The Mole? A Ghost that Infuriates America

Russia and China are not even trying to hide their enjoyment of the Americans becoming increasingly bothered about Edward Snowden. Furthermore it is obvious that they are helping him. And if the cost of their enjoyment should strain diplomatic relations — the tension is increasing — between the three countries? It does not matter. According to journalists in Moscow and Beijing, there is nothing anyone could do that would make Putin or Xi Jinping give up their desire to see this grand prank, orchestrated by a 30-year-old that has thrown both U.S. intelligence agencies and the U.S. government into disarray, succeed.

Snowden, the mole, the man that the U.S. would like to try for espionage, is still at large. At the moment I am writing, it is possible that he could be 30,000 feet high, somewhere above our heads, heading toward South America. But not necessarily. What we do know is that yesterday morning on a plane departing from Moscow and heading for Cuba, one that was crammed with journalists who were counting on grilling him during a flight that everyone thought he would have taken, Snowden was not there. Since the photographers had nothing else to do, they took pictures of the empty plane seat, because even “non-news” in this story, is news. Snowden could have taken the afternoon flight, some say, but perhaps he did it with a fake beard and mustache because nobody saw him. The destination did not change: Ecuador, which according to the government’s secretary of foreign affairs is evaluating the request for political asylum of the former analyst that revealed the secrets of PRISM.

This certainly makes for a great story, the best since the story about WikiLeaks and its prophet Julian Assange, who unsurprisingly, from his diplomatic hermitage — he is in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden — has taken Snowden under his wing and provided him with legal help.

If the legendary Hugo Cavez, the “Bolivarian” president of Venezuela, were still alive he would surely not have passed up the opportunity to stick it to the U.S. In his place Ecuador has come charging in. Its secretary of foreign affairs did two things yesterday. First, he publicly questioned the accusation of betrayal against Snowden, and he also defined the alleged monitoring of foreign countries by the U.S. as an abuse of the rights of the entire world. Then he made public a letter by Snowden, where the mole claims to be the victim of persecution “in relation to my decision to make public serious violations on the part of the government of the United States of its Constitution, specifically of its Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and of various treaties of the United Nations that are binding on my country,” violations that were committed by the U.S. government. For this, he adds, I am now labeled a “traitor.” Than he compares himself to Bradley Manning, the WikiLeaks source, and explains that he asked Ecuador for asylum — which has already provided him with an entry pass for refugees — because he maintains as “unlikely” the possibility of a “fair trial” in the U.S.

In Washington the irritation is growing hour by hour. Secretary of State John Kerry does not hide his anger with Moscow and Beijing, “It would be deeply troubling, obviously, if they had adequate notice [about Snowden’s flight plans].”

White House spokesperson Jay Carney was a little more explicit, “This was a deliberate choice by the (Hong Kong) government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the U.S.-China relationship.” Does this mean that China had promised to hand him over when he was in Hong Kong?

Here is the mocking response from the Kremlin:

“There is no motive for stopping and then extraditing Edward Snowden. He hasn’t committed any crimes in Russian territory, and we don’t have orders of arrest from Interpol.”

The saga continues.