Let’s Spit on America

The guy has the look of a modern idealist, with his glasses in a delicate frame and his beard shaved short and stylish — that’s called a three-day stubble, right?

Offices in European cities are full of such guys; they have also appeared in Russia and have multiplied.

They’re dangerous lads for the secret services. If I was in charge of a secret service, I’d be wary of them.

Yet they somehow manage to penetrate intelligence agencies, even the impregnable castle that is the National Security Agency of the United States of America — even that one was broken into.

It’s all about the Internet, of course — they’re hired as Internet specialists. Let’s recall that during the first years after the [Russian] Revolution, the Red Army enrolled war specialists. It was forced to. And these war specialists were traitors more often than not.

Don’t expect a panegyric. This will be a sensible analysis.

Why did a system administrator, a technical contractor who had served in the U.S. Army, an employee of the CIA and later the NSA, become enemy number one in his country before he was thirty years old? Why did he provide The Guardian and The Washington Post with material that revealed the mass spying by the NSA on citizens of the U.S. as well as, in some cases, citizens of other countries?

Edward Snowden himself explained it in the following way:

“Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.”

That’s him explaining himself to us. He presents himself in an advantageous light.

And we’re free to believe him or not.

In my view, there’s one more possible explanation for his behavior, one that’s less flattering for him. In between earlier announcements, he noted:

“If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich.”

I believe him unconditionally that money was not his motive. But maybe fame, eh?

After all, think of the fame that Julian Assange acquired, along with some serious trouble!

Maybe fame, then. Maybe.

He lived in Hawaii with his girlfriend, awakening each day to the singing of exotic birds and earned $200,000 a year. And yet he was unknown to the world.

And now he’s recognized as the warrior of light and fighter for our ever-dwindling freedoms.

I’m not saying he’s not a warrior of light.

Maybe he is a warrior of light.

Meanwhile, what’s happening in America? In America they’ve collected 100,000 signatures for Snowden. U.S. citizens are declaring him a national hero and are demanding that he be given amnesty. That’s understandable: The country was founded by those rebelling against the King of England, and it has not yet forgotten about the citizen’s rights to remain unheard and unread.

On June 21, Edward Snowden turned 30 — an important age.

On June 22, he flew to us from Hong Kong. On June 23 he landed at Sheremetyevo.

Journalists noted two cars from the Republic of Ecuador parked at Sheremetyevo. Ecuador was right there, ready to help. Ecuador was little known to anyone until the story with Assange, and now everybody knows Ecuador. Governments can also be vain.

This guy will clearly fly somewhere. It’s difficult for now to say where. Maybe to Cuba, in which case Aeroflot’s plane will temporarily find itself in the air traffic control zone of the United States. He’ll surely have to deal with nervous jitters: What if the U.S. suddenly decides to land the plane in one of its own airfields? He’s better off staying with us.

In the United States, the unrelenting government is accusing Snowden of three things: illegal relaying of information important for national security, the intention to relay intelligence information and theft of government property.

Caitlin Hayden, National Security Council spokesperson, has announced that the United States expects Russia to consider all possible variants of extraditing Snowden to his home country.

Caitlin, Caitlin, you forgot how you took Bout! Caitlin!

Whatever Bout’s importance or non-importance, the U.S. essentially spit on Russia: It seized Russian citizen Viktor Bout on foreign soil, snuck him into the country and kept him — forever, it seems — in U.S. prisons.

We now have to avenge the United States’ spitting on Russia — let’s spit back! Let’s offer Edward Snowden political asylum and citizenship.

If we can give citizenship to the fat, written-off actor-drunkard Depardieu, then we have to give citizenship to the warrior of light.

An eye for an eye, so to speak.