Comment on Do you think that Edward Snowden is a hero?
stoy@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I consider him a true American patriot.
Nothing is more patriotic than wanting your country to do better.
Implementing drag net surveillance was a terrible decision, and exposing it was truly heroic.
Sadly, Snowden is now in the clutches of Russia who can and does use him as their pawn.
It is easy to say that this is where the EU should have stepped up and given him sanctuary, but that would have been less than ideal for him.
Given the high profile of Snowden’s leak, the US still want’s him back, and back then even more so, had Snowden gone to the EU, he most likely would have been extradited, kidnapped or even assassinated.
By staying in Russia that was a far lower risk to him.
He’s at lower risk from the US, but speaking out about Russia would probably be riskier. It’s an unfortunate situation for him to be stuck in Russia and not some other safe country.
I think the Swiss should have offered him assistance in an embassy or Vietnam or somewhere other than Putin’s Russia (which we knew was bad even back then).
while no EU nation would hand their own citizens over to the US
Europe was complicit in plenty of illegal renditions of their own citizens to the CIA
Make up your mind.
EU states have handed over their own citizens to the US, if these people have hurt us citizens enough. There is a nice episode of the darknet diaries that just came out
Nothing is more patriotic than wanting your country to do better.
Is being patriotic and wanting your first world country to do better something heroic?
Well that highly depends in what you deem good. If wantig to do better is stopping the support of any goverment that suppresses its people and/or invades other countrys and you put your life in the line for that goal, i think thats very heroic.
pucker4676@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
“The west should have protected him from the west.”
stoy@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Eh, the EU makes a big deal of freedom, and has stood up to the US in the past, but here there are actual laws and regulations to follow, and if we stop extraditing US citizens to the US, the US would stop extraditing our citizens to us.
pucker4676@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Countries in the EU are still occupying Africa. Settler shitheads.
stoy@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
It appears that I am out of the loop on this…
Poxlox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Unironically true. Wish we lived in the timeline where war crimes mattered and those war criminal bastards were rotting in prison. Now because the USA let their own war crimes slide, it’s made autonomous killing systems permissible and civilian casualty rates nearly completely ignored as the horrible precedent of today and on. I hate warfare with a passion