Remember edward snowden? The guy who took all those classified documents and absconded to Russia?
Well get ready for a big surprise (if you are very gullible, that is): he is now a willing acolyte of Russian president vladimir “KGB” putin.
Excerpted from Hadas Gold\’s article at politico.com:
Edward Snowden defended his participation in an annual Russian telecast with Vladimir Putin on Thursday, a move that many described as a clear propaganda effort by the Russians, with Snowden as their pawn.
In an op-ed for The Guardian, the newspaper that originally published his first leaks, Snowden said he asked about Russia\’s surveillence in order to push the conversation and Putin\’s response into the public dialogue.
“I expected that some would object to my participation in an annual forum that is largely comprised of softball questions to a leader unaccustomed to being challenged,” he wrote. “But to me, the rare opportunity to lift a taboo on discussion of state surveillance before an audience that primarily views state media outweighed that risk. Moreover, I hoped that Putin\’s answer – whatever it was – would provide opportunities for serious journalists and civil society to push the discussion further.”
After Snowden\’s surprise appearance at the annual television “town hall” with Putin, several critics said that Snowden was clearly being used by the Russians as part of a public relations stunt.
“Sorry, Snowden: Putin lied to you about his surveillance state – and made you a pawn of it,” Eli Lake wrote in The Daily Beast, before detailing how the Russians monitor activities within their country and beyond.
Don\’t bother telling snowden that, Eli. He knows.
edward snowden is a lot of things, but a complete idiot is not one of them. You can be assured that he knows exactly who and what putin is.
You can also be assured that, as snowden has shown by providing putin with this pathetic dog and pony show, he is far less concerned with government transparency, than he is with showing appreciation to the man who has taken him in and sheltered him from retribution in the United States.
And you can bet that the appreciation is going to keep on coming.
