Has Glenn Greenwald written Snowden's Obituary?

[MineralMan]

Recent allegations by Greenwald regarding the "high importance" of materials Snowden has not already released may be highly inflated, perhaps almost to the point of blowing up in his face, but they are inflammatory and may be putting Mr. Snowden in danger.

Perhaps Greenwald should back off on claims regarding Snowden, just to take some of the heat off the man, who is in a precarious situation in the transit terminal in Moscow. That, however, would require Mr. Greenwald to take a back seat for a time and step out of the media's limelight. Does he have the will to do that? Who knows.

One has to wonder who the star is in this constellation, or at least who wants to be the star. I believe that if I were Snowden, I'd be asking Mr. Greenwald to back off.

[morningfog]

1. No. This recent death watch is sick and morbid.

[CakeGrrl]

24. "Death watch?"

From some of the people who are convinced the U.S. will torture and kill Snowden?

Really?

So it's OK to speculate about that, presumably because it's out of concern, but if anyone suggests that Snowden might be in danger from any other parties, it's a "death watch".

More double standards. Those who support Snowden's actions are allowed to speculate about threats to his life; those who do not support his activities cannot, because that's icky and creepy.

[morningfog]

25. Everyone is free to speculate. I'm free to call it creepy.

I never understand the bemoaning of "oh, I can't say this" or "oh, I can't do this" on DU. Addressing an comment is not restricting it. Unless prohibited by the TOS or CS, you are free to make whatever creepy comment you want.

[Whisp]

2. GG is assuming that only the big evil Obama government would want to off Snowden

and his little pea brain can't comprehend that there are entities out there who would off Snowden just so Obama would be blamed for it.

The guy is a first class moron.

[CakeGrrl]

22. I had that thought too.

If I were Snowden, I wouldn't want Greenwald shooting off his grandstanding mouth in the interest of simple self-preservation.

Maybe Greenwald/Snowden trust Russia to want to stick it to Obama as much as they do, but they may find themselves at odds with the WAY Russia chooses to do that.

Fools.

[Cleita]

3. No, but all those journalists who cherry-picked what he said out of context sure

will have a good share of the guilt.

[quinnox]

4. maybe some duers should tone down their bloodlust a bit

I know they hate Snowden and Greenwald with a passion, but this is starting to get icky.

[morningfog]

9. Really creepy. I get the feeling they would cheer with joy if something happened to Snowden.

Ick.

[quinnox]

12. yep, it is creepy.

I'm almost expecting some of these folks to start making threats themselves. It would not shock me anyhow.

[allin99]

14. bloodlust is a perfect description. faoming at the mouth...

to tear at his flesh. oh it's so gross.

i think someone was talking about putting a needle in his neck. dear lord.

[Skraxx]

5. He Put A HUGE Target On Snowden, Now Any Entity Wishing to do Serious Harm to the US Only Has to

Assassinate Snowden. Everyone will assume the US did it AND all the info will be dumped. It will be a double whammy.

Snowden is a tool of the first order. What chump. What a sap. What a sucker. Greenwald threw him to the wolves.

[MineralMan]

8. That's what I was thinking, too.

If someone wants to harm the US, Snowden is a perfect target. The blame will automatically go to the US, no matter what happened, and if, indeed, there is other information that would further damage the US, it will be released.

I do not think Glenn Greenwald is Snowden's friend, somehow.

[randome]

6. He wants to avoid anyone writing his obituary as a journalist.

Once Snowden starts talking, it will become clear how much Greenwald conspired with him to steal national security documents.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[MineralMan]

11. Well, he's a JINO, anyhow.

A would-be pundit, this Snowden deal has jumped him into the spotlight. It remains to be seen whether he can perform well enough to keep the show from closing prematurely.

[allin99]

7. i don't think he's capable of backing off...

he if had the brains to do that he would have had the brains not to strut feathers in the first place. the man is a first-class idiot who cares more about attention than snowden's life.

I think he did indeed write snowden's obit in one way or another. and while there are people here who clearly would enjoy tearing the flesh off edward snowden, he doesn't deserve death. edward snowden also put people in jeapordy. I know snowden was perhaps desperate to find a journalist who would have the guts to print shit, american press probably would not have, but he put himself in a bad quandry by giving a narcissist so much. He's safe in the transit lounge, he's safe-ish (wont die) in u.s. custody, but a dead man if he gets to latin america.

[MineralMan]

10. I'd be willing to bet that the NSA knows exactly what information

Snowden took. I'll also bet that they don't consider it as important as Greenwald keeps hinting that it is. The US won't kill Snowden, since there is no benefit to taking that action and much bad that would come from it. However, someone wanting to harm the US might do that, since belief would be broad that the US did it.

In the meantime, whatever happens, Greenwald won't soil his clothing over it. He's reaped his benefits already and is much in demand by the media these days, as is always his goal.

[allin99]

13. i think greenwald has enough...

to cause a problem. and agree, the u.s. would never kill snowden, benefits them in no way b/c even if snowden was the only one who had the info, if he's dead they can't question (and torture) him to get related information (where is the info, who did else did you give it to, how much, etc)

yup. greenwald could give a shit. could possibly have killed that guy. He needs to dump whatever he's talking about. but $50k says he won't.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. It's the government that needs to "back off" and stop pursuing Snowden.

[MineralMan]

16. OK. But I'm not sure just how hard they

are pursuing him, anyhow. I have no connections with anyone who would know, either. It may well be that they'll be just as happy if Snowden finds somewhere to go. A long, drawn out trial and prosecution would lead to an even longer focus on all of this, and I doubt that the government wants that at all.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. It's a lose/lose for the government.

If he should find refuge. The government looks weak. If they continue to pursue him they look like petty tyrants.

[allin99]

18. they can use gg statement...

to get the public to think that's why they nabbed him.

i suspect that will be their new propoganda in about 2-5 days.

but at this point, the stuff that has come out is not going back into the bag. people all over the world are having their phone calls invaded by a foreign country, ours.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Yep. It's not going away despite their efforts. Nor, should it.

[MineralMan]

20. Once Snowden finds a place to go, this story

will fade quickly. Or, it will if Snowden keeps his head down. Greenwald is really the only beneficiary of keeping the story current and alive. The less publicity Snowden gets right now, the better for him. That's not Greenwald's goal, though, and he'll milk this until the cow stops producing.

Snowden is the loser in this, however it goes, but he can minimize his pain if he disappears from view for a couple of years.

[sofa king]

21. Has Greenwald reported anything new at all?

Let us not fail to recall that virtually all of the public revelations in this case were already publicly revealed in 2001-2009, some of them by Greenwald himself, when they were totally illegal, impeachable offenses.

Now they are for the most part legal and totally uninteresting to those of us who remained informed during the Bush years.

So, if you ask me, the real question is, "Does Greenwald have ANYTHING new, that we did not previously know about from the Bush years?"

My current guess is that the only undisclosed factoid out there is both Snowden and Greenwald were duped by the Chinese, who ignited this incident just days after the United States dared to castigate China for human rights abuses.

[MineralMan]

23. I have no idea what Snowden made away with.

However, given what has actually been released, it looks like it's not much. Wikipedia has most of that stuff, and more, and it's been available for years. There might be more, but if there were, I'd think it would have been released by now. If there is more, I think it's probably about at the same level, which is not much.

[Ruby the Liberal]

26. "Does he have the will to do that?"

No.