Streetwise Professor

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration has put any additions to the Magnitsky List on hold.  The administration has always disliked the list, because it didn’t want it to interfere with its fabulous Reset.  It resisted the list for as long as it could, and then grudgingly implemented Congress’s directive.

The desire to appease Russia is disturbing.  But I could see a realpolitik justification for slow walking it now.  Putin and the Russian elite hate the list.  Hate, hate, hate.  We could presumably extract something tangible, something highly advantageous to US interests.

The sad thing is that the administration thinks it has:

Why veto the expanded Magnitsky list? Russia’s human-rights record hasn’t miraculously improved. In his interview with Itar-Tass, Mr. Rhodes suggested the answer. He praised Moscow’s role in striking a deal with Syria’s Bashar Assad to give up his chemical weapons stockpile in return for removing any Western threat to attack his military forces, who are now liberated to try to finish off the rebels. Mr. Rhodes also noted Russian support for nuclear talks with Iran.

For crying out loud.  Seriously.  It got nothing from Putin.  Putin has played us like a drum on Syria, and is content to watch us give away the store to Iran.

Obama was desperate to avoid having to cash the check his big mouth wrote (“redline”) in Syria.  Putin bailed out Obama, and has achieved all of his objectives in Syria.  The chemical weapons deal leaves Assad in power, and effectively makes the United States his partner.  So Syrians won’t be killed by chemical weapons.  Yay! They are just continuing to die, at a rate of about 150 a day, felled by barrel bombs, bullets, artillery bombardments and the blades of ISIS head choppers.  The country has descended into a hell of warlordism akin to China in the ’20s and ’30s, with the government holding sway in a rump state near the coast and a horrifying collection of Islamist groups (with ISIS being the most horrific) controlling patches of territory in the north and east.  The war is spreading into Lebanon, which is seeing a major car bombing a week.  The country is a running sore, and will continue to be for years to come.  No one has the strength to prevail, so things will be stalemated for the foreseeable future.

And Putin doesn’t care.  Every Chechen that goes to Syria on jihad is one less that he has to deal with in the Caucasus.  And every one that is killed is just a bonus.  His client survives.  The United States looks pitiful.

All in all, a big win for Putin, and a loss for the US.  We didn’t get anything on Syria for forbearing on Magnitsky: we gave Putin everything he wanted.

And on Iran, Obama doesn’t need Putin’s help.  Obama is evidently willing to make any concession to get a deal with the mullahs.

In sum: Obama got bupkus for caving on the Magnitsky List.

Back to Syria.  The WSJ ran a long story detailing the sorry, sorry tale of American policy.  Read the whole thing, but it is readily summarized.  The administration wanted nothing to do with Syria, but didn’t have the stones to says publicly.  It gave out aid to the rebels in penny packets to appease frantic allies appealing for American support.  The result: the aforementioned stalemate in which the most radical and bloodthirsty survive. I cannot think of a comparable example of American fecklessness in the 226 years of the history of the Republic.

Obama’s reluctance to get involved in Syria is understandable.  There was no easy choice.  But the administration made the worst choice of the lousy ones available.  A robust intervention on behalf of the rebels would have probably resulted in their victory, with an outcome similar to the final scenes of Lawrence of Arabia, with squabbling rebels and tribes making a hash of things in Damascus.  But that would have been better than the current and future situation, with Islamist warlords ranging from the psychotic to the extremely psychotic face off against one another and the remnants of a blood-soaked Baathist regime.

By trying not to choose, Obama made a choice.  Millions of Syrians-and Lebanese-are paying the price.  Such are the wages of fecklessness.

Befitting a boy who obviously views himself as the Second Coming, Ed Snowden blessed us mere mortals with an “Alternative Christmas Message” on BBC4.  It’s not as bad as you’d imagine.  It’s worse.

The main theme was “end mass surveillance.”  Apparently irony is lost on Ed, because he delivered this message (filmed by Laura Poitras, ‘natch) from Moscow, capitol of the Land of Sorm.  I might take him seriously if he delivered the same message on NTV, or in Red Square-or to Putin’s face, a la Khodorkovsky circa 2003.

This epistle comes hard on the heels of an extended Snowden interview with Bart Gelmann.  Actually, “interview” doesn’t really convey the full truth.  “Slobber job” comes somewhat closer.

The very first day the Snowden story broke, a friend asked me what I thought of him.  My very first impression was of a grandiose narcissist.

I didn’t know the Nth of it. The entire interview consists of Snowden instructing us on his great moral superiority (especially over those in government whom he refers to as “the overseers”) and penetrating judgment.  Some lowlights:

“For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished,” he said. “I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself.” [Oh how will we ever thank you?!?]

“All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed,” he said [from Russia]. “That is a milestone we left a long time ago. Right now, all we are looking at are stretch goals.”

. . . .

“I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to improve the NSA,” he said. “I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don’t realize it.”

And the best one:

“Let them say what they want,” he said. “It’s not about me.”

Word to the wise.  Just as when someone says “It’s not about the money” it’s about the money, when someone says “it’s not about me” it’s about them.

Then there are whoppers like this:

“I don’t care whether you’re the pope or Osama bin Laden,” he said. “As long as there’s an individualized, articulable, probable cause for targeting these people as legitimate foreign intelligence, that’s fine. I don’t think it’s imposing a ridiculous burden by asking for probable cause. Because, you have to understand, when you have access to the tools the NSA does, probable cause falls out of trees.”

If probable cause “falls out of trees”, why is the number of times that metadata connections have led to the issuance of less than 60 warrants to surveil communications of American subjects (which do require probable cause)?  Note the fundamental dishonesty of this statement.  Yes, collection of metadata is fairly characterized as indiscriminate (but also fairly characterized as Constitutional based on Supreme Court decisions), but to go beyond that does require NSA to obtain warrants based on “individualized, ariticulable (and articulated) probable cause.”  To insinuate otherwise, as Snowden does, is low and dishonest.

For a supposed genius who should be trusted with substituting his judgment on matters of secrecy and security for those who are the legitimately constituted authorities to make such judgments, Ed is totally clueless on the paradox of markets for information:

“But when you weigh that against the alternative, which is not to act,” he said, “you realize that some analysis is better than no analysis. Because even if your analysis proves to be wrong, the marketplace of ideas will bear that out. If you look at it from an engineering perspective, an iterative perspective, it’s clear that you have to try something rather than do nothing.”

Um, that doesn’t work when the issue is what is, and what is not, legitimately a state secret.  Revealing what is secret, and then asking “should this be kept secret” is an absurdity.  Once the secret has been revealed, the question becomes totally moot.  (“Hey.  We’ve broken the German Enigma code.  Should we keep this a secret, or not, people?”)

This is exactly why issues relating to security and secrecy are so difficult.  They are fundamentally incompatible with public debate, except in broad generalities.  And this is precisely one of the benefits of republican, as opposed to democratic, government.  But it is a difficult challenge even for republican (i.e., delegated) government, and is definitely not amenable to the simplistic nostrums that Snowden (and others, like Assange and Greenwald) push, dripping Olympian disdain all the while.

Moreover, Snowden does not address, and the sycophantic Gelmann does not press him to address, other crucial questions.  For instance, if Snowden’s overriding concern is for individual privacy, why have the bulk of the recent revelations involved matters of intelligence involving foreign governments?  Moreover, if Snowden had a very specific concern relating to individual privacy, why did he indiscriminately scrape documents reputed to number in the millions, rather than limiting his whistle blowing to a smaller set of representative documents that would illustrate his point?  Relatedly, was there a way to make his point that posed less of a threat to US national security than stealing hundreds of thousands of documents, then absconding to countries hostile to the United States?  And if his case is so overwhelming, why has virtually every story-every damned one-been presented in an exaggerated and misleading way, with the errors and distortions being pointed out with devastating accuracy usually within 24 hours?  Doesn’t that suggest that he is not the honest agent for the public interest he claims to be?

Not to say that the Gellman piece was without its comic moments:

It would be odd if Russian authorities did not keep an eye on him, but no retinue accompanied Snowden and his visitor saw no one else nearby. Snowden neither tried to communicate furtively nor asked that his visitor do so. He has had continuous Internet access and has talked to his attorneys and to journalists daily, from his first day in the transit lounge at Sheremetyevo airport.

Stop it Bart! You’re killing me! Um, have you ever heard of, I dunno, electronic surveillance?  Do you really f*cking believe that the Russians didn’t hear every word you uttered?  Ever think that “continuous Internet access” might be continuously monitored?  That those daily conversations with lawyers and journos are monitored-and perhaps scripted?  Can you really be such a big dipshit?

The only thing more depressing than the Snowden Sermon is that so many people eat it up.  At best he is a pretentious poser who arrogates to himself decisions on grave matters of national security that he is judgmentally and temperamentally incompetent to make.  At worst he is the witting agent of a foreign power, and has been all along.  Either way: the (grandiose) gift who keeps on giving, and giving, and giving.  Such Christmas gifts we could do without.

The widow of the heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. fortune, Sarah Winchester, believed that her home in New Haven, CT was haunted by the ghosts of men shot with Winchester rifles.  A medium told her to move west and build a house big enough to house all of the spirits.  So she moved to the Santa Clara Valley in California, and in 1884 began construction of a house.  Construction continued, day after day, for 38 years, as Winchester directed the addition of room after room after room to appease those haunting her. Today the Winchester House is a museum.

Yesterday, the inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, left this mortal coil at age 94.  It is almost certain that the ubiquitous AK-47 (and its successors like the AK-74) has killed more people than any firearm in history.

Pace Mrs. Winchester, how many rooms would be required in a Kalashnikov mansion to house all of the pour souls slain by Kalashnikovs?  A city of Winchester Mansions, probably.

Kalashnikov himself was disturbed but realistic about what his mechanical genius had wrought:

Mr. Kalashnikov said he regretted that it became the weapon of choice for guerrilla armies. “It was like a genie out of the bottle, and it began to walk all on its own and in directions I did not want,” he told Britain’s Guardian newspaper in 2003. But he added, “I sleep soundly. The fact that people die because of an AK-47 is not because of the designer, but because of politics.”

This is true.  In particular, the politics of the USSR (and the People’s Republic of China), which liberally supplied AK-47s to its clients around the world, and which armed, directly and indirectly, numerous guerrilla forces engaged in conflicts euphemistically known as “wars of national liberation.”  Once millions of AKs were in circulation, as Kalashnikov said, “they began to walk all on [their] own” to every corner of the globe.  The genius of the design is that a child can use it.  And tens of thousands of child warriors have.

Look at the photos from any of today’s most brutal conflicts.  Syria. Central Africa. You see AKs, not FNs or M-16s.

A toxic combination.  A weapon of brilliant simplicity and durability produced by one of the most malign states in history, which had no compunction against indiscriminately flooding the world with them as part of a geopolitical strategy intended to realize the imperatives of a twisted ideology.  Meaning that Comrade Kalashnikov’s mansion would have to have rooms almost without number.

I mentioned this in the earlier post, but it deserves a post of its own. The more I think about it, the more astounded I am at the folly of using Russia’s national welfare fund to buy Ukrainian government debt.  The purpose of this fund is to provide a cushion in the Russian state budget in the event of a decline in economic activity and government revenues, most likely due to a decline in the price of oil.  For all of its dysfunctions in property rights, the rule of law, etc., Russia earned high marks for its relatively prudent fiscal policy, largely due to the guidance of Alexei Kudrin.  The reserve funds were a big part of that, building up when times were good and available to be tapped when things went sour.  In recent years, Putin’s need to buy support has undermined this prudent policy.  Now all prudence is out the window.

For as I noted earlier today, this “investment” is rife with wrong-way risk.  Due to the same tight connection between the Ukrainian economy and the Russian one that compelled Yanukovych to submit to Putin, there will be a strong positive correlation between the price of these bonds and the performance of the Russian economy.  If the Russian economy tanks (due to an oil price decline, for instance), Ukraine’s economy will tank right along with it.  More severely in fact.  And when its economy tanks, the price of its bonds will tank too.

This is exactly what you don’t want in a “rainy day” investment.  Preferably you’d like something negatively correlated, but at the very least, you’d like something only weakly correlated  But instead Putin has invested one-sixth of the national welfare fund in a highly correlated investment that will perform badly just when Russia would need the money.  This is financial insanity.  Kudrin must be stroking out.

But that means that this fits in perfectly with Putin’s obsession with Ukraine.  So he’s “won” the Ukraine (assuming, of course, that Clockwork Orange doesn’t strike again).  But what has he won?  An economic basket case, a cesspool of corruption, and a dysfunctional Sovok state.  He’s spent $15 billion (plus another $5 billion in gas price cuts), but he’ll spend a lot more.  Because this will not address Ukraine’s fundamental economic problems.  Yanukovych will be back for more, and more, and more.

And why is Putin committing such a blunder?  Because of his delusions of grandeur. His desire to reverse the collapse of the USSR, which he considers history’s greatest geopolitical tragedy.  His obsession with gathering again the Russian lands.  And the Russian obsession with Ukraine.  They truly believe it to be naturally subordinate to Russia.  Not a real country, as Putin said to Bush.  To Putin, and to most Russians, an independent Ukraine is a monstrosity.

Insane.  Utterly insane.

You’ll read about this being the latest in Putin’s run of political and diplomatic triumphs.  With a few more such triumphs, Russia will be undone. He has won the bidding war with the EU (not that it was much of a contest).  But he-and Russia-will suffer the winner’s curse.

Be careful what you ask for, Vlad.  Be very careful.

The inevitable has happened.  Yanukovych traveled to Moscow, and received Putin’s promise to purchase $15 billion in Ukrainian government debt using the Russian sovereign wealth fund, and a further promise to cut gas prices substantially (though temporarily).  These terms are very similar to what Edward Lucas tweeted a couple of weeks ago, so his sources are vindicated.

There was no quid pro quo announced.  Specifically, Putin claimed that Ukraine’s joining of USSR Lite-the Customs Union-was not discussed.

This was a tactical choice.  Announcement of a formal agreement to join, or a plan to join, would have stoked the protests in Maidan and elsewhere in Ukraine.  But everyone can see the writing on the wall, and so I don’t think that makes much difference.  Announcing Ukraine’s accession to the organization would have just been gilding the lily.

This is something out of the Godfather, with Putin in the role of Don Corleone, and Yanukovych in the role of Bonasera.  “Some day I will call on you to do a service for me.”

For all the attention the deal is getting, it really doesn’t change much.  It was almost inevitable that Yanukovych would throw in with Putin.  As I said on Twitter, Putin was offering Yanukovych a fix, and the Euros were offering him years of rehab.  Easy choice for a corruption addict like Yanukovych.  The opposition and protestors will see through the lack of a formal announcement about the Customs Union, and will take this as proof that Yanukovych has sold out Ukraine to Russia.  The die has been cast, and the standoff between the protestors and the government will continue.  If the protests do not fade away, Yanukovych will have to decide whether to repress it, or just try to wait it out.

And as before, the key figures will be the oligarchs and the military and security forces.  In one ominous note, Putin offered increased cooperation between the Russian and Ukrainian militaries.  I’m sure he did.  He wants to make sure they are reliable.

What’s in this for Russia, as opposed to feeding Putin’s imperial ambitions?  Well, Putin has tied Russia to a money pit.  The Russian economy is already moribund, and the sovereign wealth fund is not sufficient to withstand a substantial drop in oil prices (which is a real possibility).  Investing in Ukrainian junk bonds is hardly the action of a prudent fiduciary.  Moreover, this cannot be the end of it.  This is just the first fix for the junky.  He will need more, and more, and more.  The $15 billion will get him over the immediate fiscal crisis, but it will soon rear its ugly head again, because the fundamentals of the Ukrainian economy are still abysmal.  And the investment is a wrong-way risk from Putin’s perspective.  If the Russian economy takes a hit, due to a fall in the oil price or anything else, the Ukrainian economy will take a hit too, and the bonds Russia has bought will tank.  This is exactly the opposite of the kind of investment one should put in a “rainy day fund.”

Insofar as the gas price is concerned, Gazprom’s stock price fell only slightly on the news.  Since the deal was largely anticipated, that’s not much of an indication of whether the price cut, which is substantial in dollar terms (almost 50 percent) is expected to last long.

One final note.  Yanukovych comes off looking even more buffoonish than before, which I hardly thought possible.  He justified his decision by saying that given the dependence of the Ukrainian economy on Russia’s, he had no choice but to throw in with Putin.

What?  He just noticed this dependence?  It escaped his notice while he was negotiating with the Euros?

This statement is almost as buffoonish as his threat to investigate those who negotiated the Association Agreement with the EU because they had put Ukraine at risk.  Again: he had no idea what was being negotiated, and what its implications would be?

It’s very Obamaesque, in fact.  Apparently Yanukovych only learns about these things by reading the paper, or something.

In sum, what transpired in Moscow today just formalizes what everyone who was paying attention predicted.  It really changes nothing.  The divide between the protestors and the government remains, and how that plays out from here no one can predict with any certainty.

Tom Friedman has always been an apologist for authoritarians (and worse) who never fails an opportunity to take their side against the US, or against those battling authoritarians.  Which is why longtime readers know that I refer to him as Tool Time Tom, because he’s a complete tool.

Case in point: Face the Nation on Sunday, where he made excuses for Putin and sneered at Ukraine and the Czech Republic (h/t @libertylynx).

Full disclosure: I did not watch Face the Nation.  I had something more important to take care of.  Like cleaning the lint trap on my drier.

Regurgitating Putinprop is somewhat of a change for Friedman: he spends most of his time sucking up to the leadership of the PRC.  But the Putin and China upsuckery share the same roots.

The regurgitation of the NATO expansion meme begs a question: just why-oh-why to the Baltics, Poles, Czechs, etc., want to be in NATO?  To carry out their long-term scheme to overturn the injustice of 1612 and realize their ambition to subjugate Russia?  Hardly.  The exact opposite.  Because they want protection against Russian control.  Putin and mouth breathing Russian nationalists are sore because NATO expansion denies them the imperial control they believe their due.  NATO is a shield behind which eastern European nations grope towards a more humane, civil, democratic, and free future, not a sword aimed at Russia.

But Putin can’t tell the difference.  And either can Tom Friedman.

Back in the darkest days of the Cold War, the most frightening doomsday scenario was the the US would be forced to go nuclear because NATO forces would be overwhelmed by a conventional Soviet attack through the Fulda Gap.

Oh, how the worm has turned.

Now, the Russians are threatening that they will go nuclear in response to a US conventional attack.  There is something of a difference.  In the Cold War, the threat to NATO forces came primarily from massed Warsaw Pact armor.  Today, it is precision strike conventional weapons that give the Russians nightmares.  But just as the American fears in the 70s and early-80s were a confession of weakness in a major military category, the Russian fears today are a confession of their abject weakness in several major military categories.

Of course, given the source perhaps it is wise not to take this threat too seriously.  For the source is Rogozin.  You know, Rogozin the Ridiculous.

Today saw a renewal of the massive protests in Kiev.  Indeed, they were arguably larger than those that occurred last weekend.  Organizers called for 1 million Ukrainians to meet at Maidan.  Crowd counts are notoriously unreliable, and it is doubtful that a million actually protested, but the photographs and videos of the events demonstrate that the demonstrations were massive.

So where from here?  Yanukovich added fuel to the fires that are inching towards him by meeting with Putin in Sochi.  Edward Lucas might have fueled the flames even further when he tweeted that a deal had been struck, with Yanukovich securing $15 billion from Putin, along with a substantial cut in gas prices, in exchange for a promise that Ukraine would join Putin’s simulacrum USSR, the Eurasian Economic Union, in 2015.  Lucas was quickly criticized for being too quick on the tweet, as it were, and spreading a thinly sourced rumor.  Putin’s Carney Peskov said the EEU had not even been discussed, that no deal was done, and that further discussions would take place at a technical level.  But the Ukrainian PM Azarov (who makes Yani look like a real charmer) said that a big deal is in the works.

But remember: they’re all Sovoks, so absolutely nothing they say is worth the air of the breath that carries the words.

A hamfisted crackdown in November was an inflection point in the crisis: the attack turned what had been a somewhat forlorn protest into a much more intense national movement.  (Well, semi-national: protests are massive in western Ukraine, and muted, at best, in the east of the country.)  This is no doubt making Yanukovich abstain from further violence.  The very size of the crowds, and the international attention they are getting, are also a deterrent.  There have been ominous signs-the surrounding of a TV station by the Berkut, warnings to evacuate government buildings some protestors have occupied-that force might be used, but so far the government has been restrained.

So Yanukovich will likely try to wait out the protests, in the hope that they will peter out.  This is probably a futile hope.  He made a similar calculation in 2004, and we know how that worked out.  If anything, the opposition is even more motivated today, as the stakes are perceived to be higher.  2004 was about a corrupt election.  2013 has been framed as a choice of tomorrows, between a humane European future with normal people in a normal country living normal lives on the one hand, and a return to a bleak past as a Russian satrapy.

What’s more, Yanukovich does not have the luxury of time.  Ukraine’s economic situation is desperate.  The country’s foreign reserves are down to about 2 months of imports.  Its interest rates are among the highest in the world.  It needs money, and it needs it now, or it risks fiscal collapse. The IMF has offered money, but on terms that make Yanukovich, his cronies, and his oligarch allies blanch.  Putin is apparently offering money, but on terms that would make a substantial part of the country, and virtually the entire western part, even more furious than it already is.  Today’s massive demonstrations were a response to a rumor of deal: think of the reaction to the reality of one.

Yanukovich, in other words, is caught between Putin and the people.  But it’s worse than that.  Neither trust him.  Both will think that if he sides with them, he is more than capable of reversing course later.

And he has to make his choice soon.

Putin has the cash.  Putin can offer other resources-notably, support to the security services.  Covert, preferably, but overt if necessary.

Putin may have an interest in getting Yanukovich to crack down on the protests.  Once that happens, the Ukrainian president will have nowhere to turn for support.  He will be totally dependent on Putin.  The primary consideration that may lead Putin to want to avoid a violent outcome is that it would inevitably be associated with him and Russia, and could lead to boycotts of the Sochi Olympics, or at least a drumbeat of stories that would detract from what Putin is trying to achieve with the games.

Although he doesn’t have a lot of time, given Ukraine’s parlous economic circumstances, since he has no good immediate moves to make, my guess is that Yanukovich will play for time and pray for a miracle.  When that doesn’t come, he will probably choose Putin, because that gives him at least a chance at survival.  And when he makes that choice, the possibility for a violent outcome is very real.

The eventual outcome depends in large part on whether Yanukovich can rely on the military.  The Berkut (his interior forces) are presumably reliable, but will the army stand idly by if Yanukovich attempts a Tiananmen solution?  (Remember the situation in Romania in 1989, where the military refused to fire on revolutionary crowds.  Similarly, during the coup in 1991, Soviet military units, notably a division of paratroopers under Lebed, refused to obey orders to surround the White House where Yeltsin was leading the resistance.)  In violent situations, those who control the resources with the greatest potential for organized violence prevail.

I have no idea what the situation inside the Ukrainian military is.  No doubt the Russians have penetrated it, especially at senior levels.  But whether it is a reliable force, or one that could turn on Yanukovich, I don’t know.  And sadly, even though this is arguably the most important determinant of where things go from here, the media is totally uncurious about it.  They are too wrapped up in the romance of what is going on in the streets to pay attention to the historical reality that what goes on in the barracks is far more important in determining how revolutions play out-or don’t.

One last word.  The Obama administration has been-again-MIA.  Yes, the loathsome Samantha Power tweeted support for the protestors, but as in Iran in 2009 the administration has been notable mainly for its absence on this issue. It should step up to the plate on this.  Because it’s the right thing, and because it could take Putin down a few pegs.

To put it in Navspeak, the egregious Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has really screwed the pooch.  In testimony before a Parliamentary committee he admitted that (a) documents sent out of the country had names of British intelligence personnel on them, (b) he couldn’t be bothered to vet all the documents to ensure no names of intelligence agents were included in what he shipped out of the UK (to the NYT, specifically), and (c) paid Greenwald’s partner Miranda to mule the documents out of the UK (in stark contrast to his previous denials that the Guardian had paid Miranda).  Blogger Louise Mensch covered the hearing in detail.

This is a big deal because it is a crime in Britain to transport the names of UK intel personnel out of the country.  Even if it wasn’t a crime, it would be a very grave matter because it would put lives at risk, and would jeopardize British national security.  Not to mention the national security of UK allies, including the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

His defense? That release of the Snowden material is self-evidently in the public interest, and that there is no evidence that UK intel people had been put at risk.

In other words, Alan Rusbridger, elected by nobody, and who claims he should not be accountable to anybody, and especially not to the British government or law enforcement, has appointed himself the final arbiter of what is in the public interest.  What’s more, he claims to be able to know how people operating in the very clandestine world of intelligence cannot possibly be threatened by disclosure of their names.  (I would note that even if individual agents do not come to harm, their disclosure can lead to the harm of those they have interacted with, or the undermining of operations that would have otherwise reduced the risk of actions that could harm UK national security, or the lives of innocent individuals.)  (As Mensch notes, moreover, any individual whose name was leaked has suffered a severe career setback, as they are essentially undeployable in a covert role: something the Guardian understood when it came to Valerie Plame.)

And then there are the suck-ups who work for Mr. Rusbridge.  Luke Harding (@lukeharding1968) is a very special case. Bravura performance? Get a room, please.

Harding is a special case because he co-authored a book on Wikileaks in which he-wait for it-blasted Assange for not redacting the names of individuals named in the State Department cables stolen by Manning and released-via the Guardian-to the world.  So let me get this straight, Luke:  Assange was treacherous, but Alan I Couldn’t Be Bothered to Redact Names Because There Were Just So Many Bleeding Documents Rusbridge is a hero bravely defending liberty and a free press before Parliament.  Have I got that right?  What is it?  That was then, this is now?  Or, is it that Assange screwed the Guardian, so you had to find a club to beat him with, but wouldn’t dare turn the same club upon yourselves?  I guess I don’t qualify as a first rate intelligence by the F. Scott Fitzgerald definition, because I am having a really hard time of holding two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retaining the ability to function.  And believe me, your criticism of Assange and your defense of Rusbridge are about as totally opposed as ideas can get.

Harding is also a special case because he wrote a book about his experiences in Russia that was very critical of the Putin regime and the FSB in particular.  Yet he is mute on the subject of Snowden’s flight to Russia and control by the FSB, even though any sentient being without an axe to grind realizes that the greatest beneficiary of Snowden is Putin and the FSB that Harding claims to despise.

Luke Harding is the exemplar of a form of transitivity that characterizes the Guardian.  Yes, it often writes things that are very critical of Russia and Putin.  But its dislike of Russia pales in comparison with its hatred of the US and the UK government-at least the defense and intelligence establishments thereof.  So when it becomes an issue of the US vs. Russia-as is the case with Snowden-all criticism and even questioning of Russia is silenced, and screeching about the US and UK government reaches a deafening pitch.  In the Snowden matter, Ed’s complicity with and aiding and abetting of the FSB is never mentioned: indeed, anyone who suggests it is slimed as an NSA/GCHQ lackey.  When the FSB follows Harding, or breaks into his apartment, now that’s important.  That deserves a book!  But when the Guardian’s pet project provides incredible aid and comfort to that very same FSB, nary a word is spoken.  FSB?  What FSB?  This is all about NSA and GCHQ.  Snowden is a crusader for freedom, even though he is a tool in the hands of a regime that is inimical to freedom.  Following the party line.  Jot and tittle.

So when push comes to shove, when there is a choice to be made, the Guardian-and Luke Harding-make it plain where their real sympathies lie. They deserve no respect and no credibility.  And at least some-notably Alan Rusbridger-deserve the tender mercies of the law, with all the protections and procedures it affords him in the UK.  If it were Russia, not so much.

In his heroic efforts to alert Americans to the NSA’s threats to their civil liberties, Edward Snowden’s latest document release reveals that NSA colluded with Sweden to spy on Americans.

Wait.  Did I say Americans?  Sorry.  Got all wrapped up in the narrative.

Let me start over.  Edward Snowden’s latest document release reveals that the NSA and its counterpart the Swedish National Defense Radio Establishment  (“RFA”) cooperated to collect intelligence on Russia, including high priority targets such as the leadership.

A couple of comments.

First, I sure as hell hope so and am damned glad.

Second, um, isn’t the whole point of the NSA-and presumably RFA-to collect intelligence on foreign nations, especially those who are not just potential adversaries, but actual ones?  Hell, NSA’s primary reason for being for  decades was to collect intelligence of all varieties on the USSR.  The anti-terrorist mission which Poitras, Greenwald, etc., insinuate is the only legitimate basis for its current existence was pretty much an afterthought, and is still only a portion of what NSA does.  (IMO the NSA and the intelligence community in general have been mistaken in emphasizing its anti-terror role as a justification for its programs.  This has allowed the Snowden gang to raise doubts about the legitimacy of NSA’s non-terror-related activities, including collecting intelligence on foreign leaders and countries.  NSA should defend these activities.)

Third, this is a case where the US and Sweden have common interests, as is the case with the US and many of the other countries with whom it has cooperated, as revealed by previous Snowden disclosures.

Indeed, Sweden has long been, and continues to be, the subject of aggressive Russian intelligence and military operations.  These include Soviet submarine incursions into Swedish waters. (The lack of these episodes post-Soviet collapse are due more to the implosion of the Russian submarine force than any change in intent.)  They also include violations of Swedish airspace, including several recent simulated bombing runs on Sweden.

Given this history, cooperation between NSA and FRA is about as shocking, and about as alarming, as the cooperation between the FBI and local law enforcement on kidnapping and bank robbery.

As a near front-line state, with deep engagements and interests in eastern Europe and the Baltic, Sweden has no illusions about the threats posed by Russia.  Military. Economic. Criminal. (In Russia, these two are hard to distinguish.)  And yes, political.  Note that Sweden’s Karl Bildt has been among the most outspoken in criticizing Russia’s intimidation in Ukraine.  (Could he give John Kerry a blood transfusion?  He could use it. First the French, and now the Swedesare making Kerry and Obama look feckless and craven.  Read that sentence again to get the full significance of how embarrassing that is.)

The fact that Snowden, Poitras, Greenwald et al think that this revelation somehow reveals that the US is engaged in illegitimate acts tells you about their utterly unrealistic view of the justifiable activities of national intelligence authorities.  States have engaged in such activities since time immemorial.  They are an essential state function.  This revelation also shows that they believe that cooperation with the United States is inherently disreputable.  Because they believe like most hardcore leftists that the US is uniquely malign.  The criticism of those who cooperate with the US, and the elevation of the Russians-the Russians-to the status of victims tells you need to know all about whom they think are the bad actors.

The point is to put pressure on the US, and most notably, US allies, who cooperate out of self-interest with US intelligence agencies.  It has nothing to do with the privacy or civil liberties of the nations involved-the ostensible justification for Snowden’s theft-and everything to do with compromising the legitimate activities of free, democratic countries.

And who are the beneficiaries? Unfree, undemocratic ones.  Most notably Russia.  You know, the country to which Snowden fled, and which has given him asylum, obviously under the control of its security services, as self-righteously-and implausibly-as Snowden, Greenwald et al try to deny it.

Russia. The country of SORM.  Which those stalwart defenders of human liberty and privacy Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras, et al never mention ever.

What they reveal and what they refuse to discuss proves, day after day, that they are all objectively pro-Russian, and outrageous hypocrites to boot.  And sorry, but advancing Russian interests at the expense of American and Swedish (and German and British and Portuguese and French and Spanish and . . .) interests is utterly incompatible with a claimed purpose of fighting for liberty and privacy.  Because however imperfect these countries may be, on their worst day they are far superior to Russia on its best.