Actual Former Government Official Makes Totally Ridiculous Argument That Snowden's 'Harms' Are That Other Countries Are Angry

from the this-person-worked-in-our-government? dept

Sometimes you have to wonder about people who hold government positions and the absolutely ludicrous statements they make. Following Ed Snowden's big NBC interview, NBC apparently asked former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, to respond to Snowden's pretty convincing claims that all the hand-wringing about "harms" he caused have no basis in fact. In the interview, Snowden points out, accurately, that no one has yet been able to show a single individual harmed by the revelations. McFaul then makes what may be the single dumbest statement we've heard to date on this whole debate, arguing that the "harm" is that other countries now trust us less -- and that this is somehow Snowden's fault, rather than, you know, the fault of the NSA which is doing the surveillance:

But Michael McFaul, who left the ambassadorship earlier this year to teach at Stanford University, said that the revelations had damaged American diplomatic relationships with friendly countries who were upset by National Security Agency surveillance.

“That’s damage to the United States,” McFaul said. “If you’re a patriot, you don’t want to damage our relationships with our allies.”

Let me get this straight. Based on this line of thinking, we'd actually all be better off if the US media were entirely being censored and/or silent about Putin's actions in Crimea and Ukraine (and Russia), because knowing what he's doing probably makes the US trust Russia less. I'd think McFaul would recognize how silly that argument is in that context, and yet he seems to make it with the US. Similarly, we're better off not knowing about other countries spying on us?

Hell, earlier this week, we wrote about former CIA director and Defense Secretary Robert Gates revealing that our allies, the French, are almost as sophisticated as the Chinese in hacking the computers of American businessmen. Based on McFaul's ridiculous logic, Gates is no patriot and has "damaged diplomatic relationships with friendly countries" because he revealed questionable activities of the French intelligence agency.

It is downright idiotic to suggest that the revealing of misdeeds is the reason for any harm, rather than the misdeeds themselves. And yet this guy was our leading ambassador to Russia and is now a Stanford professor. And he doesn't seem to understand the difference between wrongdoing and revealing wrongdoing. Incredible. And disturbing.

Filed Under: diplomacy, ed snowden, harm, michael mcfaul, nsa, russia, surveillance