11.04.13
Asylum? Ausgezeichnet.
Would Germany grant Edward Snowden asylum? My hunch is, in the end, they’ll still be afraid of antagonizing the US security megaplex.
But there are cards on the table for it now.
The Spiegel has the best article on the matter.
There’s continuing satisfaction that nationally and globally, way more people know who Edward Snowden is than NSA director, Keith Alexander.
That should tell you much on which side of history the matter is on. Put another way, nobody’s going to ever make a movie about the NSA director but they’re probably already entertaining pitches for a Snowden adaptation in Hollywood.
(Just about anyone can make the observation that America’s top generals no more make gripping historical characters than CEO’s of Wall Street financial institutions. You know, as icons: Patton, MacArthur, Eisenhower, maybe Omar Bradley, and that’s about it. The reasons for this are fairly obvious. They fought for something globally important. Today’s top soldiers can’t really make that argument in any way that doesn’t involve some tortured reasoning and a host of caveats.)
Keith Alexander is the past and while there is literally no practical way to roll back the national security megaplex, time will render his reputation to a footnote or asterisk.
Alexander will retire to the private sector and on signing become instantly very wealthy working as a chief for the cyberdefense arm of one of the big weapons manufacturers.