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Snowden's Oath Was to the Constitution! Not the Government!

Submitted by HPI on Mon, 11/04/2013 - 21:25

Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, nails it!

CNN host Erin Burnett and guest Bob Baer, CNN national security analyst and former CIA operative, felt differently, but when McGovern said Edward Snowden took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution, not the U.S. government, the two backed down.

Baer says what many other people are saying or thinking, that by going to "China" and Russia, Snowden looks like a defector. This betrays low information on Baer's part. First of all, it's far more accurate to say that Snowden went to Hong Kong, not China. Hong Kong still upholds the freedoms introduced to it as a British colony, even though the U.K. backstabbed its people and handed it over to China in 1997. As part of the handover agreement with the U.K., China promised to protect the rights and freedoms of the Hong Kong people for at least 50 years. While those rights and freedoms may not be quite as good as when Hong Kong was a British colony, Hong Kong is still considered by many as one of the top areas in the world for personal freedom. So Bob is showing his ignorance, although one can hardly expect a typical American to be aware of the preceding facts.

However, Snowden, dissed by many as a "high school dropout," was aware of the comparatively favorable political situation in Hong Kong prior to flying there from Hawaii, although the former British colony's subsequent refusal to grant him asylum must have been a disappointment.

As for Snowden appearing to defect to Russia, have those people who say or think that forgotten or never learned that he was forced to stay in Russia because the U.S. government revoked his passport and refused to allow him to fly over other countries to get to where he really wanted to go to seek asylum, which was rumored in the news to be South America? The U.S. even showed its ugly nature for all to see by forcing down the Bolivian president's plane in Europe, thinking that Edward Snowden was on board. In fear of the powerful U.S., countries around the world were unwilling to offer Snowden asylum. Even Ecuador, which is sheltering WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange in its London embassy, backed down on its asylum offer to Snowden after a phone call to Ecuador's President Rafael Correa from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. Where could Snowden, who was marooned at the time at a Moscow airport, which he had intended as a brief stopover on his way to asylum in another country, have gone after that?

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