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Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

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40hz:
^I think you're giving most nations more credit than is due.

This not about asylum and Snowden. This is about wanting to chastise the US and see it take a political hit.

That's been accomplished and the gains have been realized. Granting asylum won't sweeten the pot for any nation doing it now. It will just inflict a cost on what's already been gained for free.

Nope. It's not about building a case for anything. It's now "the cat's out of the bag" and "look who's eating crow now."

Snowden is no longer a piece in the international game. And he has no champion. As time goes on, his continued predicament will start to be an embarrassment to every nation.

I suspect most governments will soon hope he'll either be caught - or somebody else (but not them) will grant him asylum.

The other problem is that should Snowden ever be granted asylum in any place other than Russia, China, France, or the UK, the USA will feel compelled to try and grab him.  And no nation wants to confront and possibly arrest or kill some US special ops unit that tries it. Nor do they want it to go the other way with them looking weak for losing him.

No, I think the belief is going to shift very shortly to where Snowden's continued freedom is seen as the USA's problem, not any other nation's. At which point, the sooner US gets its hands on him the better as far as they're concerned.



Mr. Snowden threw himself upon the sword, figuratively speaking. Unfortunately I think, for him, the time is rapidly approaching where he's going to be given the opportunity to do it once again. Except this time it will be literally speaking.



I wish him luck with that.

wraith808:
^ I totally agree with you on most of that, and I wasn't debating that point.  More that, as you said, the damage is done.  But the US keeps trying to mitigate damage that has already been done... which is stupid.  As they do so, they indeed build more of an actual case for asylum, which makes it even murkier.  And they offend more people, and do more damage.

The stance that Obama took originally about Snowden should have been the one that they stuck to, i.e. deal with the fallout and ignore Snowden.  Totally.  He's not an operational asset, so the only fallout is from what he took, and has already shared, even if its not been published.  Cut your losses, and move on- quit worrying about the sunk costs. 

That brings me to the part I disagree about... by waving around power, they're making his position more solid, not less.  Especially because they're playing it out in public.  Let them declare a win with him getting asylum somewhere other than China or Russia.  Let him fade into the background- then if you're still feeling petulant, take him then.

This playing things out on the international stage is clumsy and stupid.

40hz:
That brings me to the part I disagree about... by waving around power, they're making his position more solid, not less.
-wraith808 (July 07, 2013, 11:50 AM)
--- End quote ---

Yes, they're making their position less solid. But it's doing nothing to enhance Snowden's.

He's already almost a non-player. A few more weeks and he won't be one at all.

And right now, everybody just wants it to be over one way or the other - except for that small contingent of macho face-savers within our federal government who think sending in the SEALs is the answer to everything.



There just ain't no honest sailors aboard for this voyage, bro.  :-\
 :)

cmpm:
I'm pretty convinced that bastards exist so that some might know what they don't want to be. And to make it easy to spot who the bastards are, and to see who is not.

edit-

check....

40hz:
@cmpm - I think that observation of yours borders on cosmic truth. :Thmbsup: :)

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