Edward Snowden Labeled a Modern-day Alger Hiss

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Edward Snowden Labeled a Modern-day Alger Hiss
 
By Cliff Kincaid 
 
Former Republican Senator Jon Kyl says former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, now living in Moscow, is “this generation’s Alger Hiss” and “may be one of the worst traitors in the history of our nation.” Alger Hiss, the State Department official who was convicted of perjury in 1950 for denying he was a Soviet spy, served 44 months in prison.
 
In remarks to the “Pumpkin Papers Irregulars” dinner in Washington, D.C., Kyl said, “As with Hiss, many in the public seem to be confused about whether Snowden is a ‘hero’ or a ‘traitor,’ with many, especially young people, more worried about the National Security Agency than Edward Snowden. Much of this confusion is the fault of the same media that is reaping large financial windfalls from publishing highly damaging news articles and stories.”
 
Rejecting claims by some conservatives and libertarians that Snowden is a hero or whistleblower for stealing and releasing classified information, Kyl, who retired from the Senate after the 2012 election, said, “Heroes and whistleblowers don’t admittedly steal thousands of classified documents about some of NSA’s most sensitive collection activities, give copies of them to the media, flee to that bastion of personal and political freedom, the People’s Republic of China, and, in an irony to end all ironies, seek political asylum in Russia.”
 
Snowden gave much of the stolen material to Glenn Greenwald, who left the British Guardian newspaper to work for billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar ad start The Intercept. Greenwald had been a regular participant in communist conferences, featuring Marxist enemies of the United States, and spoke to a conference of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood front. 

A fascinating aspect of the Edward Snowden affair, demonstrating his close collaboration with anti-American forces worldwide, has just come to the attention of the media. Contained in several stories about one of his meetings in Moscow was the name of his key German contact, a member of the German Green Party, Hans Christian Ströbele, who is also a member of the German Parliament. Buried in some of these accounts is the fact that Ströbele is a prominent German lawyer who represented the communist terrorist group, the Baader-Meinhof Gang—also known as the Red Army Faction (RAF).
 
Incredibly, Ströbele is now a member of a German parliamentary committee that oversees German intelligence agencies. He has sent letters to the U.S. House and Senate intelligence committees proposing a “dialogue between both of our monitoring committees and their members and to discuss future changes in the intelligence policy.” It’s extremely doubtful the U.S. Congress will favorably respond to his initiatives. But the Congressional Progressive Caucus may find his offer appealing.
 
In Germany, this far-left pro-communist and pro-terrorist lawmaker has significant influence. He is leading a campaign to have the German government protect Edward Snowden by giving him asylum in Germany.
 
His biography refers to the RAF terrorist killers as “political prisoners.”
 
The book, Tolerating Terrorism in the West: An International Survey, notes that Ströbele had been sentenced to 10 months imprisonment in 1982 for setting up a communications network between the prisoners of the RAF and activists outside the jails. He claims this was because of his “mission as a defender” of the RAF prisoners from 1970-1975. Ströbele says the sentence was changed to probation.  
 
In Moscow, Ströbele handed Snowden the “Honorary Diploma of the Whistleblower Award 2013,” in honor of his theft and release of classified documents on NSA surveillance programs. The term “whistleblower” is still being accepted by some dupes in the West who are willing to ignore Snowden’s international connections to America’s enemies and adversaries.
 
Ströbele’s immediate purpose is to get the former NSA contractor—who has been granted temporary political asylum in Russia—to leave Moscow and testify before a German parliamentary committee hearing on the details of NSA surveillance in Europe.
 
Alleged U.S. eavesdropping on foreign leaders, including Brazil’s then-President Dilma Rousseff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has figured prominently in this controversy.
 
Not mentioned in the coverage of this “scandal” is the fact that there are good reasons why the Brazilian and German governments might come under U.S. surveillance. Rousseff is a former Marxist guerrilla who was chief of staff to former Brazilian president and Worker’s Party leader Lula da Silva. The Worker’s Party is a Marxist political organization in Brazil and Lula was a personal friend of Fidel Castro. Although Merkel is considered an ally, the German Parliament includes not only members of the far-left Green Party like Ströbele, but the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), descended from the old ruling party in East Germany and now called the Left Party.
 
Ströbele’s representation of the RAF, whose members were trained at Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) camps, demonstrates that members of the international communist left in Germany, as well as the U.S., have not disappeared, but in some cases have assumed positions of power and influence. The RAF was the German equivalent of the Weather Underground in the U.S.
 
The RAF kidnapped and murdered German corporation executives, bankers, and police; bombed U.S. military bases; and attacked U.S. military personnel in Europe in the 1970s and 80s. One of their victims was U.S. Army Specialist Edward Pimental, who was abducted and executed with a bullet to the back of his head. One of his terrorist killers was released in 2007.
 
“The prisoners should have the chance for a new life,” Strobele said, referring to the terrorists being released from prison.
 
The famous KGB archivist, Col. Vasili Mitrokhin, revealed in the book, The Sword and the Shield, that the Soviet KGB, mostly through the East German intelligence service, was behind this campaign of violence and terrorism by the Baader Meinhof Gang/RAF. The purpose was to undermine the U.S. and the NATO Alliance—of which Germany is a member—in Europe. 

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