> -U.S. used threats, spying, and more to try to get its way at last year's crucial climate conference in Copenhagen.
Some people here were speculating that NSA spying on the world means US will be able to blackmail all the world's leaders to do what's in the interested of US instead of their own citizens.
> US will be able to blackmail all the world's leaders to do what's in the interested of US instead of their own citizens.
I am very interested to see how much longer the world will tolerate this nonsense, before they eventually tell the US to fk off and get out of their affairs. Obviously Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. are doing it, but I really want to see a whole stack (all?) of the OECD countries stand together and make the US irrelevant.
I think it would be pretty effective if they all agreed to sever all trade with the US, and stop using the US dollar for anything (gold, oil) etc. This can't continue.
The internet, one of the world's most powerful emerging resources, is largely routed through and controlled by US companies.
It seems trivially obvious (in hindsight) that intelligence agencies would seek to leverage this to further US interests globally. One might argue that this is what the intelligence agencies were created for...
(as a non-US citizen, I'm not praising or defending this state of affairs, but instead I recognise this as the nature of things)
Not trying to be obtuse, but it is in the best interest of countries not to owe other countries favors or have skeletons that can be used against them.
In simpler words - cry me a river that the US is able to use human rights abuses, corruption, etc., against you because, if not the US, someone else will. But the same goes for the US. If you don't want to be embarrassed by facts that are revealed as leaks, don't do what you did in the first place.
Some people here were speculating that NSA spying on the world means US will be able to blackmail all the world's leaders to do what's in the interested of US instead of their own citizens.
Yup. Confirmed.