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America’s Open Wound

edwardsnowden.substack.com

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Re: America’s Open Wound

#261

Post by ajmurmann »

AdamH12113 wrote: post #91
rendall wrote: post #2

Did any American read this without alarm? If so, why not?

The CIA being a nasty organization that does nasty things has been well-known for decades. What makes (most) Americans tolerate this is the same reason anyone tolerates such nasty things -- they're being done to other people. Drone strikes in particular have been discussed since the Obama administration. It's not okay, but as Snowden himself points out, it is normal. What did alarm me was Snowden mischaracterizing Bi…

Sincere question: what's the alternative to drone strikes when dealing with organizations like Al Quaeda, Taliban or ISIS? It seems that in the past less targeted weapons would have been used causing even more damage to civilians in the vicinity. Drone strikes, raids (which still ended up killing a little girl) or just giving up and withdrawing are the only real options I can see.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#262

Post by renewiltord »

humanistbot wrote: post #219
renewiltord wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, the only people I believe are those who are always right. For instance, Kernighan and Ritchie talk about the 'register' keyword in C. All very well, but I heard that one day Brian Kernighan said he'd brew a pot of coffee and just forgot. I'm not sure I can trust him so I never use that keyword. Too risky. Maybe if they would annotate who did which section. I bet Ritchie would never have done this.

I believe people who admit when they are wrong, instead of refusing to talk about their past errors in judgement.

Right. Fuck that register keyword.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#263

Post by aidenn0 »

zug_zug wrote: post #28
rendall wrote: post #2

Did any American read this without alarm? If so, why not?

Well I think this article does a good job of saying CIA has done some crazy stuff. But then it goes from there to -> so let's get rid of it, which to me seems like potentially a much scarier proposition. It's not clear to me exactly how real the threat of foreign countries trying to tamper with our elections is, but if this is what the CIA does, I think it's probably naive to think no other nation would try things li…

My reading of TFA is that the CIA cannot continue to operate without real oversight. Snowden was a part of the intelligence apparatus, every interview I've seen with him has indicated that he still sees a need for it. However he also believes that the apparatus must be accountable to the legislature, and that in a functioning democracy, representatives of the intelligence apparatus should not be allowed to lie and conceal things from the representatives of the people.

If we elect representatives who run on a platform of assassinating 8-year old US Citizens, and overthrowing leaders of foreign democracies, then that's terrible, but it's far superior to a world in which a single person can unilaterally decide to do these things and then hide it from Congress.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#264

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

briantakita wrote: post #208
martythemaniak wrote: post #73

CIA is bad says FSB spokesman. If you think that's unfair, I invite you to scroll through his Twitter account right before Feb 24th.

Are you saying that the CIA is good? What good has the CIA done for this world & the ordinary US citizen?

Ask Ukraine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/us/politics/commandos-rus...

  But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#265

Post by pnf »

isx726552 wrote: post #231
jnovek wrote: post #87

Has everyone on Hacker News lost their minds? I come here to read and sometimes participate in rational discussions. These comments are some of the lowest effort, least rigorous, paranoid bullshit I’ve ever seen on this site. We’re a step above Facebook comments on NPR articles, here. Partisanship, viciousness and lazy conspiracy theories are not a good look for this site.

Snowden is absolutely a hero for what he did to expose US surveillance. It is also right for people to be suspicious of anything he says at the moment given his current situation. There’s no contradiction between the two. As I wrote elsewhere in the comments on this story, the atrocities of the CIA are sadly well known. There’s nothing new here. The beginning of Snowden’s post is a surprisingly poor take on Biden’s r…

The symbolism of the zoomed out context is hilariously not any less ominous or threatening. The blue coasts surrounding and squeezing the extremist red middle of America. It was bad optics all around, unless it was intended to intimidate, in which case it put the intended targets on notice. If your strengths don't include psychology, metaphor, symbolism, power politics, etc... maybe don't swim in that pool and definitely don't volunteer yourself as a lifeguard.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#266

Post by pnf »

jnovek wrote: post #87

Has everyone on Hacker News lost their minds? I come here to read and sometimes participate in rational discussions. These comments are some of the lowest effort, least rigorous, paranoid bullshit I’ve ever seen on this site. We’re a step above Facebook comments on NPR articles, here. Partisanship, viciousness and lazy conspiracy theories are not a good look for this site.

No post body was provided.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#267

Post by dvt »

tarakat wrote: post #56
dvt wrote: post #22

A bit hypocritical of Snowden to criticize the USA while holed up in Russia. But maybe I'm a bit partial considering the USSR destroyed every semblance of culture and national identity in my home country, causing generations of corruption and trauma, and ultimately emboldening my family to move to the States--abandoning lifelong friends and family--where a much better life was possible. But please, keep lecturing us…

> A bit hypocritical of Snowden to criticize the USA while holed up in Russia. So you have no problem with the substance of the article, only with the author's place of residence? The article itself references several instances of the CIA toppling governments and starting wars - those are not invalidated because Russia also did similar or and worse things. Plenty of people in the Middle East and Central America could…

> Plenty of people in the Middle East and Central America could justifiably feel the same about the CIA as you do about Russia.

(The USSR, not Russia.) It's pure fantasy to argue that the CIA, even given their sordid history, ever partook in anything even remotely comparable to the scale of the USSR's destructive regime[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_Sovie...

Re: America’s Open Wound

#268

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

TeeMassive wrote: post #15
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Which one? 2000? 2008? 2016? 2020?

I definitely remember a bunch of democrats being convinced that 2004 was stolen. Amusingly enough, they blamed Diebold too.

2000 is probably the one for which the strongest case exists, but people don't care about that one anymore.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#270

Post by softcactus »

pwinnski wrote: post #260

President Biden gave a speech about a specific person and what he perceives that person's threat to America to be, and Snowden omits any mention of that person, describes Biden's speech as being only about "his political opposition" and uses that as a springboard for... stuff. It's almost as if he didn't watch or read the speech, but only saw screen grabs and headlines from people who hate Biden.

I read it more as him trying to point out an incongruence between American political discourse and the realities of American realpolitik.

On the one hand you have Biden calling out Trumpism/MAGAism as a threat to democracy, on the other hand you have the media hyperfixation on the optics of his speech: 'omg he looks like a dictator!!'

Meanwhile when you look at the machinery underneath and how our system really maintains the status quo, fascism is the standard operating procedure. How can someone claim they want to restore justice and the sanctity of democracy when the extrajudicial killings of US citizens is just another Tuesday?

I don't think he really needed to criticize the substance of Biden's speech, since, given our leaders hyperfixation on optics, there was no substance to analyze in the first place. The speech was nothing but a layer of feel-good frosting concealing the violent means of control underneath.

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