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Related: About this forumGlenn Greenwald: As Obama Makes "False" Spy Claims, Snowden Risks Life
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Glenn Greenwald: As Obama Makes "False" Spy Claims, Snowden Risks Life to Spark NSA Debate
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Iliyah
(25,111 posts)Most of America see Snowden in a different light now. Cheers tho as you go quietly into the darkness.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Civilization2
(649 posts)How exactly has the "light" changed?
Greenwald will not "go quietly into the darkness" as much as the corporate-military you so gleefully defend would like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)It's going to continue to eat at Americans. No matter what their political persuasion, they are not going to settle easily into knowing they're under surveillance.
You just watch as this continues to foment.
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)So Obama's supposed to come clean to clear Snowden. Got it. Obama should give out the launch codes while he's at it. Why keep secrets from the public.
Berlin Expat
(953 posts)solution to this matter.
Put a $10,000,000 bounty on Snowden.
If there's one language everyone in the world speaks, it's money. Don't tell me some poor cop down in Ecuador, looking at a $10,000,000 payday isn't going to pick up a phone, or detain Snowden himself and hand him over to someone, let's say, from the CIA.
Not saying Snowden will be picked up tomorrow or anything, but if the US really wants to get him, they will. It's only a matter of time.
I guarantee that if you put a bounty on Snowden's head, there's nowhere on the planet he can hide. He might as well off himself at that point. Political asylum? Think some poor schlub down in Quito or wherever is going to give two shits about Snowden's "asylum" status when said schlub is looking at being $10,000,000 richer?
For $10,000,000 even those guarding him might find themselves sorely tempted.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts). . . what would make Ecuadorians think our government won't welch? Our government fights against giving poor Americans a thousand a month, making them take drug tests and hitting them with chained CPI. What would make a poor Ecuadorian think our government will honor $10 million?
If our government pays $10 million to take some guy out, then what would keep our government from paying a half-million to another assassin to have the $10 million assassin bumped off?
You don't seem to understand the very barbarity of what you're talking about and how it would wreck the civilized world. There's nothing funny about it.
Moreover, I wouldn't count on Ecuadorians trusting our government now. In fact, much of the world now would be well-advised not to trust the US, and that distrust is probably turning to hatred.
MrScorpio
(73,693 posts)It's not like I didn't figure out that Greenwald was going to take it there.
Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)I think some folks forget about that.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Not to mention $50 billion worth of surveillance, and a huge law enforcement/investigative apparatus.
Snowden doesn't have anything of the kind at his disposal.
He has all of that in place because, yes, there's a high risk, but it continues to be high only if you presume Obama has none of that. With all of that in place, I'll believe Obama's risking himself only when I see how high is life insurance premiums are.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)... we once thought he believed in.
Now, it's all about preserving something frankly more and more Americans cannot in good conscience BELIEVE in...
Too bad...
intaglio
(8,170 posts)is Snowden's life "at risk"?
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)What if Obama has ordered him killed in secret? He can do that, and so far, the President's not cutting the guy any slack.
Aren't you going to feel foolish if he's killed.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Far more effective would be to have him brought back alive and have a trial.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)I'm not a conspiracy buff in any way, shape, or form. I didn't even watch the Bourne series.
Paranoia is not a belief there are conspiracies. Paranoia is the demonstrably false belief that there are absurd conspiracies. There are real conspiracies. A real one on Wall Street ruined our economy in 2008. Then there are false ones. For example, 9-11 was an al-Qaieda conspiracy (but aggravated by Bush's repeatedly failure to stop it when we had the intelligence.) The JFK assassination was one guy.
I'm informed by real, credible sources, not Hollywood, and Obama has done exactly what I've said to American Citizens. This is 100 percent certain. There is no doubt about this:
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=1&pagewanted=allhttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Far more effective to bring him back alive for trial? That's a matter of opinion. Obama might just arrive at a different conclusion: that it's far more "effective" to let leakers and intelligence whistle blowers know they will not get away with this. Zero-tolerance is already a catch phrase in our government about leakers, by his executive order:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/20/v-print/194513/obamas-crackdown-views-leaks-as.html
Paranoia is a mental illness. However, there is it's opposite, and that's a stubborn refusal to be alerted long after observation would warrant it. Maybe paranoia is considered a sickness, but in the wild, which one would get an animal killed faster? Then which one is probably the most dysfunctional?
You, my friend, have the latter.
I'm very well grown up and very well informed. So all your innuendo did is show you're embarrassingly ignorant and prejudiced. It's the sort of cliche children use to imitate their grandparents.
A side topic: but as far as I'm concerned, the law Snowden's been indicted under is unconstitutional, and he's uncovered actions that were contrary to the word of the Bill of Rights. He shouldn't even be prosecuted. Period. The fact that he's a fugitive is evidence that something has gone terribly wrong in the USA. And to judge by the press outside our country, and by his being given safe passage, much of the world thinks the same thing.
We are now a country from which people seek asylum.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Just one, supported by evidence. If you are so certain then surely there is one case where an American, not in terrorist training, has been taken out by a killer.
Any traitor is preferred as a live capture. There is the matter of debriefing, finding if what he has publicly revealed is all the information that he revealed. The publicity aspect is massive; for example Israel could have had Eichmann killed instead they brought him back for a show trial. Similarly, all the spies captured by other countries should be dead - except a live spy provides not just a bargaining chip but publicity.
Equally, by your distorted logic, Jonathan Pollard would have been killed by the CIA to avoid embarrassment to themselves and to Israel.
As to your "side topic" in what universe do you live? Revealing details to a foreign nation about espionage activities against that nation is treason - there is no other word to describe it.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Actually, you're dead wrong about that. He also targeted and assassinated at least one other, Awlaki's sixteen-year old son, also an American citizen, and he wasn't even radicalized.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/abdulrahman-al-awlaki-death-10470891
So, you want to test your ignorance again and say, "Oh, he only killed two?"
However, since you believe he has the complete right to hide murder when he does it, you are practically petitioning President Obama to keep you ignorant. If he committed hundreds, and stamped it secret, that's okay with you.
Your standards are pretty low when murder and obstruction doesn't disqualify a person from the Presidency.
The doctrine allowing the President to commit murder, citizen or not, on foreign or domestic soil, is still active and they didn't make it just for Awlaki and his son. As much as the President boasted about it and as much as people praised him, why wouldn't he do it again?
Irrelevant. That was before 9/11 and the Patriot Act and like laws. We're not discussing Pollard or espionage before 2001.
Well that publicity factor somehow doesn't appear to have applied to Awlaki or his son.
First, it doesn't take too much imagination to see that the "publicity aspect" of a "show trial" could easily backfire in this case. Remember, the Soviets, the inventors of the show trial, preferred to do most of their killing in secret, because they knew it could backfire. Why do you presume that the trial would make our government look better?
Plus, he might not be in a place where they can capture him. I wouldn't doubt if his itinerary isn't false, and he disappears somewhere between Cuba and Ecuador. If the choices are narrowed between having him free and having him dead, dead might win out as the preference.
And your believing without any question that he's a spy and not a whistle blower. Suppose he hasn't revealed anything except what we know publicly? And the government knows this? Now, what's his value as a bargaining chip?
Oh, I know. He can't be. Otherwise a
Lastly, the Eichmann Trial was a "show trial?" You'd compare Eichmann's trial the travesty that the Soviets committed ?
Now I'm certain you're not only ignorant, but you're cynical to the bone. I'm breaking off discussion and putting you on ignore, because I don't have the minimal respect for you required to restrain myself from insults.
You just watch what happens from here.
PS. The side topic was a declaration and not open to discussion.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)That I specifically excluded. Additionally Al Alawki was an enemy combatant not a spy.
Pollard is not irrelevant, history and history is always relevant especially as conspiracy nuts have been accusing the USA of assassination since at least 1960, and wasn't there that US communications interception vessel attacked "by mistake"? do you think that if the US intelligence services could have connived at that would not stoop to assassination if your logic applied. I am actually quite surprised you didn't pull the death of Che Guevara out of your fundament. But of course you believe these are "the worst times EVAR".
False flights? disappearance on the way? Again you bring out the conspiracy nut garbage. Everything is a super complex game of multidimensional chess. Except it is not, and overwrought fiction is not a reliable guide to the world. Again, if your fantasies were real Assange would be dead.
He has admitted going into the employment with the aim of spying. The "whistleblowing" (which it was not) provided a convenient source of cash and notoriety for a self agrandising shark.
Eichmann's was a show trial, there was no need for such a piece of bravura; he could have been committed to the Hague for prosecution but that did not serve the purposes of an Israeli state hungry for revenge.
You merely making a stupid declaration does not render a topic unavailable for discussion - especially when based on such specious logic. What you believe is not necessarily real.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)What a novel position for an international law-breaking, due process erasing, citizen assassinating, make 'em up as you go, government.
- Whomever it is that is writing this script, watched way too much teevee as a child......
K&R