Mick Hartley

James Kirchick reviews Edward Jay Epstein's How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft:

That there are still people who seriously deny Snowden has any untoward relationship with Russia’s security services and that his settling in Moscow is just a matter of happenstance is an indicator not just of widespread credulity but of growing hostility to traditional notions of patriotism. During the Cold War, an American intelligence worker who stole his country’s secrets, disappeared, and then resurfaced in Moscow—establishing himself there as a critic of the American national-security state—would almost uniformly be condemned as a traitor. Yet Snowden is still lauded by the great and the good as a courageous “whistle-blower.” A hagiographic documentary film about him, directed by one of his journalistic collaborators, won the Academy Award….

Snowden was a disgruntled, immature narcissist with delusions of grandeur who walked into Russia’s arms not fully understanding what exactly he was getting into. His defection was facilitated by a “false flag” operation in which an intelligence “cut-out,” or middle-man in the form of WikiLeaks, manipulated his actions and movements, assisted by ideologically friendly journalists. Between the nihilistic Glenn Greenwald, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and the Russian government, a convergence of interests exists, and all three formed an opportunistic alliance to target their shared enemy: the United States and its intelligence agencies….

Snowden’s revelations have, over the years, contributed to a general sense of paranoia and distrust of the United States, serving a broader Kremlin agenda of discrediting liberal democracy in general and America in particular. “Snowden did not create this new age of distrust,” Epstein writes, “but his disclosures greatly contributed to it, as well as to the worldwide distrust of the U.S. government.”

Some of those on the left who hailed Snowden back in 2013 must now look back upon their old enthusiasm with a fair degree of regret, comprehending the unholy alliance into which the former NSA contractor enlisted himself by partnering with Wikileaks and worming his way to Moscow, both of which made no effort to disguise their campaign against Hillary Clinton.