Me and a few friends have had a pool on when Snowden would become useless to Moscow going since long before POTUS Trump was a candidate. My first pick was 2017Q1, wonder if I’ll win the pot?
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If Snowden goes back, Russia and Putin look weak. That’s a very bad outcome for Putin.
The conclusion is that if his return is considered worth the loss of face involved, Putin must be extremely worried about Trump and what he might do. He must know that with Trump, any giveaway will merely result in the demand for more. He must know that any thaw in relations could be undone in an instant; Trump has no loyalties. His options are basically the same as Stalin faced in 1939; (a) co-operate with Germany/the US while secretly preparing for war, or (b) try and rally opposition. Stalin knew he didn’t have a hope of plan (b), but Putin might try for it since the oil price is rising again. I suspect he may do just that, hold on to Snowden, keep working on better relations with Turkey, Greece, China, Japan and Germany, seek to destabilise the UK and Poland, and try to reduce the value of the dollar as a reserve currency. This makes more sense because Trump’s threats to immigrant jobs means that there could be an increasing pool of talent stuck outside the US, resulting in a boost to external tech businesses.
The real achievement would be an agreement outside the US to ignore US FRAND patents. That would effectively isolate the US from the countries involved as far as IT went. As Trump’s attitude to spying on non-US citizens is already going to impact a number of US companies, that could be significant.
So, I may be putting too much weight on what happens to one person, but it could be a canary in the mine for whether the Russian policy will be apparent co-operation while planning to undermine, or resistance while trying to build an external coalition.
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Or Snowden isnt worth anything any more to Putin. Snowden was useful to tweak Obama’s nose. My guess is that there will be a lull in nose tweaking for a while and during this time Putin does his thing in the near abroad with impunity. Later on he’ll find something else to nose tweak the US about while continually pissing on Europe and the UK.
Not everything is about POTUS Trump.
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Russia is America’s best buddy
Relations should be normalized, Putin welcomed
Snowden’s a “spy” for Russia (our buddies)
Snowden should be executed
- Trump please!
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Or something could just mistakenly end up in his morning cuppa. Isn’t that more Vlad’s style?
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Strangle with those tiny hands? I think he’d want to make a huge show out of it.
In the right situation, Snowden would make a good Apple of Discord to toss.
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Well one of Trump’s arguments regarding that particular problem is that he will be able to get Putin to do things he wants because they get along, as well as he is a good negotiator. So if he gets Snowden then he can say, see hillary would never have got that! At this point Snowden is worthless to Russia because they have Trump. Really, thinking it over I would be surprised it didn’t happen.
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I’m not sure how you think he’s “useful” to Moscow now except as a way to stick it to American power.
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You mean this week. Next week, Trump won’t remember any of this and they’ll be back to square one. Consistency is not a Trumpian virtue.
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I watched the movie Snowden last night and I can’t help wondering if his use of Tegretol as an anticonvulsant invalidated the psychometric testing which the CIA presumably carried out when he first worked for him. They thought they were hiring an easily manipulated short term thinker but finished up employing a heavily mood stabilized long term thinker.
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Well his post history on Ars Technica, which has been mined, showed a fairly conservative white libertarian guy when he was younger. I suspect his shifts in orientation evolved from that.
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and he could reveal Obama’s records,I might become a major fan
You mean if he reveals Obama had been compromised by Russia and was in Putin’s pocket? Something like that?
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Exactly. He was useful for that reason before but has served his purpose and probably is not useful now.
That’s true. His utility has always been political for Putin. “See? The US can bitch all it wants but we can do what we want.”
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He did serve the People. However, he broke the law. Right or wrong, there has to be the rule of law. He should have taken his lumps. People ought to disobey the laws but surrender themselves and stand their trial. IMHO.
Otherwise we just have anarchy, everyone shouting out their causes then ducking for cover. Only coming up for trial let the various civil rights acts be ruled into law, or get more than mealy mouthed support from society.
Sure he is useful. They give him to tRump, and every one of pootins critics has to think they will be unsafe running away to the US. Once, getting to the US because pootin had a hate on for you, was like being free. No US president in recent years would think it right to send home one of pootins critics. But tRump?, he does trading favours for a living.
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The rule of law? 45 does not believe in such pesky trivialities like the rule of law, he wants him executed without due process. I believe the CIA promised him he would not be tortured if he returned to the states and that was before 45 became president. Maybe you could ask yourself if the rule of law served chelsea manning justly and not put her in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day in a 1.8 x 3.6m cell with no window, torture in other words (along with enforced sleep deprivation).
Also do you consider this to be anarchy? I think you’re going to be seeing quite a bit more of it in the years to come.
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? are you seriously asking if I consider a protest march to be the same thing as people knowingly breaking the law and releasing confidential government documents?. because if so, do get (edit to remove annoyed use of expletive)., for calling me an idiot, ok?.
I don’t think for a moment they did a MORAL wrong, breaching their oaths of silence in both the cases.
But I do think the State that is tasked with ruling a society is entitled to require its civil servants to obey laws in regards to releasing information. Just one possible justification for this is it protects the citizens from misguided enthusiasts. Case in point being it might suit religious fanatics, working in privileged positions to release private information about “infidels” . . . this certainly happens overseas. Add any group you like there, society has rules of disclosure to protect itself in whole and its parts, against its servants doing wrong.
If they really thought it was vital, they ought to have put their own freedom on the line about it. I say this because OTHERWISE there is no point where the rights of society are protected from its servants. You and I no doubt agree that Manning and Snowden did good, but that is not the way you run laws, having them up for barter and quibbles to suit people individually.
The only way bad laws get changed, is by someone standing up to be counted.
Manning, by the way, was a service person, with the full knowledge of what was at stake when they transgress. Swore an oath. Did what he thought was right, and part of that must be to accept punishment. Or oaths, and service, mean nothing.
But it was clear to both Manning and Snowden that their government was breaking the law. Don’t they have an obligation to report that to the people?
Whats an oath, anyway?
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She. It is rude to misgender people, especially trans people.
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