Posted on 06/12/2013 1:58:38 PM PDT by servo1969
NSA leaker Ed Snowden claimed to have broken both of his legs while training for Special Forces.
"In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join the Special Forces. Invoking the same principles that he now cites to justify his leaks, he said: "I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression"."
That is simply not true as the statement from the Special Warfare Center & School below clearly points out.
"Snowden was never a student at SWCS. He broke his legs while at Fort Benning. His intent was to enter the X-ray program – but that never happened and would not have happened because he only had a GED. Hope this helps.
Janice Burton
Deputy
Office of Strategic Communications"
The 18 X-ray program is a way to go directly from the street to the Special Forces course. You first would attend basic and advanced individual training and then airborne school. Upon successful conclusion of those you head to Bragg for some prep training and the Special Forces Assessment and Selection course. If you pass all of those, then and only then do you start Special Forces training.
Mr. Snowden wasn't even eligible for this program as he didn't even graduate from High School. So the claim that he broke his legs in Special Forces training is BS and that makes him a poseur. Well actually not even a poseur, he claimed to be training to be SF, so that makes him a poseur wannabe, or a wannabe poseur. I'm not real sure how the semantics of that work out. But either way, not really a great way to build credibility. He also made this claim that never rang true when I first read it.
"He recounted how his beliefs about the war's purpose were quickly dispelled. "Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone," he said."
Right, so the people who weren't training you for Special Forces also happened to be knuckle-dragging troglodytes who were simply looking for a chance to go smoke some A-Rabs. Well I'm not buying it Eddie. I ran into plenty of your types in the military, disaffected losers who never actually finish anything but always have a bucket-load of excuses and who were always whining about how the system sucks. They were never responsible for their own failures, it was always oppression by the man. They were just too smart for the fools running things to recognize their brilliance. Sound familiar? They were also all varying flavors of bats**t as well. Check out Ed's spymaster tradecraft.
"WASHINGTON — The source had instructed his media contacts to come to Hong Kong, visit a particular out-of-the-way corner of a certain hotel, and ask — loudly — for directions to another part of the hotel. If all seemed well, the source would walk past holding a Rubik’s Cube."
A Rubik's Cube, now there is a really good way to remain nondescript. Or this bit of counter-surveillance expertise.
"He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them."
A red hood? Even the writer who is taking in all of this BS and peddling it to the public is making fun of you dude. Why do I get the feeling Ed also had a ninja outfit and throwing stars?
Whether or not Ed has any information that the government was doing illegal or even improper things is a completely separate discussion. The fact that Ed is a BS-peddling wannabe poseur is now established and ought to be taken into account when judging his words and actions.
UPDATE: Jonn Lilyea at This Aint Hell is also looking at the other things about Snowden that seem to have an air of barnyard ordure about them and had a pretty good idea the PNG wasn't in the Q course earlier this week.
Is a news story an adequate reason for the military to release medical information for an individual? Under HIPAA I can’t get my mother’s medical records without a signed release. I guess Sebelius said it was OK since it served the regime.
He graduated high school and attended a community college.
That's exactly why most of us have little to fear. But I have stated that Obama is a POS and I've had black helicopters fly over my house; once yesterday and twice so far today.
My favorite was the one that went something like this:
Sergeant Airborne - "If your reserve parachute fails to deploy, do not panic. With your left hand, grasp the left carrying handle. With your right hand, form a knife cutting edge. Sweep up and away on the bottom of the reserve parachute. This should cause the reserve to deploy. If it does not deploy on the first attempt, repeat that motion until it does."
Me - "Sergeant Airborne, ... how long do you have to get the reserve to deploy?"
Sergeant Airborne (grinning) - "Airborne, you have the rest of your life."
A) Quote please.
B) Who cares.
C) Is what he said about the NSA incorrect?
Roberts had some kind of funny dealings as to his adopted children. I have at times wondered if there was some legal situation involving money or lies or whatever that is hanging over his head. If so he is not an honorable person as to keeping his position or hiding any such facts and should resign. I know this would give Obama another load for the Court and perhaps Roberts does want to avoid such a case.
He never said he was in the Special Forces....and as far as the GED thing.....could be one of two things. His recruiter neglected to mention that requirement and/or he thought an exception could be made for his special skills. Who knows. People are picking apart little details that could be interpreted one way or another and saying....see...see he was lieing.
Three things... dezinformatsia from Ms Janice Burton
That is simply not true as the statement from the Special Warfare Center & School below clearly points out.Snowden was accurate if sparse in that section of his CV"Snowden was never a student at SWCS. He broke his legs while at Fort Benning. His intent was to enter the X-ray program – but that never happened and would not have happened because he only had a GED. Hope this helps.
Janice Burton
Burton starts with misleading irrelevant info, and finishes on lie
From 18X - Special Forces Enlistment Option (Page 2)
(10) Must be a high school graduate or have a general equivalency diploma (GED).
But that is all they have. Cannot fire a drone in Hong Kong. That would be a little too Hitler-like even for this Noble War Prize winning President.
Courts have consistently denied metadata legal protection.
I agree with them: it’s basically “public information” like the address on a letter.
“Telephony metadata does not include the substantive content of any communication, as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 2510(8), or the name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer.”
I would prefer the info was kept by the providers.
In fact I was under the impression providers were required to keep it for a period.
And if Snowden is a scumbag loser, well that just means he’s like 90% of ‘whistleblowers’: screwups at the end of their ropes.
He did not lie about the fact that the NSA is collecting a massive database on American citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment. With that big one right, I'm not going to worry about whether he broke "both of his legs while training for Special Forces" is consistent with breaking both of his legs while training to get into Special Forces training or requires that he actually be in special forces training to be true. The subtleties on the timing of his broken leg interest me a whole lot less than the accuracy of his statements about the NSA's gross violation of the Bill of Rights.
“An hour and 100 replies later, no further comment from you?”
Sorry, I’ve been busy.
Um, everyone realizes I’m not the author of this, right?
For those who care the author’s true name is Jim Hanson.
“Retired Special Operations Master Sergeant, Jim Hanson (”Uncle Jimbo”) is now focused on writing about the military, politics, intelligence operations and foreign policy.
Email: jimbo AT unclejimbo DOT com”
His argument may be crap. I honestly don’t know.
I have no knowledge of the special forces or their training quals.
Blackfive is fairly well known military blogging site.
I posted it because if someone there is saying it then it’s probably worth discussing or debating here.
At least now if it comes up in the future people will be familiar with this particular point of view.
Seen it done. Some folks just don’t listen to instructors thus have bad end results sometimes. Bad landing from a few hundred feet out of an airplane can result in such.
Meh...
Thanks for the GED info. Corlorde had some additional info in post 98:
..........”His records indicate he enlisted in the army reserve as a special forces recruit (18X) on 7 May 2004 but was discharged 28 September 2004,” an army spokesperson told The Guardian in an email. “He did not complete any training or receive any awards.”
So he began a training program to enter Special Forces. Not really a lie, he just didn’t make it very far, as most do not. “
I was thinking the same thing, especially when I saw on Drudge where he’s saying the US is hacking Chinese computers. Maybe the Chicoms are paying him to say all this stuff. Besides, except for the specific names and stuff, the general idea of the US spying on us has already been out there in one form or another if you were paying attention.
I also liked the earlier post saying that he was really a Obama plant to get us used to the idea of them spying on us. Now all they have to do is really discredit him and most people will discredit the idea as well.
I’m beginning to think that maybe he’s a plant to serve somebodys purpose, not what we see at face value.
“Do you think that any part of the federal gov’t - directly or in directly - can be trusted right now?”
Not right now. Not in 1887. Not in 1787. That is why the framers of the Constitution and Bill Of Rights wrote it the way they did. Silly!
Dude. Snowden is not the issue.
Here’s one guys take....
Go to:
https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/appj/scra/single_record.xhtml – DOD search for active duty dates.
If you search Edward Snowden, birthday = 21JUN1983, ....and use an Active Duty Status As Of date of, say, 1JUL2004,....... it shows his dates on active duty were 3JUN2004 – 28SEP2004....
My guess:
7MAY was his enlistment day, one month of DEP, shipped on Thursday, 3JUN..... That would make a BCT Week 1/Day 1 of Friday, 11JUN. .......11B OSUT was 14 weeks at the time, I believe,.... so that means he was fully separated from the Army,... all leave burned,... by the time his buddies were in Tuesday of Tower Week...........
In other words: Dude washed out of basic.
Snowden said...’I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ‘ensure’that each was legitimately in the public interest.”....What does he know about what information is dangerous to release????.............it's not like he was involved in any countries foreign affairs or policies....and then he flees to China????
It could be easily stated he sought out Intel. stashed it and then he ‘defected to China’.
Then his response to Russia and other countries offers.... comment ..... “I am glad there are governments that refuse to be intimidated by great power.”..meaning the USA...and that's American????/p>
He may very well be kidnapped...not killed!..and they will extract from him what he knows... So this guy claims not to be a traitor nor a hero rather an American?.... Then he puts a huge neon sign on his head proclaiming to every nation on Nat'l and International television.. that he has a huge amount of Intelligence certain countries would kill to get their hands on!!!!
No wonder he said he would never be coming home...he forfeited that the moment...he knew he was going the wrong way about it......Add the fact that he was doing this in a time of war shows he wasn't thinking about all those his actions could and have already affected greatly. affect.
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