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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
And it should be said his crime was not telling the general public that the NSA was spying on them.
His crime was deliberately turning over shit tons of documents and operations playbooks to the Russians and compromising our ability to gather intelligence on both them and groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda.
edited 14th Jul '16 7:48:59 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?Geopolitics are never that one sided. Russia's current activities are part of a chain of events going back to the events and the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the eastward expansion of NATO in violation of the spirit (but not the law, via Loophole Abuse) of the talks over German reunification, which was itself a tremendous Olive Branch from the Soviets.
All involved parties have done their part to escalate matters, but the tremendously lopsided power dynamics of the forces involved means that Russia is not in a position to be the one starting the process of deescelating matters; they have a lot more to lose then the United States does.
The United States has never had territorial aspirations on European soil. All it wants is to bring everyone into its economic and cultural sphere. You can regard that as "imperialistic" if you insist, but that doesn't make it the same as what the Soviet Union tried to do.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Who spent most of the mid-late 20th century aiming thousands of tanks and millions of soldiers at the countries we were protecting in NATO. Historical animosity goes both ways.
edited 14th Jul '16 8:00:42 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
It's the same ends as classical imperialism (economic exploitation of foreign resources) pursued through different means. The great innovation of the American empire (versus the British and other great powers) was the realization that you can exert almost as much control over a region without provoking anywhere near the same amount of resistance if you let them have their own name on a map.
It has similar economic consequences-in exploited regions', all economic development is focused towards meeting the demands of foreign consumers, and while quality of life increases to point, it becomes effectively impossible for regions so exploited to join the developed world.
edited 14th Jul '16 8:13:38 AM by CaptainCapsase
"His crime was deliberately turning over shit tons of documents and operations playbooks to the Russians and compromising our ability to gather intelligence on both them and groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda."
He didn't hand over documents to the Russians. He handed them to journalist Glenn Greenwald when he was still in Hong Kong.
This - that was Snowden's original crime, and the reason he's wanted on Treason charges.
In US-exclusive news, the Fresno PD just released the body-cam footage of the shooting of Dylan Noble
, and it doesn't look good. Aside from the original report being someone wearing camouflage with a rifle (Noble's wearing black t-shirt and khakis), I can admit that the first two shots were kind of justified... but the last two shots were absolutely not.

Russia's got just a bit of a history of being total assholes on the world stage alongside China. And then you have their actions in Crimea, and the complete clusterfuck that is domestic Russian politics.