Monday, June 08, 2009
Tough titties
The media are all atwitter (or is that atwatter?) about the two Al Gore employees who invaded North Korea and now are "unjustly" sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Too fucking bad. Everyone knows that North Korea is a closed totalitarian country with inch-by-inch surveillance. Everyone knows what will happen when you walk into a place like that with the intention of gathering information. No surprises whatsoever.
Not everyone knows, but it's generally understood, that CIA agents often use journalism as a cover, and CIA sometimes uses the services of real journalists. (As in "we'll help you get in if you'll brief us afterward.")
So the charge of spying is not unreasonable and might even be true.
Quit whining, assholes.
= = = = =
Actually I'm more worried by our failure to capture the two Americans who have been spying for Cuba for 30 years. Sounds like they were sloppy and incautious; should have been fairly easy to detect their shortwave transmissions. (Going out on a limb: I wouldn't be surprised if some nearby ham operators did detect and report the transmissions, but the gov't wasn't interested.)
Capturing people who may be enemy spies is healthy and normal behavior for a nation. Failing to capture apparent enemy spies (for 30 years!!) is unhealthy and self-destructive.
= = = = =
Later and less grumpy note... It's interesting that the Cuban spies were finally picked up under Obama. We can safely assume that FBI had some degree of info about them for a while, and there doesn't appear to be any imminent or sudden threat.
The talking point heads on both sides want us to believe that Obama is pro-Cuban, and his rhetoric has certainly been softer than Bush's rhetoric. But it's Obama who finally pulled the chain on these spies.
My conclusion is that Obama is setting policy, paying attention, holding the reins. The Bushes, Sr and Jr, never tried to control the bureaucracy, always allowed it to run rogue. So the FBI was content to follow its natural urges, which include bombing Christians and keeping foreign agents under surveillance forever.
Obama is different. He has a policy in mind and intends to use the bureaucrats as tools to implement the policy. What's the policy? Something like: "Speak softly and carry a big carrot and a big stick." ¶ 11:53 AM
Too fucking bad. Everyone knows that North Korea is a closed totalitarian country with inch-by-inch surveillance. Everyone knows what will happen when you walk into a place like that with the intention of gathering information. No surprises whatsoever.
Not everyone knows, but it's generally understood, that CIA agents often use journalism as a cover, and CIA sometimes uses the services of real journalists. (As in "we'll help you get in if you'll brief us afterward.")
So the charge of spying is not unreasonable and might even be true.
Quit whining, assholes.
= = = = =
Actually I'm more worried by our failure to capture the two Americans who have been spying for Cuba for 30 years. Sounds like they were sloppy and incautious; should have been fairly easy to detect their shortwave transmissions. (Going out on a limb: I wouldn't be surprised if some nearby ham operators did detect and report the transmissions, but the gov't wasn't interested.)
Capturing people who may be enemy spies is healthy and normal behavior for a nation. Failing to capture apparent enemy spies (for 30 years!!) is unhealthy and self-destructive.
= = = = =
Later and less grumpy note... It's interesting that the Cuban spies were finally picked up under Obama. We can safely assume that FBI had some degree of info about them for a while, and there doesn't appear to be any imminent or sudden threat.
The talking point heads on both sides want us to believe that Obama is pro-Cuban, and his rhetoric has certainly been softer than Bush's rhetoric. But it's Obama who finally pulled the chain on these spies.
My conclusion is that Obama is setting policy, paying attention, holding the reins. The Bushes, Sr and Jr, never tried to control the bureaucracy, always allowed it to run rogue. So the FBI was content to follow its natural urges, which include bombing Christians and keeping foreign agents under surveillance forever.
Obama is different. He has a policy in mind and intends to use the bureaucrats as tools to implement the policy. What's the policy? Something like: "Speak softly and carry a big carrot and a big stick." ¶ 11:53 AM
