They are SO FUCKING PARANOID.

Really. What more can I say when Evo Morales, of all people, has been denied permission to overfly four European countries, just because some nimnul thinks that Edward Snowden might be on board his plane (and he isn’t)?

Or when the president of Argentina has this on her Facebook page?

I’m back from La Rosada. Olivos, 9:46 p.m. They tell me President Correa is on the phone.

“Rafael? Give me the call.”

“Hi, Rafa, how are you?”

He replies something between angry and upset. “Don’t you know what’s going on?”

“No, what’s happening?” I’m all out to sea. Unusual, because I’m always alert, and vigilant. But I’ve just gotten back from a meeting.

“Cristina. They detained Evo with his plane, and they won’t let him leave Europe.”

“What? Evo? Evo Morales detained?” Immediately his latest photo comes to mind, him in Russia with Putin, Nicolás Maduro, and other heads of state.

“But what happened, Rafael?”

“Several countries revoked permission for him to fly, and now he’s in Vienna,” comes the reply.

They are all definitely out of their minds. A head of state and his airplane have total immunity. This degree of impunity cannot be.

Rafael tells me he’s going to call Ollanta Humala, urgently, for an emergency UNASUR meeting.

I call Evo. On the other end of the line, his voice responds calmly: “Hello, comrade, how are you?” Did you catch that? He asked me how I was doing!

He has thousands of years’ worth of civilization on me. He tells me the situation. “I’m here, in a little room in the airport, and I won’t let them check out my airplane. I’m not a crook.” Simply perfect. Stay strong, Evo.

“Let me call the Foreign Ministry. I want to see jurisdiction, Treaty and Tribunal. I’ll call you back,” I say.

“Thanks, comrade.”

“Hello, Susana.” That’s Susana Ruiz Cerruti, our expert in international legal matters for the Foreign Ministry.

She confirms that Evo has absolute immunity by customary right, received by the Convention of 2004, and the Hague Tribunal. If Austria doesn’t let him go or wants to check his plane, they have to appear before the International Court in The Hague, and ask.

Yesss! A precautionary measure. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. You know what precautionary measures are for.

Fine, let’s see if we can send some judge from here. Mother of God! What a world!

I call Evo again. His Ministry of Defence is taking notes. In Austria it’s 3 a.m. They’re going to try to talk with the authorities.

I talk with Pepe Mujica. He’s indignant. He has a right to be. It’s all very humiliating.

I talk to Rafa again. He tells me that Ollanta is going to call an UNASUR meeting. It’s 12:25 in the morning. Tomorrow is going to be a long, hard day. Stay calm. They won’t win this one.

Translation mine.

So there it is. Snowden is NOT on board, and Evo is rightly pissed that anyone would even think as much. And now all of South America is up in arms over it. And rightly so. The asylum request went through proper channels in Ecuador, that much I do know. It’s still under review. For Evo to do something like this would be unbelievably rash. And that’s not Evo’s style. He may be a badass with more cojones than a roomful of his European counterparts combined, but he’s not an impulsive or a stupid one.

And according to Pepe Escobar, Evo has just had clearance (from France and Portugal) to fly wherever the fuck he likes, so obviously those cojones paid off.

Fucking EuroPeon chickenshits. And their fucking overlords in Washington, too.

PS: And the backlash has already begun:

Oui! Oui! Wee-wee!

PPS: And now Italy has also caved. That leaves Spain as the last holdout.