Glen -
There need be no selfish upside. His lies could easily be seen as motivated by
a delusional disorder. He may feel like a martyr. He may feel his chances of
surviving are greater than they actually are. ... Whatever. The point is that
he saw lying to and about perfectly innocent people as his means to an end.
Take my point as a comment on our byzantine "rule of law", where laws must be
broken in order for justice to be done, or take it as naive rhetoric for "two
wrongs don't make a right." It doesn't change the fact that Snowden is a
weasel.
I don't have enough data to validate or refute this last statement, but
the first interviews actually struck me that he was NOT such a
creature. I expected him to be, but he did not present that way (though
perhaps that changed in later interviews/statements?).
Now, I happen to be OK with weasels when their actions make our lives, our
democracy better. I don't expect people to have infinite foresight or even to
be ideologically stable. People make mistakes and, whenever possible, systemic
causes should be sought before assigning blame to a pure, single cause.
Persoally, I think Snowden should be welcomed back to the US as a hero, at least
to some demographic, perhaps in the same way Ollie North is treated these days.
But you can safely bet that I won't be telling any of my secrets to Snowden. 8^)
He'll have to steal them (which is not hard, given my lax security).
More to the point, he may already have them, as collected by the NSA.
It's intelligence arena; it's all about deception and manipulation. Children
need not apply. It's fine if you think deception and manipulation cannot serve
the greater good of the democracy and promoting individual freedom. But by that
standard every competent employee in the intelligence community would be guilty
of having that character flaw/feature.
No, I don't think so. I actually think the balance between empathy for those
you've infiltrated and your original mission is a _difficult_ balance. To paint
the whole community of spies and undercover cops as having this particular
character flaw/feature is too broad. It does a disservice to those who think
long and hard ... and get professional training regarding ... what it means to
go undercover.
I met up with a friend from high school about 10 years ago... she had
gone into police science and joined up with a local law-enforcement
crowd after graduation, but eventually distinguished herself as a
"forensic specialist" and took a job with the "Navy" (wink wink) DC but
her job was to debrief returning "Company" men (and women) while wired
up to her machines. She spoke in all the veiled, thinly-mis-directed
terms I'd already come to understand about (the tip of the iceberg of)
the Intelligence world so that she wouldn't have to kill me and then off
herself with her cyanide tooth for having divulged state secrets to me.
She told me stories that would raise the hairs on your whole body,
especially the short ones where the electrodes go when they are
torturing, not merely interrogating. Whe was completely repulsed by
the guys (and maybe a few gals, mostly guys) who came back from
mission... and could only barely acknowledge that they were *selected
for* their strong wills and nearly (or even fully?) sociopathic
natures... and that *of course* they tried to lie to her about things
they might have seen or done that was "maybe" not their employer's
business. It isn't hard to imagine that some of these characters live
a pretty depraved life while wielding the power vested in them by their
role (and their sociopathic natures?).
I've also worked with more than a few of these folks after they have
retired from "active field duty" and most of them showed a pretty
sketchy idea of honor and integrity (tended to be biased toward arrogant
militaristic nationalism, and self-serving xenophobia). Of course, that
sample was biased by self-selection (who would work with the likes of me
and mine).
That is not to say that *none* of the field agents in our intelligence
(especially overseas) are highly competent boyscout/choirboys... I'm
sure we have a few who were born with red/white/blue birthmarks,
diapered in the flag, lost their virginity to the statue of liberty, etc...
O'Keefe and Snowden seem particularly cavalier to me. They seem very
agenda-driven and don't have much respect for the humanity of their targets.
I'm not seeing that, but I generally respect your opinion enough to look
a little harder...
I admit to a bias of believing (not without some evidence of my own)
that the US government (and especially the Intell world) is pretty
cavalier about lots of things, and when someone stands up in the middle
of the street and blows a shrill whistle and points at them, I tend to
assume that at least *some* of what they are whistling shrilly at is
real and if they are standing in front of a bus as they do it (Bradley
Manning?) at the time, I tend to discount the accusations that they are
"traitors"... at worst, I think they may be unstable or misguided.
Assange is a grandstander, but that doesn't mean his work is entirely
bogus. Manning may have been responding partly to his perception of
abuse by the military when he gave Assange & Co the stolen materials he
did, but I think he was doing it with best intentions (whistleblower,
not traitor). Snowden... I don't have as much data on (haven't kept up
with this one NOR the circus in Florida) yet... seemed to me to be an
honest whistleblower, even if he does have some delusions of grandeur.
He *might* be peddling secrets to our enemies (or planning to), but my
intuitino is that he is *not*.
Time will tell.
Or not.
- Steve
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