Moscow Stopover

The White House said the U.S. expects the Russian government “to expel Mr. Snowden for his return to the United States.” That must have put smiles on a few faces inside the Kremlin. The West’s champion super-snoops are pursuing the man who blew the whistle on their own illegal global snooping and expect Russia, of all countries, to hand him over. That’s the conclusion we’re supposed to reach even though they haven’t forgotten that Russian businessman Viktor Bout was extradited to the U.S. from Thailand 14 months ago and is now serving a 25-year sentence for trading in weapons, despite significant protest at the time.

The Russians have been the scapegoats for quite some time now over issues reminiscent of the Cold War era: in the Syrian conflict, on nuclear disarmament, over human rights and—most recently — in the squabble over the looting of artworks by the Nazis. In the Snowden case, however, the Russians are the good guys even if they have extensive experience in using intelligence services themselves.

The persecuted Snowden deserves great credit for defending democracy against an intelligence apparatus that secretly casts its nets in all data networks. Under the pretext of a war on terror, they have not only spiraled outside privacy controls but are completely beyond democratic control as well. Snowden blew the whistle on them and has thereby garnered global sympathy. The Russians at least accorded him safe transit to his final destination and thereby polished up its own global image: Those who help the brave deserve to be thanked as well.