(Article changed on June 16, 2013 at 19:56)
Let me make a confession: I haven't learned
anything from Edward Snowden. I am sorry for being such an idiot.
Unfortunately, this is not the only confession I have to make. Here is the next
one: I found myself in agreement with Vladimir Putin - he told Russia
Today the same thing in his recent interview. Literally: "He
[Snowden] told us nothing that anybody didn't know before. Everybody knew about the total electronic
surveillance a long time ago". The original version of this interview can
be found here П'''"РРР' '"' Р'"РР' ' ' Р''' РРdegreesРР' '"РdegreesРР'"РРРРРdegreesРРdegreesРРdegrees RT . The English
translation Putin
talks NSA, Syria, Iran, drones in RT interview (FULL VIDEO) does not do it
justice, I am afraid. Let me make a disclosure: Putin is not my friend or
relative, I am not his admirer and I have very little sympathy for former KGB
operatives. There are plenty of sycophants around the Russian president
and he does not need more of them. Once George W. Bush said "Vladimir Putin is
my friend" and I remember my father commenting on this "Find Yourself another
friend, looser". Nevertheless, I have to admit that Putin knows what he is
talking about (which is not so typical of American politicians, I might add).
Now, let's look at the job history of Edward Snowden:
On May 7, 2004, Snowden
enlisted in the United States Army with the hope of
eventually joining the Special Forces . He
said, "I wanted to fight in Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a
human being to help free people from oppression" but was discharged
just months later on September 28 after, he said, breaking both of his legs in
a training accident. His next employment was as a National Security Agency (NSA)
security guard for a covert facility at the University of Maryland , before joining
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to
work on IT security .
Now, since I confessed being an idiot, help me out, please. So we have a 21 year old very talented, intelligent and sophisticated young man who decided to answer George W. Bush call to spread freedom and democracy. I used to think that George W. Bush and his best VP buddy Dick Cheney had a very strong appeal to the lowest common denominator rather than someone as bright as Edward Snowden. By the way George and Dick were obviously best buddies since they testified to the 9/11 commission together in secret, not under oath, off the record and behind closed doors as was so eloquently pointed out by James Corbett in 911 Conspiracy Theory. And by the way - don't call me a conspiracy theorist! With my exceptionally low IQ I should not be able to theorize about anything except spreading freedom and democracy to oil rich countries in the Middle East. But I am sorry for digressing a bit. So due to a very unfortunate accident our young hero became a security guard for NSA (which is the next best thing for an IT guy so passionate about freedom, democracy and Buddhism). Was he going to spread Buddhism as well? I don't know, ask Dick Cheney -- he must be preparing for his next incarnation, as we speak. Judging from the thousands of people, animals and birds that Cheney killed for entertainment, he achieved the perfect enlightenment by Carl Rove's standards and no longer requires an incarnation (forgive me for such a loose interpretation of Buddhism).
And now let me quote Snowden one more
time if I may:
"I had access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the
entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all over the world. The
locations of every station, we have what their missions are and so forth. If I
had just wanted to harm the US? You could shut down the surveillance system in
an afternoon."
I don't know about you, my honorable reader, but I am confused even more than the 9/11 commission after the Bush/Cheney testimony. A person with such an extraordinary access to the top secret intelligence information tells that NSA spies on everybody without telling us anything else, absolutely nothing. Oh, I forgot, he does not want to harm the US. He is a patriot of course and he is not the only one.
Do you remember George Carlin? Can I misquote him with your permission?
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and shills all over the place. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best a whistle-blower can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the resume of an honest professional. This is the kind of crap you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, any decent whistle-blower would tell us something important, something that really harms those criminals in power. And by the way, I firmly believe, looking at these results, that this so called whistle-blower must be an agent provocateur.
I rest my case, Ladies and Gentlemen.
P.S. I just learned that there is a much better article on the subject by Naomi Wolf click here