The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Mister Popularity, Edward Snowden

Posted on | January 17, 2014 | 69 Comments

Benny Johnson reports at BuzzFeed:

As the American intelligence community struggles to contain the public damage done by the former National Security Agency contractor’s revelations of mass domestic spying, intelligence operators have continued to seethe in very personal terms against the 30 year-old leaker.
“In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself,” a current NSA analyst told BuzzFeed. “A lot of people share this sentiment.”
“I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. “I do not take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single handedly the greatest traitor in American history.” . . .
“His name is cursed every day over here,” a defense contractor told BuzzFeed, speaking from an overseas Intelligence collections base. “Most everyone I talk to says he needs to be tried and hung, forget the trial and just hang him.”

What Snowden did is no less criminal than what Bradley Manning did, and Manning’s serving 35 years in federal prison.

 

Comments

69 Responses to “Mister Popularity, Edward Snowden”

  1. RomeFell
    January 17th, 2014 @ 7:05 pm

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/10/wiki-o25.html

    http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/01/huge-dossier-alleges-british-war-crimes-iraq/356978/

    Get the idea, dummy? The war was conducted with killing civilians in mind. The accusations against the UK, and which we already know US forces did much the same at Abu Grahib and other places, is straight up Vietnam era counter insurgency, mainly the Phoenix program. We’re conducting the war the same way in Iraq.

  2. DaveO
    January 17th, 2014 @ 7:20 pm

    The Stupid is powerful in you. No Stupid here! You cite arguments that were made and factually discredited years ago. See a priest to exorcise your Demons of Stupid.

  3. M. Thompson
    January 17th, 2014 @ 8:24 pm

    The fools who thought he was good to work at a NSA facility should be shot first.

  4. Romefell
    January 17th, 2014 @ 10:55 pm

    What arguments are those dummy? The Phoenix program has been discredited? By who? The CIA? LOL! No, US troops in Vietnam engaged in a systematic slaughter, especially when it came to counterinsurgency. That has not been discredited, jingoist. In fact the revelations are new. The same game plan is used in Iraq, Afgahnistan, and the global war on terror when it comes to counterinsurgency and they kill numerous innocent civilians or arrest them which leads to torture and death. Dispute those facts, idiot. You’re a sheep. The abuses at Abu Grahib were not isolated and come right out of the Kubark interogation manuanl written in 1962 and has been used since then, especially in the middle east. You are mistaken. Your country is evil.

  5. RomeFalls
    January 17th, 2014 @ 10:58 pm

    No, My Lai was not an aberration. It was business as usual, especially when it came to counter-insurgencey. I dont smoke weed. If I did I wouldnt even care about something like this. I read, and that’s how I know this. Try “Kill Anything That Moves” by Nick Turse for a real document of what happened in Vietnam. Or you can just keep deluding yourself that you live in a righteous and just nation? YOU DONT.

  6. DaveO
    January 17th, 2014 @ 11:31 pm

    You’re as bright as Baldrick. Is your cunning plan to spam the comments with crap? Gardens are outside, that’s where the fertilizer goes Stupid. Having fought in the Global War on Terror I know a damned sight more than you can comprehend. You are a traitor and rebel scum. Is that a slug under your nose?

  7. RomeFell
    January 18th, 2014 @ 12:09 am

    Calling me names, baby killer, is not disputing what I’m saying. The facts are what they are and because you were oblivious about what was going on right under your nose is not my problem. Good, call me a traitor. In comparison to what you are, a lackey for racist imperialists, im a God.

  8. Alessandra
    January 18th, 2014 @ 1:45 am

    Best comment in this “Obama: NSA Reforms Should Give Americans ‘Greater Confidence'” thread:

    Obama: ‘Those spying on you are your friends and neighbors.’

    Just like in North Korea.

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/obama-nsa-reforms-should-give-americans-greater-confidence-20140117

  9. Matt_SE
    January 18th, 2014 @ 2:32 am

    Manning was/is a lightweight compared to Snowden…and none too bright, either.

    Snowden did what had to be done. If you think you’re gonna fight Obama and the military-intelligence-industrial complex using their rigged rules, you are sadly mistaken.

  10. Matt_SE
    January 18th, 2014 @ 2:47 am

    To be a traitor, Snowden would have to have taken this course in the hope that it would damage America.
    I only see him damaging the Obama administration and the self-serving intelligence community.

    America is not Obama.

  11. Matt_SE
    January 18th, 2014 @ 2:52 am

    Obama has rigged the system. You can’t fight that from within the corrupted framework that he owns.
    Snowden’s been more effective against Obama than anyone else on our side.

    Will someone please demonstrate another way to take down this dictator-wannabe?

    *crickets*

  12. badanov
    January 18th, 2014 @ 5:18 am

    RomeFell fails to note the Jeremy Scahill is a Marxist, who writes for The Nation, a Marxist publication. The commenter probably is a Marxist as well.

    The commenter references several, incidents, four by my count, of the killing of civilians by US Military since Sept 12, 2011. That sounds an awful lot like anecdotal information, nothing that is widespread nor is a matter of policy.

  13. RhymesWithRight
    January 18th, 2014 @ 10:28 am

    If we had a president who was concerned about America’s national
    security, both Snowden and Julian Assange would have long since been
    targeted by a drone.

  14. RomeFell
    January 18th, 2014 @ 11:24 am

    Being center left does not make you a “Marxist” ,moron. And two, what difference would it make even if he was a Marxist? Facts are facts and all you’re doing is shooting the messenger.

    Those are the incidents we know about, but since no one was prosecuted for the Apache incident and it was deemed they were following the rules of engagement then it stands to reason incidents of this kind happened regularly much like incidents like My Lai happened regularly in Vietnam. The military went out of their way to tell us all that Abu Gharib was an anomaly even though what the detainees went through comes right of of the Kubar interrogation manual used throughout the Vietnam war and was SOP in Iraq and Afghanistan as ex-detainees and brave veterans have said. In the recent suicide of an ex-veteran the note he left behind makes claims that he witnessed war crimes and was made to help cover them up.

  15. HamOnRye
    January 18th, 2014 @ 12:07 pm

    You haven’t proven anything you ignorant jackass.

    The first article links to Wikileaks own page. A third party link back to the part making the accusations does not make them true.

    The second link has the title “Huge Dossier Alleges British War Crimes in Iraq”. Were we not discussing your lack of evidence for US war crimes. The operative words here are British and Alleges. Which of those support your point?

    I think its safe to say at this point your argument has fell flat on its face. You cant collaborate your original arugument (that the US was guilty of “warcrimes”) with any sanctioned body. So instead you just continue to make more accusations in an attempt to distract us from the huge gaping hole in your assertion.

  16. Quartermaster
    January 18th, 2014 @ 3:47 pm

    While I have problems with the US (I’m not a robot after all), I do have problems with johnny come latelies producing “studies” that purport to show exactly what teh left has purported for many years. I find it passing strange that the people that were there did not see what you claim was par for the course, and I happen to be of that generation and family served there in all 4 DoD services.

    If you want to think that Turse produced a study that purports to show that the average soldier was an unequivocal killer, then you’ll believe anything. And, clearly, that’s exactly the point you have reached.

    In my neck of the woods, I often see a bumper sticker that says “Critical Thinking, the other national deficit.” It is almost always accompanied by an Obama/Biden sticker which pretty much demonstrates the truth of the first sticker in that individual. You’ve pretty much fallen into the same mudhole with that lot.

  17. Quartermaster
    January 18th, 2014 @ 3:49 pm

    Who’s quibbling? Other than you? The myth about Hoover was a myth. You can’t bring yourself to argue without using the myth so you must be another part of that critical thinking deficit that libtards complain about, yet are an integral part of.

  18. DaveO
    January 18th, 2014 @ 4:38 pm

    You haven’t reached 10th grade yet, and I am laughing at you. Don’t forget to pull your Webster’s dictionary for more words, if your mommy let’s you handle such heavy, heavy books. Heh!

  19. badanov
    January 18th, 2014 @ 5:31 pm

    You wrote previously that the veteran who wrote the suicide note participated in a coverup under orders, then had a change of heart.

    Even if Abu Graib was not an anomaly, you have yet to show how an obscure interrogation manual was “SOP” in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as I recall, Abu Graib, not one died.

    You may not be aware but in nearly every instance of targeting terrorists, it is a legal call even before military can open fire. If the legal element clears units to engage, then there is little doubt there would be little reason to investigate anything.

    You say there are “incidents”you don’t know about, so you use your abject lack of knowledge to smear a military organization for acts which may or may not have happened. So far, my argument that incidents you have listed are squarely under the rubric anecdotal.

    As such, it can be said the the killing of civilians by Americans is likely anecdotal, not widespread, nor a matter of public policy.

    Glad you admitted finally Scahill was a leftist, in my mind a Marxist. Therefore his facts are immediately suspect.