FOXNews.com: Edward Snowden -- Putin's pawn of the month

FOXNews.com FOX News Network - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Edward Snowden -- Putin's pawn of the month Jul 26th 2013, 17:00 This week, there has been a new development in the Edward Snowden road show. The former NSA technician, turned PRISM whistleblower, has been told by Russia he can leave Moscow airport and enter Russia.   Whatever the future holds for him, I suspect it's going to be bleak.  We've no evidence that he's a Russian spy, and even though it's likely he will have cooperated with the Russian authorities, that doesn't mean he'll be given a hero's welcome in the motherland.   History shows that even some of the most important Western spies who've worked for Russia or the USSR before fleeing to live there have died in miserable squalor, as paupers and jokes.   There's one thing Edward Snowden will learn about Russians: they hate weakness. Look at the latter days of the infamous but very successful British Cambridge spy ring members who defected to Moscow in the 1950s.  Despite comprehensively betraying the West on behalf of the Soviet Union, when in exile in Moscow they were put under 24/7 surveillance by the KGB and every aspect of their lives were bugged by the Soviets who never truly trusted them.   The spy ring knew that and drank vodka and cheap champagne to numb the pain of their hellish existence until the booze inevitably killed them.  Snowden's nowhere near the professional and intellectual league of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess, so his prospects are far worse. Whatever you think about the startling revelations about PRISM, Snowden's a nomad with a grudge and a story to tell. Worse, he's a weak man who lacked the courage to stay in the United States and defend his self proclaimed righteous cause.  He may regret that, because there's one thing he will learn about Russians: they hate weakness. It doesn't end there. As a former MI6 field operative, I can tell you that intelligence officers respect the counterparts they combat in the secret war, and the foreign assets who work for all sides and put their lives on the line to spy on their country.  We're all professionals, doing a very tough, complex, sometimes chaotic, always dangerous, job and the mutual respect we have for each other is no different from that found between two opposing armies of highly trained soldiers.  That respect is extant, even if we have no hesitation in destroying our enemies to obtain our objectives. But whether you're a CIA, MI6, or Russian SVR operative, no intelligence professional likes an aggrieved snitch like Snowden who thinks he's better than the entire intelligence apparatus he worked alongside in a lowly position.  President Vladimir Putin will have personally authorized Snowden's transition into Russia.  But Putin himself is a former lieutenant colonel in the KGB and I suspect he will be viewing Snowden with utter contempt. So why did Putin make the decision to allow the former NSA traitor to stay in Moscow and in turn send a strong Russian signal of provocation to America?    Why didn't it serve him up on a plate to the United States in return for significant political or economic favors?   It's not the first time this year that Russia has favored petulance and antagonism towards America over canny back-channel realpolitik.  In May, it captured CIA officer Ryan Fogel during an undercover operation in Moscow, humiliated and berated him on camera, before chucking him out of Russia The reason why Russia didn't play clever with the Snowden situation rests solely with Vladimir Putin's fears and lack of confidence in his state.  He needs the support of a vast populous, and believes the best way to do that is to act like a throwback to former European dictators, bang his chest, pretend to be the strong man, pout, and antagonize America.   He's making a pretty good job of doing that and a lousy job of presenting himself as an international statesman.   None of which helps Edward Snowden. He's Putin's pawn of the month, and right now it's quite possible that he's shuffling along Moscow streets with only a few rubles in his pocket and with no idea where he's headed.  Matthew Dunn is an author. His latest book is "Sentinel: A Spycatcher Novel." (HarperCollins 2012). As an MI6 field officer, Matthew Dunn recruited and ran agents, coordinated and participated in special operations, and acted in deep-cover roles throughout the world. During his time in MI6, Dunn conducted approximately seventy missions. All of them were successful. He lives in England.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions