Snowden's latest leak is about our spying on Russia. Is he trying to start WW3?

[Savannahmann]

30. OK, let me get this straight.

With everyone in the world knowing that The Zimmerman Telegram started the US Involvement in World War I, the obvious question remains. Who was to blame for that? Zimmerman who put the plan into action? Or Blinker Hall who decrypted it and gave it to the United States knowing that Wilson would have little choice but to publish it?

So who is to blame for harming our relationships with allies and nations we have to get along with? The NSA who is listening to everyone, including secure diplomatic communications in violation of a number of treaties on the issue, or Snowdon who told us about it? It's the action of doing the wrong thing, encouraging Mexico to go to war with the United States in the case of the Zimmerman Telegram, more than the public release that is the issue there. It proved that we could not trust the Germans, and that even while we were notionally neutral, and bending over backwards to try and negotiate a peace, the Germans were plotting against us. War was if not inevitable, then so close to it that a determined pacifist like Wilson felt he had no choice.

Now, Diplomatic Communications have been intercepted before, we had the Venona Project. And when it was ordered Shut Down, the CIA kept doing it anyway. Then when it was released, the Russians asked if we were still doing it, and we said No. We lied, again and again and again. So the lie gets exposed, and what happens? We blame a 29 year old idiot for starting World War III, or at least trying to. So how did we get here? Was it his decision to listen to diplomatic communications? Was he the one who decided that damn the consequences, we have to know what the Russians are saying so we can out negotiate them at the table?

Was he the one who spent months, or years, cracking the Russian Encryption? Was he the one who put the taps in place to intercept the messages? Did he give the orders? No, he just let the cat out of the bag. So the Zimmerman telegram started World War I for the Americans. It was a huge mistake to go to war with the Germans then, because the bad guy was Admiral Hall, because he told what the secret that nobody could know was.

Snowdon may be a douchebag, but he didn't do anything but let us know what the assholes in charge are doing, and that seems to be something that we should have known a long time ago, so that our elected officials could put a stop to it before we got on the brink of World War III.