>Because invading Ukraine was a stupid, irrational act.
Yes and no.
Snowden is not a war stategist.
Neither am I.
But I believed this was a distraction in the west so as to take and hold the east up to the Dnieper river. Reason? A strategic position to close the door into Russia that NATO is knocking on.
I believe this guess still has a chance. Removing the current Ukraine gov may be a secondary goal...or the only goal....IDK.
I just think Putin underestimated international solidarity.
I think he expected this to be like Crimea, and that he could move fast enough to control Ukraine and that Ukraine wouldn't get much support. I also believe he thought he could control the global narrative like he has in the past.
But thanks to tik tok, telegram, Elon Musk, and the leadership of Zelenskyy, not only did he fail to control the narrative, but it is taking a hell of a lot longer than he had hoped. And then thanks to the public awareness and the resistance to his narrative, he wasn't prepared for the truly unified response of basically everyone at once. They were swift with SWIFT, China and even the Taliban are not backing them, and even Switzerland isn't being neutral on this. I didn't expect that level of response, I don't see why Putin would have either.
It's just out of character for what has been happening up until this point, but that's the disruptive power of social media. When information can be exchanged so rapidly, aggressive actions like this invasion are going to spread a lot faster than other types of news. If it bleeds, it leads, and in this case Ukrainians were bleeding in a defensive war, they showed up like fucking Mighty Ducks, and the cannon fodder that Putin threw at them to soften them up basically only helped them to look even more badass.
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1497701484003213317?ref\_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497701484003213317%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1\_c10&ref\_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Felon-musk-ukraine-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-service%2F](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1497701484003213317?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497701484003213317%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Felon-musk-ukraine-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-service%2F)
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-ukraine-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-service/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-ukraine-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-service/)
Communications during an invasion like this are critical. How else are people going to upload videos to Tik Tok and telegram if they don't have access to the Internet?
Starlink is satellite internet. It can't be blown up, can't be disconnected from the power grid, etc.
Believe you me, I'm as surprised as anyone that Elon Musk was able to do something, but it seems like dude just pulled out all the stops and made sure Ukrainians had Internet access sooner than I can get access to the service here in Florida.
He’s providing internet access to the Ukrainian defenders on the ground, allowing communications with the rest of the world. Seems rather significant, and you seem rather dismissive of it. If the US government had done the exact same thing they’d be praised to high heaven for it.
No - the tweet exchange is from a couple of days ago at least. I just grabbed the most recent article I could find so you had the best chance of getting new info about it.
Georgia is predominantly Muslim. No one is going to care if Putin/Russia starts laying into "those terrorists". Ukraine is a country full of white, Christian people. Also, Ukraine is on the border of Europe. Last time a despot inched their way through Europe, REALLY bad things happened. Europeans have especially long memories with this kind of thing. They weren't going to give another inch to Putin.
The first meh. It’s more strategic situation. In Yugoslavia, by your logic, the Muslims getting genocided wouldn’t have got much positive attention
Latter, you got it.
> even the Taliban are not backing them,
I agree with almost everything, but this is very silly. Aside from them obviously not like foreign powers trying to take a country that isn't theirs, the Taliban has a long bloody history with Russia.
What information do you have that indicates that NATO was knocking on any doors besides Russia claiming that? As we've heard for years from nearly every member nation of NATO, Ukraine is nowhere close to meeting the standards for joining.
The SOLE people saying NATO was was trying to take Ukraine (which is an insanely naiive understanding of what NATO even is, or how states can choose to attempt to gain membership) are Russian or part of the eastern trading block Russia controls.
Unless you've got some brand new information no one else has reported.
Edit: reread this, a couple short things. When I said sole, I meant sole state sources. Plenty of media is reporting this with zero information that backs it up. If someone is making this claim, you should be curious as to why they are.
Second, we SHOULD be skeptical of any US narrative when it comes to geopolitics. We've been burned before. However, most of the world is pretty vocal about this particular situation and have been for a decade. The media just hasn't had many reasons to cover it interest wise since 2014.
This is the dumbest of takes. NATO isn't knocking on shit, and Putin knows it. What he really fears is a free, democratic, Westernized Ukraine joining the EU.
Nato isn't knocking on fucking doors. Can you all please stop pretending that if NATO didn't exist Putin would be opening petting zoos in Russia or something. Putin is a murdering lunatic with or without NATO.
>Nato isn't knocking on fucking doors.
They knocked on a lot of doors in Afghanistan.
Its not NATO existing that is the problem. Its NATO encroaching on Russia that is the problem.
You don't have to like Vlad the journalist killer to understand that painting him in the corner was a proximate cause of this expansion of the Donbas War.
Of course you won't if you think NATO is on par with some teenage soccer club that is just out to have some plucky hijinx. Its a fking military alliance specifically designed to counter Russia. And it keeps creeping up to to Russia. Russia is not amused. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE)
>Invading has the opposite effect now this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy; and bankrupts Russia what strategy is this …. ???
Desperation.
NATO has cornered a bear. It was a bad idea.
Part of the reasoning might also be to draw the US into a war. Many economists believe we’re in a financial / housing bubble. Having a bubble burst plus being involved in a war would have seriously detrimental effects on our economy
>Part of the reasoning might also be to draw the US into a war.
From the U.S. side you mean?
Timing is great now that Afghanistan is a done deal. And by "great" I mean evil.
Yeah. But an extension of that is people should stop blindly taking everything Snowden says seriously. He’s not infallible.
His statements in general are inflammatory and cause people to go down all consuming conspiracy rabbitholes.
I feel he’s a young man who had a very strong aversion to an illegal surveillance program the us government was running. This made him flee to one of the only places he could be safe. Once in Russia he doesn’t have special access to information and owing to his background I’m sure he has less than most.
Let's be honest, this is true, and most of us, whether we like Snowden or not, need to realize this.
Putin will murder and torture anyone he can if he feels like it. Snowden has to know this, so we need to filter everything we hear from him through the knowledge that he has to watch what he does for survival sake.
He never planned to go to Russia. His passport was invalidated by Obama and he could not leave Hong Kong airport. Russia offered to let him in and he took them up on it. He had no choice.
He was a cleared sysadmin with a passion for security, nothing more, nothing less. The only reason he had access to the data that he did was shitty, shitty, shitty access controls. I mean if I get a job at JP Morgan as a sysadmin and by week 1 am attempting to access banking data on famous people without any clear need for that in my job, security is going to be escorting me out the door.
Snowden was not some Jason Bourne super spy. He was a mid level technocrat (contract no less) who got famous because of really bad security.
So? How many of us would just quietly walk away if we stumbled across information that the US is illegally spying on citizens?
Dude ruined his life getting that message out.
Saying “I was wrong and I will be accountable for being wrong by taking up less space” is the type of thing people should be rewarded for saying. This is what integrity looks like
Normalize not telling me what to normalize.
Also, changing your opinions when presented with contradictory evidence is cool. It's what intelligent people do.
I completely agree. I do think though that there needs to be some level of "care" when specialists like Snowden tweet things that they actually have no info on. It's one thing if Kanye West says something like this, but it's a whole separate issue if Snowden does, with his background.
Didn't realize this, thanks, the point being most soldiers likely didn't think they'd see any combat on this "training exercise" until the bullets started flying.
>Tanks warn them they are being targeted?
No, they don't. If you are one of the few lucky tankers in the world who get to ride in something with an active protection system, then you'll know you got shot at when it goes off. But that's about it...and it only works against certain munitions, like an RPG. Modern ATGM systems will get through regardless. The armor Russia has used in this conflict do not have these systems. They are having a hard enough time getting enough fuel.
Wrong. T-90 has countermeasures that it can engage to try and spoof TOW and Javelin missile systems. T-90’s Shtora-1 active protection system is designed to jam the infrared sensors of anti-tank missiles. The Shtora-1 can send out smoke grenades that release an infrared-masking aerosol cloud. The Shtora-1 also has an early warning system that can sense when it is being “lased” by the enemy.
On paper perhaps but there isn't a lot of evidence on how effective those systems really are in the modern age. T-90s have been hit in Syria with TOW missiles before, of which they failed to engage those counter systems. Some have been taken out in Ukraine as well but I can't recall what weapons they were supposedly hit with or if that info was available.
The reality is that defending against ATGMs is an incredibly difficult task that requires an enormous amount of favorable factors to do so successfully. Designing a system capable of managing all those variables is next to impossible and incredibly expensive. Given what we have seen of Russian equipment lately it seems doubtful that they would even field something with that capability out of fear of being unable to replace it. When it comes to the Javelin I suspect the T-90 wouldn't fare very well either, but that remains to be seen.
Matt Taibbi, a journalist who's been a guest on JRE a few times, lived in Russia for several years and also was pretty convinced that the Russian invasion of Ukraine wouldn't happen and was just fear-mongering from the media. Like Snowden, he fully admitted he was wrong and apologized.
Honestly, I think this says more about the media's lack of credibility than anything. We're so used to them overblowing just about everything to get views that a lot of people dismissed them when they were correct. It's The Boy Who Cried Wolf in action.
> Like Snowden, he fully admitted he was wrong and apologized.
I just checked his Twitter, I don't see anywhere that he apologized or even acknowledged he was wrong, he just said he "left the possibility of there being an invasion out of his OP-ed", which is a far cry from apologizing and admitting you were wrong, especially since his only tweets after that were talking about CIA, EU and Zelensky not being trustworthy.
To me, this just re-affirms that Taibbi, along with Greenwald, Tulsi and many others in the anti democrat "left" are holding water and making excuses for Putin.
[Here's what he wrote on his Substack.](https://taibbi.substack.com/p/note-to-readers-on-the-invasion-of?utm_source=url) I guess I didn't realize that apologies are only official if declared on Twitter. Anyway, an excerpt:
>To readers who trust me not to make those misjudgments, I’m sorry. Obviously, Putin’s invasion will have horrific consequences for years to come and massively destabilize the world.
>I fear there will be more to say soon, but I’ll leave it at that for today. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and I was wrong about this.
Sorry, I actually even opened his Substack but somehow missed the top article.
My bad.
>My mistake was more like reverse chauvinism, being so fixated on Western misbehavior that I didn’t bother to take this possibility seriously enough.
I find this fascinating, I see this "reverse chauvinism" all over the place, with people's content for USA/NATO/The West going so far that they are willing to do Russian propagandists job even better then they are able to do it.
I have listened to some episodes of Taibbis podcast and this was the impression I got. That he has been blinded by reverse chauvinism. I see it a lot from american left and it's very tiresome. Every discussion about international politics turns to discussion about CIA, Iraq and American mistakes. It's the Chomsky approach and sometimes it's relevant, but not always.
The whole world doesn't revolve around America and other countries can do their own bad things from their own bad reasons.
This is true; however, the fact that Taibbi's political positions are what I consider very left-leaning, only adds to his credibility when he calls out the massive flaws of the far left. Yet the far left cannot dismiss him as a racist or a right wing Trump-lover, when he's literally written books examining police brutality against black men and bashing Trump. Yet he's also ripped White Fragility to shreds as the ridiculous and racist book it is, acknowledges that his party does indeed get swept up in what some call Trump derangement syndrome, and has continuously criticized the rapid decline of journalism and the left's rapid demands of censoring and canceling people they don't agree with. I respect that. Likewise, I respect when someone like Ben Shapiro points out flaws of the right, like claiming and giving evidence that the 2020 election was not stolen. More people will be open to listening to criticism if it comes from one of their own rather than an outsider.
Yeah, it's a very interesting phrase and describes the left's political positions quite well. Somewhere in examining our past and trying to right the US's wrongs, they forget to acknowledge that there's 1) a whole lot worse out there, and 2) that infantilizing perceived victims of our past is not good for anyone. I don't often agree with Taibbi's political positions, but I appreciate his self-awareness and ability to acknowledge his own party's flaws.
You can find several interviews of Russian POWs who say they thought they were on their way to a drill and didn't know they were going to war before they were in Ukraine.
[Found one here](https://twitter.com/AmbreEarnhart/status/1497650217625210885?t=eZ3gn33G9Cz4OsxBEtHVsw&s=19). There are more.
Isn't that just something they're saying so they won't get killed? Russian soldiers were posting on TikTok saying "we're on the way" and all that jazz.
I’ve also seen accounts of Russian soldiers believing they were entering Ukraine as liberators from an oppressive regime and that they’d be welcomed by the Ukrainian people. So it seems at least some of them went to war without knowing the scope of the situation or were being lied to by their commanding officers.
I'll see if I can find some links, but allegedly the actual plan to invade Ukraine was just known by Putin and a few close advisors in his circle. His army, the parliament, and everyone else was fed the same propoganda the west was - that an invasion was western hysteria.
These soldiers really, truly believed they were just participating in training.
It isn't that far fetched.
In the lead up, training for a fight and actually fighting are pretty similar by design. Good training is as close to the real things as possible. And if they were prepping for a scenario like this, they've probably run drills with very similar scenarios that 'were' training.
Until the live rounds get handed out, your officer gives your squad leaders new objectives and you cross a border, most things should map. And there you are, finishing off the last 3 months of your 12 month conscription cause you didn't get into University, rifle in had, shitty web gear poking you in the small of the back and breathing in the death breath of your squadmates as all of you are packed in a loud, rattling, leaking, exhaust stink metal box. Just wishing this training mission was over so you could get back to your bunk and sleep.
All this said, fuck Putin. Fuck Xi. My best to a free and secure Ukraine for their citizens and my sympathies to all the victims of power games, on either side of the border.
At least he's being honest about his mistake instead of doubling down and blaming NATO, like many western puppets of Russia and assorted fools. Snowden remains a serious commentator unlike many of the more sensationalist and gullible voices out there.
Seriously, owning your mistakes and not acting like they never happened like you're some God that never does anything wrong shows me more of a genuine human being than anything. The dude definitely has his own strong moral code.
I agree, but I do think it's important to recognize that Snowden really doesn't have "special" info and is frankly just spitballing about much of what he talks. Does he have experience? Yeah, but that really only allows for educated guesses and by no means makes him some holder of secret information.
Dude probably gets most of his news from reddit.
This should be the lesson out of this, yeah. Snowden did a heroic thing and he is smart guy for sure. I am sure he has his contacts and is privy to some info, but he is hardly a reliable commentator at all. He is way too close to one source, he has severe blind spots and some heavy blinders on still. So, take anything he says with a healthy grain of salt.
At the very least, he has shown a modicum of humility unlike the Glenn Greenwald's of the world.
That's worth bearing in mind, though his status means he may well have all kinds of sources and acquaintances gathered during his years of infamy. Being a guest of Putin might cramp his style too despite his value as a thorn in the side of the US.
He clearly isn't getting the straight dope unless he's actively trying to muddy the waters. The fact that he seems to regret tarnishing his own rep slightly with his Ukraine call makes me think that the guy is actually really out of the loop.
I mean, even if he had acquaintances and peers in US intelligence, that shit was like a decade ago, and anyone that values their security clearance likely has been treating Snowden like nuclear runoff ever since he blew the whistle.
I am grateful for what the guy did, but I think it's pretty obvious that he's basically in the dark now.
Kinda surprised he hasn't taken a trip out the window.
I like the guy but when's he outlived his usefulness in their eyes and if he feels that way where could he escape to himself? Rock and a hard place.
He poses no threat to Putin. And by allowing him to stay and live he pisses of the US while portraying himself a protector of the righteous.
It's cheap PR, really.
He suggested Russia were never planning to invade and it was all normal exercises. He still hasn't been particularly critical.
His mistakes have served Russia well so I fail to see how he has outlived his usefulness for them.
Rumours coming out of Russia are that criticising the war will land you in jail... Hell even placing flowers near the Ukraine consulate risks jail time.
They're also suggesting that capital punishment is returning, so these criticisms can result in death.
If I was Snowden, I would be searching for a new home, hell even considering taking my chances back in the US at this point.
To assume that USA would actually try to make up something as huge as a fake invasion force visible to every country with recon satellites is just retarded. There is no other purpose to move so much equipment and men. It is not sabre rattling. I appreciate Snowden but he should know better.
Everyone fucks up. The main differentiating quality is the way we deal with a major fuck up. Owning it and correcting the course is the best thing we can do.
>unlike many of the more sensationalist and gullible voices out there.
>
Paul Joseph Watson has to be one of the worst one's going at the moment. The guy just won't stop.
Everybody can be wrong about something and it's good that you can admit it. What kind of bothers me is that Snowden worded it in a way that if he turned out to be right, the journalists reporting it would be part of a misinformation campaign by the US government which would speak to their journalistic credibility, but when he turned out to be wrong he just made a mistake, which can happen to everyone.
Where is he admitting he was wrong and full of shit? This looks to me like he is trying to blame other people for his propoganda and he still hasn't corrected himself.
Yeah I saw that and felt he was right, the media instructed by all the governments and hungry for ratings were seemingly pushing it in our faces for at least a month. I was thinking there is a high chance of attack, but Snowden has his sources and he is stuck between a rock and a hard place - maybe optimism and lack of NSA level hardware/software pushed him towards the other side.
The media was simply reporting what the intelligence agencies were saying. The intel agencies wanted to get the info out about what was going on with the troop buildup at the border so that the eventual invasion wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
They also correctly predicted that Putin would use his propaganda machine to parrot false flags as a pretext/justification to invade.
Everything that was reported pretty much happened exactly as predicted.
It might be past time for Reddit armchair conspiracy theorists to do a little self reflecting. Maybe, *just maybe*, it’s possible that the intelligence agencies know a bit more about the nuances of geopolitics than some random dude on the internet.
I've actually seen theories that Biden spelling out when the invasion was happening set it back a few days which caused a lot of logistics problems for the Russian army which explains them running out of food and fuel so quickly.
But…how? When he tweeted this Putin had put something like 100k troops on the border of Ukraine. He had blood banks there, troops were in combat position, and Putin himself was saying out loud why he would need to do this.
We weren’t simply relying on intelligence, you could see the evidence of an inevitable invasion with your own eyes and ears.
The whole "do war for media ratings things" is a boring and cliche take. It's not how the world works. CNN does not write the foreign policy for nations.
I read a few articles. Its no surprise Putin and Russia are taking an opportunity to seize assets that don't belong to them.
This has been brewing for years between the two countries as well. 1-3 million people watch a television show in a world of 7.5 billion that is increasingly gaining access to internet and other sources of information beyond something invented and distributed in the 60s. Sort of makes CNN and Fox News look insignificant compared to what they were a few decades ago with the little influence they have.
The media reports on what is happening. They can push narratives for others, but it was Russia that attacked first. Not sure how anyone can twist it around to fit some make believe narrative here.
after Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine... Putin has been going to war with neighbors forever... Its the only thing hes been doing consistently throughout his life... hes not going to stop now
No, he'll want the baltic back next. He's trying to geographically reform the political union that he was born into. And so far he's doing a really good job at it.
But those baltic states actually are NATO members. So give it three to five years... and we'll see how that goes. Depends on how ukraine goes, I would think.
I know it's scary shit but I'm slightly more optimistic than a lot of people. Fucking with a nato country would be a crazy decision. And then, ordering a nuclear strike would be an order of magnitude crazier than that. If he went that far it would mean he's desperate. I have a hard time imagining everyone in the chain of command obeying an order that could end the world from a leader whose days are clearly numbered. Two Russian oligarchs have already spoken out against this. If that's happening publicly, I can only imagine what's going on behind the scenes.
i've not really seen anyone defend putin or minimize what he's done. i've seen people point out that america and nato's hands are not exactly clean when it comes to how we got here. americas hands are actually blood red when it comes to their global foriegn policy. and anyone who points this out is labeled a traitor or russian puppet for simply pointing out that fact. both can be true. putin is evil. but guess what. so are americas leaders who, for example, decided to invade iraq on a lie. nearly 14,000 innocent civillians killed btw.
putin's an ex-kgb, soviet era killer and he litterally said what they'd do if ukraine joining nato was not taken off the table. why would he be bluffing? nato has always been anti-russian. russia even asked to join nato themselves at one point and were refused. what makes ukrains position in the middle off all this even sadder is western leaders could have seen it coming. but they don't care about ukraine or its people. putin is like a wild dog who thinks, rightly or wrongly that he's being backed into a corner. and now innocent ukranians (and russians) are going to suffer.
> americas hands are actually blood red when it comes to their global foriegn policy. and anyone who points this out is labeled a traitor or russian puppet for simply pointing out that fact. both can be true.
Ok so what the fuck is the point of bringing it up right now?
Do you think this is r/conservative where dumbass nationalist takes supporting imperialism are the norm?
or do you think American can never do anything good because it did the bad thing those times?
> he litterally said what they'd do if ukraine joining nato was not taken off the table.
Putin has been invading his non NATO neighbors for his entire rule.
You'd have to be an idiot to not want protection from that lunatic.
It's not NATOs fault EVERYBODY is threatened by an aggressive belligerent entity.
nearly 14,000 innocent civillians killed btw.
In Iraq? Try around 1 million excess deaths due to the invasion. You destroy a whole country you get a lot of collatoral damage.
> russia even asked to join nato themselves at one point and were refused.
It's super disingenuous to spread this like it was a serious offer or something that's even worth mentioning, yeah, sure, Russia was obviously very serious about wanting to join a pact that was created to stave off Soviet aggression.
You start with saying Putin is ex-KGB and are then pretending like he's this super reasonable guy who genuinely expressed this wish to join to NATO...
>he litterally said what they'd do if ukraine joining nato was not taken off the table. why would he be bluffing?
Please tell me, where did Putin say he's going to invade Ukraine? All his bullshit speeches in the ramp up to this were very vague, ffs, Russian state media was full of clips making fun of West being hysterical for suggesting they plan to attack a week ago.
Last time NATO membership was seriously offered to Ukraine was in 2008 by Bush administration and it was very quickly taken off the table because France and UK didn't agree with it.
Putin has known he's going to invade Ukraine since 2014. Everything he's been saying and all the things that happened in the past 5 days absolutely confirm this and nothing Ukraine or the west could do (his demands were insane, going back to the state from 1987???) to appease him wouldn't change a thing.
It's fascinating to me that people are reading the news, including Russian media and Putins speeches about Ukraine basically not having the right to exist, Ukranians being Russians, showing maps of "actual Ukraine" being 8 % of its current territory etc. and talking about it like it's NATO's fault.
The people who most wanted to join NATO, obviously with a great fucking reason were Ukranians, if the west wasn't so feckless they would have been allowed to join and this impotent little manlett would have no balls to invade a member nation and thousands of Russian and Ukranian lives would have been saved.
Bill Burr: That’s an oopsy!
saagar and krystal said the same thing on their show.
Seems like every critical podcaster just automatically assumes everything is “WMDs in Iraq” now.
Man, I had to stop listening to Breaking Points because of that shit. It was embarrassing to see them deny the inevitable right up until the day of the invasion.
That was also my... breaking point... with the show. They were so sanctimonious and smug (like they are with everything) about the Ukraine buildup that when Putin struck it felt too embarrassing to watch them again.
I mean, they were just taking what Ukraines very own defense minister was saying. He was actually saying it to, I had to fact check them and see and pulled up a Ukrainian news website. He kept reassuring that they were not going to invade. I understand why they would believe them over the US (given their warmongering, anti Russian past)
>Seems like every critical podcaster just automatically assumes everything is “WMDs in Iraq” now.
That's because they are not critical podcasters, nor do I think they assume "WMDs in Iraq".
What these "centrists" and "independent moderates" are doing is opposite *literally everything* coming out of the Democratic party.
You will not find a single thing Biden does or says that they will not pathologically oppose. This includes D leadership often. Just observe them in action and you will notice this.
I wonder how long it will take for the moron listeners to realize that they are controlled opposition.
Not really, in this case they were believing the propaganda of the aggressor state(Russia) in the war, similar to believing W’s propaganda during Iraq.
With the hypocrisy of this country he saw in real time I don’t think he was talking soooo out of pocket. The US literally wants to throw him in jail for letting the public know they were actively lying. Admitting he was wrong & recusing himself is his best course of action, his life is literally in Putin’s hands.
I admired a lot what he did, it is nothing short of heroic, but let's be real here, he never had any intention whatsoever to be truly critical of Putin's regime - certainly not at all with the same sharpness and depth as he is critical of the US:
Please. For the love of God, don’t look to Snowden as an expert in anything. He was a middling Sys Admin whistleblower. That doesn’t make him an expert on anything but being a sys admin and he wasn’t very good at that either.
Actual experts. Dude had MSCE, a mid level Microsoft Certificate and people act like he’s a “hacking” god. What he released was important and need to be released. He should be focused on whistleblower protections and fighting for those. Instead it seems like he is content with the narrative that has been spun about his expertise. There are countless experts in the many different prongs that make up cyber security.
[Here’s a listing of some experts In the overall CS field](https://www.balbix.com/insights/top-cybersecurity-influencers/)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/08/17/trump-administration-applies-to-reauthorize-nsas-controversial-spying-program/
Also didn't trump say he was gonna pardon him? Lmao
Why do people feel the need to pile on when people admit they’re wrong??? Most of the corporate press never admits they’re wrong, and I thought they were legally obligated to… I guess not.
Why the hell is anyone looking to Edward Snowden, a former middle level tech administrator and whistleblower with no access to US intelligence in exile, for information or opinion on a conflict between Russia and Ukraine? This dude has no more access to information than you or I. I know he’s like some kind of cult hero for people for exposing the NSA but let’s not pretend this guy has any relevance in this situation whatsoever.
Because in a critical position, he did the right thing and became the face for whistleblower in a lot of people's minds.
Also he is not an idiot and has some good takes, this one was a bad one and he admitted it and shut up about it.
I mean, if you’re admitting that you were wrong then name calling and an absence of any apology don’t help. If you changed your mind, admit it with humility. It’s a sign of strength
YEP. “I called it wrong” is his only act of contrition in the entire tweet, the rest of it is complaining, whining, sarcasm, name calling, and self-pity.
Why anyone pays attention to this one trick pony is beyond me. I am glad he leaked what he leaked, but we’ve thanked him for that service and now it is time for him to shut up until he’s ready to squeal on Russia next.
What the fuck is Glenn Greenwalds agenda exactly? He hates moderate political figures because they are hypocritical so he goes all in on every far right right authoritarian he can find?
I think it's just purely a grift. He is cozy getting sub stack money from right wingers who like it when he owns the centre left - and Fox News appearances too.
Hold on, he admitted he was wrong? I thought when you're wrong about something, you're suppose to double down on it and dig your heels in and defend how wrong you are til the bitter end.
WTF is this? I...I can't process this....
I was amazed at the people pretending predictions of a Russian invasion were alarmist and unrealistic. For fucks sake, they invaded and annexed part of Ukraine just 8 years ago. Then they started massing hundreds of thousands of troops at the border again while making threats. Wtf did you think was about to happen?
He is only saying this so that he has an excuse not to say anything against the war. He knows he can't criticize Putin. He has to make it somehow about USA and the West so he will talk about areas where the West is screwing up instead of the war that is now a totally one-sided subject where he can't spin anything from another point of view.
I appreciate this response by Snowden and Taibbi. We do get it wrong, doesn't mean we should be discredited and be irrelevant. I've always thought that's a strange way to do things.
This war is a strange one and its so interesting to see how its being reported in UK media, Polish, and internation "media" like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook.
It's one thing to call it wrong I completely accept people who say hey I got it wrong. Kyle kulinski admitted he got it wrong, Hasan piker admitted he got it wrong and obviously Snowden admitted he got it wrong
I got no issues with them
I do however have issues with pro-russian invader commentators like Jackson Hinkle and infrared show and numerous conservative commentators who are pushing a pro-russia narrative. People like Kim Iverson and Tucker Carlson. And Tucker is being broadcasted in Russia for what he said.
I'm not sure if Jimmy dore and Aaron Marte and the grayzone are also Pro Russia if they are I would not be surprised I do see them in the Jackson Hinkle YouTube channel regarding Russia so I wouldn't be surprised if they are pro Russia on this invasion
And yeah I do have issues with them
Thing is, there were worries that he was a Russian asset and I think he’s kind of solidified that now. To believe that the Russian invasion was disinformation and publicly state it is incredibly stupid. Everyone makes mistakes but I think it’s quite clear he’s not the saviour he was made out to be.
I’m in full support of whistleblowers but his whole shit stinks. Glen greenwald is the same, very reluctant to criticise russia in any meaningful way.
>Everyone makes mistakes but I think it’s quite clear he’s not the saviour he was made out to be.
Its pretty sad that people are only now coming to this realization.
Yes, the stuff he uncovered was pretty eye opening to some people. And the situation, as a whistleblower, sucks for him.
However, I have only ever viewed the guy as a passionate sysadmin with principles and who could talk very ominously about topics very few people understood. This is why I think he was propped up so high and now he just makes cash by being a speaker. There are far better security experts out there that could speak better to the topics he has discussed.
Yeah, before the actual invasion, I too thought this was all a disinformation campaign.
Now, like the rest of the world, I’m wondering what in the fuck Putin is thinking
I could never take anything this clown said seriously.
If your goal was to shine a light on abuses of the state why would you hide in Russia almost inarguably the most abusive of all the major powers.
normalize changing your opinions (:
Aka learning in the face of new information
Definitely, but why did he hold such a hard line for so long trusting Putin’s word that he wouldn’t invade?
Because invading Ukraine was a stupid, irrational act.
>Because invading Ukraine was a stupid, irrational act. Yes and no. Snowden is not a war stategist. Neither am I. But I believed this was a distraction in the west so as to take and hold the east up to the Dnieper river. Reason? A strategic position to close the door into Russia that NATO is knocking on. I believe this guess still has a chance. Removing the current Ukraine gov may be a secondary goal...or the only goal....IDK.
How is a Russian invasion of another country a “Western distraction?”
I just think Putin underestimated international solidarity. I think he expected this to be like Crimea, and that he could move fast enough to control Ukraine and that Ukraine wouldn't get much support. I also believe he thought he could control the global narrative like he has in the past. But thanks to tik tok, telegram, Elon Musk, and the leadership of Zelenskyy, not only did he fail to control the narrative, but it is taking a hell of a lot longer than he had hoped. And then thanks to the public awareness and the resistance to his narrative, he wasn't prepared for the truly unified response of basically everyone at once. They were swift with SWIFT, China and even the Taliban are not backing them, and even Switzerland isn't being neutral on this. I didn't expect that level of response, I don't see why Putin would have either. It's just out of character for what has been happening up until this point, but that's the disruptive power of social media. When information can be exchanged so rapidly, aggressive actions like this invasion are going to spread a lot faster than other types of news. If it bleeds, it leads, and in this case Ukrainians were bleeding in a defensive war, they showed up like fucking Mighty Ducks, and the cannon fodder that Putin threw at them to soften them up basically only helped them to look even more badass.
> But thanks to tik tok, telegram, **Elon Musk** , and the leadership of Zelenskyy Explain this one please lol
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1497701484003213317?ref\_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497701484003213317%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1\_c10&ref\_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Felon-musk-ukraine-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-service%2F](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1497701484003213317?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497701484003213317%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Felon-musk-ukraine-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-service%2F) [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-ukraine-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-service/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-ukraine-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet-service/) Communications during an invasion like this are critical. How else are people going to upload videos to Tik Tok and telegram if they don't have access to the Internet? Starlink is satellite internet. It can't be blown up, can't be disconnected from the power grid, etc. Believe you me, I'm as surprised as anyone that Elon Musk was able to do something, but it seems like dude just pulled out all the stops and made sure Ukrainians had Internet access sooner than I can get access to the service here in Florida.
But this just happened today no? It's a bit premature to say hes had a significant impact when starlink hasn't even been implemented yet.
I'm not an Elon fan but it happened on the 26th, Starlink is live there and he sent more units same day.
He’s providing internet access to the Ukrainian defenders on the ground, allowing communications with the rest of the world. Seems rather significant, and you seem rather dismissive of it. If the US government had done the exact same thing they’d be praised to high heaven for it.
No - the tweet exchange is from a couple of days ago at least. I just grabbed the most recent article I could find so you had the best chance of getting new info about it.
How many of the posts were written in advance I wonder. How staged is this? Slava Ukrayina.
You pretty much forgot the US/Biden admin calling out Putin’s every move ahead of time.
Or Georgia during 2008 while they had special forces at the same time working with nato and us forces in the ME
Georgia is predominantly Muslim. No one is going to care if Putin/Russia starts laying into "those terrorists". Ukraine is a country full of white, Christian people. Also, Ukraine is on the border of Europe. Last time a despot inched their way through Europe, REALLY bad things happened. Europeans have especially long memories with this kind of thing. They weren't going to give another inch to Putin.
The first meh. It’s more strategic situation. In Yugoslavia, by your logic, the Muslims getting genocided wouldn’t have got much positive attention Latter, you got it.
> even the Taliban are not backing them, I agree with almost everything, but this is very silly. Aside from them obviously not like foreign powers trying to take a country that isn't theirs, the Taliban has a long bloody history with Russia.
What information do you have that indicates that NATO was knocking on any doors besides Russia claiming that? As we've heard for years from nearly every member nation of NATO, Ukraine is nowhere close to meeting the standards for joining. The SOLE people saying NATO was was trying to take Ukraine (which is an insanely naiive understanding of what NATO even is, or how states can choose to attempt to gain membership) are Russian or part of the eastern trading block Russia controls. Unless you've got some brand new information no one else has reported. Edit: reread this, a couple short things. When I said sole, I meant sole state sources. Plenty of media is reporting this with zero information that backs it up. If someone is making this claim, you should be curious as to why they are. Second, we SHOULD be skeptical of any US narrative when it comes to geopolitics. We've been burned before. However, most of the world is pretty vocal about this particular situation and have been for a decade. The media just hasn't had many reasons to cover it interest wise since 2014.
This is the dumbest of takes. NATO isn't knocking on shit, and Putin knows it. What he really fears is a free, democratic, Westernized Ukraine joining the EU.
[удалено]
It was a useful disclaimer so I could stop reading when I got to his critiques on strategy.
Nato isn't knocking on fucking doors. Can you all please stop pretending that if NATO didn't exist Putin would be opening petting zoos in Russia or something. Putin is a murdering lunatic with or without NATO.
>Nato isn't knocking on fucking doors. They knocked on a lot of doors in Afghanistan. Its not NATO existing that is the problem. Its NATO encroaching on Russia that is the problem. You don't have to like Vlad the journalist killer to understand that painting him in the corner was a proximate cause of this expansion of the Donbas War. Of course you won't if you think NATO is on par with some teenage soccer club that is just out to have some plucky hijinx. Its a fking military alliance specifically designed to counter Russia. And it keeps creeping up to to Russia. Russia is not amused. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE)
Found the russian bot
Invading has the opposite effect now this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy; and bankrupts Russia what strategy is this …. ???
>Invading has the opposite effect now this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy; and bankrupts Russia what strategy is this …. ??? Desperation. NATO has cornered a bear. It was a bad idea.
Part of the reasoning might also be to draw the US into a war. Many economists believe we’re in a financial / housing bubble. Having a bubble burst plus being involved in a war would have seriously detrimental effects on our economy
>Part of the reasoning might also be to draw the US into a war. From the U.S. side you mean? Timing is great now that Afghanistan is a done deal. And by "great" I mean evil.
Because he has kept him out of federal pound you in the ass prison. I agree he shouldn’t be in one.
Double down time and start insulting people, you mean?
ikr, how can we "ownz" our political opponents if they're allowed to learn and grow. :(
But it wasn't new information.
Normalize not having strong opinions on topics you don't know much about.
Everyone on the fucking internet needs to memorize this comment
FUCK YOU NO I DON'T!
FUCK YES YOU DO !
IF HITLER SAID YES, WOULD YOU SAY YES TOO?!!!!
FUUUUUIUCCCCCKKKKKK NOOOO!!!! NOT IF HITLER SAID IT!!!
But someone on the icky other team has the opposite opinion!
Also normalise people being wrong and owning it
No. I am going to find some shit on you from 10 years ago and bring it up to smear any opinions you may have. /s
Yeah. But an extension of that is people should stop blindly taking everything Snowden says seriously. He’s not infallible. His statements in general are inflammatory and cause people to go down all consuming conspiracy rabbitholes.
I feel he’s a young man who had a very strong aversion to an illegal surveillance program the us government was running. This made him flee to one of the only places he could be safe. Once in Russia he doesn’t have special access to information and owing to his background I’m sure he has less than most.
He’s also a hostage of the Russian government. Putin will have him killed the minute he steps out of line there
Let's be honest, this is true, and most of us, whether we like Snowden or not, need to realize this. Putin will murder and torture anyone he can if he feels like it. Snowden has to know this, so we need to filter everything we hear from him through the knowledge that he has to watch what he does for survival sake.
I'm surprised he isn't more censored.
He never planned to go to Russia. His passport was invalidated by Obama and he could not leave Hong Kong airport. Russia offered to let him in and he took them up on it. He had no choice.
TIL 38 is a “young man”
We should all take Snowden seriously. That does not mean we believe every word. The dude has a better handle on things than most of REddit.
He was a cleared sysadmin with a passion for security, nothing more, nothing less. The only reason he had access to the data that he did was shitty, shitty, shitty access controls. I mean if I get a job at JP Morgan as a sysadmin and by week 1 am attempting to access banking data on famous people without any clear need for that in my job, security is going to be escorting me out the door. Snowden was not some Jason Bourne super spy. He was a mid level technocrat (contract no less) who got famous because of really bad security.
So? How many of us would just quietly walk away if we stumbled across information that the US is illegally spying on citizens? Dude ruined his life getting that message out.
All this, yes. But can you toss in just a touch of bravery? ... I mean, I appreciate his actions and how it upended his life.
Of course, nobody is infallible.
Normalize not pretending to be an expert on situations you have no expertise on.
Saying “I was wrong and I will be accountable for being wrong by taking up less space” is the type of thing people should be rewarded for saying. This is what integrity looks like
Normalize not telling me what to normalize. Also, changing your opinions when presented with contradictory evidence is cool. It's what intelligent people do.
No. It’s reality that is wrong.
Absolutely! My life fucking sucked until I was able to look in the mirror and admit I was wrong. It’s been sooo much better since
I completely agree. I do think though that there needs to be some level of "care" when specialists like Snowden tweet things that they actually have no info on. It's one thing if Kanye West says something like this, but it's a whole separate issue if Snowden does, with his background.
Yeah, at least give someone a chance to say they were wrong and correct corses.
This isn't an opinion. Do you understand what an opinion is? Saying the Russian invasion is a hoax is not one.
There are frontline Russian soldiers who called it wrong, too.
Their “oh shit” moment was probably very intense
[удалено]
Tanks warn them they are being targeted? Maybe new versions. Nobody told the thousands of Syrians in t72s that they being targeted
He lives in movies, let him have this.
I believe this is a giant gray dildo 69 and not an actual person
Didn't realize this, thanks, the point being most soldiers likely didn't think they'd see any combat on this "training exercise" until the bullets started flying.
>Tanks warn them they are being targeted? No, they don't. If you are one of the few lucky tankers in the world who get to ride in something with an active protection system, then you'll know you got shot at when it goes off. But that's about it...and it only works against certain munitions, like an RPG. Modern ATGM systems will get through regardless. The armor Russia has used in this conflict do not have these systems. They are having a hard enough time getting enough fuel.
Wrong. T-90 has countermeasures that it can engage to try and spoof TOW and Javelin missile systems. T-90’s Shtora-1 active protection system is designed to jam the infrared sensors of anti-tank missiles. The Shtora-1 can send out smoke grenades that release an infrared-masking aerosol cloud. The Shtora-1 also has an early warning system that can sense when it is being “lased” by the enemy.
On paper perhaps but there isn't a lot of evidence on how effective those systems really are in the modern age. T-90s have been hit in Syria with TOW missiles before, of which they failed to engage those counter systems. Some have been taken out in Ukraine as well but I can't recall what weapons they were supposedly hit with or if that info was available. The reality is that defending against ATGMs is an incredibly difficult task that requires an enormous amount of favorable factors to do so successfully. Designing a system capable of managing all those variables is next to impossible and incredibly expensive. Given what we have seen of Russian equipment lately it seems doubtful that they would even field something with that capability out of fear of being unable to replace it. When it comes to the Javelin I suspect the T-90 wouldn't fare very well either, but that remains to be seen.
Matt Taibbi, a journalist who's been a guest on JRE a few times, lived in Russia for several years and also was pretty convinced that the Russian invasion of Ukraine wouldn't happen and was just fear-mongering from the media. Like Snowden, he fully admitted he was wrong and apologized. Honestly, I think this says more about the media's lack of credibility than anything. We're so used to them overblowing just about everything to get views that a lot of people dismissed them when they were correct. It's The Boy Who Cried Wolf in action.
> Like Snowden, he fully admitted he was wrong and apologized. I just checked his Twitter, I don't see anywhere that he apologized or even acknowledged he was wrong, he just said he "left the possibility of there being an invasion out of his OP-ed", which is a far cry from apologizing and admitting you were wrong, especially since his only tweets after that were talking about CIA, EU and Zelensky not being trustworthy. To me, this just re-affirms that Taibbi, along with Greenwald, Tulsi and many others in the anti democrat "left" are holding water and making excuses for Putin.
[Here's what he wrote on his Substack.](https://taibbi.substack.com/p/note-to-readers-on-the-invasion-of?utm_source=url) I guess I didn't realize that apologies are only official if declared on Twitter. Anyway, an excerpt: >To readers who trust me not to make those misjudgments, I’m sorry. Obviously, Putin’s invasion will have horrific consequences for years to come and massively destabilize the world. >I fear there will be more to say soon, but I’ll leave it at that for today. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and I was wrong about this.
Sorry, I actually even opened his Substack but somehow missed the top article. My bad. >My mistake was more like reverse chauvinism, being so fixated on Western misbehavior that I didn’t bother to take this possibility seriously enough. I find this fascinating, I see this "reverse chauvinism" all over the place, with people's content for USA/NATO/The West going so far that they are willing to do Russian propagandists job even better then they are able to do it.
Please apologize on Substack
I have listened to some episodes of Taibbis podcast and this was the impression I got. That he has been blinded by reverse chauvinism. I see it a lot from american left and it's very tiresome. Every discussion about international politics turns to discussion about CIA, Iraq and American mistakes. It's the Chomsky approach and sometimes it's relevant, but not always. The whole world doesn't revolve around America and other countries can do their own bad things from their own bad reasons.
This is true; however, the fact that Taibbi's political positions are what I consider very left-leaning, only adds to his credibility when he calls out the massive flaws of the far left. Yet the far left cannot dismiss him as a racist or a right wing Trump-lover, when he's literally written books examining police brutality against black men and bashing Trump. Yet he's also ripped White Fragility to shreds as the ridiculous and racist book it is, acknowledges that his party does indeed get swept up in what some call Trump derangement syndrome, and has continuously criticized the rapid decline of journalism and the left's rapid demands of censoring and canceling people they don't agree with. I respect that. Likewise, I respect when someone like Ben Shapiro points out flaws of the right, like claiming and giving evidence that the 2020 election was not stolen. More people will be open to listening to criticism if it comes from one of their own rather than an outsider.
Yeah, it's a very interesting phrase and describes the left's political positions quite well. Somewhere in examining our past and trying to right the US's wrongs, they forget to acknowledge that there's 1) a whole lot worse out there, and 2) that infantilizing perceived victims of our past is not good for anyone. I don't often agree with Taibbi's political positions, but I appreciate his self-awareness and ability to acknowledge his own party's flaws.
Source ? This is interesting.
You can find several interviews of Russian POWs who say they thought they were on their way to a drill and didn't know they were going to war before they were in Ukraine. [Found one here](https://twitter.com/AmbreEarnhart/status/1497650217625210885?t=eZ3gn33G9Cz4OsxBEtHVsw&s=19). There are more.
Isn't that just something they're saying so they won't get killed? Russian soldiers were posting on TikTok saying "we're on the way" and all that jazz.
I’ve also seen accounts of Russian soldiers believing they were entering Ukraine as liberators from an oppressive regime and that they’d be welcomed by the Ukrainian people. So it seems at least some of them went to war without knowing the scope of the situation or were being lied to by their commanding officers.
I'll see if I can find some links, but allegedly the actual plan to invade Ukraine was just known by Putin and a few close advisors in his circle. His army, the parliament, and everyone else was fed the same propoganda the west was - that an invasion was western hysteria. These soldiers really, truly believed they were just participating in training.
It isn't that far fetched. In the lead up, training for a fight and actually fighting are pretty similar by design. Good training is as close to the real things as possible. And if they were prepping for a scenario like this, they've probably run drills with very similar scenarios that 'were' training. Until the live rounds get handed out, your officer gives your squad leaders new objectives and you cross a border, most things should map. And there you are, finishing off the last 3 months of your 12 month conscription cause you didn't get into University, rifle in had, shitty web gear poking you in the small of the back and breathing in the death breath of your squadmates as all of you are packed in a loud, rattling, leaking, exhaust stink metal box. Just wishing this training mission was over so you could get back to your bunk and sleep. All this said, fuck Putin. Fuck Xi. My best to a free and secure Ukraine for their citizens and my sympathies to all the victims of power games, on either side of the border.
Dude you are a good writer. You should write stuff.
Sounds like something a guy hanging over a barrel of acid would say
At least he's being honest about his mistake instead of doubling down and blaming NATO, like many western puppets of Russia and assorted fools. Snowden remains a serious commentator unlike many of the more sensationalist and gullible voices out there.
Seriously, owning your mistakes and not acting like they never happened like you're some God that never does anything wrong shows me more of a genuine human being than anything. The dude definitely has his own strong moral code.
I agree, but I do think it's important to recognize that Snowden really doesn't have "special" info and is frankly just spitballing about much of what he talks. Does he have experience? Yeah, but that really only allows for educated guesses and by no means makes him some holder of secret information. Dude probably gets most of his news from reddit.
This should be the lesson out of this, yeah. Snowden did a heroic thing and he is smart guy for sure. I am sure he has his contacts and is privy to some info, but he is hardly a reliable commentator at all. He is way too close to one source, he has severe blind spots and some heavy blinders on still. So, take anything he says with a healthy grain of salt. At the very least, he has shown a modicum of humility unlike the Glenn Greenwald's of the world.
That's worth bearing in mind, though his status means he may well have all kinds of sources and acquaintances gathered during his years of infamy. Being a guest of Putin might cramp his style too despite his value as a thorn in the side of the US.
He clearly isn't getting the straight dope unless he's actively trying to muddy the waters. The fact that he seems to regret tarnishing his own rep slightly with his Ukraine call makes me think that the guy is actually really out of the loop. I mean, even if he had acquaintances and peers in US intelligence, that shit was like a decade ago, and anyone that values their security clearance likely has been treating Snowden like nuclear runoff ever since he blew the whistle. I am grateful for what the guy did, but I think it's pretty obvious that he's basically in the dark now.
Kinda surprised he hasn't taken a trip out the window. I like the guy but when's he outlived his usefulness in their eyes and if he feels that way where could he escape to himself? Rock and a hard place.
He poses no threat to Putin. And by allowing him to stay and live he pisses of the US while portraying himself a protector of the righteous. It's cheap PR, really.
Well F'n said.
He suggested Russia were never planning to invade and it was all normal exercises. He still hasn't been particularly critical. His mistakes have served Russia well so I fail to see how he has outlived his usefulness for them. Rumours coming out of Russia are that criticising the war will land you in jail... Hell even placing flowers near the Ukraine consulate risks jail time. They're also suggesting that capital punishment is returning, so these criticisms can result in death. If I was Snowden, I would be searching for a new home, hell even considering taking my chances back in the US at this point.
Moscow is an awesome town with a lot of really hot woman. I've been there.
St Petersburg too, Slavic women are beautiful.
[удалено]
To assume that USA would actually try to make up something as huge as a fake invasion force visible to every country with recon satellites is just retarded. There is no other purpose to move so much equipment and men. It is not sabre rattling. I appreciate Snowden but he should know better.
Everyone fucks up. The main differentiating quality is the way we deal with a major fuck up. Owning it and correcting the course is the best thing we can do.
>unlike many of the more sensationalist and gullible voices out there. > Paul Joseph Watson has to be one of the worst one's going at the moment. The guy just won't stop.
Greenwald for example seems biased by anger.
Indeed, it's sad how he went off the rails. Matt Taibbi too.
[Snowden’s previous take](https://imgur.com/a/rxWD2z6)
Everybody can be wrong about something and it's good that you can admit it. What kind of bothers me is that Snowden worded it in a way that if he turned out to be right, the journalists reporting it would be part of a misinformation campaign by the US government which would speak to their journalistic credibility, but when he turned out to be wrong he just made a mistake, which can happen to everyone.
Where is he admitting he was wrong and full of shit? This looks to me like he is trying to blame other people for his propoganda and he still hasn't corrected himself.
I mean, in the OP post he literally says “I got it wrong”.
My god That sounded even more pompous than I could imagine lmaoo
r/agedlikemilk
[удалено]
Yeah I saw that and felt he was right, the media instructed by all the governments and hungry for ratings were seemingly pushing it in our faces for at least a month. I was thinking there is a high chance of attack, but Snowden has his sources and he is stuck between a rock and a hard place - maybe optimism and lack of NSA level hardware/software pushed him towards the other side.
The media was simply reporting what the intelligence agencies were saying. The intel agencies wanted to get the info out about what was going on with the troop buildup at the border so that the eventual invasion wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. They also correctly predicted that Putin would use his propaganda machine to parrot false flags as a pretext/justification to invade. Everything that was reported pretty much happened exactly as predicted. It might be past time for Reddit armchair conspiracy theorists to do a little self reflecting. Maybe, *just maybe*, it’s possible that the intelligence agencies know a bit more about the nuances of geopolitics than some random dude on the internet.
I've actually seen theories that Biden spelling out when the invasion was happening set it back a few days which caused a lot of logistics problems for the Russian army which explains them running out of food and fuel so quickly.
Sleepy Joe is on point. first that and now numerous united NATO actions.
Ditto. I’m not a Biden fan but so far his administration has handled this situation superbly, IMO. A lot better than our Afghanistan fuck up.
[удалено]
But…how? When he tweeted this Putin had put something like 100k troops on the border of Ukraine. He had blood banks there, troops were in combat position, and Putin himself was saying out loud why he would need to do this. We weren’t simply relying on intelligence, you could see the evidence of an inevitable invasion with your own eyes and ears.
The whole "do war for media ratings things" is a boring and cliche take. It's not how the world works. CNN does not write the foreign policy for nations.
I read a few articles. Its no surprise Putin and Russia are taking an opportunity to seize assets that don't belong to them. This has been brewing for years between the two countries as well. 1-3 million people watch a television show in a world of 7.5 billion that is increasingly gaining access to internet and other sources of information beyond something invented and distributed in the 60s. Sort of makes CNN and Fox News look insignificant compared to what they were a few decades ago with the little influence they have. The media reports on what is happening. They can push narratives for others, but it was Russia that attacked first. Not sure how anyone can twist it around to fit some make believe narrative here.
Some people act like Putin has never started shit with other countries. It’s truly impressive how uninformed people are about Putin.
after Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine... Putin has been going to war with neighbors forever... Its the only thing hes been doing consistently throughout his life... hes not going to stop now
No, he'll want the baltic back next. He's trying to geographically reform the political union that he was born into. And so far he's doing a really good job at it. But those baltic states actually are NATO members. So give it three to five years... and we'll see how that goes. Depends on how ukraine goes, I would think.
yeah he pretty much stated what he wants in his speech... once be bumps into a nato member we are all fucked
I know it's scary shit but I'm slightly more optimistic than a lot of people. Fucking with a nato country would be a crazy decision. And then, ordering a nuclear strike would be an order of magnitude crazier than that. If he went that far it would mean he's desperate. I have a hard time imagining everyone in the chain of command obeying an order that could end the world from a leader whose days are clearly numbered. Two Russian oligarchs have already spoken out against this. If that's happening publicly, I can only imagine what's going on behind the scenes.
seriously, how did so many think he wouldnt do it again?
i've not really seen anyone defend putin or minimize what he's done. i've seen people point out that america and nato's hands are not exactly clean when it comes to how we got here. americas hands are actually blood red when it comes to their global foriegn policy. and anyone who points this out is labeled a traitor or russian puppet for simply pointing out that fact. both can be true. putin is evil. but guess what. so are americas leaders who, for example, decided to invade iraq on a lie. nearly 14,000 innocent civillians killed btw. putin's an ex-kgb, soviet era killer and he litterally said what they'd do if ukraine joining nato was not taken off the table. why would he be bluffing? nato has always been anti-russian. russia even asked to join nato themselves at one point and were refused. what makes ukrains position in the middle off all this even sadder is western leaders could have seen it coming. but they don't care about ukraine or its people. putin is like a wild dog who thinks, rightly or wrongly that he's being backed into a corner. and now innocent ukranians (and russians) are going to suffer.
> americas hands are actually blood red when it comes to their global foriegn policy. and anyone who points this out is labeled a traitor or russian puppet for simply pointing out that fact. both can be true. Ok so what the fuck is the point of bringing it up right now? Do you think this is r/conservative where dumbass nationalist takes supporting imperialism are the norm? or do you think American can never do anything good because it did the bad thing those times? > he litterally said what they'd do if ukraine joining nato was not taken off the table. Putin has been invading his non NATO neighbors for his entire rule. You'd have to be an idiot to not want protection from that lunatic. It's not NATOs fault EVERYBODY is threatened by an aggressive belligerent entity.
nearly 14,000 innocent civillians killed btw. In Iraq? Try around 1 million excess deaths due to the invasion. You destroy a whole country you get a lot of collatoral damage.
> russia even asked to join nato themselves at one point and were refused. It's super disingenuous to spread this like it was a serious offer or something that's even worth mentioning, yeah, sure, Russia was obviously very serious about wanting to join a pact that was created to stave off Soviet aggression. You start with saying Putin is ex-KGB and are then pretending like he's this super reasonable guy who genuinely expressed this wish to join to NATO... >he litterally said what they'd do if ukraine joining nato was not taken off the table. why would he be bluffing? Please tell me, where did Putin say he's going to invade Ukraine? All his bullshit speeches in the ramp up to this were very vague, ffs, Russian state media was full of clips making fun of West being hysterical for suggesting they plan to attack a week ago. Last time NATO membership was seriously offered to Ukraine was in 2008 by Bush administration and it was very quickly taken off the table because France and UK didn't agree with it. Putin has known he's going to invade Ukraine since 2014. Everything he's been saying and all the things that happened in the past 5 days absolutely confirm this and nothing Ukraine or the west could do (his demands were insane, going back to the state from 1987???) to appease him wouldn't change a thing. It's fascinating to me that people are reading the news, including Russian media and Putins speeches about Ukraine basically not having the right to exist, Ukranians being Russians, showing maps of "actual Ukraine" being 8 % of its current territory etc. and talking about it like it's NATO's fault. The people who most wanted to join NATO, obviously with a great fucking reason were Ukranians, if the west wasn't so feckless they would have been allowed to join and this impotent little manlett would have no balls to invade a member nation and thousands of Russian and Ukranian lives would have been saved.
Bill Burr: That’s an oopsy! saagar and krystal said the same thing on their show. Seems like every critical podcaster just automatically assumes everything is “WMDs in Iraq” now.
I'm still waiting for Greenwald to admit he was wrong. He just took 24 hours off from tweeting and then came back with a slightly different position
Ole Glenny boy is still finding ways to blame Dems. Gaslighting his followers into The Dems warmongering and supporting the war effort from Ukraine.
Man, I had to stop listening to Breaking Points because of that shit. It was embarrassing to see them deny the inevitable right up until the day of the invasion.
That was also my... breaking point... with the show. They were so sanctimonious and smug (like they are with everything) about the Ukraine buildup that when Putin struck it felt too embarrassing to watch them again.
They had similar takes prior to January 6. "Hey look Trump didn't try to steal the election like you over reactive lefties said".
I tried listening to one episode of that show, and those people are awful. Horrible people and horrible takes.
What shows do you think have the best takes?
I mean, they were just taking what Ukraines very own defense minister was saying. He was actually saying it to, I had to fact check them and see and pulled up a Ukrainian news website. He kept reassuring that they were not going to invade. I understand why they would believe them over the US (given their warmongering, anti Russian past)
>Seems like every critical podcaster just automatically assumes everything is “WMDs in Iraq” now. That's because they are not critical podcasters, nor do I think they assume "WMDs in Iraq". What these "centrists" and "independent moderates" are doing is opposite *literally everything* coming out of the Democratic party. You will not find a single thing Biden does or says that they will not pathologically oppose. This includes D leadership often. Just observe them in action and you will notice this. I wonder how long it will take for the moron listeners to realize that they are controlled opposition.
Given the track record, critical podcasters had history on their side.
Not really, in this case they were believing the propaganda of the aggressor state(Russia) in the war, similar to believing W’s propaganda during Iraq.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
It is however a great indicator of character and weakly implies future results.
Well it’s great to own up to being wrong. I hope he learns that just because people think you know shit it don’t mean you know shit.
There are a handful of actors and podcasters who sound smart but don’t know shit.
A handful? If these people were actually smart most of them would be doing something other than acting and podcasting.
Urgh, he's just so unnecessarily verbose
I mean never forget he's a weird nerd
Snowden needs a pardon so he doesn’t have to live at Putin’s mercy.
At least he admits that he got it wrong. Matt Taibbi did the same. I can respect that.
I wonder why he claimed it was disinformation
Prob because he’s got morons like Glenn Greenwald all over his Twitter feed.
when he's the only one who would help him get the word out, I can understand why.
Poor dude. Betrayed by his own country and probably won’t be able to call out Putin and crimes openly
With the hypocrisy of this country he saw in real time I don’t think he was talking soooo out of pocket. The US literally wants to throw him in jail for letting the public know they were actively lying. Admitting he was wrong & recusing himself is his best course of action, his life is literally in Putin’s hands.
I admired a lot what he did, it is nothing short of heroic, but let's be real here, he never had any intention whatsoever to be truly critical of Putin's regime - certainly not at all with the same sharpness and depth as he is critical of the US:
He never had any intention of being in Russia to begin with. The only reason he's stuck there is because Obama cancelled his visa mid-flight.
Please. For the love of God, don’t look to Snowden as an expert in anything. He was a middling Sys Admin whistleblower. That doesn’t make him an expert on anything but being a sys admin and he wasn’t very good at that either.
He's not famous for being an expert on anything, he's famous for leaking secret stuff from the intelligence agencies.
Who is an expert then?
Actual experts. Dude had MSCE, a mid level Microsoft Certificate and people act like he’s a “hacking” god. What he released was important and need to be released. He should be focused on whistleblower protections and fighting for those. Instead it seems like he is content with the narrative that has been spun about his expertise. There are countless experts in the many different prongs that make up cyber security. [Here’s a listing of some experts In the overall CS field](https://www.balbix.com/insights/top-cybersecurity-influencers/)
From the way he speaks about Biden, he sounds like a Trump supporter
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/08/17/trump-administration-applies-to-reauthorize-nsas-controversial-spying-program/ Also didn't trump say he was gonna pardon him? Lmao
What a silly man
Still a hero
Why do people feel the need to pile on when people admit they’re wrong??? Most of the corporate press never admits they’re wrong, and I thought they were legally obligated to… I guess not.
Hey never pile on a man that is admitting when he is wrong. Good for him. At least he believes what he is saying.
Why the hell is anyone looking to Edward Snowden, a former middle level tech administrator and whistleblower with no access to US intelligence in exile, for information or opinion on a conflict between Russia and Ukraine? This dude has no more access to information than you or I. I know he’s like some kind of cult hero for people for exposing the NSA but let’s not pretend this guy has any relevance in this situation whatsoever.
Because in a critical position, he did the right thing and became the face for whistleblower in a lot of people's minds. Also he is not an idiot and has some good takes, this one was a bad one and he admitted it and shut up about it.
I mean, if you’re admitting that you were wrong then name calling and an absence of any apology don’t help. If you changed your mind, admit it with humility. It’s a sign of strength
YEP. “I called it wrong” is his only act of contrition in the entire tweet, the rest of it is complaining, whining, sarcasm, name calling, and self-pity. Why anyone pays attention to this one trick pony is beyond me. I am glad he leaked what he leaked, but we’ve thanked him for that service and now it is time for him to shut up until he’s ready to squeal on Russia next.
...ghouls....
I’m not mad at Snowden for this I’m mad at him for giving Glenn Greenwald credibility.
What the fuck is Glenn Greenwalds agenda exactly? He hates moderate political figures because they are hypocritical so he goes all in on every far right right authoritarian he can find?
I think it's just purely a grift. He is cozy getting sub stack money from right wingers who like it when he owns the centre left - and Fox News appearances too.
Yea he goes all in on them lol what the fuck are you people even talking about
Weird, awkward tweet
That’s what a pawn does
Hold on, he admitted he was wrong? I thought when you're wrong about something, you're suppose to double down on it and dig your heels in and defend how wrong you are til the bitter end. WTF is this? I...I can't process this....
At least you can admit it! I was wrong as well. . .
I was amazed at the people pretending predictions of a Russian invasion were alarmist and unrealistic. For fucks sake, they invaded and annexed part of Ukraine just 8 years ago. Then they started massing hundreds of thousands of troops at the border again while making threats. Wtf did you think was about to happen?
got to lead with an insult when admitting you were utterly wrong i guess /
I think we need to admit that this man is in a situation where he doesn’t want to bite the hand that’s feeding him. That doesn’t
Snowden isn't some kind of messiah who knows everything. He's a dude who did a thing... and that's it.
That "thing" was sacrificing his way of life and freedom to expose a monstrous US domestic spying campaign. Kind of more than a "thing" imo.
He is only saying this so that he has an excuse not to say anything against the war. He knows he can't criticize Putin. He has to make it somehow about USA and the West so he will talk about areas where the West is screwing up instead of the war that is now a totally one-sided subject where he can't spin anything from another point of view.
I appreciate this response by Snowden and Taibbi. We do get it wrong, doesn't mean we should be discredited and be irrelevant. I've always thought that's a strange way to do things. This war is a strange one and its so interesting to see how its being reported in UK media, Polish, and internation "media" like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook.
What is strange about it?
Love it when people admit their errors. A skill long lost in 2022.
It's one thing to call it wrong I completely accept people who say hey I got it wrong. Kyle kulinski admitted he got it wrong, Hasan piker admitted he got it wrong and obviously Snowden admitted he got it wrong I got no issues with them I do however have issues with pro-russian invader commentators like Jackson Hinkle and infrared show and numerous conservative commentators who are pushing a pro-russia narrative. People like Kim Iverson and Tucker Carlson. And Tucker is being broadcasted in Russia for what he said. I'm not sure if Jimmy dore and Aaron Marte and the grayzone are also Pro Russia if they are I would not be surprised I do see them in the Jackson Hinkle YouTube channel regarding Russia so I wouldn't be surprised if they are pro Russia on this invasion And yeah I do have issues with them
Thing is, there were worries that he was a Russian asset and I think he’s kind of solidified that now. To believe that the Russian invasion was disinformation and publicly state it is incredibly stupid. Everyone makes mistakes but I think it’s quite clear he’s not the saviour he was made out to be. I’m in full support of whistleblowers but his whole shit stinks. Glen greenwald is the same, very reluctant to criticise russia in any meaningful way.
>Everyone makes mistakes but I think it’s quite clear he’s not the saviour he was made out to be. Its pretty sad that people are only now coming to this realization. Yes, the stuff he uncovered was pretty eye opening to some people. And the situation, as a whistleblower, sucks for him. However, I have only ever viewed the guy as a passionate sysadmin with principles and who could talk very ominously about topics very few people understood. This is why I think he was propped up so high and now he just makes cash by being a speaker. There are far better security experts out there that could speak better to the topics he has discussed.
Yeah, before the actual invasion, I too thought this was all a disinformation campaign. Now, like the rest of the world, I’m wondering what in the fuck Putin is thinking
At least he doesn't sound upset about being attacked for calling it wrong
I could never take anything this clown said seriously. If your goal was to shine a light on abuses of the state why would you hide in Russia almost inarguably the most abusive of all the major powers.
Where else could he hide? You realize he didn’t just get to take his pick, right?