dagblog - Comments for "Snowden has a friend in the Kremlin"

....Discussions between

artappraiser — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 19:30:41 +0000

In reply to Snowden has a friend in the Kremlin

....Discussions between American and Russian officials continued on Wednesday and the White House further softened the rhetoric in hopes of an outcome that does not further damage ties between the two countries.

"We agree with President Putin that we don't want the situation to harm our relations," Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One as President Obama left for a weeklong trip to Africa.

He expressed empathy with Russia’s predicament as it decides how to handle the situation, given that it has no extradition treaty with the United States. “We certainly understand the fact that Mr. Snowden chose to travel to Moscow, chose to travel to Russia, creates issues that the Russian government has to consider,” Mr. Carney said.

He added that the United States still wanted Moscow to expel Mr. Snowden and that “we believe there is a clear, legal basis to do so, based on his travel documents and the indictment against him.”....

from

Ecuador Hints at Slow Process on Snowden Asylum
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and RICK GLADSTONE, New York Times, June 26/27, 2013

The airport game can

artappraiser — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 14:47:16 +0000

In reply to Snowden has a friend in the Kremlin

The airport game can apparently be played for a very long time:

Here’s what happens to asylum-seekers who stay in airport limbo indefinitely
By Caitlin Dewey, Washington Post, June 26, 2013

[....] In 2007, the Iranian dissident Zahra Kamalfar spent 11 months living in the Sheremetyevo airport with her two young children before finding asylum in Canada. As Toronto’s CBC News reports [....]

[....] parking political headaches at Sheremetyevo is old hat for the Russians. Over at Foreign Policy, Christian Caryl describes the small colonies of Somali and Afghan refugees who used to “[sleep] on pieces of cardboard in secluded corners on that second floor, or [wash] up in the bathrooms” of Sheremetyevo’s Terminal F. Russia didn’t have a procedure for processing the refugees, so it was easier to leave them in the transit zone until they appealed to the U.N.’s refugee organization for social services and asylum.

But Russia is by no means the only country to use the “transit zone” excuse to delay action on controversial visitors. All those jokes comparing Snowden’s case to the Tom Hanks film “The Terminal”? They have a distinctly unromantic basis in the life of Iranian Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who lived in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years after Iran expelled him.

Nasseri’s ordeal was one part [.....]

As of June 23, interestingly,

artappraiser — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 05:12:38 +0000

In reply to Snowden has a friend in the Kremlin

As of June 23, interestingly, NoBama:

Aides said only that he was being updated by national security officials and that he had not made any telephone calls personally to foreign leaders seeking cooperation.

From NYT's Snowden, in Russia, Seeks Asylum in Ecuador.

Or they wanted it to appear that way for some reason.

Right--it's probably the

erica20 — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 04:23:03 +0000

In reply to I read the pig quote as

Right--it's probably the Russian equivalent of "all hat, no cattle," but the meta, of the poor little piggie with Putin standing over him with a clipper...that's the scary part!

Maybe they did fly to Hong

NCD — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 03:08:55 +0000

In reply to I prefer this quote from the

Maybe they did fly to Hong Kong to make a deal. I agree with Berenson they should have done so. It was Snowden, however, who did the deeds and selected the itinerary, and any rational person would conclude his judgment on handling his life the last week or so has not shown much understanding of how the world works, or how he can salvage what is left of his life while accomplishing whatever he set out to accomplish.

Working through Greenwald and Assange was likely his first big mistake, as I said, they will use him up and throw him away.

A measured anonymous release to the NYT, with a demand for Congressional hearings or more will be revealed, coupled with an eventual plea to minor charges is more along the lines of a better way to do this. He would be looked on favorably and really heroic, he would have ensured the subject receives national attention, and likely would get off with little prison time. But of course, Assange and Greenwald want it all, like with Manning, 'you got anymore secret stuff good buddy?' and, of course, they don't give a crap about your future.

Not foolish to bring him

NCD — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 02:40:12 +0000

In reply to Well, if AA is right about

Not foolish to bring him through Russia if Snowden doesn't mind the Russians combing through his 4 laptops of NSA data.

If they do it won't improve his legal defense, he has already been called a defector and traitor. Giving them the data would pretty well cement that status.

Of course, Assange, of Russia Today TV fame and permanent resident of the Ecuador embassy, or Greenwald, in Brazil, don't really give a damn about Snowden, they surely didn't give a damn about Manning either, Snowden and Manning are just tools they use up and throw away.

Most people want Snowden in

rmrd0000 — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 01:23:14 +0000

In reply to I prefer this quote from the

Most people want Snowden in jail. Snowden left the country. Tell us your approach.

I prefer this quote from the

artappraiser — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 01:16:28 +0000

In reply to I did not say or imply

I prefer this quote from the Berenson piece:

We have treated a whistle-blower like a traitor — and thus made him a traitor. Great job. Did anyone in the White House or the N.S.A or the C.I.A. consider flying to Hong Kong and treating Mr. Snowden like a human being, offering him a chance to testify before Congress and a fair trial? Maybe he would have gone with President Vladimir V. Putin anyway, but at least he would have had another option. The secret keepers would have won too: a Congressional hearing would have been a small price to bring Mr. Snowden and those precious hard drives back to American soil.

This gets at what I was trying to say about Obama admin. incompetence. Not even chess players much less 3-dimensional.

While it is not totally the executive branch's fault that so much of this stuff has been privatized, with the accompanying loose security clearances, how they played it after it happened strikes me as not just not savvy but stupid.

Seems like with all similar problems, they take the pit bull prosecutorial approach to solving this problem they've been handed, try to strike fear and loathing in everyone still working by making examples of the leakers. Lefties and libertarians worldwide react to that approach like a bully picking on a heroic underdog. They end up making propaganda heroes when they didn't have to.

The Wikileaks sympathizers et. al. would not have such good P.R. if they were treated less like clever lethal enemies and more like the dopey naifs you say they are and I tend to believe they are. I was just reviewing the Assange situation/story and it strikes me if they were just more transparent about what they are trying to investigate about him in that grand jury, he would have a much harder time looking like the hero to their bogeyman, probably be floundering in a Swedish courtroom to maintain any following at all.

the more time that goes by,

artappraiser — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 01:00:56 +0000

In reply to Well, if AA is right about

the more time that goes by, the more tenuous the benefits

Could be that is just not about Putin. I am trying to think of a "defector" to Russia in the last century or so that ended up being happy; it's difficult. I don't know if you can totally blame the Soviet system on that, it may just be something that is ingrained in Russian culture that the Soviets exaggerated. Nice place to visit but no one really wants to live there?

I read the pig quote as

artappraiser — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 00:56:00 +0000

In reply to I saw this--it's an

I read the pig quote as basically saying that it's not worth much to him to take a stand on this guy either way; my highlighting:

In any case, I would prefer not to deal with such questions, because it will turn out the same as sheering a pig – lots of squealing, little wool.”

That he would get squealing as capitulating to the American empire if he turned him over, but also he will get lots of squealing from the Americans forever and a day if he lets him take asylum on Russian soil. And what he's got ain't worth it. We'll see.