The Correa administration admitted to cutting Wikileaks’ internet access over the recent releases of strategically-timed hacks from Podesta’s account. Good for them! They claim that the decision is a high-minded refusal to intervene in the internal affairs of another state, regardless of that state’s imperial record.
But it’s also in Ecuador’s interest. Not because a Clinton administration will be particularly good, of course. Rather, a Trump administration will be astoundingly bad. In immigration and trade, Ecuador may strategically close its market but it depends on the United States remaining open. And it very much depends on a structure of international law that bind investment disputes and prevent the U.S. from unabashedly exercising its power in the pursuit of commercial interest. (I wrote a whole book about that.)
So good for President Correa, but this is a case where the decision is as much in the national interest as the right thing to do.
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