American spying or knowing your enemy

I watched a bit of the discussion tonight between the NSA's top guy and Congress about what's going on with the American spying and what seems to be going wrong as a result.

Fine, the USA and its representatives haven't been attacked on American soil since 2001 and this is a large part the result of intelligence and so on.

Fine, fine, fine .....

And as there are quite a few Muslims living in Spain and France, that maybe explains that they had to listen to 1000s of  'phone calls in those countries as they might pick up the odd lead. After all not every conversation would be about having couscous for dinner.

Which brings me to Germany.

Since the Second World War most of Germany (that is all of it except the DDR from 1949 to 1989) has been a major ally of the USA. Their security services cooperate a lot in their different ways. If they want some information, they will probably get round to sharing it. It isn't 1944 any more, when you would like to have known what Hitler had planned.

So we get to the crucial question - why in the first place would they want to spy on Angela Merkel's mobile 'phone? If it were business since she became the German Chancellor, she would no doubt have been willing to share information with the US. And if what I gather from CNN last night is correct, they have been doing this since before she became Chancellor.

All the weirder. That was before 2006 (please name the US President at the time. He later became famous for massaging Angie's shoulders at international meetings after she came to power, if you want a further clue).

She is a conservative. A Euro-conservative, but a conservative nonetheless. She probably regrets arguing the case now, but back in 2003 she was pushing for German troops to support the Americans in the Iraq War. Unlike 90% of people in Germany this struck her as the right thing to do.

Obviously a staunch ally. So what could be interesting in any mobile 'phone calls that she would not air through official channels. Sauerkraut and Bratwurst tonight maybe? I doubt that that would be so important!

So why would you be so dumb as to do summat really stupid like that? It makes no sense and has caused a diplomatic spat that could have been avoided.

And as a leading member of her (conservative) party was tonight indicating that whichever member of the American diplomatic corps in Germany was found to be responsible for passing on the information regarding her mobile 'phone would be prosecuted in a German court ....

These are allied countries, in case anyone hasn't noticed. If you want to pursue your enemies, do so by all means. But ruffling the feathers of people who are supposed to be your friends? Well it doesn't augur well for the future relationship, does it?