From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/world/chomsky-americas-imperial-power-showing-real-signs-decline
Latin America had long been the reliable “backyard” for the United States—not any more.
By Noam Chomsky
August 2, 2013
On July 9, the Organization of American States held a special session to discuss the shocking behavior of the European states that had refused to allow the government plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales to enter their airspace.
Morales was flying home from a Moscow summit on July 3. In an interview there he had said he was open to offering political asylum to Edward J. Snowden, the former U.S. spy-agency contractor wanted by Washington on espionage charges, who was in the Moscow airport.
The OAS expressed its solidarity with Morales, condemned“actions that violate the basic rules and principles of international law such as the inviolability of Heads of State,” and “firmly” called on the European governments – France, Italy, Portugal and Spain – to explain their actions and issue apologies.
An emergency meeting of UNASUR—the Union of South American Nations—denounced “the flagrant violation of international treaties” by European powers.
Latin American heads of state weighed in, too. President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil expressed the country’s “indignation and condemnation of the situation imposed on President Evo Morales by some European countries” and warned that this “serious lack of respect for the law…compromises dialogue between the two continents and possible negotiations between them.”
Commentators were less reserved. Argentine political scientist Atilio Boron dismissed Europe as “the whore of Babylon,” cringing before power.
With virtually identical reservations, two states refused to sign the OAS resolution: the United States and Canada. Their growing isolation in the hemisphere as Latin America frees itself from the imperial yoke after 500 years is of historic significance.
Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/world/chomsky-americas-imperial-power-showing-real-signs-decline
