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My knowledge of him comes primarily from news articles and the Citizen Four documentary (which I highly recommend) but my perception is that whatever his intentions were I'm amazed at how smartly he did everything. He literally fought the US government and got the best case scenario anyone can practically hope for which is that he's alive and not in Guantanamo.
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I will tell you that three letter agencies in the US have a proven and undeniable track record of lying incessantly and basically nothing that comes from them can be trusted.
This report is produced by the U.S. House of Representatives- not a 3-letter agency.
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This is true; and I find it hard to understand. I mean, I can understand Zelensky talking it down; as the public face of Ukraine's government, I assume everything he says is propaganda of some kind (whether or not it's true). But back in December, the satellite photos were showing the huge build-up of troops and armour on Ukraine's border. I didn't believe it was just an "exercise", nor did I believe it was sabre-rat…
> This is true; and I find it hard to understand. Russia actually invading Ukraine full-on was the most irrational and self-destructive thing Putin could've done. By all measures it was and still is a terrible idea. Only if you thought Putin was a madman you could've predicted it but before the invasion that wasn't his reputation at all IMO. I think he was seen as relatively pragmatic and rational (for a thug).
With the benefit of hindsight, it doesn't seem so irrational to me now.
* Russia was under sanctions for the invasion of Crimea; the central bank had built up a huge stock of foreign currency, but it was only going to diminish with time.
* The Russian economy was at best stagnant, and largely powered by resource extraction.
* Ukraine was an impediment to land-traffic to Crimea (hence the need to build a bridge over the Kerch Strait), and also controlled the water supply.
* Ukraine was tooling-up.
For those reasons, delaying the invasion would have resulted in worse outcomes, the longer the delay.
As far as the justification for invading at all, you can take your pick from Russian fear of having a full NATO member on his Western border, or dreams of a restored Russian empire. I think both justifications are crazy, but dreams of a restored imperial glory are common among Russian nationalists. They can't all be madmen.
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To put more context in this: movies made with military equipment need special approval by the us military, and they will not generally approve “unpatriotic” movies and blacklist studios who do make movies they disapprove of… from Defense dot gov: “ The Defense Department has a long-standing relationship with Hollywood. In fact, it’s been working with filmmakers for nearly 100 years with a goal that’s two-fold: to acc…
If this is information anyone can get by flying a drone around military equipment or buying old equipment offered for sale, this seems like a startling suppression of first amendment rights
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This report is produced by the U.S. House of Representatives- not a 3-letter agency.
Based on information from…
Have you read the report?
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How often does the US put military equipment on the borders of countries like Russia and China without invading? All the time
What are you talking about? Can you provide one example of the US doing a buildup on the Russian or Chinese border that was even a quarter the size of the Russian buildup ahead of their full-scale invasion?
Germany 35k
Italy 12k
UK 10k
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The article makes the case that Snowden was NOT a whistleblower: “ "I want to emphasize this: my active searching out of NSA abuses began not with the copying of documents, but with the reading of them. My initial intention was just to confirm the suspicions that I'd first had back in 2009 in Tokyo. Three years later I was determined to find out if an American system of mass surveillance existed and, if it did, how i…
A lot of people refer to him as a whistleblower because he exposed what the NSA was doing. A lot of people consider this a public good. Your definition of whisleblower seems to be closer to a government bureaucrat's definition. I'm curious why you brought that up?
It’s a direct quote from the article.
I urge everyone interested to read the intel report and tell me what about it is false or inaccurate. https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/snowden_report_... https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_snowden_r... > “The Committee further found no evidence that Snowden attempted to communicate concerns about the legality or morality of intelligence activities to any officials, senior or otherwise, dur…
If a police officer leaked evidence of widespread misconduct to the press (as has happened several times), would he also be implied to be an enemy agent for not going through the totally trustworthy and effective internal complaints process instead?
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Based on information from…
So you are claiming that the NSA (at all levels) lied to the House Intel committee? That's a big claim, you should back it up with some evidence. Which part of the report is not accurate? Have you read the report?