GULAG

One can only imagine the backchannel maneuvering going on in Washington D.C. and the corridors of the NSA and FBI and CIA and State Department over Edward Snowden. It must be frantic, a race against time to determine what information Snowden has beyond what he has already disclosed.

“I want to know everything this motherfucker Snowden has ever done in his miserable life! I want to know how many times he has jerked off! I want to know what kind of porn he looks at! I want to know about his mother, his father, his siblings and his fucking cat. I want information, and I want it now.”

Yeah, I imagine it’s hyper damage control mode driven by intense pressure from the White House. I imagine daily progress briefings held in secure conference rooms. Diplomatic conference calls with Russia full of pleas that Snowden be turned over to the US, and veiled threats of serious consequences if Russia refuses to comply. Quid pro quo deals are proposed.

Any nation that may be thinking of granting Snowden political asylum is put on notice; go ahead, Ecuador, but you’ll never see another nickel of US economic and military aid. No trade favors for you, Bolivia.

Comply with Uncle Sam or be crushed by our naked power.

The world’s foremost bully uses all its juice to isolate Edward Snowden, choke off his escape routes and reduce his options to zero.

The bully is unnerved by the young man living temporarily in the transit lounge of a Moscow airport, afraid of the data on his laptops and thumb drives, what he may have stored in the cloud or transmitted to others. Countless operatives are working around the clock on the Snowden affair, staring at computer screens until their vision turns fuzzy. Meanwhile, the bully uses all his power to discredit Snowden in the media, to call into question his motives, to claim that Snowden is a delusional narcissist bent on damaging the vital interests of the US.

One vital interest is that the US, and only the US, has the ability to eavesdrop with impunity on its citizens, allies and enemies. What we would not tolerate from others (except Israel, of course) we demand as our divine right. 

From every available pulpit the bully claims that Snowden was involved in espionage against his own country, land of the incarcerated and home of the Big Mac.

For his part, Edward Snowden has good reason to fear being extradited to the US; the example of another whistleblower, Bradley Manning, must never be far from his thoughts. Manning has been in the military wing of the American gulag for several years, facing multiple charges for leaking information to WikiLeaks. Manning acted out of conscience, too, and his one-way ticket to life in a cage got punched. If the US gets its bloody hands on Snowden, he’ll spend months or years in solitary confinement.  

Along with spectacle, incarceration is now an American specialty.