‘Damage accumulating’ after US loses trust over spying activities

The White House is at a loss as it not only depended on espionage in formulating its policies, but also nobody can trust its word anymore, former US Senate foreign policy analyst James Petras told RT.

The latest news on monitoring of phone calls in France, and probably German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own cellphone, brought anger from the French and German governments this week. Top European politicians voiced a ‘lack of trust’ towards US on the summit in Brussels on Friday. 

RT:Does this come as a surprise to you that such a large number of world leaders were allegedly being monitored by the US?

James Petras: No, it doesn’t surprise me. I think the US has been doing this for quite a while and we’ve been hearing stories about it, the testimony. What I think is very revealing is the fact that the NSA got many of these phone calls, phone numbers and fax numbers and other confidential material from the White House as revealed in the memo. It was supposed to turn over the roll access, rolodex, listenings of confidential phone numbers from the Pentagon estate department and the White House.

So everybody was privy to the NSA tapping into and listening to the communications by top leaders. Moreover we have to raise the question of how did the US government act on the information they got how did they take that decisions, how did they intervene in politics at UN conferences and EU meetings.

I think the implications are enormous, the damage is accumulating and the White House is at a loss on how to control this for two reasons: one is they depended on this espionage in formulating policy and two they are now reaping the  consequences in very damaged relations - nobody can trust the word of the White House now. They said they lied about the past, who gave them credibility in terms of their promises for the future. That’s the question that has been raised for the world today.

RT:What could that diplomatic fallout be after roll EU leaders meeting on Friday will be a lot of rhetoric a lot of words, but not much action so far. What could the consequences be for the US?

JP: Well I think the leaders in Europe have been working with Washington, they’ve been taking the lead from Washington for so long. Now they have to act on their own. Washington has forced the European countries to make decisions regarding their own security and they are in a quandary from past dependence to the necessity of taking initiatives now and I think the only road to take is to break with the euro security system, to break with the US communication system that requires investments, it requires political will, and it requires changing the relationship between the United States government and the European governments

RT:It is all coming from Edward Snowden, is it? What’s next?

JP: Well I think the next thing will be revealing exactly what kind of eavesdropping was taking place in regard to context and substance I think that’s really crucial. They say they listened to Angela Merkel. What did they listen to, what did they pick up, and how did it affect US policy with Germany? Did it result in US putting pressure Germany regarding the bailouts in Southern Europe, did this affect US policy influencing Germany to support the intervention in Syria? These are essential questions derived from the issue of espionage, is merely a tip of the iceberg. The deeper question is what information was secured this way and how did it change the US behavior to the countries that they were spying on.