Venezuela, Bolivia offer asylum to U.S. intel leaker Snowden

It really is the most wonderful irony that the US&#x27;s apparent heavy-handed actions over Morales&#x27; plane ended up biting them in the ass.<p>As an American, I really do want to know, though -- who are the ham-fisted officials in charge of overseeing Snowden&#x27;s prosecution? Who was the actual official who made the decision to tell France and Spain not to let Morales land? And who are the officials in France and Spain who decided to obey? (And are they still denying it?)<p>I mean, regardless of what you think about Snowden, the level of American incompetence here, the way our officials are simply disrespecting other governments and peoples of the world, is really astounding. It&#x27;s shameful, and I wish I knew who the bumbling officials actually are.

I&#x27;ve lived in Bolivia for a year when Evo Morales was already president. I&#x27;ve also been to Venezuela.<p>Assuming the CIA won&#x27;t try to actually abduct him there and Morales will stay in power, Bolivia is a perfect choice in many ways. Morales is totally trustworthy. The country is very safe and less militarized than Venezuela. Policy is somewhat more moderate, basically based on social democratic ideas as they are seen in Europe. There is a history of corruption, but this is mostly in the lower layers of government and police and elections are probably not affected.<p>Venezuela, however, can actually protect him once he is inside the country. Bolivia probably can&#x27;t.

It&#x27;s so good that at least two states have the balls to stand up to the USA and offer asylum against what is obviously a political manhunt.<p>As a Norwegian, I&#x27;m ashamed that our government and bureaucracy is too scared to stand up for our moral values. If Snowden was from Somalia, we would have granted him asylum with no further discussion. It&#x27;s ridiculous that a (former) &quot;banana republic&quot; is the only nation that dares take this issue seriously. They may have their own agenda, but facts are facts.

Snowden should be called a &quot;public informant&quot;, not a leaker, whistleblower, etc. Typically, informants are insiders who help police, etc. &quot;Informant&quot; has a positive connotation. So if the government has their informants: FBI informant, police informant, etc. we the people should have a &quot;Public Informant&quot;.

Heh, as I saw some people commenting, Evo Morales incident only would push the entire South America to end giving Snowden Asylum...<p>In fact this whole thing is being very interesting, because one guy is managing to create multiple diplomatic incidents, I would not be surprised if this end in some sort of war, or a breakup of alliances or trade zones.

This is what happens when you push an entire (sub?)continent to feel like they must flip you back for embarassing one of their own

I think on of wikileaks misstakes was to apply for asylum in 21 countries. Make it easier for the countries to say no. It is like hichhicking. Chanses of you getting picked up at a road where the drivers of the cars know that there is only one car in one hour is higher then getting picked up at a high trafic road. Same psychology.

Snowden is playing chess.<p>The end-game is that he will always be looking over his shoulder, whether it&#x27;s a new host government that wants to score points with Washington or a contractor collecting a bounty placed on his head. Or, anxiety of previous could get him.