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Snowden Offered Asylum By Venezuelan President
First time accepted submitter aBaldrich writes "Edward Snowden was offered 'humanitarian asylum' by Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela. The country's official news agency reports (original Spanish, Google translation) that the decision was taken after a meeting of the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. Maduro denounced an attempt to 'colonize' several European countries, and that he is acting 'on behalf of the dignity of the Americas.'"
The Guardian confirms.
Those countries have denied doing so.
Except that France has already apologized.
Cuba Flight 455 blown up, 78 people killed, Posada Carriles (who, BTW, was trained by the CIA at Fort Benning) escaped Venezuela to the US, and currently lives in Miami after the US refused Venezuelan extradition, on the grounds that he could be tortured if extradited. (Judges generally don't do irony.) He was tried, and acquitted, in the US for entering the country illegally, in the course of the trial his lawyers made the interesting statement that ""The Defendant's CIA relationship, stemming from his work against the Castro regime through his anti-communist activities in Venezuela and Central America, are relevant and admissible to his defense."
Although you will find barely a mention of the connection in the English language press, Juan Cole connects the dots.
Little tip to Obama: this could be a solution for your prison overcrowding problems. Dump them on these third rate socialist shit holes. Just make sure you tag each criminal as enemy of the USA, and they will lap up anything you throw at them. Even if you pay for air fare you win. Try it.
The real solution to that is ending the War on Drugs and finally recognizing that anything consenting adults want to do is NOT a crime. Nice joke, though.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
US pushing other countries to do its bidding, is more believable then the alternative that the president of Bolivia, and all of those on board were lying.
If you asked me if any government in the world was lying compared to the word of an individual, especially when that individual is supported by witnesses and flight logs, I would most certainly believe that the government was lying.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Yes, kill the person that exposed the illegal violations of your 4th Amendment rights. Quickly, go cower in your corner with yur gunz. The terrorists are after you right now! They are everywhere!
Don't bet on it. If Russia decides it seriously wants to help, then they'll never even know he's left until he's in Venezuela. As of *right now*, nobody has seen Snowden since he got to Moscow. In fact, nobody has seen him in Moscow at all. Russia claims he's holed up in Sheremetyevo Airport, but nobody has seen him there. Nobody saw him get off the flight from Hong Kong. Is he still in Moscow? Was he ever in Moscow at all? I wouldn't take bets.
The reality is that Chavez did more for social conditions in his country than any other president in living memory. USA hated him viciously because of his oil-based power in OPEC, plus his aversion to letting them control the destiny of Venezuela and from there the rest of latinamerica. And that's pretty much it.
You're pretty transparent.
I've come to the conclusion that Putin and Obama have reached some kind of deal. Putin is getting something he wants in exchange for agreeing to neither overtly help Snowden to get to another country nor requiring that Russia hand him over directly to US authorities. I have believed for years that George W. Bush botched the relationship between the US and Russia by being unable to understand the concept of quid pro quo. See, Bush believed that people should just do the right thing because it was right, not because they were going to get anything in return. This is a big part of why Poland, Bulgaria and Ukraine quickly jumped in to provide troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They thought they were going to get visa free US travel in exchange. They pulled out when they realized that Bush was literally incapable of understanding that he owed them something in return. Putin somehow got burned by this too, although I have no idea what he wanted, and he has not forgotten it. Russia isn't going to provide any travel docs to Snowden, offer him asylum in Russia or hand him over to the USA. Venezuela won't send a ship because it fears that the US would just board it or maybe even sink it in international waters. My guess is that Venezuela will offer him a travel document that the Russians will accept, at which point they'll casually mention to their American friends "Oh by the way, Snowden is on flight XXX bound for Venezuela. Here's the flight path." and the US may plan an interception over international waters once it leaves European airspace. The Russians will then claim publicly that they are shocked, yes shocked, at this violation of international air space, which provides the plausible deniability they need.
It was a test to see how they would react if they want to get Snowden to safety. Leak false information and see if the plane would get into trouble.
I to have to wonder if Snowden pulled a counter-intel move, knowing that the NSA was listening in on some conversations and deliberately fed them misinformation to provoke a reaction.
Whether Snowden simply pulled their chain or they are so bumbling incompetent that with their $50B/year budget the NSA can't figure out if a guy has boarded a plane in the Moscow airport - it sure makes them look massively incompetent.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
He doesn't want to take a boat...... too easy for the boat to be boarded in international water....
With a plane, you can attempt to force it to land with threats of shooting it down, but there is less chance that the US would actually shot down a plan killing him than of them boarding a vessel in international waters to take him.
Maybe Russia ought to send him to the International Space Station. That would really poke at the USA and there's nothing the USA can do about it since we've failed to maintain our space program so it's not like they can send the CIA after him, and the 3 Russian crewmembers can keep him safe during his stay. Then after he leaves the ISS, they can just have the Soyuz touch down in Venezuela.
It would actually be kind of amusing to see the USA's reaction to Snowden sitting aboard the ISS, releasing a new classified document each day.
This is interesting news, because I had heard, from a reliable source, that when Snowden inquired of his attorney where on earth he could best be assured freedom from prosecution under U.S. law, the lawyer had recommended Wall Street.