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.
The Statist Big Govt types sure are spending a lot of time trying to discredit Snowden
You either support Snowden....or you support Obama
“So in two weeks we know everything about Snowden - his truths and lies.......five years since obama was elected still we know nothing about obama’s past or his present and
ten+ years since he has actively been involved in politics and we know nothing.”
Worth repeating.
Based on Sam Wurzelbacher in 2008 I'd guarantee you are correct.
If its a distraction, the republicans are apparently in on it.
Bull, my friends son has been working for DOD since sophomore year... he went on, but they would have kept him if he had chose not.
I had the same thought. Is the military now reduced to planting straw-man stories into the mass media in an attempt to smear Snowden?
In the meantime, they don't need to snoop through my personal communications. For Pete's sake, man, keep your eye on the ball.
LOL. NOBODY has replaced JC.
,,,and we all follow the media over the cliff. People can lie about themselves and tell the truth about where they work. We’ve all seen that. I believe this guy. I don’t have to like him or raise him to the elevation of hero to believe the rotten, stinking Obama Administration.
Can you imagine the Left on this? They’d be giving the guy the Nobel Peace Prize.
Yep.
The reports I’ve read suggest that Snowden was injured early in his Army training. Perhaps in Basic Training because the reports said “discharged a matter of months after enlisting”. There just isn’t enough information to declare this “a lie” yet. Worth looking into, I agree.
He also was not make 200k. He made 122K.
I want Traitor Roberts to fess up. It could be an ongoing issue and Roberts needs to go public to get it to stop.
Sounds to me like the Fort Benning training was en route to potential further training to join the special forces, so that’s not necessarily a lie.
Also, I don’t know, but would his GED not meet the requirement that he be a high school graduate?
On the surface this seems like a trumped up claim to undermine the guy’s credibility.
Look over here! Look over here! The guy didn’t graduate from high school! He can’t grow a beard! He has bad breath. George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction! Oh, wait. Different argument.
It is so sad to see the personal attacks on this man. I didn’t know taking an oath meant you have to keep criminal actions by the government against it’s citizens secret. Paul Revere would be crucified by some on this site.
Dunno. Who is the CIC, again?
I agree. The allegations against him may be true or false. Perhaps he may have something to say about them. If so, I hope it is better than what presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said when confronted about her claims to have come under sniper fire in Bosnia, when she said little more than that she "misspoke."
In any event, his veracity should be weighed against what he disclosed about the spying on us, not something else.
This seems to be a classic case of "Play the man, not the ball." That's OK for sporting contests, but this is rather different.
So was copper Clapper's lying a clever caper?
“began a training program to join the Special Forces”
Never said he was in SF, said he was in a training program to join SF.
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