He did not support the invasion of Ukraine. He just doesn’t comment on it. Which has somehow turned into an anti-Snowden talking point, despite the very obvious reasons why he doesn’t talk about it.
> Do you think he'd receive a fair trial if he came back to the US?
Honestly, yes. He was extremely visible and it was the Obama administration. I think it was well-understood how much damage it could have done to Democratic party interests if they nailed him to a wall for exposing behavior that was extremely unpopular among their constituents. Manning did far worse with far less duty-of-care and received a pardon after seven years.
For all its flaws, the US is actually a place where fair trials happen most of the time (especially when someone's in the media's eye). Snowden, much like Assange or Manning, wasn't in a position where he could just be disappeared. I think he traded, at most, a decade of discomfort for a lifetime of exile.
But it's his call. It's not like the US is the only good place to be; maybe a lifetime of exile is fine.
Democrats are always sabotaging their own party interests to support the supreme power of the state. They'd have no problem putting Snowden in Guantanamo.
I'm not thinking of a Hollywood movie; I'm thinking of Chelsea Manning, a person who dumped more state secrets into the international eye than the Rosenbergs were even accused of smuggling to Russia and is not only still breathing, but currently walking free.
> Thank goodness he [was more willing to betray his position for moral reasons] than the "I was just following orders" crowd. We know from WW2 that "I was just following orders" is not a legitimate excuse to help facilitate grave atrocities,
Which dilutes to this when challenged:
> he didn't oppose [the invation of Ukraine] for the same reason very few other Russians opposed it.
Those perspectives both can't be correct! If he was willing to face jail and expulsion for opposing US crimes, and to be celebrated for that, surely the same logic should hold for Russian crimes, no?
Snowden is complicated for sure. I think it's not unreasonable to ask why these decisions were different and to at least ask what differences he might have in loyalties and personal aims might lead to them.
He has never expressed himself to be anything other than a patriotic American. Why would he be putting his life on the line for a country that he does not identify with?
People who do that ti support just cause like Ukraine have my respect. But I wouldn’t expect if of anyone.
Uh, sure they can: he saw an opportunity where he could make a difference and bring a program to light where the NSA was otherwise blatantly lying to Congress and the American people, and he took it.
There is nothing he can or could do to stop the invasion of Ukraine.
Which is to say, he didn't merely oppose US crimes. He brought them to light. Everyone already knows about Ukraine.
Exactly this. His original revelations were shocking to his audience; the Ukrainian invasion is already almost-universally condemned among the same. His “speaking out” against it would be pure virtue signalling, not a single mind would be changed or informed by it.
So surely it's more important and not less that notable Russians like Snowden use their influence to drive policy and change, right?
Basically, you're just saying "It's OK not to challenge Putin if you're afraid". Which is fine. But I argue it needs to then inform the way we treat his other decisionmaking. The facts on the ground are at least as compatible with "Edward Snowden is a Putinist Partisan" as they are "Edward Snowden is a Patriotic American".
Yeah, maybe, but it's too easy for me to sit here in a comfy chair, safe in the US, and talk about what an exiled protester in Russia should do. I lack the moral authority to USplain to Snowden that the Russians are just sheltering him for his propaganda value, even though that's obviously what they are doing.
He owes us nothing. Through no fault of his own, he does owe Russia, though. If we didn't want Putin to make a useful puppet out of him, we (a) should not have placed him in a position to make the decisions he did, ideally by following our own laws to avoid inciting his actions in the first place; and (b) we should have been able to assure him of a fair trial without inciting snickers and guffaws.
You hear HRC saying (of Assange) "Can't we just drone him?" And you think Snowden has no cause for concern?! Naive.
What choice did he have? Do you think he'd receive a fair trial if he came back to the US?
and not oppose the invasion of Ukraine?
Did he actively support it? I hadn't heard that. Major bummer, if so.
Otherwise, he didn't oppose it for the same reason very few other Russians opposed it. I'm sure the reason will occur to you if you think hard enough.