Darth Vader's Mask

Weekends are usually slow for news junkies. Last Sunday, however, was an exception. Dozens of journalists spent that day in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport awaiting the arrival of the notorious whistleblower Edward Snowden, who had finally departed from Hong Kong the day before in defiance of the United States’ demand for his extradition.

In the end, Snowden never made an appearance before the journalists. The news feeds lit up with speculation and rumors about his absence: Some claimed that Snowden needed medical attention; some mused that Snowden might be leaving the airport in a diplomatic vehicle; still others said that Ecuador’s ambassador to Russia had showed up at Sheremetyevo to meet Snowden. Subsequently, the foreign minister of that Latin American country announced on Twitter that Snowden had requested political asylum in Ecuador. It seems as though he’ll be granted asylum — why else would the ambassador waste his weekend on a trip to the airport? If so, Ecuador will confirm its reputation as a country that harbors downtrodden soldiers in the war for information: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been tucked away in that country’s embassy in London for over a year.

Snowden also put a damper on the weekends of certain members of the U.S. government, who were obligated to give countless interviews and make innumerable statements. “I want to get him caught and brought back for trial,” declared Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in an interview with CBS. Feinstein suspects that Snowden has in his possession a stash of information that goes far beyond what he leaked to journalists while he was in Hong Kong. And it goes without saying that the intelligence agencies of all of America’s adversaries are wondering how they can get their hands on these secrets.

And here’s the most interesting thing: Snowden’s escape has shown that America is all alone in its attempt to track down the elusive National Security Agency computer wizard. It’s clear that if Snowden’s itinerary had taken him through, for example, London, the U.S. would have easily been able to secure his extradition. Thus, it’s doubtful that his route of Hong Kong-Moscow-Havana-Caracas-Quito was selected without awareness of this fact. His departure from Hong Kong went off without a hitch after authorities there claimed that the American request for his extradition had been incorrectly filed. Feinstein reasonably supposed that Snowden would not have been allowed to leave the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region without a direct order from Beijing. By letting Snowden slip through its fingers, the Chinese leadership showed the American side that it doesn’t attach much weight to Washington’s demands, especially against the background of the serious problem of cyberespionage, which Obama and Xi Jinping discussed during their recent meeting in California.

Snowden’s next stop was Moscow. Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, had declared that Russia would grant Snowden asylum if he requested it; on June 23, Aleksei Pushkov, the head of the Duma’s foreign affairs committee, echoed this statement. Soon thereafter, it was reported that Russian authorities have no complaints about Snowden and have no intention of taking the former NSA agent into custody. This statement, given by an unnamed source connected to the Russian criminal justice system, was obviously a direct response to the United States’ unofficial demand for Snowden’s detention in Moscow.

The Americans were livid.

“What’s really infuriating is Prime Minister Putin of Russia aiding and abetting Snowden’s escape,” said Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, showcasing his dazzling knowledge of the Russian political system. “Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways, and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States.”

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham proclaimed, “I hope we’ll chase [Snowden] to the ends of the earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there will be consequences if they harbor this guy.”

One can’t help but chuckle at the Americans’ sincere bewilderment (“but allies aren’t supposed to act that way!”). What exactly did they expect to happen? Did they think, after all the hostile measures adopted in Washington under pressure from the Russophobic Republican party and pro-Israel lobbyists, that Moscow would hand Snowden over to them on a silver platter? That after three years of “Pacific containment,” Hillary Clinton’s pet project, that China would surrender the very person that brought to light America’s secret cyberwars against China? Does it logically follow, then, that Latin America, a leftist region that is slipping out of the grasp of its northern neighbor, will obediently comply with Washington’s demands?

It could be said that the Snowden affair, just like the earlier situation with Julian Assange (by the way, specialists from WikiLeaks have been giving the fugitive ex-NSA employee legal support, and a representative from that organization even accompanied him on his flight to Moscow) bears witness to the decline of America’s global reach. Truly, nothing like this would have been imaginable five or 10 years ago: Since 1991 the world had been decidedly unipolar, and Washington’s dictates were to be carried out in all corners of the globe. But the most important thing is this: In the past, such a story, which resembles a suspense novel, would have unfolded in secret — as a rule, competing intelligence agencies don’t like to air their dirty laundry in public. But now, everything is happening before the eyes of dozens of journalists, and Snowden’s travels have captured the attention of news agencies the world over. And there’s no use in denying that most people are sympathetic to his cause. Snowden isn’t perceived as a turncoat or a traitor to his country. Just like Assange, he is seen as a gallant warrior in the fight for freedom of information, a sort of Prometheus for the Information Age. And the U.S., with all its power, threats made by its senators and mischief perpetrated by its intelligence agencies, looks like the bad guy, the enemy of the freedom of information — and beyond that, a global police force, brazenly spying on its own citizens as well as on citizens of other countries via social networking sites.

Let’s not forget that the USSR lost the Cold War not because it had fewer rockets and nuclear bombs, but because the whole world perceived it as the “Evil Empire.” In going on the offensive against people like Snowden and Assange, the U.S. itself is trying on Darth Vader’s black mask — and that mask has a way of grafting itself to one’s skin.