Let's go back in time for a while: One of the highlights of the 2012 presidential debates between Obama and Romney was Romney's warnings that Russia was going to prove herself as a top "geo-political" threat. Obama's reaction was very indicative of the foreign policy the Democratic Party believed in. The now outgoing President Obama mocked his opponent and said: "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because…the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
It was a time when Russia was making her aggressive presence noticeable in the West, as Russian tanks and troopers were invading to annex Crimea, at East Europe, also known as the back yard of the European Union. It was the same period during which Russia was making her presence noticeable once again, this time in the Middle East, as Russian tanks and troopers were marching in various cities in Syria, in order to give all the possible operational and military help they could to the Assad regime.
It was only months before the "Edward Snowden" case burst out. A story that made the renewal of the Cold War official, even to those who were in denial until then.
The main and monotonous narrative that Snowden repeats over and over again in carefully handpicked journalists and Media is that he is a kind "whistleblower" that revealed only what was necessary in order to protect the American people against the American government that spied on everyone.
But that is not true.
The declassified version of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on him, published three days before Christmas, proves that the great bulk of the documents Snowden purloined from the NSA have nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests. On the contrary, they are related to military, defence, and intelligence programs of great interest to major US adversaries.
In addition to that, the Russian government let him come in out of the cold by sending him a state airplane to pick him from Hong-Kong to Moscow as soon as the American government revoked his passport.
In his very extensive piece in WSJ, Epstein adds a lot of important and specific parameters that altogether portray Snowden as he really is: a traitor and a spy.
But this case, that by the way came out before the Russian hacking against the Democrats and Clinton emerged, begs the question: What is the President-elect Mr. Trump willing to really do about that?
Mitt Romney, John McCain and many others respectful Republicans lawmakers assert that the Russian threat is existential and actions are required in order for the American interests to be protected and not compromised as Snowden let them be.
What Mr. Trump is going to do though?
On New Year's Eve, Mr. Trump informed the public that he has some kind of information according to which the Russians "might" not have been behind the cyber attacks. That he "knows more." But, only hours later, the very next day, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer tamped down expectations that Trump will actually disclose any new info about the alleged Russian hacking.
“It’s not a question of necessarily revealing,” Spicer said on CNN’s “New Day.”
But the GOP needs to be very clear about this: Is Vladimir Putin's Russia a friend? Can superpowers that just yesterday were engaged in a cold war ever be friends so soon, especially when one of them is not hiding the fact that it is acting like a true foe? Can you be a friend with someone that harbours a traitor that put thousands of American lives at risk?
Can the GOP that once won a cold war against Russia, lose it now?
And for what exactly?
One thing looks certain. The year 2017 will not be like the ones before.
