The Self Inflicted Snowden Wound

[warrprayer]

Saw this great op from NYT - being a spy novel buff myself, I was naturally curious to see what a spy novel author was making of the Snowden affair. IMO he nailed it with 100% accuracy.

"We have treated a whistle-blower like a traitor — and thus made him a traitor. Great job. Did anyone in the White House or the N.S.A or the C.I.A. consider flying to Hong Kong and treating Mr. Snowden like a human being, offering him a chance to testify before Congress and a fair trial? Maybe he would have gone with President Vladimir V. Putin anyway, but at least he would have had another option. The secret keepers would have won too: a Congressional hearing would have been a small price to bring Mr. Snowden and those precious hard drives back to American soil.

It’s hard not to see the last couple of weeks as a tragedy for Mr. Snowden — who seems to have started down this road with decent motives and is now looking at life as an exile or in prison — as well as a huge self-inflicted wound for the American intelligence community. If the masters of the apparatus were really ready to have an honest discussion about their powers, Mr. Snowden might have wound up not in Moscow, but back in Washington, his girl by his side on the Capitol steps, headed for a few years in prison and then a job with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "

They cut off their nose to spite their face.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/opinion/snowden-through-the-eyes-of-a-spy-novelist.html?_r=0

[JackN415]

1. nonsense. He doesn't deserve such treatment. He is nothing but a thief.

[warrprayer]

3. Thief!

The nasty Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever! My precious!

[Thinkingabout]

2. Let the scumbag stay where ever, save money wasted on chasing him down, right now he is

charged so if he was to return to our wonderful nation he would be arrested. It will be Snowden who will not have the privilege of living here and enjoying the life we can live here. Let him live off of those who thinks he has performed a "service", no American funds should be spent on trying to rescue this scumbag from himself.

[warrprayer]

4. funny how the people

I have talked to and authors such as this with knowledge of the playing field are not so quick to judge or fling jingoisms around.

[randome]

5. "...his girl by his side..."

He really wasn't thinking of anyone but himself. That's how it was for most of his life, I think. His resume is a lie and he imagined himself to be more important than he truly was.

He made his own choices. The results are on him.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[warrprayer]

7. Hombre Secreto!

[randome]

9. That stupid song (the original) was in my head for years when I was growing up!

Now it is again thanks to you!

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Valerie Plame says, "In a way, we as U.S. citizens owe Edward Snowden a thank you....

"In a way, we as U.S. citizens owe Edward Snowden a thank you for having brought this issue to the forefront and so that we can begin to have a serious and genuine conversation about these issues."

Plame said she has "great respect" for journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Snowden story, saying "he has written eloquently for years on these issues in a very serious, sustained manner."

She added that she believes the conversation should focus less on Snowden and more on the questions he raised, since "his fate is already foregone."

"He will be abused, he will be punished," Plame said of Snowden. "Perhaps he could have done it in a different way, but that's not the conversation we should be having."

[warrprayer]

8. point made

those who know the playing field....