5 ms·
> Ironic, people used to seek asylum in US from persecution in other countries. How times have changed? Now people run to other countries for asylum to avoid pe
by vbtemp 13y ago
> Ironic, people used to seek asylum in US from persecution in other countries. How times have changed? Now people run to other countries for asylum to avoid persecution in US. More and more land of the free is becoming land of tyrants.
Lol. Russia is a place where journalists are routinely murdered, where governors are appointed like local fiefs, where Putin has rigged elections and brutally intimidated opponents.
If you think Snowden is going there to avoid "persecution" I don't know what la-la-land you live in. He's going to run from the law, and he's going there because Russia is still geo-political public enemy #1, and they are giving him asylum not because he is some champion of human dignity (he lost that when he fled to China and revealed a whole lot more that was unrelated to surveillance), but because he has valuable information and having him in their possession obviously advances some political goals for them.
- enraged_camel 13y ago>>not because he is some champion of human dignity (he lost that when he fled to China and revealed a whole lot more that was unrelated to surveillance) He didn't lose shit. He revealed the fact that the USA targets and wiretaps non-military targets (universities, civilians, etc.) in China and Hong Kong. This is still whistleblowing, and these revelations make me think even more highly of him. Now, if he had told them which military targets the USA was spying on, he would have stepped into traitor catagory. But targeting non-combatants is illegal under multiple international treaties that the USA has signed. As such, the USA is breaking the law and Snowden has the duty to reveal that.
- gasull 13y agoRussia isn't Snowden's final destination. Moscow is just his layover.
- vbtemp 13y agoRight, Cuba or Venezuela is his final destination. Does this change my point at all?
- gasull 13y agoWe don't know yet what his destination is. Some people claim Iceland or Ecuador.
- vbtemp 13y agoI'm choosing not to give him the benefit of the doubt since his intermediaries so far have been HK (a free society, but still under the clutches of PRC and not totally free) and Russia (need not say more about its trampling of human rights).
- gasull 13y agoEven if I agree in your labeling of HK and Russia, I don't think Snowden had a better choice. Can you suggest something different Snowden could have done?