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How come proven collateral damage such as innocent deaths caused by US military interventionism is widely considered reasonable and acceptable. So, tenuous upsi

How come proven collateral damage such as innocent deaths caused by US military interventionism is widely considered reasonable and acceptable. So, tenuous upside/blatant downside = no outrage. But the unproven collateral damage of Snowden's leaks, which had the giant upside of revealing democracy-chilling surveillance techniques, leads to mass reaction from the government. So, undeniable upside/debatable downside = Enemy of the State, threats to nations that offer him asylum. How does this arithmetic work out for anyone?

saynsedit 10y ago
Yeah, Americans sleep when they hear 90% of drone attack deaths are civilians: https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/ https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-comp... But they are wide awake and outraged when Snowden's ostensible act of espionage has caused an enormous amount of public good and technological innovation. It's not really the American's fault. We hear few of their real voices. It's the media that speaks the loudest.
- fixermark 10y ago
  Don't sell Americans short on their ability to withold empathy for non-Americans though. They know that the men who stole control of four planes on 9/11 were civilians too, and they still generally trust that their government is ID'ing threats to national security correctly. Whether the government is actually doing that (and whether---even if it were---that's sufficient for completely extrajudicial killing that would be called "waging warfare" in any other context) may not be things an average American is asking before going to sleep at night.
- Practicality 10y ago
  Who are these generic Americans that think that Snowden should be condemned? Everyone American I know is very grateful for what he did. And I know quite a few. I've only ever heard official policy statements condemning him. I am not even really sure those stating such policy agree with what they are saying (at a personal level).
  - jacalata 10y ago
    This reminds me of my friend who was convinced John Kerry would win the election because "I don't know anybody who will vote for Bush!" In other words, I suspect you have a strong selection bias informing your view of Americans.
    - Practicality 10y ago
      True. But Kerry did get 48% of the vote. That's a LOT of people. It's not like the 50% who voted for Bush are the only Americans that exist.
      - jacalata 10y ago
        Of course not. I understood your comment to be questioning whether there exist any individual Americans who condemn Snowden and proposing as evidence for their non-existence "Everyone American I know". If you were just saying that you don't think the majority of Americans condemn Snowden then I have no disagreement.
        Practicality 10y ago
        I was disagreeing with the premise that all Americans think exactly the same thing by presenting any example of Americans who disagree. Since I know quite a few, it's at least enough that you can't say "Americans think X," which is what the post I replied to said.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    I live near a military base, views against him are quite common here. The defense culture, in general, and those who view "security" [0] as the primary role of our government also condemn him. [0] This is a non-partisan view. I hear it from Democrats, Republicans, and some Libertarians (who hold more to the fiscal sense of modern libertarianism than the civil liberties sense, which is a shame). There's a large group of people in the US who seem to believe that security for-its-own-sake cannot be evil, in an ends-justify-the-means version of morality.
- rhino369 10y ago
  >Yeah, Americans sleep when they hear 90% of drone attack deaths are civilians: No, 90% of the drone deaths weren't known indented targets. If you bomb a Taliban camp to kill a known Taliban leader, you are going to kill a lot of people, but they aren't going to be mostly civilians. Sure some of them are civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that's legal under international law and essentially unavoidable in war. You could argue that maybe America is aiming at targets without any regard for who surrounds them, but that you can't use that 90% figure to do it. And I also believe that you'd be wrong.
  - saynsedit 10y ago
    Great justification for extrajudicial state-sponsored murder. Non-congress authorized war makes it okay. Gotcha.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
I don't think it's acceptable, but at least "collateral damage" has the virtue of having been approved by elected officials and is something considered before we go to war or order attacks somewhere. Snowden's leaks weren't approved of by anyone but Snowden, and if they had managed to get people killed even if that wasn't Snowden's intention they would still be enough to consider as Treason. In counter point, if we start allowing anyone who feels like they can leak this stuff on their own authority, and it starts costing lives of Americans, how many would you consider "worth it"? At what point does it move from whistle-blowing so it's okay to treason?

saynsedit 10y ago

Yeah, Americans sleep when they hear 90% of drone attack deaths are civilians: https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/ https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-comp... But they are wide awake and outraged when Snowden's ostensible act of espionage has caused an enormous amount of public good and technological innovation. It's not really the American's fault. We hear few of their real voices. It's the media that speaks the loudest.

fixermark 10y ago
Don't sell Americans short on their ability to withold empathy for non-Americans though. They know that the men who stole control of four planes on 9/11 were civilians too, and they still generally trust that their government is ID'ing threats to national security correctly. Whether the government is actually doing that (and whether---even if it were---that's sufficient for completely extrajudicial killing that would be called "waging warfare" in any other context) may not be things an average American is asking before going to sleep at night.
Practicality 10y ago
Who are these generic Americans that think that Snowden should be condemned? Everyone American I know is very grateful for what he did. And I know quite a few. I've only ever heard official policy statements condemning him. I am not even really sure those stating such policy agree with what they are saying (at a personal level).
- jacalata 10y ago
  This reminds me of my friend who was convinced John Kerry would win the election because "I don't know anybody who will vote for Bush!" In other words, I suspect you have a strong selection bias informing your view of Americans.
  - Practicality 10y ago
    True. But Kerry did get 48% of the vote. That's a LOT of people. It's not like the 50% who voted for Bush are the only Americans that exist.
    - jacalata 10y ago
      Of course not. I understood your comment to be questioning whether there exist any individual Americans who condemn Snowden and proposing as evidence for their non-existence "Everyone American I know". If you were just saying that you don't think the majority of Americans condemn Snowden then I have no disagreement.
      - Practicality 10y ago
        I was disagreeing with the premise that all Americans think exactly the same thing by presenting any example of Americans who disagree. Since I know quite a few, it's at least enough that you can't say "Americans think X," which is what the post I replied to said.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  I live near a military base, views against him are quite common here. The defense culture, in general, and those who view "security" [0] as the primary role of our government also condemn him. [0] This is a non-partisan view. I hear it from Democrats, Republicans, and some Libertarians (who hold more to the fiscal sense of modern libertarianism than the civil liberties sense, which is a shame). There's a large group of people in the US who seem to believe that security for-its-own-sake cannot be evil, in an ends-justify-the-means version of morality.
rhino369 10y ago
>Yeah, Americans sleep when they hear 90% of drone attack deaths are civilians: No, 90% of the drone deaths weren't known indented targets. If you bomb a Taliban camp to kill a known Taliban leader, you are going to kill a lot of people, but they aren't going to be mostly civilians. Sure some of them are civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that's legal under international law and essentially unavoidable in war. You could argue that maybe America is aiming at targets without any regard for who surrounds them, but that you can't use that 90% figure to do it. And I also believe that you'd be wrong.
- saynsedit 10y ago
  Great justification for extrajudicial state-sponsored murder. Non-congress authorized war makes it okay. Gotcha.

nikdaheratik 10y ago

I don't think it's acceptable, but at least "collateral damage" has the virtue of having been approved by elected officials and is something considered before we go to war or order attacks somewhere. Snowden's leaks weren't approved of by anyone but Snowden, and if they had managed to get people killed even if that wasn't Snowden's intention they would still be enough to consider as Treason. In counter point, if we start allowing anyone who feels like they can leak this stuff on their own authority, and it starts costing lives of Americans, how many would you consider "worth it"? At what point does it move from whistle-blowing so it's okay to treason?