It’s weird. I simultaneously admire Putintang and think he’s an asshole, although that may be part of why I admire him. I mean there ARE some asshole that just do it with such brutal elegance that you just have go, ‘wow, fuck me but that was awesome.’ The interview with Obama wasn’t one of those but when he stole that super bowl ring, now that WAS pure awesome (SDMB thread).
I don’t envy Snowden. Oh, of course Putin is using him to get back at the US and score points with his own population.
But make no mistake – Putin is ex-KGB and, although an intelligence service will use “pigeons”, they do not like them at all. You can be sure that Putin despises Snowden.
Snowden will be in Russia, yes, and I will bet my right arm that he will be under surveillance by the FSB the whole time. And that he will meet with an unfortunate accident if he does or says something that Putin doesn’t approve of. Accident that will be polonium-related if Putin feels like sending a really strong message (with the added advantage that a lot of people will think that it was the US who got to him, make no mistake).
Snowden may or may not leave Russia in the future for a third country. One thing he is not doing is going back to the US, ever. He is an exile. Again – I do not envy him at all. He has utterly screwed his own life.
And anyway – in another thread I mentioned that, in any case, what Snowden has done is much less relevant and less damaging than what two NSA defectors did in 1960. They went straight to the USSR and gave press conferences on how the NSA spied on US allies and intercepted communications from everybody. You can check it here (The Martin and Mitchell defection). Martin and Mitchell, incidentally, died in exile, never coming back to the US.
Long-term consequences of the Martin and Mitchell defection: None. The NSA kept doing its thing, there was temporary embarrassment for the US that ended up being forgotten, the two guys died in exile and almost nobody remembers them now.
I foresee exactly the same thing happening with Snowden and his revelations.
Snowden may have avoided the death penalty, but now he’ll have to live in Russia. That’s what I’d say if I was President, which may be one reason why I’m not the President.
Meanwhile “Obama ‘open to NSA surveillance reform’ at meeting with lawmakers”.
So Snowden revelations, despite denials to the American people, of mass surveillance of the civilian population may result in this lunacy being curbed.
I didn’t read about anyone thanking him though …
Come back in 50 years and then we’ll see if this brouhaha has had any kind of lasting effect.
I personally doubt it (cf. Martin and Mitchell defection). I see this more like the administration giving a sop to a temporarily upset populace, rather than any kind of real intention of change.
Time will tell, as they say.
You’re probably right.
Maybe it depends how many stories like this weeks pressure cooker lady actually make it into the US mainstream:
That is not privative of the US. Cf. this pressure cooker lady who was arrested in Spain:
(Shorter) link in English: Bomb alert in Almonte, Huelva | Nerja Today
(although, to be fair, she actually placed the empty pressure cooker in a crowded sanctuary, so there is that).
And it appears that most likely the pressure cooker lady in NY was targeted by a tip-off from somebody in her husband’s old job. Word to the wise: Be careful what you search for at work!
The lady in your link was arrested for pretending to plant a bomb! Slightly different scenario.
I don’t think it was to do with internet searches at work, as well as searching for a pressure cooker the son had been searching on the Boston bombing.
I think Tsar Vlad will use Snowden to beat Obama over the head…for instance, if Obama tries the “human rights” thing (to criticize Russia), Putin will not-so-subtly bring up Snowden’s revelations: “Excuse me , Mr. President, but we have given refuge to a victim of of your spy agency-you claim to be for human rights, while you spy on your citizens , without the rule of law”.
Putin will grind Obama’s nose into it!
I suspect the (up to) 11,000 rendition flights and torture thing doesn’t help a ‘human rights’ schtick.
Um, lived in Russia for a bit, never really got this. The Russian muzschina na ulitse has a rather complicated set of feelings about the US, to the extent he thinks about the US at all (which he pretty much mostly doesn’t). Mostly he’s interested in putting food on his family, not being a victim of crime, that sort of thing. The fact that Putin did a fine job of making it easier to do that explains a lot about why he maintains a fairly high level of popularity. That and his manly chest that he exposes on a weekly basis.
One of Obama’s shortcoming has been his failure to develop any meaningful positive relationships with other foreign leaders. Even with some of our long time allies we now find ourselves in a relationship that is at best un-amicable and probably better described as ‘tense’, with Netanyahu and Israel for example. While Russia and Putin have always been problematic, had a better understanding and mutual respect been cultivated in the five years beforehand this whole unpleasant fiasco might need never have come to a boil, defused quietly with a couple of timely phone calls and quiet deals to reciprocate in kind. Obama does some things very well but the US is facing the harsh reality of his dearth of clout on the world stage now and it’s not very pretty.
Yes, Putin is a macho asshole who dislikes the Westernization (and in particular the US influence) in the former Soviet bloc countries and is using every trick in the book to assert Russian dominance in all geopolitical realms to make up for it. That he’s takIng advantage of such low-hanging fruit as the whole Snowden thing is hardly a surprise, and he’d do so no matter who the President was (although I doubt he likes Obama much anyway).
And I agree that neither the Russians nor the Chinese (nor likely the Ecuadorans or anyone else) give a good goddamn about Snowden himself. It’s all about getting a free and clear shot at the US; when it’s played out, we’ll likely never hear from him again.
Well, Netanyahu is also an asshole but that’s beside the point. I don’t think Obama is quite as poor at this as you describe and he’s certainly improved America’s image immensely over what it was under GWB (when the US was heavily loathed across the globe), but conversely he doesn’t seem to have the natural ability to charm either allies or foes in the way that Reagan or Clinton did, nor the foreign policy nous of Bush Sr. On the whole I’d call it a wash.
I think Hillary Clinton was much better at this (although I still think she would not have been as good a president overall); Biden OTOH has the foreign policy knowledge but all the diplomatic ability of a cinder block and I haven’t yet formed a view of Kerry that isn’t tainted by his ineffectual presidential run.
One word. “Amerikosy”.
The way the Obama administration has been acting, I’d say there’s a near-0% chance of them dropping the Snowden issue. Probably more likely Snowden will be assassinated or kidnapped by the CIA.
Hmm, I doubt it. If Snowden is “rubbed” or dies in an unfortunate “accident”, I think chances are it would be because he pissed off Putin – per what I mentioned in post #22 in this thread.
That is an interesting thought.
I agree that Putin will probably be the one to off Snowden some day when he becomes too much of a nuisance or if for some reason it becomes advantageous to do so.
I wonder how many CIA agents we actually have working in Russia undercover these days. Taking into account that the Russians, at all times, are going to constantly be monitoring Snowden, I think it’ll be hard for the CIA to ever neutralize him, even if they are given that directive, as long as he’s under the Russian eye.
Other than petty revenge, what in the world would be the motivation?