Power struggles aside, the interesting and not surprising news to me is how restricted Snowden appears to be, which is leading many who did not initially think so come to conclusion that yes, he is in fact being exploited by Russia. Not surprising...it is Vlad's Russia, which is a lot more like Stalin's Russia than Catherine's...
Still, I doubt ZHer's are going to stop cheering Vlad or stop being a distribution point for state propaganda via RT...
I am not sure the right term for "making a deal with Russia where they put you in protective custody and keep the CIA fro recapturing or killing you" is "exploitation" - Protective Custody is sure to be "restrictive" and I am sure Snowden is co-operating in certain ways with Russia as a way of holding up his end of the bargain. If he were being "exploited" I think we would be seeing a LOT MORE of him on TV and interviews - including straight out Russian Propaganda. Not that old-buddy Vlad is a good guy.. I just suspect this particular arrangement doesn't require him to be an a-hole. Using Snowden for propaganda - or simply over-exposing him, would lessen his effect and cast doubt on his motives - and the accusations of attention seeking and being a bagdad-bobish stooge of Putin would become common place. Snowden's overall accusations have proven true, and it would stupid to waste that sort of credibility on daily propaganda bits.
I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, I think it could be accurately termed a case of mutual exploitation, and so far the Russians have been smart about it by not overdoing it, but it seems clear to me that the willing disseminators of Russian propaganda in the West (like ZH) have not been bashful in their worship of Vlad or restrained in their bashing of the West, not that the latter isn't deserved in most cases. The very place that offered Snowden the greatest safety also became a bit of a prison for him, not unexpectedly. It is what it is. That there was information shared that possibly makes the hacking of our systems more possible and the detection and snooping more problematic for the NSA to effect in Russia is probably a certainty, what we got out of his disclosures is the scope of the police state aparatus in place here, which should disturb all Americans and spur them into action.
