Soon after Edward Snowden was revealed as the source of the blockbuster leaks about how the US and other western countries were engaged in massive and illegal programs to spy on their own citizens and the citizens of other nations, the Obama administration went after him with a vengeance, trying to capture him even to extent of forcing the plane of Bolivian president Evo Morales, on his way home from a conference in Russia, to land in Austria to be searched because they thought that Snowden would be on it on his way to Bolivia where Morales had offered him asylum.
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I wrote yesterday that the Biden-Putin summit was surprisingly good and devoid of the saber-rattling and threats and ultimatums that Biden had been urged to pose to Putin by the political-media establishment in the US who had demanded that Russia be punished for its alleged misdeeds. Branko Marcetic writes that Joe Biden’s Russia policy has been, so far at least, surprisingly reasonable.

Left-wing critics of the Russiagate madness were often accused of covering for Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and other provocations through “whataboutism.” But the real issue was the need for the subject to be put in context. As they pointed out over and over again — indeed, as we teach children — you tend to lose your moral high ground when you criticize someone for doing to you something you yourself do to others all the time, however wrong and objectionable it might be.
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Having the death penalty is barbaric enough. The extent to which some states in the US go to maintain it is hard to believe. The state of South Carolina, for example, requires the condemned person to actually choose whether they want to be executed by electrocution or by firing squad if lethal injections are not available. These stories read like less of a report of reality and more like the screenplay of an extremely dark film, with a villain gleefully tormenting a captive to make an impossible choice.
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The summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin did not provide any dramatic moments and that is a good thing. We do not need drama between the leaders of the two major nuclear powers. What we need is evidence that they are cautiously taking each other’s measure and trying to find common ground in dealing with the issues that are really important to both countries and the world, and not trying to score media points by throwing tantrums.

This article discusses what the summit achieved.
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