Edward Snowden, Hero or Traitor?

[HoreTore]

Won't that discredit your movement? If just one incident like that becomes public, the public opinion will likely turn away from your movement, killing any chance of you ever accomplishing your main goal.

You're not familiar with the whole conscription-concept, are you?

I'm a soldier. That should give a clue as to what the average Norwegian soldier thinks of his service.

[HoreTore]

So why in the world would you hate on the common soldier if you're problem is with the budget? You should be writing letters, or harassing politicians at the very worst.

I have no problem with either junkies or social welfare recipients, but I do object when they take pride in their commitment not to contribute to society.

[rvg]

You're not familiar with the whole conscription-concept, are you?

I understand the basic principle. If your main problem is with conscription, won't it be easier to push for changing the conscription law instead? I can't imagine conscription being very popular.

[HoreTore]

I understand the basic principle. If your main problem is with conscription, won't it be easier to push for changing the conscription law instead? I can't imagine conscription being very popular.

I'm not in any way against conscription.

I'm against the existence of military forces. If we do have them, conscription is a must.

[rvg]

I'm not in any way against conscription.

I'm against the existence of military forces. If we do have them, conscription is a must.

That's just not true. Our military functions just fine without conscription...

[HoreTore]

That's just not true. Our military functions just fine without conscription...

....and that's the problem.

[rvg]

....and that's the problem.

Okay, now you lost me completely... Why were you bringing up the issue of conscription in the first place?

[HoreTore]

Okay, now you lost me completely... Why were you bringing up the issue of conscription in the first place?

Because a soldier who wastes the time and money of the army is the norm, not the exception, in a conscript army, and thus incidents like the one in your post won't raise an eyebrow.

Let me see if I understand this, HoreTore.. please jump in if I'm wrong...

In your conscription system, you have to either serve as a Soldier or do some kind of civil service for 2 years, right? So the stereotype you have is that only junkies and welfare recipients choose the Soldier option? Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Either way, you seem to have a problem with the concept of the military and the concept of needing to defend yourself. You are upset that people have the option of attacking you. Seems like a mighty unreasonable stance to take. Might as well protest the weather.

Civil service(which was rightfully regarded as the worst option) was dumped years ago, and no longer exists.

My point with junkies and social welfare recipients, was that they contribute as much to society as a soldier does(ie. nothing), but the soldier takes out much more of society's resources than the first two groups(who additionally feel shame because of their condition and are often/most of the time there because of past life experiences have put them there).

[rvg]

My point with junkies and social welfare recipients, was that they contribute as much to society as a soldier does(ie. nothing), but the soldier takes out much more of society's resources than the first two groups(who additionally feel shame because of their condition and are often/most of the time there because of past life experiences have put them there).

So, then why did you become a soldier? Why not pick an alternative service and end up working at a hospital for 2 years or something?

[HoreTore]

So, your military is a drain on society because it is staffed by people who don't want to be there, and the problem is so bad that money has to be thrown at an inefficient system? Sounds like your problems run deeper than the budget. Our military is wasteful because it is so big, but even in a bad unit morale is pretty high and competency decent.

It's mainly a drain because it's an instrument designed to kill. Anything else is a bonus.

So, then why did you become a soldier? Why not pick an alternative service and end up working at a hospital for 2 years or something?

Because I didn't have a choice except by lying, and I don't feel like lying to get out of a democratic obligation. I was called in again this spring, and I have no plans to lie my way out, even though I know it's the easiest thing in the world. If they want me out I'll happily leave, but in the meantime I'm happy being a drain on their resources.


(service is 1 year plus repetition btw)

[Rhyfelwyr]

HoreTore I think you are misdirecting your anger at the military as an institution when you vent against ordinary soldiers.

Even if politicians and military leaders organise unjust or disastrous wars, soldiers are often the ones that do contribute something to the world, if not their own society as such. Look at what MRD did to help kids in Afghanistan.

And even then, soldiers to make their own society safer - consider how the Islamists were driven out of southern Mali, much to the residents' joy. That place would have been a breeding ground for terrorism. Some wars might be counter-productive in that respect, but that is not the fault of ordinary soldiers.

but the soldier takes out much more of society's resources than the first two groups(who additionally feel shame because of their condition and are often/most of the time there because of past life experiences have put them there).

Right, because returning soldiers are treated so well by society, feel nothing but pride for what they have done, and have no difficult past experiences to explain how they ended up in the military.

[HoreTore]

HoreTore I think you are misdirecting your anger at the military as an institution when you vent against ordinary soldiers.

Even if politicians and military leaders organise unjust or disastrous wars, soldiers are often the ones that do contribute something to the world, if not their own society as such. Look at what MRD did to help kids in Afghanistan.

And even then, soldiers to make their own society safer - consider how the Islamists were driven out of southern Mali, much to the residents' joy. That place would have been a breeding ground for terrorism. Some wars might be counter-productive in that respect, but that is not the fault of ordinary soldiers.

I'm strictly speaking about Norway's military here, even though I certainly applaud every arms reduction wherever they happen. A norwegian soldier doesn't go into the army because of a lack of options, and he is most certainly not sent to war unless he desperately wants to be a part of it.

....And if helping kids is your dream, might I suggest the Red Cross...?

[Tellos Athenaios]

As for Snowden & the "coming to get him" angle, well, erhm Bradley Manning & wikileaks did happen. So why, exactly, would you expect him to reason otherwise? Particularly: if he is right on the money he has significant more insight into the inner workings of the "spooks" than Manning ever had so would be correspondingly more important to "bring in". I might well be wrong, but as far as I am aware "coming to get me" is where he stopped, he didn't actually cross into all out paranoia just yet. As for Snowden and being narcissist, well I am not a psychologist but as I understand it narcissism is a different from "gives one interview in which he answers some personal questions from a journalist and vanishes". Unless this is supposed to be an elaborate hoax. In any case he planned the thing carefully enough to minimise impact and avoid his persona being dragged into the matter. He didn't do the whole drama queen act Assange did, for example.

As for the "could he be genuine", why not? Major Robert Dump and Gelatinous Cube can regale us with plenty of tales in which ordinary servicemen had access to all kinds of stuff they weren't supposed to, or did things outside of established security protocol for their operation. Misconfigured and insecure IT systems are not an exception but the default; heck nuns breach the physical security barriers of nuclear facility with absurd ease. An IT guy earning approximately 200K pa, tasked with systems administration (monitoring the systems and keeping the whole thing running) is indeed relatively well positioned to know where the internal holes are (it was his job to identify and fix them), what is going on (it was his job to know what the system was doing and configure it), and has the abilities to analyse the results (has access to the system as part of the job in order to be able to test whether stuff works). You don't even need to be in the thick of the action, if you're active on the periphery, on the systems that the NSA uses to manage the logins of its employees for example you already have a good overview of the capabilities of NSA employees because you manage the access controls for that.

As for why the admin thinks this PRISM thing is legal: well, it is legal in terms of US law. You voted in and approved of the PATRIOT act via Congress. Twice. Remember? You let it happen, and this is one of the fruits of those labours. (The Gitmo debacle being another. The let's use drones to "assasinate American Citizens because the Prez says so" thing is another.) Or as the Daily Show put it (from memory): “the worrying thing, Mr Obama, is not that you did something illegal. It's the fact you didn't have to.”

As for why other countries are outraged. Well the moral component, but in the case of the EU also international treaties which quite clearly were broken/signed in bad faith. For example the US-EU safe harbor provisions, which is the escape hatch for US to continue to do business post PATRIOT act in the EU.

Why do you think Norway can do without an army, HoreTore? Do you believe you will never again have to defend yourselves, or are you just being politically nihilistic? Its one thing to hate on a subversive military industrial complex, but quite another to hate on the concept of a military at all. At the very least you need a self-defense force.

Possibly because armies everywhere exemplify a kind of fetish for authority and power (and power play) which breeds this kind of stuff. This is merely a technological wet dream of the kind of authoritarianism that would otherwise find itself in its natural habitat of the military.

[rvg]

...If they want me out I'll happily leave, but in the meantime I'm happy being a drain on their resources...

But if there was no conscription, you'd never be in this position. Wouldn't it make more sense to oppose conscription instead?

[HoreTore]

But if there was no conscription, you'd never be in this position. Wouldn't it make more sense to oppose conscription instead?

I haven't killed anybody, it's not my own service I oppose.

I quite enjoyed wasting other peoples money for year, the downside was the time spent with absolutely nothing to do.

[rvg]

...the downside was the time spent with absolutely nothing to do.

That's a pretty hefty downside imho. Too big of a downside if you ask me.

[HoreTore]

That's a pretty hefty downside imho. Too big of a downside if you ask me.

Meh, the barracks-disease gets everyone eventually, that doesn't mean it's not fun driving $100k vehicles into pieces without consequence.

[rvg]

Meh, the barracks-disease gets everyone eventually, that doesn't mean it's not fun driving $100k vehicles into pieces without consequence.

Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

[HoreTore]

Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

At the end of the day I'm not given a choice, it's something I'm obligated to do by the majority of my countrymen.

I'm not going to lie to get out of that.

[rvg]

At the end of the day I'm not given a choice, it's something I'm obligated to do by the majority of my countrymen.

I'm not going to lie to get out of that.

It was one year of your life, not mine. You spend it as you see fit.

[Husar]

Too easy, let them explain how it is still legal if they do it internationally.

Like they care...

As the only superpower, they alone define what is legal internationally, that's why they stay out of the hague and other international institutions. Just look at how Obama said they only spy on foreigners. He can easily say that because he only cares about Americans and the opinions of anyone outside don't really matter.

With such attitudes it's really not surprising that the amount of goodwill towards the USA has plummeted in other countries...

If my own government collects data about me that's one thing, but if the USA does that's a completely different thing because I have absolutely no influence on government and policies there. If you want my data, let me vote in your elections.

No data collection without representation!

[Montmorency]

notions of disentanglement

A nation that constitutes a quarter of the planet's GDP could never practice such a thing.

Travel back in time and help the Confederacy to win, so that in the 20th century North America comes out pretty weak. It's the only way.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

As for Snowden & the "coming to get him" angle, well, erhm Bradley Manning & wikileaks did happen. So why, exactly, would you expect him to reason otherwise? Particularly: if he is right on the money he has significant more insight into the inner workings of the "spooks" than Manning ever had so would be correspondingly more important to "bring in". I might well be wrong, but as far as I am aware "coming to get me" is where he stopped, he didn't actually cross into all out paranoia just yet.

Greenwald: "Have you given thought to what it is that the US government's response to your conduct is in terms of what they might say about you, how they might try to depict you, what they might try to do to you?"

Snowden: "Yeah, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets. We've got a CIA station just up the road and the consulate here in Hong Kong and I'm sure they're going to be very busy for the next week. And that's a fear I'll live under for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."

[rvg]

Like they care...

As the only superpower, they alone define what is legal internationally, that's why they stay out of the hague and other international institutions. Just look at how Obama said they only spy on foreigners. He can easily say that because he only cares about Americans and the opinions of anyone outside don't really matter.

We is after all an American president. What did you expect him to say?

With such attitudes it's really not surprising that the amount of goodwill towards the USA has plummeted in other countries...

B-but it's O-B-A-M-A. Isn't he a godlike figure in Europe? Perhaps we need to vote in Sara Palin, so that you guys have something real to complain about.

If my own government collects data about me that's one thing, but if the USA does that's a completely different thing because I have absolutely no influence on government and policies there. If you want my data, let me vote in your elections.

Nuh-uh. But, if your government decides to spy on Americans, please do. I wouldn't mind one bit. Not my government, not my country, not my place to say what they can or cannot do.

[Husar]

To be fair, we stay out of the Hague and other international conventions because they run counter to our founding principle of not getting entangled, and not letting foreigners dictate our principles. Quite frankly, I approve.

Prism runs counter to my policies, so where can I opt out of prism? I didn't vote for the party that established prism and neither did I vote for the party that kept prism and there is no other party that I could vote for that would do away with prism? I'm basically spied on by not my government and there is nothing I can democratically do against it. Does that mean Obama is a dictator to me and I have the right to form a well-armed militia to overthrow him? I'd call them Al Queda, sounds nice.

[d'Arthez]

No data collection without representation!

01010111 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101001 01100111 01101110 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100100 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01100100 01110011 00101110 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

Happy now?

[Papewaio]

Manning isn't a traitor until after he's been found guilty.

If he is already considered guilty how is he to get a fair trial?

=][=
Also aren't the Apache pilots shooting unarmed reporters the ones who should be facing trial and all those who covered it up and hid the evidence?

I assume the soldiers oath covers something to do with lawful orders and protecting the Constitution. If fellow servicemen were abusing the law, doesn't that create an oath bound obligation to become a whistleblower once the chain of command is found complicit?

I understand that following orders wasn't a defense for WWII Germans but it was for Vietnam War Americans. So is it the current standard that the threshold for unlawful actions is anything goes unless it embarrasses those in command?

[Papewaio]

You guys are at the top and it is your fields to sow.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Greenwald: "Have you given thought to what it is that the US government's response to your conduct is in terms of what they might say about you, how they might try to depict you, what they might try to do to you?"

Snowden: "Yeah, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets. We've got a CIA station just up the road and the consulate here in Hong Kong and I'm sure they're going to be very busy for the next week. And that's a fear I'll live under for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be."

And on the other hand he agrees to appear in plain view, on camera, without any particular security theatre that we know of (contrast: Wikileaks). On balance the above snippet strikes me as entertaining the line of thought, rather than genuine paranoia.

I guess I definitely don't qualify as a psychologist; I simply fail to see all these mental disorders everywhere around me.

[Papewaio]

At least the diplomatic cables raised people's opinion of your diplomats.
It is also a catalyst in the Arab Spring be that good or bad.

I'm more concerned with a drone kill list then what Manning did.