Edward Snowden: heel or hero?

[JimC]

It's not for Putin to decide his passport status, he has not entered Russia. Hong Kong decided. The next decision is the airline that takes him.

Snowden has a US passport. The US revoked it. It's not a good passport anymore. He may get through, he may not. He also has to have a visa to enter most countries. If he tried to go to a visa waiver country, they'd run his passport through the computer thingy and deny him.

Like peoploe applying for political refugee status need passports...

He's not a refugee.

He might be an asylee. Ecuador is evaluating an asylum request now, I believe.

Is asylee a word?

[klr]

...

Is asylee a word?

I guess it is now ...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/25/politics/nsa-leak

Putin says Snowden is a free man at the airport in Moscow.

LOL -- Snowden, who doesn't have a valid passport anymore, is a free man at the airport. Where can he go? He could only board a plane if the Russian government said it was o.k.

So, there he is. Russia says, there he is, and he can go where he wants, but he can't go where he wants because he doesn't have travel documents. I bet they got his credit cards canceled, so he probably has limited funds, although he must have planned for that.

What's he do? What is Russia going to ask for? They obviously can hand him over whenever they like -- what's the hold-up?

Wasn't there some stateless person years ago who lived at an airport (Paris, maybe?) for months because no country would take him in?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri

[pErvinalia]

Wasn't he the one the Tom Hanks movie was based on?

[JimC]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/25/politics/nsa-leak

Putin says Snowden is a free man at the airport in Moscow.

LOL -- Snowden, who doesn't have a valid passport anymore, is a free man at the airport. Where can he go? He could only board a plane if the Russian government said it was o.k.

So, there he is. Russia says, there he is, and he can go where he wants, but he can't go where he wants because he doesn't have travel documents. I bet they got his credit cards canceled, so he probably has limited funds, although he must have planned for that.

What's he do? What is Russia going to ask for? They obviously can hand him over whenever they like -- what's the hold-up?

Wasn't there some stateless person years ago who lived at an airport (Paris, maybe?) for months because no country would take him in?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri

Thanks, XC!

Ratz is my portable memory!

[Mysturji]

I heard this song once about a country which at the end said "home of the brave and land of the free" He should go there, that place sounds great, if you ignore the whole war hymn part.

Wasn't that song based on the war where the US invaded the British territory/colony that they called Upper CanadaCanada so in retaliation for British attacks on US forces such as the HMS Leopard's unjustified attack on the USS Chesapeake in US waters, British illegal trade restrictions against US shipping, British impressment (enslavement) of US citizens to serve on British warships by boarding and kidnapping people, British instigation and arming of Indian tribes to initiate raids on American civilians, the british burnt down the capital, but ultimately the war was fought to a stalemate, and the Canadians never stop pretending that it was a Canadian war and not a British war?

Well, if you're going to be PICKY...

On the other hand, invading Upper Canada because Britain pissed you off... let's just say it would make as much sense if Iran invaded Puerto Rico.

[Coito ergo sum]

It's not for Putin to decide his passport status, he has not entered Russia. Hong Kong decided. The next decision is the airline that takes him.

Snowden has a US passport. The US revoked it. It's not a good passport anymore. He may get through, he may not. He also has to have a visa to enter most countries. If he tried to go to a visa waiver country, they'd run his passport through the computer thingy and deny him.

Like peoploe applying for political refugee status need passports...

He's not a refugee.

He might be an asylee. Ecuador is evaluating an asylum request now, I believe.

Is asylee a word?

Yes.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/ ... 2ca60aRCRD

[Coito ergo sum]

I heard this song once about a country which at the end said "home of the brave and land of the free" He should go there, that place sounds great, if you ignore the whole war hymn part.

Wasn't that song based on the war where the US invaded the British territory/colony that they called Upper CanadaCanada so in retaliation for British attacks on US forces such as the HMS Leopard's unjustified attack on the USS Chesapeake in US waters, British illegal trade restrictions against US shipping, British impressment (enslavement) of US citizens to serve on British warships by boarding and kidnapping people, British instigation and arming of Indian tribes to initiate raids on American civilians, the british burnt down the capital, but ultimately the war was fought to a stalemate, and the Canadians never stop pretending that it was a Canadian war and not a British war?

Well, if you're going to be PICKY...

On the other hand, invading Upper Canada because Britain pissed you off... let's just say it would make as much sense if Iran invaded Puerto Rico.

Not when Upper Canada is part of the UK. You do what you are able to do. What were going to do? Invade England?

[Mysturji]

Well, if you're going to be PICKY...

On the other hand, invading Upper Canada because Britain pissed you off... let's just say it would make as much sense if Iran invaded Puerto Rico.

Not when Upper Canada is part of the UK. You do what you are able to do. What were going to do? Invade England?

I see your point.
No sense in travelling so far to get repelled when you can do it so much closer to home.

[Tyrannical]

Announcing the whole spying operation is one thing, but what kind of data does he have on those four laptops he had with him? You know the Chinese and Russians have already made discrete copies

[Coito ergo sum]

Well, if you're going to be PICKY...

On the other hand, invading Upper Canada because Britain pissed you off... let's just say it would make as much sense if Iran invaded Puerto Rico.

Not when Upper Canada is part of the UK. You do what you are able to do. What were going to do? Invade England?

I see your point.
No sense in travelling so far to get repelled when you can do it so much closer to home.

Hey that's no insult. At the time, the UK was the most powerful nation on the planet, followed by France, and then distant thirds and fourths like Spain, Portugal, Holland, Russia and other colonial powers. The US was a brand new country, barely 35 years old, and fresh from having become the first, and I think only, country to have gained independence by forcing the UK to surrender in a war.

At the time, the US was experiencing growing pains, and it was a saying by some at the time that the US had won the revolution, but still had to fight a war for independence. Our navy was not as good as GB's -- we were a smaller country, then, confined mostly to the eastern seaboard. We had no real standing army, and no real experience fighting wars other than the revolutionary war in 1770s and 80s, and a skirmish in Libya.

The fact that we defeated the GB in the American revolution, followed by a stalemate in the War of 1812, is itself a monumental testament to the Americans at the time. Nobody else in the world stood up to the Brits. The Brits beat everyone else, except us.

If that's a defeat, then I'll be happy with it.

[Clinton Huxley]

That's because you were, basically, Brits. Took Brits to stop Brits.

[Coito ergo sum]

That's because you were, basically, Brits. Took Brits to stop Brits.

Brits with balls.

[Clinton Huxley]

That's because you were, basically, Brits. Took Brits to stop Brits.

Brits with balls.

And help from powers 2 and 3.

[Coito ergo sum]

That's because you were, basically, Brits. Took Brits to stop Brits.

Brits with balls.

And help from powers 2 and 3.

Meh -- if the Brits are going to lease soldiers from various German states allied with the Hanoverian tyrant, then I would think it wouldn't be considered dirty pool for the rag-tag, uncouth, hayseed Americans to seek out some alliances of their own. Remember, "He [wa]s at th[at]time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries [Germans] to compleat [sic] the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation." - Declaration of Independence.

The Continental Army at its height had about 15,000 or so active men. Frederick II of Hessen-Kassel sent like 16,000 troops to the fight and the Brits had far more than that of their own, and they enlisted various Indian tribes to fight against the Merkins. They even taught the injuns to scalp. Another German state Hessen-Hanau donated like 3,000 troops. Brunswick sent about 4,000 troops and Ansbach-Beyeuth or some such duchy or another in Germany sent some thousands too.

And then other places like Hanover sent troops to relieve British battalions in Gibralter and other places so more Brit troops could be sent to Merka.

..