Thread: Spies ;-)

Originally Posted by Ramil

American government executed these two for espionage. And was not all that long ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg

That is terrible.

(But Ramil, remember the argument about death penalty which you support? This is such a good example of why death penalty is wrong in my view!)

I wish I could like America, but I just can't...!!! for exactly reasons like this in its recent history, and the present-time reasons that Basil77 mentions.

Since I've become interested in Russia I've seen a lot of talk about "Soviet propaganda" etc... I am sure there was a fair bit of that, but the difference must be that 1) the people knew it was propaganda, and 2) they probably didn't believe most of it anyway...

But the propaganda of the US is SO much more clever and successful. Almost all of the citizens seem to believe it. Like: "communists are evil" and "Afghanistan is a threat to the USA".
Fancy whipping up so much public hysteria that people thought it was ok to execute these two.

RIP Rosenbergs!

I hope the spy who managed to escape in Cyprus gets away!!
I quite like these spies, they seem pretty cool.
Good luck to him!!


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Someone wrote "catched". Catch is an irregular verb.. It should be "caught". The sentence should be: "One of the spies that was caught."

Originally Posted by Hanna

Someone wrote "catched". Catch is an irregular verb.. It should be "caught". The sentence should be: "One of the spies that was caught."

Thank you! I knew that of course, just forgot.

The Rosenbergs are identified by Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs as Russian spies.

To say otherwise is revisionist history. Liberal White American guilt.

Originally Posted by Ramil

This all could be very amusing, but wait, I remembered something:



American government executed these two for espionage. And was not all that long ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg

It should be noted that none of the 11 alleged spies have been charged with espionage.

It's strange because some shady stuff has been unearthed such as fake passports, falsified resumes....but to what end? It doesn't seem like they produced anything of value.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Since I've become interested in Russia I've seen a lot of talk about "Soviet propaganda" etc... I am sure there was a fair bit of that, but the difference must be that 1) the people knew it was propaganda, and 2) they probably didn't believe most of it anyway...

But the propaganda of the US is SO much more clever and successful. Almost all of the citizens seem to believe it. Like: "communists are evil" and "Afghanistan is a threat to the USA".

So the entire Russian population rejected Soviet propaganda out of hand, but all those poor saps in America can't even tell up from down? Honestly, I think this is your biases talking more than anything else. From my experience, many Europeans don't fully understand how starkly polarized and messy American politics, culture, and society can be. If you want to characterize the current mainstream American conservative movement as having an ideology that is aggressive, nationalistic, and borderline imperialistic, that's fine. I wouldn't really disagree with you. But you shouldn't just ignore the other half of the country.

Originally Posted by почемучка

If you want to characterize the current mainstream American conservative movement as having an ideology that is aggressive, nationalistic, and borderline imperialistic, that's fine. I wouldn't really disagree with you. But you shouldn't just ignore the other half of the country.

Sometimes I dislike democratic ideology even more than conservative one. Democratic mainstream sometimes can be poor-Albanians-suffering-genocide-from-evil-Serbs-defending , gay-rights-supporting ,peaceful
-Gaza-flotilla-activist-interceding, etc.

Originally Posted by Basil77

Originally Posted by почемучка

If you want to characterize the current mainstream American conservative movement as having an ideology that is aggressive, nationalistic, and borderline imperialistic, that's fine. I wouldn't really disagree with you. But you shouldn't just ignore the other half of the country.

Sometimes I dislike democratic ideology even more than conservative one. Democratic mainstream sometimes can be poor-Albanians-suffering-genocide-from-evil-Serbs-defending , gay-rights-supporting ,peaceful
-Gaza-flotilla-activist-interceding, etc.

Of the three examples you gave, I'd say only the Serbia intervention was really a Democratic party plank. Gay rights is on its way, but I don't think it's quite there yet; it enjoys broad support on the left but it hasn't been fully embraced by the party.

Originally Posted by почемучка

Of the three examples you gave, I'd say only the Serbia intervention was really a Democratic party plank.

That's more than enoth for me.

Originally Posted by Basil77

Sometimes I dislike democratic ideology even more than conservative one. Democratic mainstream sometimes can be poor-Albanians-suffering-genocide-from-evil-Serbs-defending , gay-rights-supporting ,peaceful
-Gaza-flotilla-activist-interceding, etc.

I think I'm on the conservative side, but I don't really care about the 'gay rights' being supported as long as they aren't aggressively supported by giving clear preferences over the other people's rights.

Back to the topic, it is a way too clear those 'spies' have nothing to do with the real espionage. (I mean, perhaps they were playing some role-games, I'm not sure. ) That is because there's a very simple and well-known rule in the modern espionage / counter-espionage: do not let the spy know you know he's a spy. And don't let the counter-spies know you know they know you're a spy. And while the high-rank analysts are playing the pure intellectual game of "who knows what and why" to justify their high maintenance to their governments, all the necessary information could be pulled out from the open and fully legitimate sources. And most of the money required for the espionage activity could be legitimately obtained through the fully legal operations as a byproduct.

I think the real question is who is really playing out that old 'Russian spy' card.

Several things about this:

I can't believe I actually support these spies but I practically wish they'd get off, particularly Anna Chapman and the fellow who skipped bail on Cyprus.

Secondly: This seems very amateurish! Either Russia is playing some kind of double-game, is somehow "set up" by the US, or its' completely losing its touch when it comes to spying.

The whole story adds up so poorly that it seems there's got to be more to the story than the papers report.
Alternatively perhaps whole parts of this were fake to start with.
Could it some kind of publicity gimmick or something else?

Another interesting thing is that a lot of continental Europeans are fully behind the Russian spies and speculating on what the guy from Cyprus ought to do to avoid detection and make it back to Russia.

The Litvinenko story was similarly wacky and made no sense at all, but in that case it was much more clearcut: If Russian intelligence was involved in killing him then I feel that that is completely wrong. Although it's understandable that they don't hand over the person responsible who would just have been doing his (rather sordid) job.

Espionage is a sport. It's treated as a game by both the FBI-CIA and KGB (now SVR)-FSB. See, seldom does somebody die. Only foot soldiers die. It's no man's land. One reason why I don't feel animosity when Russian spies are discovered in America or Canada. Neither when American spies are discovered in Russia or Cuba. "It's no man's land"-Moscow News journalist.

Here is a quote objectively stated by a Russian defector to the USA: "Canadian spies are like packs of wolves chasing deer. They feast on our bones. ..Unrelenting.." If he did not treat it as a sport he should had not praised Canadian intelligence instead paid lip service to Russian spy agency..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...-spies-swap-us

Four traitors for ten facebook clowns - brilliant! Once again our special services liquidly cr@pped their pants.

Кто же это всё придумал и зачем?

От начала до конца вся эта история кажется чистейшим бредом.

Мне интересно, почему до сих пор не уволен директор СВР Фрадков? В подобных случаях уважающие себя офицеры пускают себе пулю в лоб.

I wonder if Hollywood is will contact Anna Chapman about making a film of her life?

Btw, it is reported that these 10 'tourists' will be presented with free flats in Moscow and about $2000 monthly tax-free pension from SVR for the rest of their lives. Hey, people, I wanna be a spy!

Originally Posted by Hanna

I wonder if Hollywood is will contact Anna Chapman about making a film of her life?

No They made an agreement with the US court not to produce any movies, books, etc.

Меня не покидает стойкое ощущение, что то ли Россию обвели вокруг пальца, то ли наше правительство просто обделалось.

'There's a movie about a CIA spy either 'wrongfully or correctly' accused as a Russian spy. She was Evelyn Salt of the movie 'SALT'. It will open in moviehouses on July 23, 2010. It stars Angelina Jolie.

Originally Posted by крупскяа

'There's a movie about a CIA spy either 'wrongfully or correctly' accused as a Russian spy. She was Evelyn Salt of the movie 'SALT'. It will open in moviehouses on July 23, 2010. It stars Angelina Jolie.

OH, RLY?

Originally Posted by Basil77

Originally Posted by крупскяа

'There's a movie about a CIA spy either 'wrongfully or correctly' accused as a Russian spy. She was Evelyn Salt of the movie 'SALT'. It will open in moviehouses on July 23, 2010. It stars Angelina Jolie.

OH, RLY?

You know who Evelyn Salt is in real life? She was my ex-girlfriend who was a ballerina member of Bolshoi Ballet Theatre. She is Filipina. She lived in Moscow for about ten years. I got bored waiting for her in Philippines. I followed her in Moscow. I found out that she is living with another ballet dancer named Manda. I almost shot myself in the head. I found out later that KGB was responsible for stealing her away from me. They pressured me for CIA secrets to bring us back. I did not succumb. I went home disappointed. Philippine intelligence paired me with a more vivacious, stunningly beautiful model. I forgot all about her.