens like subjects quite often.

~~~
mpyne
I agree that threats are not how friendly countries carry on friendly
business. What I do not agree on is that Ecuador is acting at all as a
"friend" to the U.S. in this matter, for the reasons I stated above.

~~~
eliasmacpherson
The best friends are those that don't allow you to make mistakes. The ones
that aren't really your friends are the ones that pander to you, for fear of
embarrassing you. They are doing you a disservice.

Which is of greater embarrassment, the alleged behaviour of the NSA, or an
offer of asylum to a whistle blower destined for death or Guantanamo?

Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006:

"So was I right not just in supporting the war, but in actively prosecuting
it? I’ve been asked a million times since the invasion whether, knowing then
what I know now, I would have made the same decision. And no, I wouldn’t. How
could we have agreed to invade Iraq if we had known that there were no WMD
there?"[1]

Earlier in the same article:

"As I spelt out the seriousness of the situation and my conviction that we now
had to confront Saddam Hussein militarily, my wife Alice and children Will and
Charlotte were up in the gallery listening.

None of them shared my view. Each of them would have been among the million or
so demonstrators on the recent protest march through London against the war if
it had not been for their loyalty to me and their wish not to embarrass me."

Jack Straw, Blair and Straw's family would have been better friends had they
caused embarrassment.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_blair#Relationship_with_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_blair#Relationship_with_the_United_States)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208155/Jack-
Straw-I...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208155/Jack-Straw-I-
stopped-going-war-Iraq-This-I-didnt.html) [1]

~~~
mpyne
> Which is of greater embarrassment, the alleged behaviour of the NSA, or an
> offer of asylum to a whistle blower destined for death or Guantanamo?

Given that Snowden is not destined for either death or Guantanamo I'm not sure
how to take your question. The NSA's alleged behavior is at least consistent
with what we've known and thought it able to do since the Cold War. The worst
I can say about it is that they are pushing right up on the edge of the law
and court precedent... but is that _worse_ than flat-out breaking the law or
doing things like actually focusing specific IRS attention on specific
political-interest groups? Or passing laws to disenfranchise minority voters?

I'm not sure of the answer to that question, but I don't think it's "Yes",
given what I know of what our law enforcement and national security teams have
already had the fully-legal ability to do.

\---

As for the friendship question, for me that goes back to who is really the
'friend' here. A 'friend' would certainly not castigate another about 'human
rights abuses' (as if Snowden were _clearly innocent_ ) while at the same time
having an asylum process that itself violates basic human rights as claimed by
Human Rights Watch [1].

A "friend" would at least take the stick out of their eye before pointing to
others' flaws. And this is why I say that the government of Ecuador has no
legitimate friendly intent here. Even if I agreed with Snowden 100%, the enemy
of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, and neither is the friend of my
friend.

[1] [http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/19/ecuador-fully-respect-
ref...](http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/19/ecuador-fully-respect-refugee-
rights)

~~~
eliasmacpherson
Well none of us can predict the future, all we can do is guess. So that's your
opinion. I doubt you hold your own opinion on the matter in higher regard than
William Binney's. [1]

Q: He'll be prosecuted?

Binney: First tortured, then maybe even rendered and tortured and then
incarcerated and then tried and incarcerated or even executed. [2]

We certainly haven't known what the NSA capabilities are. We may have thought
or suspected. Even now we don't really know, note Nadler's turnaround and the
language used:

"Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed on Thursday that during a
secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a
phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that." "

then: "I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, _as I have
always believed_, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans' phone
calls without a specific warrant."

Did he not believe what he said in the first statement?

You're saying that because this fresh new, now known abuse, is no worse than
other existing abuses, it's not an embarrassment. That seems like fallacious
reasoning to me.

See Clapper's lying on camera to the senate here, and his subsequent claim
that lying was the 'least untruthful' option. An embarrassment. [5]

The allegation that all calls are recorded for playback is startling, that
would also be very embarrassing if it were proven.

Asylum has nothing to do with innocence, rather: evading persecution, i.e. the
law in one place being an ass.

America is no slouch in the human rights hypocrisy department either.[4]
Having a clean slate in that department is not a prerequisite for doing the
right thing. Ecuador would be doing the right thing to grant asylum, and it
would be an act of mercy and friendship, and truer friendship than simple
pandering.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelligence_official%29)

[2]
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-
whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/)

[3] [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-
fla...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-
to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/)

[4] [http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-
work/countries/americas/usa](http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-
work/countries/americas/usa)

[5]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TPKC8F-Zz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TPKC8F-Zz0)

~~~
mpyne
Regarding [2], I suggest you lookup the treatment meted out to actual spies
like Hanssen and John Walker. The last spies to be executed were the
Rosenbergs, and even that did not go off without a fight by a certain Supreme
Court justice.

------
drawkbox
Would have it just been easier to pardon Snowden, bring him back home, never
allow him to work with a security clearance again or do we just have to be
that hardline that we just caused lots of anguish? Has the non-
pardoning/hardline caused more damage here? If he truly has more damning
information, as the state department, wouldn't you want to contain that by
bringing him back without fear of being detained?

Unless in some parallel Snowden is still in the CIA and we wanted to check HK,
Russia and now Ecuador regime with a spy that would be excused due to the
leaks (might also learn more about WikiLeaks).

In the end, our enemies knowing we track everything hasn't really hurt them,
it just let them know the long arm is longer than they expected or they knew
it already. The only people it hurt were innocent Americans that now have
assurance everything is being tracked, US cloud business trust and now poor
farmers in Ecuador.

Seems it could have been handled better.

~~~
roc
The US Government's concern is that if Snowden gets off light _other_
whistleblowers will step forward. That's the root logic behind the 'war on
whistleblowers'. Which strongly suggests "we ain't seen nothin yet."

That's a big part of why Manning was treated so horribly and without any sense
of proportion to what he did. It simply wasn't (all) about _him_. It was about
the people who might be thinking of following in his footsteps.

~~~
vijayr
why is everything a "war" \- war on drugs, war on this, war on that ...

~~~
grecy
I was shocked when I worked in America at a kids summer camp, and every
activity/game was "war this" and "war that".

Kids in America are quite literally taught to go to war at every possible
juncture, like it's a valid way to solve some conflict.

~~~
lostlogin
As a visitor to the US I noticed a version of this in small ways - shops
selling things cheap to servicemen/woman, statements praising the military on
buildings, headlines about military gains in papers, people in uniform all
over the place etc. If I didn't know better I'd have assumed America was
defending itself against a perilous onslaught.

~~~
mpyne
Well, even the members of the U.S. military tend to find that over-the-top,
it's not just you.

------
znowi
If western countries had enough balls to stand up against the US demands,
maybe it would not turn into such a bully. It's our indifference that led us
to wars, drones, surveillance, etc. Not a single country would be allowed to
act this way.

~~~
gscott
Apparently we are sharing data with Australia and Britain so likely many
others too. They don't need to spy on their populations when we will do it for
them and give them the data.

~~~
ewbuoi
Apparently this has been common since at least the cold war.

------
grecy
Great!

Many countries have bowed to US demands in the last years due to threat of
losing trade benefits.

After the Australian Prime Minister agreed to (illegally) send troops into
Iraq with Dubya, 16 US Trade Negotiators came to Australia within a week and
negotiated previously unseen trade deals to benefit Australia. When questioned
directly about this, the Australian Prime Minister shrugged and said "What was
I going to do?"

After living in South America for a year, I'm very excited to see those
countries develop more and more, and reject US rule and meddling more and
more.

~~~
cpursley
"...and reject US rule and meddling more and more."

As an American, I have to agree.

------
A__MJ
The best part:

"In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through
leaks to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to
finance human rights training."

------
mynegation
Ecuador will have no problem finding buyers for oil, its main export. But
flower and fruit merchants will suffer consequences.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Correct. More sales to Canada.

~~~
schiffern
I don't know about you, but I'm calling flower merchants and buying Fair-Trade
Ecuadorian flowers.

Facebook needs some "Made in Ecuador" stickers methinks.

------
joonix
Right, screw over thousands of merchants and workers in your country so a few
at the top can make names for themselves as "rebels" ... does that sound like
leftism or being "for the people?" What exactly does giving up all this to
house Snowden do for the average Ecuadorian? It increases the profile of the
leadership, but that's about it.

~~~
antoko
You seem to be assuming that if the US doesn't buy those flowers then no one
will and they'll just rot. That seems unlikely. Given that they've also
offered $23m for Human Right's training It seems likely they can afford to
lose the $23m since they're effectively doubling that 'loss'.

Is it grandstanding? sure, but if you agree with human rights it is exactly
the right kind of grandstanding.

Also, I have no problem with people considering themselves _humans_ before
they consider themselves members of a nation-state, even government officials
of a nation-state.

~~~
gwern
> You seem to be assuming that if the US doesn't buy those flowers then no one
> will and they'll just rot. That seems unlikely.

At the margin, it seems incredibly likely. You don't cut yourself off from the
largest wealthiest market in the hemisphere and continue to sell exactly as
many flowers as before at exactly as high a price...

~~~
antoko
Obviously we don't know the details of the agreement so we can't actually know
much of anything. Presumably the government itself isn't buying the flowers so
I'd assume its more of free trade kind of deal so no tariffs or lesser tariffs
are imposed on Ecuadorean imports.

The removal of the agreement wouldn't then be embargo/sanctions, it would mean
normally trade that other countries conduct with the US. So the price for US
importers would increase and so at the margin as you rightly point out there
would be _some_ loss of profit and _some_ loss of sales. We don't know how
much though, and we don't know if those could be replaced by other purchasers
and if so at at what price reduction.

In any event it wouldn't be a loss of $23m a realistic estimate might be
closer to 10% of that so around $2-3m. For a country with $5bn in oil exports
that's chump change and given that its a leftist government any local workers
that suffer will probably be have a decent social safety net in place until
they get back on their feet.

~~~
gwern
> In any event it wouldn't be a loss of $23m a realistic estimate might be
> closer to 10% of that so around $2-3m.

? Where are you getting this $23m from? The article says that they export to
the USA "$166 million of cut flowers". 10% of that would be $16.6 million, not
$2 million...

~~~
antoko
I'm getting it from the article...

 _In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through
leaks to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to
finance human rights training.

The funding would be destined to help "avoid violations of privacy, torture
and other actions that are denigrating to humanity," Alvarado said. He said
the amount was the equivalent of what Ecuador gained each year from the trade
benefits._

~~~
gwern
Then you have no reason to be adjusting the official figures by 10x: $23m is a
perfectly plausible estimate of gains on an existing $166m industry.

~~~
antoko
Correct, on re-reading the article the $23m is the value offered for HR
training, which is apparently somehow equivalent to the value of the economic
benefit Ecuador gains from the agreement - so presumably they already did the
relevant math to get to that number.

I'm not sure the $23m applies only to the flower industry - it reads like it
applies to the value of the total agreement to Ecuador. - I do mention
upthread that without actually knowing the details of the agreement we're all
just speculating.

But you asked where I got $23m from... and the answer was the article.

and my larger point still stands anyway... Ecuador apparently sell $5 billion
in oil to the US... BILLION not million. A loss of $23million is still chump
change. A loss of $230m probably wouldn't affect much.

------
mark_l_watson
I just tried going to Amazon.com and searching for "Ecuador crafts". I have
several birthday presents to buy over the next few months, and I am thinking
that craft items from Ecuador might be things people will enjoy.

I consider myself a patriotic USA citizen, but our government's cracking down
on whistle blowers in the last 4 or 5 years has really gone too far. Our laws
+ punishments for whistle blowers is way out of whack with the rest of the
world (I think the crimes Snowden is accused of carry a maximum sentence of 2
years in the UK, and less in most other European countries).

------
tootie
Just browsing wikipedia, it seems that the man riding in on his white horse
has sent journalists to prison for writing unflattering editorials about him.

~~~
dnautics
that's why he said "mercantile interests" and not "political interests". It is
such an odd choice for the president, while the US does engage in blatant and
unethical mercantile coercion around the world, the snowden case is one where
the US' sins are almost purely political, and its actions are coming at a cost
to its economic position.

------
quantumpotato_
Where is this offer for human rights training? Googling only shows me
references to the Reuters link.

Has anyone seen an Ecuadorian press release?

------
lhnz
This plus this [0] point towards the US having given up trying to get Snowden.
Maybe Wikileaks has won this one.

[0] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/obama-edward-
sno...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/obama-edward-snowden-
wheeling-dealing)

------
muyuu
Bold and classy of them not to cave in to American terror.

------
blueprint
As a citizen and long-time resident of US, I hereby accept Ecuador's offer for
human rights aid.

~~~
gbvb
A personal check would be appreciated, but I can use with bags of them as
well. :)

~~~
blueprint
If only justice could be bought.

------
saosebastiao
Forget the Ecuadorean response, WTF with the US response to the Ecuadorean
response? Trade is _mutually_ beneficial, idiots.

------
andrewcooke
great. now the us is going to find a way to fuck up another south american
country.

------
ender89
I kind of love Ecuador for that move.

------
jackmaney
<Grumpy Cat Meme> Good! </Grumpy Cat Meme>

