After the exposure of the NSA intelligence programs, Obama, facing a domestic furore, said he welcomed public debate on the issue/FILE
Because he was not George W. Bush, who was reviled in much of Europe, and thanks to a magnetic personal story and rise to power, Obama wallowed in hero worship as a candidate in Europe in 2008, and on debut presidential trips.
Candidate Obama was the prophet of hope, who told 200,000 young people in Berlin pining for a new John F. Kennedy, that Europe and America must remember their destiny and “remake the world once again.”
Yet, at home and abroad, in the teeth of a global financial gale, President Obama learned that delivering change was tougher than promising it.
While he honoured a vow to end the unpopular Iraq war, and will halt NATO combat in Afghanistan next year, Obama has disappointed Europeans on issues like climate change and closing Guantanamo Bay.
And now, Obama has been revealed as the figurehead of a secret American intelligence war that is more sweeping than anybody knew.
Europeans are among foreigners in the crosshairs of a vast phone and Internet surveillance program run by the shadowy US National Security Agency (NSA) exposed in newspaper leaks.
And now, Obama has been revealed as the figurehead of a secret American intelligence war that is more sweeping than anybody knew.
The man who once vowed to moderate unpopular ex-president Bush’s “war on terror” will be the program’s chief defender when he arrives in Northern Ireland for the G8 summit and heads onward to visit Germany.
“Certainly, this is not a great PR exercise by the Americans, and this rekindles all of these bad memories of George W. Bush’s second term,” said Michael Geary, a fellow at the Wilson Centre.
“After four years, when Obama has tried to put a softer face on American power, this is certainly not going to prove very popular for the administration in Europe and for Obama as well.”
NSA programs have stirred warnings that the privacy of Europeans is being besmirched by an American Big Brother.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, raised under the snooping ears of East German government spies, has vowed to bring up the question on the telephone and PRISM Internet programs with Obama in Berlin.
The White House sought to ease German fears on Friday, saying that Obama will explain that NSA programs do not target individuals, or specific conversations, but sweep up “meta-data” in a complex equation designed to snare terrorists.
It also pointedly noted that Germany was a staging point for some of the hijackers behind the September 11 attacks in 2001.
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