U.S. Senator John McCain is furious about whistleblower Edward Snowden’s newly-acquired asylum, and is demanding that Washington re-examine its relations with Moscow and “strip away the illusions that many Americans have had about Russia.”
Following the news of
Snowden’s one-year asylum status in Russia, McCain released an
angry statement in which he condemns the “disgraceful”
actions of President Vladimir Putin.
“Russia’s action today is a disgrace and a deliberate effort
to embarrass the United States,” the senator said. “It is
a slap in the face of all Americans. Now is the time to
fundamentally rethink our relationship with Putin’s Russia. We
need to deal with the Russia that is, not the Russia we might
wish for.”
McCain urged Americans to take action against Russia and seek
“repercussions” for granting the 30-year-old whistleblower
temporary political asylum. He proceeded to describe the steps
the US should take to penalize Moscow in ways unrelated to the
Snowden case.
“The first thing we should do is significantly expand the
Magnitsky Act list to hold accountable the many human violators
who are still enjoying a culture of impunity in Russia,” he
said. “
The Magnitsky Act imposes sanctions on numerous Russian state
officials and civil servants who were allegedly involved in the
imprisonment of Sergey Magnitsky, an accountant and auditor who
worked for a British investment fund and died in prison while
under investigation for tax fraud. The act prohibits the
officials from entering the US or using the American banking
system. Although the US has the right to bar the officials from
entering the country, a top Russian diplomat believes
that making the issue a political one is a sweeping and unwanted
attempt to influence justice in a foreign country.
“We should push for the completion of all phases of our
missile defense programs in Europe, and move expeditiously on
another round of NATO expansion, including the Republic of
Georgia,” McCain added, referring the missile defense system
that Russian officials consider an obstacle to cooperation on
nuclear arms reductions.
“We should challenge the political convictions and detentions
of Russian dissidents such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexei
Navalny,” he said. “And perhaps most importantly, we
should speak out on behalf of the many people in Russia who
increasingly are finding the courage to peacefully demand greater
freedom, accountability, and rule of law in Russia.”
McCain has long been an outspoken critic of Russian President
Vladimir Putin. In June, he accused Putin of holding a
“disdain for democracy”, and said the current US-Russian
relationship reminds him of the Cold War days. He also called the
president “an old KGB colonel apparatchik that dreams of the
days of the Russian Empire and continues to stick his thumb in
our eye.”
But rather than focus his most recent outburst of anger on the
Snowden case, McCain is using news of the asylum as a platform to
begin talks about the alleged “misconceptions” Americans
have about Russia as a whole.
“Today’s action by Putin’s Russia should finally strip away
the illusions that many Americans have had about Russia the past
few years,” he said. “We have long needed to take a more
realistic approach to our relations with Russia, and I hope today
we finally start.”
Later in the day White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed
that the White House was “extremely disappointed” by
Russia’s decision to grant Edward Snowden asylum and was
“evaluating the utility” of a Russian-American summit that
was supposed to take place in Moscow this autumn. At the same
time, Carney confirmed that President Obama didn’t want the
Snowden issue to harm broader bilateral relations.
Republished from: RT