Now that he has begun positioning the his army to complete the conquest of Ukraine, and now that the United States has taken a very public stand against such action, Russian President Vladimir Putin needs something sharp and pointy and very public with which to poke President Obama in the eye.
Cue Uncle Vlad allowing Ed Snowden to "interview" him on Russian state teevee!
And by "interview" I mean he was permitted one softball question with no follow up. Eerily similar to the way David Gregory "interviews" every Republican who has ever been on on Meet the Press...except, of course, Greggers* is not living under the surveillance and protection of the person he is questioning -- a person who has a long record of locking up or killing dissidents and journalists and is middle of the slow-motion military invasion of a neighboring country.
Mr. Snowden's sock-puppet question was introduced by one of the programs co-hosts as follows:
"We've got really sensational, really outrageous video message from a person who revolutionized the world by leaking information about American secret services."
Let's see how that worked out, shall we?
Putin replied by stating Russia did not carry out mass surveillance on its population, and that its intelligence operations were strictly regulated by court orders."Mr Snowden, you are a former agent, a spy, I used to work for the intelligence service, we are going to talk one professional language," Putin said, according to translation by state-run broadcaster Russia Today."Our intelligence efforts are strictly regulated by our law so...you have to get a court permission to stalk that particular person.
"We don't have as much money as they have in the States and we don't have these technical devices that they have in the States. Our special services, thank God, are strictly controlled by society and the law and regulated by the law."...
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Greenwald took to Twitter to explain this development to his 347,000 followers in the same calm, reasonable and evenhanded tones for which he is legendary:
Snowden should storm the Kremlin, take their surveillance docs & demand to be sent to the US: just like his brave patriotic critics would do
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 17, 2014
Once again, if you are one of those people who believe strongly that neither Mr. Greenwald nor Mr. Snowden are the story I strongly urge you to send your comments to:
President Vladimir Putin23, Ilyinka StreetMoscow, 103132, Russia.
Or use this handy link to forward them to Uncle Vlad using electronic mail.
If you have anything constructive to add -- pro or con -- as always, the comment section is yours. However to save myself the time and trouble of individually approving each of the approaching torrent of comments about my jackbooted fascistic hatred of all things freedom-related, let us just stipulate that I am a terrible person who obsessively refuses to post anything but long, anti-free-press, pro-dronekill screeds (while drooling, also too) and you should steer clear of my horrid little sellout blog at all costs.
*Commenter gratuitous is quite right that I screwed up my analogy. And once I repaired my dumb mistake, it's clear that comparisons with Gregory -- who also depends entirely on pleasing and serving the interests of many of the people he is "interviewing" -- is is actually closer than I thought.
*Commenter gratuitous is quite right that I screwed up my analogy. And once I repaired my dumb mistake, it's clear that comparisons with Gregory -- who also depends entirely on pleasing and serving the interests of many of the people he is "interviewing" -- is is actually closer than I thought.
28 comments:
Cue the Snowdenistas, the Greenwaldians, and the Paulites in 5... 4... 3...
Wait..wait..I got this...
"but the country Obummer runs (with his iron fist) imprisons more people than sweet benevolent Mother Russia (run by hunky uncle Vlad!)...and drones goddamn it!!!"
There is now officially no light to be seen under the bar it takes to gather a cult following of misguided misanthropes in this country. None.
Microbes could not slither under it.
Oh and did GG tweet that from his hell hole cell at Gitmo between water boarding sessions? Or is he waiting to have a pellet of strontium from an umbrella shoved under his skin?
Just wondering.
As would be expected by all sensible people, the hysterical ninnies over at the Daily Kos are doubling down on their adoration of Saint Snowden and the Greenwald his prophet. No wonder nobody had any respect for the Left anymore, if these are its exemplars.
And @Anonymous 12:48, Polonium-210 is the radioisotope favored by the Russian secret services for murdering dissidents.
You again, refuse to call out Pierce. Which means you are not so very different from those who refuse to call out Brooks or other assholes.
Driftglass, offering proof that both sides do!
I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue!
--to Droneglass, the Phil Ochs liberal of our day
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal
Driftglass and many of his regular commenters have sprouted hawk feathers for Cold War 2.0, for reasons which still escape me.
I thought the bloody quagmires of Vietnam and the Middle East had taught liberals a healthy skepticism of jingoism.
Eventually, as happened to the original Cold War Liberals, circumstances will compel them to choose between being pro-war or being liberal.
If they choose the first, they will become the neocons of the 2020s.
Snowden should storm the Kremlin, take their surveillance docs & demand to be sent to the US: just like his brave patriotic critics would do
WTF? This doesn't even work as bitchy snark. What is dear GG trying to say, now that Snowden has been reduced to a Putin Sockpuppet?
I guess non-sequiturs are the best he can come up with at this point. It kinda reminds me of the fabulous 1943 flick about Joseph E. Davies' "Mission to Moscow."
Driftglass and many of his regular commenters have sprouted hawk feathers for Cold War 2.0, for reasons which still escape me.
And as usual MftId provides us with lots and lots of citations to back this up.
Wait, no not "lots and lots of citations" I meant "not a single fucking citation" Silly me!
"Greggers does not also have a long record of locking up or killing dissidents and journalists and is not currently in the middle of the slow-motion military invasion of a neighboring country."
Wow, Snowden's even more dastardly than I thought! I'm glad someone's on top of these things, because I had no idea that unlike David Gregory (the presumed "Greggers" in this post), Ed Snowden is engaged in all these nefarious activities.
Unless, of course, someone isn't quite the writer he fancies himself to be. However, if you're one of those people who believes (not believe - see basic rules of subject-verb agreement) strongly that the proprietor is all that and a bag of chips, I strongly urge you blah, blah, blah.
"Gabe: Did I miss anything?
Tycho: Not yet. I think the dumbass was about to cut the shithead."
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/02/12
And the obsessives prove their lack of worth within hours - the unvarnished racist, the lying redneck, and the cowardly stalker all post with the usual factless fluff.
Neo: Yeah, I find myself using that phrase an awful lot lately. G&T nailed that shit years ago.
I don't really see this as news or even a big story. Mr Russia is using Snowden to make himself look a little better, Snowden gets to push his single issue, the US rightly gets bad credit, and Greenwald gets to scream on twitter.
Greenwald earned his microphone and he gets to use it however he wish. Should he be doing this, i don't think it matters anymore.
For the people who follow Greenwald, they got their priorities. For the people who use Greenwald to muddy the issue, their priority is to muddy it and they can do that without greenwald.
Should Snowden do what he's like aiding Putin? I can't blame him, he is in Russia with a bomb strapped to his head, which will hit 0 in a year. Saying no to Mr Russia for what appears to be a harmless request doesn't seem rational. May help hurt the US credibility, but the US has none.
If the US didn't pressure other countries to refuse his bid for Asylum, Snowden wouldn't be stuck in Russia. Now he's stuck and will be used as a political tool.
Personally, I don't think Snowden is a big threat to the US or their security. If he was, he would be able to bargain to evade retribution, either a bargain from another country or from the USA.
Driftglass and his fellow Obama For America paid stooge commentators here all support German-style fascism and support international drone terrorism...
Because Driftglass points out that my heroes are making themselves the story!
* False-flag concern trolls actually "reason" like this.
P.S.
Droneglass
Now class, here is your homework for the Easter recess; In what way will Putin use Mr. Snowden to affect the next U.S Presidential election? And for bonus points towards your grade; how long will Putin 'allow' Mr. Snowden to survive in Russia beyond the aforementioned usefulness?
There may be a way to engage Anon's question without validating the underlying assumption that Putin can affect the 2016 election, rather than just having an influence (maybe even an effect) on it, but I can't think of one. Heck, even my pointing out the assumption affords it a dignity I'm not sure it deserves. So, in conclusion, five tons of flax.
@Neo Tuxedo: To deny that Putin can affect the 2016 Presidential Elections is to simply deny reality. Putin could decide that he wants to nuke the world, invade [insert country here], or any other of a host of things that he has the physical ability to actually do.
The question is will Putin actually use any of the tools at his disposal to actually affect the election. That answer is almost certainly, yes. The next questions is which actions and tools will he use to affect the election, a much more complicated answer that I or anyone other than Putin himself don't even have a solid place to begin more than very vague theorizing on, and will what ever actions Putin takes have the effects that Putin wants? Again, I think we are way too far out from the events in question to develop any solid theories about how Putin intends to go about affecting the election.
However even more specifically, Putin could very easily use Mr. Snowden to affect the 2016 Presidential election, by doing something as simple as calling whoever is his preferred candidate and talking to them, and then turning Mr. Snowden over to the US while claiming that it was said candidate's charm, strong negotiating skills, and good will that convinced him to turn over Mr. Snowden to the "proper authorities." And thus I have defeated your absurd claim that Putin via Mr. Snowden, can't affect the 2016 Presidential election.
If you're going to poke fun at people, you really shouldn't use such broad easily refutable absolutes. If you'd made fun of Anon's relatively absurd statement by saying taking a realistic stance that the odds were not good or that it wasn't probable enough to warrant consideration, you might have had an arguable case. But a blanket claim that it wasn't possible is just sheer nonsense.
Okay, Guest, you got me. What I meant was that Putin can't actually dictate the election results he wants, not even to the extent he could in Russia. He can do things that make the results he wants more likely, but there's no guarantee that he'll get those results, or that they won't be accompanied by some other result he doesn't like so much. (Even handing over Snowden and crediting his preferred candidate could backfire, depending on whether the American people in 2016 hate Putin more than they hate Snowden.) In particular, nothing he does that stays wholly within Russia's borders (as his current posturing with Snowden does) can have a direct effect on the election.
If I'd limited myself to saying that, in those words or something like them, you'd have had nothing to rebut. As it is, you're right, and I showed large and unnecessary sectors of my ass. My only defense is that I was paying attention to other things besides writing that comment.
("If you whistle while you're pissing, you have two minds where one is quite sufficient. If you have two minds, you are at war with yourself. If you are at war with yourself, it is easy for an external force to defeat you." -- Hagbard Celine)
You sure blew that one, Drifty. As usual with things Snowden or Greenwald. Have you cashed your NSA check yet?
Well said, anon. I've said it before*, and I'll go on saying it every time I'm reminded it needs to be said: complaining about Greenwald making himself the story, or about anyone making Snowden the story, is itself a contribution to making them the story. Hell's teeth, even my complaining about driftglass' complaining about Greenwald making himself the story contributes to making Greenwald the story.
(Quoting the boys of Clan Walrus again: "It was like some some fucked up Escher painting, 'The Perfect Eternal Jackass.' It's like a jackass drawing another jackass in front of a mirror, forever. There were layers of meaning there I couldn't begin to interpret."**)
The only way not to make Greenwald or Snowden the story is to do what Brother Charles does: remind us, at every opportunity, that the real story is the All-Too-Human-Yet-Curiously-Error-Prone Heroes of the national security state.
* http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2014/04/today-at-conservative-slop-trough.html?showComment=1396901328964#c5655975075756783391
** http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/09/27
Trolling, trolling, trolling,
Drifty keeps on trolling,
Trolling, trolling, trolling
Droneglass!
-
Same stupid misdirection,
Same stupid reason(s).
*Yawn*
I used to post here non-anonymously, but I didn't want to make myself the story. There's a lot of things that can be said negatively of Greenwald, he's an egotist and a hypocrite and a bore and a lot of things. But he's done good journalism too. As for Snowden, he's always been a hostage to circumstances as far as his presence in Russia. Driftglass's constant red baiting in this matter is obscene.
Yawn, is right. Misdirection is just one of the many purity troll tropes that disintegrates on examination. Greenwald's compulsive, juvenile, butt-hurt sniping directs attention away from ``the story'' he had in his lap and fumbled away to the WaPo. It's not *the* story, but it is a story. It's possible to acknowledge the worth of Greenwald's scoop -- the only one I know of, anyway, and I would love to be corrected with a list of Glenn Greenwald's top 10 scoops, or even a top 2 -- AND treat the NSA's perfidy with seriousness and alarm AND scold Greenwald for his embarrassing and unprofessional behavior. Citing the last does not, no matter how much purity you throw at it, constitute a mindless embrace of the surveillance excesses of the federal government, nor does it suggest an endorsement of U.S.-sponsored belligerence, nor does it indicate a yearning for Cold War 2.0.
Possibly moving off topic, but:
Crimea and Ukraine were historically part of Russia.
Before it broke away, the Confederacy was historically part of the USA.
Russia has retaken the Crimea, but has not yet chosen to retake the ethnically Russian areas of Ukraine.
If the USA had the right to retake the Confederacy by force, why would Russia not have the same right regarding the Crimea, and if Russia so choose, the ethnically Russian regions of the Ukraine?
(I really wanted to put an "s" on the end of "choose". The subjunctive mood sounds SO unnatural.) :p
(The 2nd Captcha word is "namreth". That sounds like it could be a place name in Middle-Earth.) :)
@ Monster from the Id:
That has got to be one of the dumbest things I have heard in a long time and I was just reading the comments section on a story about the insanity of the "Freedom" loving 2nd Amendment absolutist Rancher and his supporters in Nevada demanding that the local Sheriff confiscate the guns of other citizens of the US because those citizens were Federal Agents.
The Confederate States of America may well have been allowed to exist as a separate entity if it wasn't for that little bit about firing on a US Government built, owned, and operated military installation called Fort Sumter because in spite of previous agreements by the government of the state of South Carolina that the Federal Government could actually own it's Military Bases as sovereign Federal Property, South Carolina decided to try and take that facility by force instead of by diplomacy and compensating the US Government for the improvements and weaponry.
In other words you dumb fuck Secessionist revisionist fuckwad, the South and the Confederate States started the Civil War not the US Government!
And that's just how unbelievably idiotically trollish your premise is before one gets into the matter of time, nature, and other circumstances of the differences between the current events in Ukraine and the circumstances of the CSA starting the Civil War.
As a simple matter of first level logic your premise, which by it's nature completely disregards any concept of time between the act of secession and the "reconquering" of the CSA and Crimea, means that if the UK wanted to retake most of the world through violent conquest, that you would see no legal or moral objections to such an action as being valid.
I'm going to leave off there because there is simply too much stupid in your comment and it's premise to merit any more of a slap down than I've given, irregardless of the fact that it would be very easy to continue to provide examples of why your comment is so dumb as to make insults to you based on your comment and it's premise not argumentum ad hominem because after defeating your comment's premise first, the very nature of your premise removes you from the possibility of debate as you have proven yourself to not be a rational, logical, or reasonable person such that the insults are by the rules of debate logical attacks on your credibility to even be debated logically.
tl;dr version: Your comment is so fucked up in it's very nature that you have single handedly demonstrated a positive proof of driftglass's thesis that you simply can't reason, debate, or have logical conversations with Nut Jobs and therefore should be ignored on this subject from here on.
Guest, your outrage is adorable.
Did Russia have the right to retake the Crimea? If not, why the double standard?
Also, thank you for reminding me that the USA itself began in rebellion against a "rightful" owner.
Very well, if it's OK for the USA to retake the rebellious CSA, then why wouldn't it be OK for the UK to try to retake the rebellious USA, or France or Spain or Portugal to retake their former colonies in the New World, if any of them had any chance in Areinnye of doing so?
I'm wondering if Driftglass will acknowledge his goof and apologize for red baiting Snowden.
Guest:
The ethnically Russian chunk of modern Ukraine was a part of Russia that Lenin grafted onto Ukraine in 1920, probably in order to sweeten the sour lot of Ukraine being forced to remain in the new communist empire. You can debate on whether or not that is a legitimate premise for Putin's mission to redraw modern Ukraine's borders, but that historical perspective remains important for understanding the situation. I do think that Putin needs to allow Ukraine to retain Odessa and Mykolaiv, because it would be unreasonable to say the very least to expect Ukraine to surrender its Black Sea access entirely.
I'm fairly sure Driftglass is putting us on. This statement is a reworking of "America: Love It Or Leave It":
... if you are one of those people who believe strongly that neither Mr. Greenwald nor Mr. Snowden are the story I strongly urge you to send your comments to:
President Vladimir Putin ..."
The story is obviously about the surveillance state. It wouldn't matter one wit if we learned more details of it from a Ferengi, who bought the intel with fake latinum. And DG knows it. He's trolling his own blog, folks.
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