111–120 of 139 posts
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You're right, of course. It's only $450 to go direct from Hong Kong to Moscow on Aeroflot. Perhaps I should reconsider my summer vacation plans. It costs more to visit my parents in Minnesota. Ugh.
On the downside you have to fly Aeroflot. I saw a flight attendant take a passenger's finished water cup, and reuse it to serve to another passenger. Classy.
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There's really no better. They're all worse than each other.
Seymour Hersh is still writing for the New Yorker, Woodward writes extensively on US politics, Michael Moore is still making movies, and Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg can still discuss US foreign policy over a kitchen table. Do you honestly think they're all the same? We're discussing a scandal about the NSA being exposed as doing something I for one have always assumed they were doing as a matter of course (indee…
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My step-father told me a great story about the Cuban Missile Crisis. While Washington and Moscow at each other's throats, he was on a US Navy warship turning away freighters carrying missiles bound for Cuba. As his boat got close to the Russian ships, the crews on either side would wave at each other and take pictures. Regular ol' people to be friendly no matter their background and are not representative of how thei…
we voted for the policy makers, so despite being friendly, its our fault.
It's ironic that Snowden's destination, Venezuela, is fairly authoritarian itself: the 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index rated Venezuela as a "Hybrid Regime", and as the least democratic state in South America. His countries of aid so far (China, Russia, possibly Cuba) have a similarly poor record. I guess Snowden doesn't have a problem getting help from, or possibly living under, an authoritarian régi…
You seem sure that a trial in the US would be a mega-press event. You mean, like the Manning military trial? Are you reading the press coverage of Snowden? The TV press coverage? How do you think he would be portrayed by the US media? Surely you're not that naive. Indeed it might be better for the cause of domestic surveillance to have him tried in the US press and a federal court in Virginia, right outside Washington. Most Americans, the ones who get their news passively from TV or who do not watch the news much, would never even know what happened; his fate would be decided quickly and without fanfare, except announcement of the severe punishment he receives, to show that "leakers" are some sort of "insider threat": scare tactics (and maybe a high profile prosecution as part of some US Attorney's political aspirations to one day run for office). The more he evades this (expected) fate, the more he embarasses Washington, and the more otherwise ignorant Americans will learn who he is and what his principles are.
His principles seem pretty clear so far: Do you want every packet that travels over the Internet to be clear text, captured and analyzed by governments? Or do you want reasonably secure communications, free from prying eyes, similar the US postal mail? Do you want the government to decide this for you, in secret? Snowdon thinks you should be entitled to decide for yourself.
Your comment about the democratic ratings of other countries and getting help from authoritarian regimes if "it suits his interests" could easily be applied to the US government as well. They will deal with regimes as it suits their interests, regardless of the form of government of those regimes, so long as it suits their interests (e.g. oil). The government does what it has to do to acquire oil so you can run your car, applicances, devices, etc. And Snowden is doing what he has to do to enable his country (and maybe others) to debate the question of spying on what travels over the Internet.
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You are correct the Mossad assassinates people routinely. However, this is a poorly chosen rhetorical attack in defense of the CIA since the US currently is engaging in a global assassination war using drones and other means which has murdered far far more people than the Mossad ever has, and far more of those people are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Mossad at least picks specific and known enemy leaders and…
I completely agree with everything you said. I strongly oppose drones as well, and I know all about them. I was not defending the US or the CIA. I always thought the DoD runs the drones operation. I did not know however (or just did not make the connection) that the operatives are members of the CIA as well. But now I do know :)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/21/us-usa-drones-idUS...
"President Barack Obama's administration has decided to give the Pentagon control of some drone operations against terrorism suspects overseas that are currently run by the CIA, several U.S. government sources said on Monday."
The article suggests that the Yemen assassination program will be transferred to the Pentagon, but the CIA will retain total control over the Pakistan assassination program to "maintain deniability for both the United States and Pakistan", which seems pretty Orwellian a statement given that they are obviously acknowledging it by saying they want to maintain deniability.
There's tons of articles on the drone program, the Stanford study I linked to above (Living Under Drones) is a very good intro.
There's also lots of coverage about the random nature of the assassinations. We're not at war with these countries so it can't be considered a military act of defense, at best it is an assassination. I'm not sure we should even call them assasinations though when the target is not known at all and some guy is just shooting people at random for fun. I believe the accurate term there is "genocide", "murder", and "psychopathic spree killing". Rather than a crazed individual though, it is a "normal" person, who has undergone some training, is working for a contractor who pays him, and the entire thing is managed by a state. Is a state running such programs a legitimate entity at this point? A pretty reasonable argument can be made for "no". It's interesting and disturbing from a psychological standpoint that after all the genocide in the 20th century and the talk against that genocide, that these sorts of state run programs still exist, and the sorts of countries that run them and what sort of values they claim to represent and defend.
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/06/cia_often_doesnt_know_who_it...
This is slightly strange: the best onward flight to Havana is Aeroflot 150, which departed Moscow SVO 30 minutes ago. This makes Snowden's layover in Moscow likely to be over 20 hours, so one must wonder if he plans to stay there a while. http://flightaware.com/live/findflight/UUEE/MUHA/ If he will indeed fly HK-Moscow-Havana-Caracas without delay, he may finish with flight V04101 on Monday at 23:50 Venezuela time (2…
Is this it? He's about to enter US airspace, if so.
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My step-father told me a great story about the Cuban Missile Crisis. While Washington and Moscow at each other's throats, he was on a US Navy warship turning away freighters carrying missiles bound for Cuba. As his boat got close to the Russian ships, the crews on either side would wave at each other and take pictures. Regular ol' people to be friendly no matter their background and are not representative of how thei…
we voted for the policy makers, so despite being friendly, its our fault.
One question that I saw floating around on Twitter is how could the US Gov charge Snowden on espionage? Espionage doesn't apply or does it? Let's say you and I share some secret. When I pass that information you trusted in me to a third party (who is interested in acquiring that information) secretly for some favor (cash/kind) only then it becomes a case of espionage no? When I share facts that were meant to be confi…
Without a residency visa of some kind, it is difficult to open foreign financial accounts abroad. Perhaps he has a bag full of cash although that may create some issues of its own with various immigration authorities.