Edward Snowden submitted his request for asylum today.
Surprise, surprise, after all the speculation, faux-rueful statements from President Vladimir Putin (AKA the snake Ka from Kipling's Jungle Book), and the evasive answers from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that he wasn't aware of any such request for asylum, surprise, surprise, an application form was suddenly found at the airport and the NSA hacker was able to submit his request:
Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer who is a member of the Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory body, said that Snowden submitted the asylum request to Russia's Federal Migration Service. The service had no immediate comment.
I couldn't help but think of the song "Black" today by Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi with Norah Black, that was the sound track for scenes in Breaking Bad from the album Rome which I recently purchased on Amazon. The words are perfect for Walter White, the high school chemistry teacher turned meth cook, but they'll do for Edward Snowden as well:
We touched the wall's of the city streets and,
Didn't explain,
Sadly showed us our ways,
Of never asking why?
Cast down it was heaven sent (and),
To the church no intent to repent,
On my knees,
Just to cry.
Until you travel to that,
Place you can't come back,
When the last pain is gone,
And all that's left is black.
And so on.
So Edward asked for "temporary asylum" today (he's surely not the first one to think that going over to Moscow's side is "temporary") thinking that ultimately he's going to "handle" the Russians just like he handled everybody else in this chain of his defection.
The beauty part is that "Russian law contains no specific time frame for considering an asylum request" so this can drag on forever -- Snowden can be put in a refugee camp, such as they are in Moscow (which will likely be some old worker's dormitory on the outskirts of town, unless, of course it's a safe house out in Yasenovo) -- and he can remain a prime irritant to the US and a jewel in the crown of Putin. Meanwhile, Russian intelligence can wear him away, keeping him under house arrest and deny him press or NGO access, and eventually he'll either beg to go back to the US, or the Russians will relent and let him go to Venezuela -- maybe -- but after pressuring them to keep the lid on Edward, too.
Remember "Come to me banderlogs..." I'll say!
"It wasn't immediately clear why it took Snowden so long to formally submit the request," says the AP. Well, that's because he thought he could bargain with Moscow and set conditions, like being able to continune on his leaker/hacker/saboteur career as he saw fit, and not as Moscow saw fit to exploit him. He has been steadily disabused of that notion.
I continue to maintain:
o Snowden is not naive, although he may be narcissistic and infantile, and that can cover up naivete to the untrained eye. This was a planned maneuver, and one where he thought he would come out on top;
o Snowden conspired with WikiLeaks operatives Assange and "lawyer" Sarah Harrison and WikiLeaks advocates Jacob Appelbaum and Laura Poitras to concoct this entire adventure - eventually this will be more clear;
o WikiLeaks knew perfectly well what the ramifications and consequences were of going to Moscow and did this deliberately in keeping with their anarchist ideology and their need for state support;
The real question is who has the "dead man's switch now". Glenn Greenwald, who has been Snowden's champion and fellow hacker activist, even as he tried to serve as his informal attorney and play journalist, has essentially committed blackmail -- invoking the presence of other sensational documents that might or might not be in Snowden's possession but are very likely copied to WikiLeaks USBs or servers somewhere. He's definitely implied despite his later protestations that if anything "happens" to his client, "America will get it in the neck."
But two can play at dead man's switch. Let's say Greenwald doesn't really have these documents as he claims, which seems odd for a journalist claiming to have worked on this story in good faith as an investigative project all along -- although more and more it seems like he is the agent of influence for an active measure scripted by the Kremlin. Let's say that Greenwald ceded this "big story" to Laura Poitras and Jacob Appelbaum and hence Assange, who are backed by the Kremlin. That would mean that Glenn is less of a big man than he claims -- but he may be willing to claim that just so that he is not raided by the police.
So...if WikiLeaks then starts to leak these documents, Putin could claim that the conditions upon which he provided Snowden "safe haven" (as much as you can claim that when you are Ka in a snake's nest) were violated, Edward was up to no good somehow sending out cryptic messages to his supporters, and this was, um "harming our partnership with the US" (*snort*).
Putin could then arrest him for espionage himself, or worsen his conditions until he tells his friends to shut up, or simply return to the US on the next plane in cuffs, having had enough of him.So watch this space.
And let's see how switches whom here. And I'll bet WikiLeaks will not have the slightest scruples in burning their one-time operative and source Snowden because he is only an individual and the Bolshevik cause has to continue justifying the means, due to the end. And Putin will not have the slightest scruple of burning an agent he made use of, or controlled from the beginning. Both parties will only be happy to compromise US national security.
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