I might be missing something, but it seems the only reason that Russia has much of any leverage on him now is specifically because we are persecuting him in the first place?

https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-kgb-spy-the-russians-tric...

Like, to the extent to which an early plan to target him was a success, it involved a critical later step where the United States goes on a hunt for Snowden, allowing Russia the ability to later get him stuck there and under their control... delete that part and I am unsure what the plan would have been.

I'd claim the reality of the morality here is that we should not have to rely on the awkward motives of some enemy intelligence agency to target people and maneuver them into doing something good because, in our zeal to prevent something good, we do bad things that allow them to get an indirect benefit that results in something bad.

He fled to the country with directions from russia before releasing the classified Intel.

Nonsense. He gave the material to Greenwald and a Guardian journalist in Hong Kong. He stayed in Hong Kong for a while, and when it became apparent that he could not go to other countries he went to Russia.

Whether the Guardian published the info after that is irrelevant. Also note that Greenwald asked him to publish anonymously, which Snowden declined.

Anyway, the U.S. could pardon him and he would go back.

All these armchair whistleblowers here are mindblowing.

> Nonsense. He gave the material to Greenwald and a Guardian journalist in Hong Kong. He stayed in Hong Kong for a while, and when it became apparent that he could not go to other countries he went to Russia.

Is that just another way of saying he fled the country before releasing the stolen intelligence?

Sometimes you live in Russia if you have no other options.

Vindman didn't flee to Russia, he also didn't get tricked by a foreign nation. He's a real whistleblower.

Vindman lied to advance the interests of the security state, which attempted for more than four years to get rid of an elected official. The only difference is unlike all the endless parade of false “anonymous official says this”, Vindman was exposed, and his report was not just false but widely reported to be so, unlike many of the others.

That’s not whistleblowing. It’s a (high ranking) government agent attempting to use his power to manipulate the public for the security state (literally one of the elite as a member of the National Security Council) and in opposition to democratic processes. Once again: a government agent “whistleblew” a lie in an attempt to bring down an elected official.

NB: this comment is not an endorsement of the elected official.

Edit: I just learned today that Vindman was born in Ukraine, which also rather changes the color of his “whistleblowing.”

Was this before or after working with pizzagate?