We’re in the midst of a spy scare, one of those periodic bouts of paranoia that spreads, like a virus, from Washington on outward. This time, it’s alleged Russian spies, but the scare is already becoming a generalized fear, permeating official Washington and the "mainstream" media like a poisonous fog. Check out Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan), a member of the House intelligence committee, Fran Townsend, CNN’s "national security correspondent," and CNN anchor Suzanne Malveaux in the "Situation Room," bloviating oh-so-knowledgably about this latest "threat":
How could I have missed that they’d drag in the Iranians? But of course, and if I were one of the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living in the US, I’d be worried. Ditto Chinese-Americans. That’s the idea behind the propaganda of fear: intimidation as a method of rule. And of course be sure to pick on a vulnerable minority – preferably a racial group that has yet to achieve official victim status. Are those pockets of Iranian immigrants ringing the Los Angeles metropolitan area really a ring of giant sleeper cells just waiting for the moment to strike? How about your next door neighbor, the Chinese-American engineer who works for a defense related industry and drives a better car than you? Who’s to say he’s not a sleeper, too?
If Hoekstra and Townsend are so worried about the alleged danger posed by Russian and Chinese espionage, then surely the considerable Mossad presence ought to concern them as well: after all, when Jonathan Pollard stole priceless secrets from the US on behalf of Tel Aviv, the Israelis traded the information to the Soviets in exchange for the release of tens of thousands of Russian Jews to be sent directly to Israel. According to a 1996 report by the Office of Naval Investigations, the Israelis sold stolen US military technology to the Chinese, and this came out in 2000, again, when Tel Aviv tried to sell China the ultra-secret Phalcon early warning detection system, created in the US.
In 2005, the FBI concluded that these heists posed an effective challenge to US military superiority, and cost us dearly, confirming an earlier report by the General Accounting Office (GAO). The GAO study of the costs of espionage detailed numerous instances of the theft of sensitive technology by Israeli citizens residing in the US, illustrating the key role played by Israeli hi tech companies as intelligence fronts. The GAO flat out declared that Israel "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally."
