He had my support until he signed himself over to Russia. It may have been his only choice, but what he says doesn’t matter one way or the other in my book.
True. He’s probably telling the truth about a lot of things, but notice what he doesn’t say. He’s a smart guy and is not saying certain things to stay on Putin’s good side.
He’s been in Russia 10 years now. He would probably be out of jail if he had surrendered. Chelsea Manning is already out:
She was sentenced to 35 years at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. On January 17, 2017, Obama commuted Manning’s sentence to nearly seven years of confinement dating from her arrest in May 2010.
The US government doesn’t openly torture, murder, kill to expand their borders, put people in jail for blank signs, or many other terrible things the Kremlin does. The US government is easily, hands down better than the Russian government.
Uh, yeah it does. Not to mention the US has killed more people through colonisation, direct and proxy wars, etc. than any other nation in human history.
How do you mean? What did he do besides have his passport revoked in Russia?
I’m out of the loop.
Has he made some pro-Putin statements since?
It sucks but what else was he supposed to do? He had no passport and if he got extradited to the USA then he’d spend years of a life sentence in solitary confinement at a CMU prison or worse. Take one look at how the US government treats those they consider terrorists and you’ll understand his decision.
Obligatory fuck Putin and his war on Ukraine.
I suppose I don’t understand the alternative, doesn’t the United States ask immigrants to do a similar type of pledge? I kinda expect most countries do. Seems logical. I could be wrong about that, maybe immigrants don’t have to pledge loyalty to the US for citizenship? I’ll have to look it up.
I guess to me it seems disingenuous to judge someone for making arrangements to live in a country he cannot leave. He is forced to stay there by the United States, it wasn’t a choice.
Anyway I could definitely be missing something here but I can’t think of what he could have done differently, what would you have done in his situation?
As an aside, I have a lot of respect for Snowden because he showed us how little respect the United States has for obeying its own laws. The laws which are based on our supposed virtues. The US violated every principle it proclaimed that American citizens had. We never had them. Turns out we’re just as crooked as the countries we judge. I value that knowledge, Snowden is a patriot who risked everything so the American people would know the truth about our government and he did it with utmost care. He’ll go down in history as such. He’s the reason we can even discuss this topic. I thank him for that gift, despite the contents being disgusting.
