Change! Brazil Snubs Obama Over Spying, Refuses to Attend White House State Dinner
By Duane Lester, editor of The Missouri Torch and All American Blogger.
Flashback to the height of the Hopey Changey days of 2012:
Mr. Obama gathered international backing for airstrikes during the Libyan uprising, and kept American military forces in a background role. It was smart policy.
In the broadest terms, he introduced a measure of military restraint after the Bush years and helped repair America’s badly damaged reputation in many countries from the low levels to which it had sunk by 2008.
Yeah, about that:
The Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, snubbed Barack Obama on Tuesday by postponing an official visit to Washington in protest at the spying activities of the US National Security Agency.
The row between the biggest economies in North and South America was the latest diplomatic fallout from the top-secret documents leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden. In August, Obama announced he was pulling out of a bilateral meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over Moscow’s decision to grant asylum to Snowden.
Despite a last-minute call from Obama on Monday night, Rousseff’s office released a statement saying the political environment was not amenable for the planned trip on 23 October.
“Given the proximity of the scheduled state visit to Washington and in the absence of a timely investigation … there aren’t conditions for this trip to be made,” the statement read.
“The Brazilian government is confident that when the question is settled in an adequate manner, the state visit can quickly occur.”
Brilliant work repairing all the damage caused during the Bush years, Barack.
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