FBI's 'spy novel' claims against Russians
The allegations read like a spy novel. The FBI says highly trained Russian secret agents were sent to live under deep cover in the United States in the 1990s, living as married couples. Their task was to infiltrate policy-making circles. Among their successes were getting close to a scientist involved in designing bunker-busting bombs and a top former intelligence official.
Moscow Centre - Russia's intelligence headquarters - allegedly asked them for information on Washington's perception of Russian foreign policy, Iran's nuclear programme and Obama's intentions at a summit last year and what he intended to offer Russia to "lure" it into co-operation.
It is said they communicated with the spy masters in Moscow by posting apparently innocent pictures on the internet which contained detailed texts. They also used special radio signals and computer technology. The FBI observed older techniques as well, money buried next to a beer-bottle marker, and "brush pasts" in the park.
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~17~RS~)
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All/most the above information could be obtained by reading quality broadsheets or off the net...
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Sounds like its straight out of a movie.
Isn't there a Jolie movie, Salt, just now coming out?
Glad they caught the spies!!! :)
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And there was this great Mullah nasiruddin, the wisest man ever born...
Every day for years he used to enter the city with a donkey with heaps on hay on its back. Everyday the inspector at the checkpost of the city gate would spend hours checking through the hay looking for things mullah used to smuggle, but he never found anything..It was the last day of the iinsepector before his retirment, he checked the hay and found nothing, he finally asked the mullah that since it was his last day, would the mullah be kind enough to tell him what he had been smuggling? the mullah replied, and I quote, "donkeys"...Somehow I dont know why the thread reminds me of this story...
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the moon twinkles brightly this summer night
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It will be curious who in our government will come to their aid. This first appeasement I expect is, "well, they did not really do any harm, ..."
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Seems at face value a very inefficient and haphazard way to infiltrate a foreign power especially having to wait such a long time to see them activated...no wonder the sleepers had to be sent a rebuke as to the reason they were in the U.S. in the first place! So assuming there must be thousands of them still undiscovered on Facebook.
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The actual size of the splinter-cell "build" or spyring was imperative here - quite valid - allegedly.
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Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming !!
McCarthy was right all along...
:o
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Perhaps we should pay less attention to illegal farmhands whose labor allow our companies to profit and consumers to purchase goods at bargain prices and more attention to highly educated illegals intent on influencing US government and corporate policies...or worse.
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The timing might be of significance. US/Russian ties were warming and Medeyev has just meet Obama and the US has agreed to Russian involvement in the WTO. Maybe the timing increases the bargaining chips for what the US can get in return for their advocacy. Or maybe the two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other!! Either way questions will be thrown round and this should catch the interest of the public and Hollywood as well as the politicians. Definitely deserving of a movie I say..Should be interesting to follow the journey of alledged agents...They dont get any sympathy from me. Spies = Over glorified narks full of their own percieved self importance being used as pawns in someone elses game of chess.Get a real job
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If the west is so civilized and diplomatic, it should get rid of "its spy-agencies...Besides they should be by now more than aware that spies lead them to wars...and not to negotiations..."no negotiations" is the sir name of diplomacy of the west..
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It sounds to me like what they are trying to do is build up resources for later use in case of deterioration of relations or some sort of crisis. These people aren't actually being told to get them some specific material or do something in particular, but to build contacts and relationships in order to build up networks of influential people. They might later be used to explain some American policy decision or maybe even to influence such decision in a covert or semi-covert way. They might decide to use their contacts to compromise either the contacts or other people in some way. The uses of such a network are limited only by the imagination and ethics of the people running them.
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"3. At 10:41pm on 28 Jun 2010, colonelartist wrote:
And there was this great Mullah nasiruddin, the wisest man ever born...
Every day for years he used to enter the city with a donkey with heaps on hay on its back. Everyday the inspector at the checkpost of the city gate would spend hours checking through the hay looking for things mullah used to smuggle, but he never found anything..It was the last day of the iinsepector before his retirment, he checked the hay and found nothing, he finally asked the mullah that since it was his last day, would the mullah be kind enough to tell him what he had been smuggling? the mullah replied, and I quote, "donkeys"...Somehow I dont know why the thread reminds me of this story..."
I remember it was a Russian factory and involved wheelbarrows.
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Maybe someone in administration has seen "Yes Prime Minister".
There was an episode that when Jim Hacker was in a mess (like Obama now is), Sir Humphrey arranged to throw out Russian spies todivert attention fromJim's troubles. Suppose to be based on something that happened when Harold Wilson was PM in the 60s.
Learning from "Perfidious Albion"?
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5 minutes after a summit to announce closer cooperation between the US and Russia, the US arrests a bunch of spies who have been in the states for years?
Sounds like a spring cleaning session by the Russians packaged as a goodwill gesture.
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It can hardly be surprising that Russia would feel an ongoing need to collect intelligence on the U.S. or that they would use methods they'd found effective in the past. After all, knowledge is power. No doubt our friends and allies are trying to discover similar information about us and we are doing the same to them.
As for being able to gather as much off the internet, although a lot of intel can be collected from open sources a lot of material is still classified and not readilly available. Also, I doubt the government has revealed to the press all that it knows about their activities, only what it wants to reveal or can't avoid becoming public.
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What a waste of spies. What could they possibly learn? The secret to building a missile defense shield that won't work? What the American assessment of the reliability of its own nuclear weapons are? What could they possibly do with these? America's very real and valuable secrets they won't ever get near. What's inside Microsoft Windows secret box that makes it tick. The formula for making Coca Cola. The recipe for Colonel Sanders' original fried chicken batter. These valuable secrets are far more carefully guarded because they are worth much more money.
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So they became so comfortable that they had to be reminded they were spies? That's actually pretty funny. Reminds me of a British series I saw years ago about two Russian sleeper agents, who'd lived so long in England that they'd forgotten they were spies and didn't want to go home.
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Yeah and I think they they also communicate by scribbling cryptic notes in "Best Garden" magazine pages that they leave in Marina Del Rey laundromats or other assorted newspaper racks around the city. They also leave cryptic notes on websites and BBC blogs. Isn't this kind of spy intrigue sort of old hat for 2010.
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Marcus Aurelius II,
That's so funny the Kentucky Fried Chicken bit.
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17. At 01:39am on 29 Jun 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"...America's very real and valuable secrets they won't ever get near. What's inside Microsoft Windows secret box that makes it tick. The formula for making Coca Cola. The recipe for Colonel Sanders' original fried chicken batter. These valuable secrets are far more carefully guarded because they are worth much more money. ..."
____________
Funny you should mention industrial espionage.
How many dozens of agents, targeted at either industrial espionage or national security, do you think China has in the US for every Russian agent in the US?
10:1? 20:1? 50:1?
For example, just before the G8/G20 summit the head of CSIS went public in the press with allegations that a number of elected provincial cabinet ministers were actually agents of foreign governments, and then dropped a broad hint that the foreign governments were in China and Arabia.
Changing times, eh?
Ah, where is Christine Keeler now?
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ukwales wrote:
"All/most the above information could be obtained by reading quality broadsheets or off the net..."
That was my reaction, too. Why not use google?
Who are these people fooling, going around pretending they know where the "secret and valuable" information is hidden, and how to get it?
They work for the russian government, for heavens sake. If they knew anything about anything, they'd get real jobs and earn real money.
Well, I guess one cannot be too surprised by the foolishness and arrogance of low paid government employees.
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Was Neil Kinnock one of those Russian agents who were caught?
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"Perhaps we should pay less attention to illegal farmhands whose labor allow our companies to profit and consumers to purchase goods at bargain prices and more attention to highly educated illegals intent on influencing US government and corporate policies...or worse." SaintDominick
Duh! Read below bleeding heart, this event happened 5 years ago.... No Homeland Security reports catching illegals crossing into the US, nationalities such as Syrian, Iranian, Sudanese, Somilian, some have martyr prayers, and other radical info, Homeland Security has reported that some were apprehended before lives were lost due to some actions planned. So dream on... with your bleeding heart. As danger moves ever closer.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sixteen illegal immigrants last year worked on construction at one of the most sensitive weapons sites in the country, according to a report issued Monday by the Department of Energy's inspector general.
By Michael McManus
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#4
...but the darkest hour is often before dawn.
Can you organise the extraction of 'W' and 'Laura', comrade? It's amazing that his cover was believed for so long, but the damage is too obvious to escape notice forever. And perhaps 'Dick' should come out with them.
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All countries spy on each other. Why should the Russians be any different? In fact, I bet England and Israel spy against the USA, and vice versa.
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Current Borders Patrol agents say 1 in 10 come from Middle Eastern countries, such as Yemen, Niger, Somilia, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and quite a few from state sponsored terrorist nations. These foreign agent walk across the border some 800,000 illegal are not even caught each year. Well at least they caught the Russians, huh.
Meanwhile Rockstar/Messiah Obama hides who visits him in the White House vistors log, as his 20 year pastor, rants on. Who is Obama's new guiding light? Maybe he wants to buy the New Russian fighter made at 1/3 of the cost of the US one, hum the international. Well, the US buy rides on their rockets and buys helicopters for Afghanistan. Everyone loves a bargain, except when you buy something new,figuring its cheap, and it turns to garbage. Sort of like electing a politican President. Good deal turned bad, still we have an impeachment warranty.
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I say after we convict the Russians, we trade them for some 238 plutonium, as we are just about out. So even if the US wants to produce nuclear energy, we can't unless the Russians sell us some. So we trade their spies for cash and plutonium thus becoming energy independent of foreign oil. If Obama can sell it to his faithful. But Obama and the Russians at least agree on one thing, stop drilling for Oil. Oh, yeah Russia once produced more oil than Saudi Arabia. Funny how Obama and Biden keep pushing the reset button when they need something. SVR disconnected the wires.
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The questions is, are the Russian spys good enough to gate crash a white house party?
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Who can blame these poor dears? This isn't exactly exciting work like in the movies! It's going to political fundraisers and church chicken dinners and blending into a bland, unnoticed lifestyle. You have at least two options. You can try to be just barely effective––enough to string along the folks back home while minimizing risk––and eke your American stay out for half a life-time or more. Or you can go back to those dreadful winters. Decisions, decisions. And don't even think about turning double. You're a team precisely so they could bump you off. Best to sandbag then? Right.
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Funny looking at the list of names most are not Russian at all. Just fools looking for a quick buck. Traitors, or sellouts would be a better term. SVR just used trained chimps. I think James Bond would agree, dispatch them quickly and get on with more important things. Like fast cars, good drinks, and the rest of lifes more thrilling pursuits.
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Turning in a partner in crime's name to the FBI is an efficient way for one Mafia criminal to screw another. Have American spies suddenly improved in spycraft or is this a case of retribution?
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Well that's it, then. Our doom is sealed. It appears as though the contagon of American annomosity has spread to London's black cab drivers, and by extention the whole of the British public. Noone has an educated, objective grasp of the situation; noone feels even the slightest bit of empathy for those who (out of line and childish though they were) acted like humans and said things that they shouldn't have said.
Now all we have to do is weight for the order to come to shut down our military bases on British soil and to be consulted on a need-to-know basis only as a result of said (or a similar) request of the British people to their elected officials. Think I'm kidding? No democratic leader can overcome the power of the people. Just you watch and see.
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They've totally underestimated the spy threat. Russians have always been a bizillion steps ahead of the Americans. 10 is just the tip of the iceberg. We've been infiltrated in every governmental agency. I guess we should start learning Russian now.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Eyegore,
I'm sure they've already done it. Does that also mean they've planted listening devices in Obama's office in the back of the Great Seal? Flashback to the 1960's and Maxwell Smart's shoe phone. They better check the phone lines.
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Well get ready. This board is about to bear witness to the usual paranoid die-hards who’ve seen the movie “Red Dawn” one too many times…
Seriously, is anybody really that surprised by the idea that the Russians have spies in the US (and probably vice versa)?
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I'm surprised Russia had the budget for such a venture back in the 90s. Still, after watching videos of a handful of legislators in the Duma running around hitting the voting buttons for their absent comrades and now reading about this bizarre spy ring, I wonder how much has really changed since the Soviet Union dissolved itself besides a few names and borders.
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35. At 04:23am on 29 Jun 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
BTW, they (the French) can't build planes either. I won't get on an Airbus ever again, not after the last time when the wings were flapping up and down.
------------------------
They built the Concord (along with the British), one of the most iconic examples of aeronautical engineering ever made. Also, modern airliner wings are designed to flex under stress. The fact that those wings were flexing rather than breaking off is a good thing…
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35. MarcusAureliusII:
"BTW, they can't build planes either. I won't get on an Airbus ever again, not after the last time when the wings were flapping up and down."
Wings of commercial aircraft are designed to flex, this happens on Boeing aircraft (late model) as well.
NASA is even experimenting with flex wing technology on an F18 to improve roll and efficiency.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-061-DFRC.html
But of course you're right, the French can't make planes and all those airlines must be wrong and you must be right? Right?
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What were they looking for?
They wanted to know what was REALLY happening here. Not on the decadent media, not in the rumor mills, not in our government's Orwellian Doublespeak, not in our multitudes of hate movements and splinter parties blathering - but, underneath the snowy chatter of the billions of electronic messages every single day that must be an elaborate and artificial smoke screen - What are those devious American really doing?
This Can't Be True!
KScurmudgeon
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But then that is what Mark is doing here, right?
Curmudgeon
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I find it staggering what makes the TV news in the US... I think this should be classed as a pretty serious story? I'm sure it's made the top of the news in the UK? Maybe it's me, but all night, between ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, all I've seen are news bits dominated by BP, Van De Sloot, the Dutch guy who's up for murder in Peru and fall out shelters in the Mojave Desert. I can understand BP but Van de Sloot and fall out shelters? Hmmm, maybe I just missed it... Or maybe they did?
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I believe every nation has spies that do this. In America, we have "spies" or lobby cell agents from each country. Israeli-American groups dictate the special relationship we have with Israel. As does the Armenian-American that presses Congress to openly recognize there genocide from the Turks. I bet French and Germany are spying each other on policy making just the EU can systematically come to an agreement to bail out nations like Greece
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26. At 03:01am on 29 Jun 2010, Bill Baur wrote:
All countries spy on each other. Why should the Russians be any different? In fact, I bet England and Israel spy against the USA, and vice versa.
---
Your and my post are alike. #44
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Hm.
spies...
so, what of any substance did they actually -send- Mother Russia?
thus far, more an impression it's been inconsequential dribs and dabs, talk with a couple of people, make it look like they're doing something, to keep handler's happy and the cash rolling in.
Americanized - one tasked assignment they seemingly did a good job at accomplishing.
suspecting FBI found it wasn't actually profitable to continue surveillance for another 10 years of not much of anything and go for what they could get out of it in PR points.
spies, ya, as one similar comment posted at Yahoo's article, just like in the movies,
Our Man in Havana, Alec Guinness
not exactly Robert Hanssen
yawn,
maybe this will help out the poor bloke with the anxiety attack a couple of posts up.
so, i've clocked in. i'll be checking by the beer bottle. better make this worth my while, working my fingers to the bone for you like this. ;-)
matt k.
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ULTRA TOP SECRET KFC; crispy crunchy coating RATIO MIX[flour 50% Breadcrumbs 20% Egg protein 20% H20 40%floor sweepings 99% toe nail clippings [for extra chew] 69% , a sack of Mc Chrystal salt 99%, BP crude {for a slick appearance..} 100%
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Okay, don't the Russians know what to do?
Arrest 12 or even 120 Americans in Russia (there are a lot of them here so it should be easy), and charge them with being agents of the American government (and most of them are anyway), money-laundering (they all do that) and various other crimes (and most Americans abroad and specifically in Russia are criminals anyway) and make sure they get long jail terms.
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Bizarre developments, to say the least.
Days ago, President Obama pledges to help Russia finally be admitted to the WTO -- something consistently blocked by previous Administrations. Cisco Systems promised to invest a billion inside Russia: a venture that would actually represent many attractive benefits to all kinds of parties outside Russia.
I thought all that "good news" was too 'good' to be true!
Instead, the pendulum swings the other way. Russia is certain to retaliate in kind. And this may compromise much-needed consensus on Iran.
Not to mention how Chinese or other hyphenated-Americans might then begin to feel, and act.
The most I can discern from the public information is that some department of the monumentally dysfunctional Soviet/Russian bureaucracy continued to creak along as if nothing had happened, through all the years of stagnation, upheaval, reform & revisionism. Maybe these people have someone on the other side pretending to be spending precious resources on "valuable information" that is anything but -- hoping no one will notice.
For all we know, the "intelligence work" itself may be a cover for other anti-social activities, as the "money laundering" charges might suggest.
All I can add in terms of context to this tale is the reminder that when Robert Hanssen was actually causing a great deal of harm, he succeeded repeatedly in throwing others off his scent by sending them on wild goose chases after much smaller fish -- and even sacrificing perfectly loyal persons to his private agenda. What did it matter to him? He was the actual enemy, not they.
Whatever the merits of this case, as they emerge, they will undoubtedly be weighed & considered from all sides, with utmost precision.
It is, above all, the timing that is most thought-provoking. Did President Obama know, when he promised Dmitri Medvedev support in the WTO aspirations, that within days that promise would become moot -- jettisoned in the drama that will get blown up all around this peculiar arrest?
And who exactly was aware of this operation in Moscow? Who approved something as lame as this? Who signed off on the funding? Who processed the data? Shouldn't heads be rolling in more than one department?
Who trained these Mickey-Mouse agents? And who, for Heaven's sake, came up with these ridiculous names? And how long did it take the FBI to sort them out? Were they betrayed? By whom? How much money went into this operation, from both sides? How much time?
Given what we know about Russia/USA interactions over the past 25 years or so, it doesn't seem much was accomplished by these agents, or their associates. The pathos quotient here is rather staggering, almost cartoonish. Why even bother?
A question for all of us: how can any of us who use communications devices be completely sure our data is not being poached? My operating assumption has been the same for the past 30 years: nothing is private anymore.
This is a very curious story with many loose ends yet to be explored.
Or it could be another indication Saakashvili is looking for a new angle to launch another provocation. It would take him no effort at all to use existing Georgian assets in Moscow to ferret precisely this kind of "valuable" information that would be certain to stir up all kinds of reactions & emotions in the American heartland -- in the run-up to the American midterm vote.
Saakashvili would certainly prefer a return to Bush-era policies & decisionmakers: that paid off handsomely for him.
Or maybe some are looking for another reason to be angry with Venezuela (I am just guessing that would be the Latin American country visited by the alleged operatives, seeing as Chavez is so hostile).
So no, I don't think we know all the facts behind this story yet. But we should watch very closely, because right now, a slide back into Cold War mode could do considerable damage to everyone... And obviously, with this kind of revelation, one cannot have one side acting unilaterally -- whereas Reciprocity rapidly deteriorates into Escalation. Before you know it, we have more problems to address & spend money on than we had a week ago.
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Guilty or innocent,these people will be convicted in either case just as Julius and Ethel Rosenburg were back in 1951 with the help of the right-wing media and an ignorant public.I guess their guilt or innocence will never really be known.
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American Stupidity. I can imagine the neighbors inviting the Russians over for a barbecue. Their first big tip off should have been someone with an American sounding name with a Russian accent or inflection. They ought to be checking all the Taxi drivers too!
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My father was arrested in the US in 2005 under very similar charges. Newsweek and Time mag screemed "The Russian Spies are back". He was arrested before a big meeting between Bush and Putin, and the arrest helped Bush put pressure on Putin. After the meeting the charges were dropped and he was released. It was all lies. My dad isn't even Russian.
These people seem to be accused of being tricked by undercover FBI agents and of sending non-classified information over a wifi network. This isn't a crime. I predict they will be quietly released after Obama has his meeting with Medvedev.
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It seems that after miserable melt down in US, Russian oligarchs and mafioso are afraid from Socialist Revolution in America and damage to their investments there.:)
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Guys,Guys,Guys,
This will all be about timing,may be the Russians have caught an actual
U.S. under cover agent,& this is a preempt tactic/barging ploy.Far more
worrying is that,I am turning into a conspiracy walla,must check under the bed before using lap top...
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SaintDominick wrote:
"Perhaps we should pay less attention to illegal farmhands whose labor allow our companies to profit and consumers to purchase goods at bargain prices and more attention to highly educated illegals intent on influencing US government and corporate policies...or worse."
So the "illegal farmhands" and their criminal accomplices and supporters are not trying to influence the "US government and corporate policies" so they can stay in America illegally???!!!!
And or "worse?" You mean like those millions of "illegal farmhands" and their criminal accomplices and supporters that wish to continue establishing and supporting a so-called Latino culture within America with total disregard, contempt and hostility for American culture???!!!!
Right.
I'll take ten, and more, Russian spies over that anytime!!!!!!!!
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or,the FBI/CIA are wanting to protect their budgets or increase them,or
they have found out that the Welsh net work the Tafia are on the snoop again or
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Its difficult to take this seriously from a country seemingly driven by fear and paranoia. The timing of the 'disclosure' has a foul smell about it.
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"They built the Concord (along with the British), one of the most iconic examples of aeronautical engineering ever made."
If I recall it went the way of Concordsky ((Tu-144). And "Buran"
And just as spectcularly.
And now let's discuss another feat of areospace engineering:
Russian SLBM "Bulava". :)
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"Julius and Ethel Rosenburg were back in 1951"
Of course Rosenbergs were innocent; just like Abel, Fuchs, etc.)
Until 5 decades an NKVD paylist from that period has been released, with Julius' name on it)
[as well as names of many other "innocents" in USA, France, Germany, Italy, etc., including well known leftist intellectuals and journalists]
At which point even Rosenbergs' sons accepted the "incovenient truth".
BTW. Kim Philby (an NKVD mole in MI6) is still the only foreigner who has ever received the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union.
[and for obvious reason the last one]
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# 19 clamdip lobster claws wrote:
"Yeah and I think they they also communicate by scribbling cryptic notes in "Best Garden" magazine pages that they leave in Marina Del Rey laundromats or other assorted newspaper racks around the city. They also leave cryptic notes on websites and BBC blogs. Isn't this kind of spy intrigue sort of old hat for 2010."
"cryptic notes on websites and BBC blogs"? Sounds rather unlikely.
Then again, I have heard that, in Vladivostok, the eagle flies at dawn.
Just saying...
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Thinking back. They must of been law abiding citizens. Couple walking the dog on the side of the road. Waving and saying "Howdy Neighbor." Watering a lawn the lawn with a smile. Then the government gets suspicious. There the only one that pays all there bills on time. On the the block, the street, and the neighborhood.
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58. At 10:34am on 29 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"They built the Concord (along with the British), one of the most iconic examples of aeronautical engineering ever made."
If I recall it went the way of Concordsky ((Tu-144). And "Buran"
And just as spectcularly."
The Buran never flew at all.... just like the US space shuttle it wasn't cost effective. Concorde was scrapped after 30 years and ONE crash (caused by bits of metal dropping off a US airliner ahead of it). How many supersonic airliners has the US produced? It WAS a spectacular crash but no more so than the DC-10 that crashed at Sioux city in 1989 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5yztk_1989-sioux-city-crash_news
Caused by all three hydraulic systems failing after one engine explosion. Despite odds of 'a billion to one' it also happened on these 3 US built aircraft too:
In 1985, Japan Airlines flight 123, a Boeing 747, suffered a rupture of the pressure bulkhead in its tail section. The damage was extensive and caused the loss of fluid in all four of its hydraulic control systems. The pilots were able to keep the plane airborne for almost 30 minutes using differential engine power, but eventually control was lost and the plane crashed in mountainous terrain. There were only 4 survivors among the 524 on board.
In 1981, an Eastern Airlines L-1011 (also a 3-engine airliner) suffered a similar kind of massive failure of its number two engine. The shrapnel from that engine inflicted damage on all four of its hydraulic systems, which were also close together in the tail structure. However, fluid was lost in only 3 of the 4 systems. While the fourth hydraulic system was impacted with shrapnel too, it was not punctured. The hydraulic pressure remaining in that fourth system enabled the captain to land the plane safely with some limited use of the outboard spoilers, the inboard ailerons and the horizontal stabilizer, plus differential engine power of the remaining two engines. There were no injuries.
In 1971, a Pan American 747 struck approach light structures for the reciprocal runway as it lifted off the runway at San Francisco Airport. Major damage to the belly and landing gear resulted, which caused the loss of hydraulic fluid from 3 of its 4 flight control systems. The fluid which remained in the 4th system gave the captain very limited control of some of the spoilers, ailerons and one inboard elevator. That was sufficient to circle the plane while fuel was dumped and then to make a rather hard landing. There were no fatalities, but there were some injuries.
Mind you there are some real aeroneautical experts on the board today like :
""BTW, they can't build planes either. I won't get on an Airbus ever again, not after the last time when the wings were flapping up and down."
Who doesn't even realise that wings are MEANT to flex as rigid wings will snap off in turbulence. The old (and superb) US B24 Liberator bomber wings used to flex upwards over a metre when fully loaded. The equally impressive B-52 does the same.... on the ground the wings sag, in flight they bend right up.
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From the information given there doesn't appear to be any need to expose these "spies" at this time as it would appear they have been monitored for a long period of time and did not appear to have gathered much in the way of information.
I suspect as is always with these cases there is a lot more in the background than is being published. Personally these "spies" were very much known. The important ones, now that's a different story!
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One user describes this story as worthy of a film; to me, individuals who have lived perfectly normal lives in the US for many, many years whilst apparently failing to do something even worth a conspiracy charge (rather than the lesser ones arranged against them) does not immediately sound the plot of a classic spy film. They were so ineffective, after all, and their masters so concerned about their loyalty, that the latter felt compelled to send a message describing their basic mission to them.
One former neighbour of one of the couples described them as something along the lines of 'classic suburbia'. It sounds as if that is pretty much exactly the case. Outwardly 'normal' with sordid secrets.
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"At 10:34am on 29 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"They built the Concord (along with the British), one of the most iconic examples of aeronautical engineering ever made."
If I recall it went the way of Concordsky ((Tu-144). And "Buran"
And just as spectcularly."
As I recall the Concord too went very spectacularly. Down, that is.
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#59 "Kim Philby (an NKVD mole in MI6) is still the only foreigner who has ever received the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union."
Well... the only foreigner if you ignore this lot:
Abdel Hakim Amer - Egyptian military officer and political leader
Gamal Abdel Nasser – president of Egypt (1954-1970)
Abdul Ahad Mohmand – the first Afghan cosmonaut
Ahmed Ben Bella – the first president of Algeria
Zahari Zahariev - International Brigades pilot under Pseudonym Turk Halil Ekrem awarded #22 30 December 1936[6]
Georgi Ivanov – The first Bulgarian Cosmonaut
Todor Zhivkov – Communist president of Bulgaria
Aleksandar Panayotov Aleksandrov - The second Bulgarian Cosmonaut
Vladimir Zaimov - On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his death in 1972
Fidel Castro – leader of the Cuban communist government
Arnaldo Tamayo – the first Hispanic and Cuban cosmonaut
Josef Buršík – for heroism during the liberation of Kiev, awarded in December 21, 1943, after the occupation of Czechoslovakia he gave the award back
Otakar Jaroš – for heroism in the Third Battle of Kharkov, awarded in memoriam in April 17, 1943 as the second foreigner
Ján Nálepka (Slovak) – awarded in memoriam on May 2, 1945
Vladimír Remek – the first Czech in space and the first cosmonaut who wasn't a citizen of USSR or USA
Antonín Sochor – for heroism during the liberation of Kyev, awarded in December 21, 1943
Ludvík Svoboda – communist president of Czechoslovakia and army general, commander of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps
Gustáv Husák – communist president of Czechoslovakia
Stěpan Vajda (Rusyn) – for heroism during the liberation of Poland, awarded in memoriam on August 10, 1945
Richard Tesařík – for heroism during the liberation of Kyev, awarded on December 21, 1943
Jean-Loup Chrétien the first French astronaut
Marcel Albert – decorated WWII fighter pilot (Normandie-Niemen)
Jacques André – decorated WWII fighter pilot (Normandie-Niemen)
Roland de La Poype – decorated WWII fighter pilot (Normandie-Niemen)
Marcel Lefèvre – decorated WWII fighter pilot (Normandie-Niemen)
Sigmund Jähn – the first German cosmonaut
Walter Ulbricht – East German leader
Erich Honecker – East German leader
Erich Mielke – East German head of the Stasi
Bertalan Farkas – the first Hungarian cosmonaut
János Kádár – Hungarian politician
Rakesh Sharma – the first Indian cosmonaut
Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa – the first Mongolian cosmonaut
Władysław Wysocki - Polish officer from the battle of Lenino
Juliusz Hibner - Polish communist and officer from the battle of Lenino
Aniela Krzywoń - Polish soldier
Mirosław Hermaszewski – the first citizen of Poland to travel into space
Ramón Mercader – assassinated Leon Trotsky in 1940
Rubén Ibárruri – son of the Spanish communist leader Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, killed in the Battle of Stalingrad while fighting for the Red Army
Muhammed Faris – the first Syrian cosmonaut
Phạm Tuân – the first Vietnamese cosmonaut
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Ref 55, Allen
"I'll take ten, and more, Russian spies over that anytime!!!!!!!!"
Of course you would take 10 white Russian spies over one dard skinned illegal immigrant!
You are right, however, in saying that those "illegals" are influencing cultural changes in what was once a WASP Norman Rockwell society, but when it comes to influencing policy, the only policy that applies to them is the overt racism that takes advantage of fellow human beings while at the same time demonizing and abusing them.
The overwhelming majority of Mexican and Central American immigrants who enter the USA illegally come here to work, and do so by doing work that we don't want to do earning wages that would be unacceptable to the poorest American. Thanks to them our industry can satisfy its unskilled labor demands and profits in ways they would not be able to do otherwise and we, the American consumer, benefits by buying produce and getting services at bargain prices from our semi-slave labor "illegal" workforce.
Ironically, but not surprisingly, some prefer white spies from a country that had thousands of ICBMs with nuclear warheads aimed at us for decades, than a dark skinned immigrant whose major threat is the introduction of cultural changes to our society. Let's hope the only policy our friendly Russians were trying to influence was taxation on the import of beluga.
Regarding the criminal elements that do enter our country illegally from South of the border, their numbers would be minimal if we stopped buying illegal drugs to escape from the realities we find so hard to deal with.
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At 11:28am on 29 Jun 2010, Peter_Sym wrote:
#59 "Kim Philby (an NKVD mole in MI6) is still the only foreigner who has ever received the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union."
No, Kim Philby was the only foreigner who was awarded the rank of Colonel (General?) of the KGB.
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these be people better be found not guilty or, if found guilty, released and sent home.
If they are not, I expect many American foreign criminals in Russia to be arrested and very rightly too. In my experience most of them can be arrested over something, there are very few decent people among them.
In fact, be it known, that I have personally already reported a couple dozen Americans for attention from the Russian services over their various crimes.
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@16 (S#): "No doubt our friends and allies are trying to discover similar information about us and we are doing the same to them."
I agree with this. All nations spy on their friends, their allies, and their adversaries--always have, and always will. All nations expect it, too...it's part of the way diplomacy is played.
"As for being able to gather as much off the internet, although a lot of intel can be collected from open sources a lot of material is still classified and not readilly available."
Interestingly enough, the Congress now wants access to the DoD Secure Internet (see p. 372 of the House Armed Services Committee markup of the FY11 DoD budget for details). I imagine they'll get it, after which we'll read about several high-grade intel sources being compromised. Nobody within the Congress will ever be punished, though.
@21 (IF): "How many dozens of agents, targeted at either industrial espionage or national security, do you think China has in the US for every Russian agent in the US?"
Plenty. As you aptly point out, China is very aggressive here, as they are in many other areas. I imagine if we could read the terms and conditions of the arrangements they have entered into with the businesses who have outsourced there, we'd be horrified at what our businesses have surrendered in terms of intellectual property. Then again, if they are multinational businesses, they have no national loyalty...
@49 (AS): "But we should watch very closely, because right now, a slide back into Cold War mode could do considerable damage to everyone..."
Somehow I don't think there's any real danger of that. Most folks here are focused mostly on hanging on to their jobs and wondering if they will have one next week or next year. China's more close to their hearts primarily due to outsourcing. The resumption of a Cold War with Russia, or concerns about theft of strategic information, is about #43 on their top-10 list of concerns.
@41 (KsC):"...underneath the snowy chatter of the billions of electronic messages every single day that must be an elaborate and artificial smoke screen - What are those devious American really doing?"
I like your tongue-in-cheek remarks here; you definitely have a way with words!
If they have time to think about it after worrying about their own jobs, they probably shake their heads in disbelief that the Western democracies, and especially the devious Americans, had no better plan for managing their economies than Russia had, and that the Western democracies, and especially the devious Americans, are now horrendously in debt with no real plan to get out.
Arclight
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#68. I wasn't the one who made the incorrect claim that Philby was the only foreigner who was given the the title Hero of the Soviet Union. However he WASN'T a colonel in the KGB either... he THOUGHT he was, but got a nasty surprise when he defected to Moscow and found out that he was only ranked as an 'agent' (codename Tom) as a result he spent his time in Russia as a pretty useless alcoholic (although he did manage an affair with Guy Burgess's US wife, Melinda). It was only after his death that he was given the title of 'hero of soviet union' and a hero's funeral. Alive he was just an embarrisment to the Russians (and of no use to them either)
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I hate when this happens. Now there will be four or five comedy TV shows about homey Russian spy families in the 2011 season. "Honey I'm home. Did you get that spying done today? Sorry love, I had the shopping to do, and then had to pick the kids up from soccer practice. I'll do it tomorrow, I promise."
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#71 Peter, I can read Wikipedia (Wickedpedia?) too and your paragraph seems to come directly from there.
Rest assured, Peter, he was a high-ranking officer (either a colonel or maybe even a general), he wasn't an alcoholic (except may be for a very short period in his life, soon after arrival) and he was never an embarrassment and was very useful and overall adapted well and lead a very fruitful and rewarding life.
During his Moscow time he mainly concentrated on Anti-American activity.
Nothing that he did was ever a threat to his native country -- Britain.
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Re 62 :The Buran never flew at all"....
Yes it did. It made one succesuful flight on an autopilot.
"How many supersonic airliners has the US produced?"
None, and rightly so. When an implementation of SST concept was being considered GAO (U.S. Congressional General Accounting Office) issed a damning analysis demonstrating that such a plane would not be cost effective and therefore there would be no significant demand for it in a foreseable future. [GAO experts turned out to be right]
BTW. According to original plans Boeing's "Dreamliner" was supposed to be "near-sonic", that is flying just below sound-barrier.
The plans have been modified by Everett though, when Boeing's market research showed that arliners were not interested in faster planes at all; demanding instead long range mid-size planes, highly fuel efficient and capable of landing at medium size airports, which would allow airlines to abandon inefficient hub&spokes system resented by many passengers wanting actually to fly point-to-point.
And that's how the current Dreamliner (B-787) has been born.
[While Airbus and EU taxpayers got stuck with an inefficient and costly behemot (A-380) very few airports want to adapt to receive.]
P.S. "Concorde"'s crash has been atributed to a faulty, flimsy design of its fuel tanks (allegedly known to some of its chief designers, now on trial for that very reason).
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#73 So you're an agent in the KGB too? How else would you know this? No reliable online source confirms it. Philby was milked dry by the Russians but as soon as he arrived in Moscow he was of no use to them anymore. The KGB are not a dumb organisation and they never had money to spare.... they don't promote traitors to the rank of General. Philby ceased to be any use when he stopped having access to secret information.
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The entire story does not seem worthy of being the script of a Hollywood B movie. While it is true that the former Soviet Union, at the end of the Gorbachev era, issued a directive to KGB agents abroad to go deep and "use any means, anywhere" to further the aims of Soviet communism, the FBI made little or no progress in identifying and eliminating that very real threat. As to agents of today's Russia, involved in gaining bunker buster bomb technology, it is absurd and looks more like a desperate Obama regime ploy to divert attention from a growing number of failures of policy, legislation and crisis management. It looks more like a desparate attempt to take pressure off the increasingly beleaguered Obama bureaucracy which is showing cracks in almost every major area of its endeavours.
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Re #66
I was referring obviously to foreigners who chose to SPY for USSR.
No, not even Blake, Blunt, Burgess and McLean were given a title of the Soviet Union's Hero.
Or Ames, Howard, Walker, etc.
Despite a high value of their services to Lubyanka and Kremlin.
BTW. Soviet Hero Philby, who died in Moscow as an embittered alcoholic (just like his comrades) got even his own commemorative stamp, to boot. :)
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Powermeerkat: one crash in 30 years? Thats not a bad safety record. Beats the hell out of the US space shuttle which had a fatal accident every 100 flights or so.
Perhaps you can provide a link to this alleged trial? The only one I'm familiar with is a manslaughter trial taking place in Paris. That has John Taylor, a former Continental welder who fitted the strip that fell off and punctured the tyres; his supervisor, Stanley Ford; Concorde chief engineer Jacques Herubel; and Claude Frantzen, the former head of France's civil aviation authority.
None of the designers are on trial, just maintenance people from both Air France and Continental.
I actually agree with you regarding the A-380 but thats an economic issue not a technical one. Its a safe aircraft and an impressive engineering achievement. In addition its designed to compliment the dreamliner, not compete with it. The A380 moves huge quantities of people from giant hub to giant hub then smaller airliners take them to their final destination.... this is a US concept. Its pretty hard to fly direct to anywhere in the US from Europe without routing through O'Hare, Atlanta or JFK.
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Saint Dominick to Allen:
"Of course you would take 10 white Russian spies over one dark skinned illegal immigrant!"
White Russians were never a problem for Americans; just the RED ones.
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SD: "Regarding the criminal elements that do enter our country illegally from South of the border, their numbers would be minimal if we stopped buying illegal drugs to escape from the realities we find so hard to deal with."
Actually quite a few Communist "illegals" have been known to sneak into US from Mexico's side.
[Considered by their controls being easier than from Canada]
P.S. There are some who want to solve problem of a demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. - by...legalizing them.
[no, I won't elaborate what their political sympathies usually are]
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For goodness sake do not tell your friends on face book or mobile phone
that your"Nastycough" has returned,if you know was good for you!!.
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Peter_Sym wrote:
"The Buran never flew at all.... just like the US space shuttle it wasn't cost effective."
It flew once. As for the shuttle, it has accomplished much more than any other spacecraft in history. It is still simply unique and quite capable for what it can do.
"Concorde was scrapped after 30 years and ONE crash (caused by bits of metal dropping off a US airliner ahead of it)."
Considering the expense of each ticket and the subsequent attention and prestige it received and the limited flights over those years that should not be surprising.
And what does the nationality of the airliner that dropped metal bits ahead of it have to do with anything?
Also, there are dropped objects at airports all the time and you never hear of an incident outside of a blown tire. The fact that the Concorde could not effectively deal with such a thing was a sign of a weakness in its design. All planes have them. So what.
"How many supersonic airliners has the US produced?"
You sure you want to start comparing advanced American aircraft produced at the time with the Concorde? There was no American SST as it simply was not cost effective, among other things.
"It WAS a spectacular crash but no more so than the DC-10 that crashed at Sioux city in 1989 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5yztk_1989-sioux-city-crash_news"
Any crash where the entire aircraft is destroyed I would classify as a "spectacular crash." I think most people would.
The rest of your post is just as nonsensical of a reply to someone that simply doesn't know too much about aircraft.
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SD: "Let's hope the only policy our friendly Russians were trying to influence was taxation on the import of beluga."
Importing, selling and even serving of beluga caviar has been illegal in the U.S. for quite some time, beluga being on an endangered species' list.
BTW. Most of caviar sold around the world as beluga comes in reality from sevruga or other less depleted fish, like sturgeon.
And not only Russians are cheating; Iranians ditto.
P.S. On a more serious note: Chinese spies seem to be both: more agressive and better qualified for their tasks in the U.S than Russian ones these days.
Let alone - more numerous.
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"At 1:20pm on 29 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
...
P.S. On a more serious note: Chinese spies seem to be both: more agressive and better qualified for their tasks in the U.S than Russian ones these days.
Let alone - more numerous."
I agree with you, Powermeerkat, soon they will be able to blend in with crowds in America (and in high places too). Then they'll be really no catching them.
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SaintDominick wrote:
"Of course you would take 10 white Russian spies over one dard skinned illegal immigrant!"
LOL, I am "dark skinned!" You didn't consider that, did you? :)
And the only person that brought up skin color was YOU!
"You are right, however, in saying that those "illegals" are influencing cultural changes in what was once a WASP Norman Rockwell society, but when it comes to influencing policy, the only policy that applies to them is the overt racism that takes advantage of fellow human beings while at the same time demonizing and abusing them."
Last time I checked most Americans wanted illegal immigration to END!
Their "influence" is obviously not positive for the simple fact that they are disrespecting our laws to come here in the first place and then have the nerve to demand that they be allowed to stay. They are also the opposite of many other people that came here from many other countries that respected the language of the land, respected American culture and were proud to be Americans.
"The overwhelming majority of Mexican and Central American immigrants who enter the USA illegally come here to work, and do so by doing work that we don't want to do earning wages that would be unacceptable to the poorest American."
Nonsense!!! Citizens in other countries, like France, do such labor. We here in America used to do the same thing. All that is required is to enforce immigration laws and wages will have to go up to pay for American workers to do the jobs that they traditionally did in the past!!! I would also have no problem paying a bit more for fruits and vegetables and any other goods and services, and I'm quite sure most Americans wouldn't either!!!
"Thanks to them our industry can satisfy its unskilled labor demands and profits in ways they would not be able to do otherwise and we, the American consumer, benefits by buying produce and getting services at bargain prices from our semi-slave labor "illegal" workforce."
Nonsense!!! Read again what I wrote!!!
"Ironically, but not surprisingly, some prefer white spies from a country that had thousands of ICBMs with nuclear warheads aimed at us for decades, than a dark skinned immigrant whose major threat is the introduction of cultural changes to our society. Let's hope the only policy our friendly Russians were trying to influence was taxation on the import of beluga."
There you go again with the skin color and playing the race card. Let me remind you, once again, I am also "dark skinned," and so is my wife!!! She is also from Mexico!!!!!!!!!!! :)
"Regarding the criminal elements that do enter our country illegally from South of the border, their numbers would be minimal if we stopped buying illegal drugs to escape from the realities we find so hard to deal with."
You also have children that are ruthlessly targeted and turned on to those drugs until they become addicts, and yet it's all their fault???
And you have the nerve to be criticizing people that "escape from realities" while accusing someone of racism just because they want illegal immigration stopped???!!!
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Peter_Sym wrote:
"one crash in 30 years? Thats not a bad safety record. Beats the hell out of the US space shuttle which had a fatal accident every 100 flights or so."
You are comparing the most complex aircraft/spacecraft ever built to the Concorde???
"Perhaps you can provide a link to this alleged trial? The only one I'm familiar with is a manslaughter trial taking place in Paris. That has John Taylor, a former Continental welder who fitted the strip that fell off and punctured the tyres; his supervisor, Stanley Ford; Concorde chief engineer Jacques Herubel; and Claude Frantzen, the former head of France's civil aviation authority."
The only people that should be investigated are the designers that design such a weak skinned fuel tank in a vulnerable area.
"I actually agree with you regarding the A-380 but thats an economic issue not a technical one. Its a safe aircraft and an impressive engineering achievement."
Uh, the airplane is just recently into service so it doesn't have a safety record to speak of.
There is also nothing impressive about it. Large aircraft were built decades before the A380 was even considered.
"In addition its designed to compliment the dreamliner, not compete with it."
Airbus is building an aircraft designed to "compliment" a rival's???
"The A380 moves huge quantities of people from giant hub to giant hub then smaller airliners take them to their final destination.... this is a US concept."
The 787 Dreamliner was not designed to do that. It is designed to take them all the way to their destination with a similar or longer range than the A380.
"Its pretty hard to fly direct to anywhere in the US from Europe without routing through O'Hare, Atlanta or JFK."
Only if you are flying an aircraft such as the A380 that can only land at certain airports that have redesigned and expanded their taxiways and ramps to accommodate it. The 787 Dreamliner would have no such limitations and can easily be accommodated into smaller airports, as it was designed to do.
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"Its pretty hard to fly direct to anywhere in the US from Europe without routing through O'Hare, Atlanta or JFK."
Not at all.
There are direct non-stop flights from, e.g., Frankfurt to Washington,D.C., Miami, Denver, and San Francisco/San Diego.
As well as other locations.(e.g. Portland)
By Delta, Lufthansa, United and other major carriers. Daily.
At convenient times. Served typically by 747-400s or 777s.
BTW. Hardly anybody wants to buy A-380 these days; au contraire: there have been quite a few cancellations.
A direct competitor to "Dremaliner" was supposed to be Airbus 350.
Except its design turned out to be an obsolete lemon; and after loud protests from both airlines and major leasing comapnies A-350 is being redesigned now yet again, for the 3rd time. With the first delivery no sooner than in 2013, according to the Toulouse manufacturer itself.
And re Kim Philby's alleged uselessness.
Philby was HIGHLY useful to Moscow; particularly after he was appointed the head of Secret Service's Section IX - created to operate against Soviets and other Communist countries - as well as (as of 1949) a senior Secret Service's laison officer to both FBI and CIA.
[in Washington, D.C.]
And no, he did not not have a romance with Burgesse's wife, but with his friend Donald McLean's wife (Burgess was a notorious homosexual).
And, to answer somebody else's claim... Philby did cause death of quite a few BRITISH agents (as well as Americans), most prominently in Albania.
Which has been amply documented.
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I notice the tone of the comments are mostly light hearted, as if an insular autocratic government (its "democracy" is laughable) who sanctions killings of human rights activists and supports its white supremacist gangs, were like a rebellious brother joking around.
I recall the tone of such commentators was far more serious and incendiary however, when referring to Chinese spies that were outed from the FBI and major industrial sectors years ago - plenty of stereotyping and scaremongering then, in an equally autocratic government. Why the massive disparity in behaviour?
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Re #81
I don't know what that nonsense about special computer software, etc. is about.
Technique of microdotting info into a photo a letter or a postcard has been in use more many, many decades. And is no secret anymore.
Nevertheless, ukwales, confidence is high; repeat: confidence is high.
El condor passa.
[I'm referring of course to Argentinian soccer team. :)]
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Sung Hui v Tsai wrote:
"At 1:20pm on 29 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
...
P.S. On a more serious note: Chinese spies seem to be both: more agressive and better qualified for their tasks in the U.S than Russian ones these days.
Let alone - more numerous."
I agree with you, Powermeerkat, soon they will be able to blend in with crowds in America (and in high places too). Then they'll be really no catching them.
Well, Sung Hui, there's a saying that Israeli Mossad has penetrated all intelligence services in the world except the Chinese one.
And not because there are so few Israelis; it's just don't look a part in Beijing or Shanghai. Or even Lhasa.
On the other hand Uighurs... :)
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Allen: " Nonsense!!! Citizens in other countries, like France, do such labor. We here in America used to do the same thing."
In Gavin Hewitt EU blog more than one poster pointed out that Greeks and Spaniards (particularly students) would do such jobs had it not been from wages depressing immigrants from Albania, Mauretania, Senegal, etc.
Something to think about.
BTW. I would not mind paying a little more for California wine or lettuce if I knew that back-breaking grapes/lettuce picking job is given to an American. Rather than to an illegal Mexican, Honduran, etc.
Wouldn't you?
Even if that American happened to be...hmm... white?
BTW. I have to check 'white' or 'Caucasian' box on different forms, including census, although I do not hail from Caucasus, and my skin is most certainly not white (in a natural light is much closer to pale/cream beige.
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Allen:
" Large aircraft were built decades before the A380 was even considered."
Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" comes readily to mind.
[Come to Long Beach, CA, and see for yourselves]
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I wonder, what is the difference between a foreigner working for a foreign funded "NGO" in Russia, and a spy?
Given that foreigners working for NGO's report back information to foreign employers, could they not be considered privatized spies?
And, of course, they have been treated exactly this way in the past. If the Russians get offended by the current media spectacle, they might be treated so again. And then the media in the west will squeal and lament about evil russia not allowing basic civil freedoms.
The whole thing is ridiculous. It is low paid government drones in uniforms, pretending to be masters of the universe. The only thing they can possibly achieve is a deterioration of relations and war. And that would suit them perfectly, because then they could play out their school boy "save the world" hero fantasies and watch some explosions.
God save us all from low paid government employees who like dressing up in uniforms and gibbering ridiculous conspiracy theories.
What I find personally insulting about these people (I include the uniformed folks who spied on the spies and arrested them) is that they profess to know how the world works.
They haven't sold books in large numbers, so the intellectual market doesn't concur that they know how the world works. They haven't won elections, so the political world doesn't concur that they know how the world works. They work in low paid jobs, so their fantastic understanding of the world can't seem to provide for them on a material level. They haven't invented anything practical or material. Or theoretical, either.
In short, these people are NOBODIES. They aren't smart, they aren't successful, they haven't got any grounds whatsoever for claiming to know anything about the world. They are just low paid government employees who run around pretending to have "secret" information about how the world really works, whilst all the stupid non party members and private sector workers are busy, DOING REAL WORK.
Spies are a ridiculous waste of money. If politicians want to know what is going on, they should go to the library or phone a respected scientist who has accomplished something material, or a well regarded academic who has been endorsed by a review of international peers.
This idea that you can hire kids to go search for the "secret" information is just so arrogant and childish. It is adults acting out the simplistic fantasies of prepubescent youth.
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In # 88 Random Arbiter asks:
"Why the massive disparity in behaviour?"
Simple: 140 million weak Russia is decaying (official Kremlin's propaganda notwithstanding); 1.4 BILLION strong China is growing in arrogance, rapidly increases its military spending, and its espionage activities against U.S. are becoming not only more prolific, but more importantly - dangerous.
Russians are trying to find some technological secrets and some policy thinkers' background; Chinese try actively to penetrate American top nuclear labs, and power grid control centers in order to find out how to remotely sabotage them if needed.
Russia behaves like a resentful has-been superpower looking for an advantage.
China behaves like a bona fide America's enemy.
BTW. When in China - don't use Google: a current target of Beijing comrades.
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87. At 2:16pm on 29 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
Only if you are flying an aircraft such as the A380 that can only land at certain airports that have redesigned and expanded their taxiways and ramps to accommodate it. The 787 Dreamliner would have no such limitations and can easily be accommodated into smaller airports, as it was designed to do.
This is why it will be a success,at the moment to get to the US I have to
run the gauntlet of London Heathrow or Gatwick they are so awful,I can not face them any more.Its a about 250 mile road trip each way,to get to those nightmares,major hubs are a pain.If a Dreamliner operated from the beautiful,regional Cardiff air field I would visit New-England in autumn to see the fall every year,might call on Marcus for a cup of tea,that would be fun,what ho!!.
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MM : "Among their [Russians] successes were getting close to a scientist involved in designing bunker-busting bombs"
Why?
Moscow's friends, Tehran ayatollahs consider such an information vital.
[It seems they have some underground, reinforced nuclear facilities in Busher, Esfahan, Natantz, Qum, and other places.]
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This Iron Curtain may never become transparent, but if we all try to act like grown-ups instead of spoiled children -- maybe the curtain won't be made up such poisonously opaque stuff?
I find this situation quite silly.
'Information Gathering' must surely be the worlds second oldest profession.
Kudos to the FBI for pressing (relatively minor) legal charges!
I recommend ya'll fire off some fireworks this weekend to celebrate.
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1. At 10:18pm on 28 Jun 2010, ukwales wrote:
"All/most the above information could be obtained by reading quality broadsheets or off the net..."
Of course, my dear Watson. But did it occur to you that the clever chap who authored the post might merely have done so like a corgi owner tosses out a toy to see where the little hounds take it? He is able to simultaneously observe our responses while keeping out of the melee. Delightful.
Of course, perhaps that's merely what the Russians WANT you to think...
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The last name Foley of the Russian spy is the same as one of the Mossad agents uncovered in Dubai. That's interesting!
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Case closed.
Kremlin has authoritatively stated that there were no Russian spies.
So obviously they weren't.
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"An 11th suspect named as "Christopher R Metsos" was arrested on Tuesday on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, police there said.
They said he was arrested at Larnaca airport as he tried to leave for Budapest" [BBC]
I knew Greeks had a problem...:)
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"Two Moscow officials face bribery charges following a car chase in which one of them allegedly threw bundles of roubles out of the window, Russian authorities say.
The Russian TV news programme Vesti showed scores of rouble notes being collected and dropped into a cardboard box on a Moscow highway.
One of the suspects, Boris Simonov, tried to throw away 10m roubles (£214,000; $322,000), the report alleged.
He crashed his Cadillac in the chase." [BBC]
No wonder those poor "sleepers" in New Jersey couldn't get money to buy a house in which they were living to make themselves less suspicious.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Cadillac? How American!
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It's not paranoia. The threat is real and far reaching when all of our institutions like social security, hospital networks, universities, pension funds and student loans and (stealing citizen's identities) have been infiltrated and eventually raided by organized criminals. A country does irreparable harm to another when it infiltrates its systems like this.
and yes John_from Dublin, they have so completely taken over huge swathes of the city that they know exactly who comes into their neighborhood, when they leave etc. Why is this so unbelievable?
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The "Spruce Goose" (see post #92) has not been in Long Beach for many years. It is in McMinnville, Oregon.
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RE StDom & AllenT2 on Immigration & such:
Immigration is a tricky thing to manage, and I truly hope that this friendly little spy-game doesn't affect the lives of sincere wanna-be-legal-immigrants...
no matter their continent of origin, nationality, ethnicity, language, cultural heritage, religion, age-sex-race, economic status, concept of fashion-sense, or shoe-size.
That would be silly.
Besides, I once spent a very fun hour with a Ukranian neighbor (who was granted refugee status in the 80's) when she first came to the states with only a Russian-English dictionary. She spoke very little Russian. I knew only a tiny bit of German and Spanish. We laughed a lot during the 'conversation'. Good times.
-- Can you imagine if she'd had to 'Prove' that she wasn't a 'Spy'?
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Re #95
ukwales. There's more good news.
Thanks to improved air conditioning/ventilation system in a Dreanmliner a cabin pressure in 787 is going to be equivalent to that at 1500 meters rather than, as currently, at 2400 m.
So you'll land in Cody, Sun Valley, Orlando or Palm Springs much less tired and dehydrated.
[6 more months, Insh Allah]
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Seabhcan (#52): "These people seem to be accused of being tricked by undercover FBI agents and of sending non-classified information over a wifi network. This isn't a crime."
Why don't you read the actual complaints, which can be found easily online, before making assumptions about the charges?
The charge in both compaints is: "Conspiracy to Act as Unregistered Agents of a Foreign Government." This is a crime under 18 U.S.C. 371.
Don't you suppose that the FBI knows what is a crime and what is not, and would charge an actual crime according to US Code?
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RE 103. clamdip lobster claws wrote:
Meh. 'Identity Theft' is not a new crime. It's only been made easier as Internet and Satellite Communications have made the world smaller. So, as our information is strewn about, folks might able to fraud our credit and buy things 'in our names.' Annoying, I agree.
Granted, US Federal, State and Local Governments may have been a little slow to implement regulations & security protocols for our information, but I think they're adapting. Corporations & End-Users are certainly catching up to speed.
But this is somewhat irrelevant, as I believe these and other recent international worms didn't STEAL identities, they merely created them. Forged them afresh. After all, spying is a far more honorable and patriotic a tradition than mere petty theft, don't you think? *WinksConspiratorially*
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Though protesteth too much Democracythreat and RandomArbiter. I'm wondering if Powermeerkat might be a little too close to the mark?
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@ 94 powermeerkat, every victory breeds defeat and America will surely go the way of the nations it once conquered and entirely wiped out, like the Apache, the Sioux, etc.
What's more the nations that once were the oppressors often end up as the oppressed. For instance, the Manchu once conquered all of China but where are they now? -- They ended up completely assimilated and bred out by the latter. And there are other similar examples, like what happened to the Roman empire and what will happen to the rump British one.
At best America's fate will be something similar (if it accepts the course of history), at worst it will be something a lot worse (if it tries to resist the inevitable).
I'd say the USA has about 15 years of life left in it. Enjoy it whilst you still can.
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Everybody spies on everybody else, that is how the game is played.
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Psssst...
You there... Yes, You.
You know, I've heard a rumor that the International Spy Museum in Washington DC is a great little place to visit. Of course, it's just a rumor. Never been there myself, mind you -- but there's a lovely little pub across the street.
And you know what? I have YET to get those dinner receipts expensed back to me!!! Someone oughta talk to our comrades about their stingy reimbursement policies. They just have no idea how expensive a dry martini is over here!
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Obama has definite similarities to Bush - especially when it comes to reading Russian leaders. Suspect both President's can't read people nor play a decent game of poker.
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post 122,Momski
Ok,Ok,I`ll do my best,but for goodness sake stop ordering caviar,some one
will twig,& why dont`you drink Bud like every one else...
Ps Putin wants to see you when you get back,so stop being so Bolshoi...
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Oh mon dieu! If indeed Ann Foley the Russian is the same person as Ann Foley (Not her real name)that was a Mossad agent in Dubai that means that the supposed Russian spies are really Mossad agents? N'est-ce pas? Is this another false flag operation or what? The Israeli's are losing their spy mojo because they keep coming up with these ridiculous scenarios that no American beleives anymore. Can't they get a little more creative than that? Maybe something a little more spectacular with a biblical theme using Moses would work better. Something funnier please!
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This is getting way too complicated for my insignificant brain. I think I'll walk the dog now. Uh Oh here come the helicopters.
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clamdip lobster claws wrote:
"It's not paranoia. The threat is real and far reaching when all of our institutions like social security, hospital networks, universities, pension funds and student loans and (stealing citizen's identities) have been infiltrated and eventually raided by organized criminals. A country does irreparable harm to another when it infiltrates its systems like this.
and yes John_from Dublin, they have so completely taken over huge swathes of the city that they know exactly who comes into their neighborhood, when they leave etc. Why is this so unbelievable?"
Because it is illegible. Seriously, I have tried to understand what your point is here, and I simply cannot.
You seem to think that these Russian spies were infiltrating hospitals so that they could later..... raid them as organized criminal gangs. What? I give up. What you are writing makes absolutely no sense at all. It is raving nonsense.
Stealing military designs. OK. Stealing military deployment plans. OK. Stealing high tech. OK.
But "infiltrating the social security institution"?????
What? Why? How?
The thing is, I have no doubt you could be right. This sort of low level madness posing as legitimate thought is exactly what I would expect to find within the FSB, or any other government institution full of self declared hero warriors.
I can visualize it now. An FSB major telling a group of dim witted youths that they are going to serve glorious mother russia by "infiltrating the social security institution and the hospitals", and then report back on how those bastions of power are developing. In this way, says the major, we will WIN THE WAR.
clamdip lobster claws wrote:
"Though protesteth too much Democracythreat and RandomArbiter. I'm wondering if Powermeerkat might be a little too close to the mark?"
Powermeerkat doesn't have a mark. He has a jagged scribble that meanders across the page in fits and starts.
If either of you could read, you'd have picked up that I am equally skeptical of both the Russian "secret service" and the American version of the same thing.
Anyone who believes that secrets rule the world is trying to justify the fact that they don't understand physics or law. Intelligent people have more than enough to deal with in the real world, without having to invent conspiracy theories to occupy themselves and create drama.
The "intelligence" services are a complete joke. Look at how they performed in the lead up to the iraq war. All they did was tell the politicians what they wanted to hear, and when they all got it completely factually wrong, none of them got the sack. That should tell you something about what they are for. they are there to entertain politicians with fantasy stories about the EVIL "over there".
Real people do real things. Useless hacks work for the government cause they can't get better paid jobs.
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Here's more Anna Chapman Russian spy pics
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Regrettably, while I am prepared to question somewhat the official FBI version of the story -- because it is so Kesystone-Kopsy -- I find Mr Putin's remarks disquieting. That is unusual for me.
I have two concerns: his tacit admission, implied in the words spoken to Clinton & reported by the BBC, is that the SVR is conducting such Stone-Age operations. That is a dreadful revelation in the sense that it is shameful, pathetic, a waste of resources & completely oblivious to what is actually available to Modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens today should mortal man be in desperate need of such dubious data as "what rumours have you heard about the inner workings of the White House?"
I can see that question being of interest, vaguely, 20 years ago, when a certain intern lived under a certain desk & salacious rumours might actually have had implications, for example, in matters such as the Middle East Peace Process -- that interminable quest for sanity in corners of the world where sanity seems increasingly a rare commodity.
Why would Anyone On Earth want to hear "rumours" about how the White House operates today? Just pick up Karl Rove's book & read for yourself! Or go to the official White House website: a treasure trove of data, all of it unclassified, and frankly none of it having any consequence to international relations.
President Obama does not in fact drive the Iran crisis: that is entirely driven by Ahmadinnajacket (as one clever American commentator has branded He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named). Presumably, the ministries over which VVP presides have intelligence to spare on Iran.
So the obvious question to me is: who ran this programme & why? Was it simply a way of moving money around & checking off lists (what the Russians call "galochku postavit'") on "efforts to mine US connections" which obviously were Non-Existent?
The people who should be in prison are all on the Russian side, at "Moscow Centre" (which sounds like a subway station designation). Their funding should be stripped & stiff financial penalties exacted.
(2) My deeper objections have to do with the ethics of such lunatic undertakings as this kind of "sleeper cell" programme that probably goes back to ante-deluvian (never an idol of mine) Primakov's tenure.
There are probably a few million people in the US, loyal citizens, who, like myself, are of Russian ancestry. Russian Anti-Communist ancestry -- many of us monarchists, 90% of us practicing Orthodox Christians, others retaining a cultural & linguistic interest in a rapidly-evolving Russia & ex-Soviet bloc.
Thanks to these ridiculous kinds of programmes, we are now going to be exposed to more of the kind of knee-jerk stereotyping that made life in America hellish for far too many of us during the Cold War era.
Frankly, in a lot of corners, that stereotyping never quite went away. But we had hope that eventually it might.
Thanks but no thanks, Mr Putin. Your failure, and President Medvedev's, to shut down these kinds of insidious and unjustifiable programmes that are Pathetically Shabby to begin with makes it more difficult for us to attend the churches we like, to find & keep jobs, to attend school, to rent housing -- even to get decent medical care without having the average American wonder if we are not somehow "infiltrators" of some kind.
While it is true that almost everyone who had to live during the Soviet period endured truly hellish, harrowing ordeals in that dreadful police state, it is also true that 99.99% of all Russians who grew up in the USSR -- including Mr Putin himself -- are clueless about how hard it was to grow up outside Russia as the "lucky" descendant of people who survived the Russian Revolution.
We all pretty much grew up "stateless." If we were lucky, as I was, to obtain citizenship by birth or naturalization in the free world, we still had to endure a lifetime of taunts and suspicions. And yes, it did damage our career prospects, and our chances at living decent lives. I promise you, had I been born "Mary Smith" in Amarillo, Texas, your bookstores would be full, by now, of my collected published novels & poems.
"Third-generation Multicultural Ancien-régime Russian" has never been flavour-of-the-month in the US of A. Believe me.
To have these kinds of offensive & utterly unjustifiable -- backward -- operations going on in countries outside the Russian Federation inevitably places under a dark cloud all those other ordinary and perfectly innocent persons whose only fault happens to be being born with Russian DNA, or being fluent in the language because Grandma spoke it at home.
I am thoroughly disgusted.
Just days ago, Mrs Medvedev, visiting the decrepit, embarrassingly derelict building in San Francisco that bears the humiliating sign, "Russian Center" (in the middle of one of the worst neighbourhoods, you will be thrilled to know), after spending some paltry minutes with a tiny group of aging & fading descendants of what were once the proud survivors of the Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the Civil War, uttered some predictable phrases to the effect that, all being by now water under the bridge, "Our country's doors are always open to you."
Frankly, Mrs Medvedev, they were also open in Soviet times. I traveled to Moscow on business as far back as 1983, met with dissidents, had frank & open exchanges of opinion with my KGB handlers, and felt perfectly at home, or, as we say in Russian, "in my own soup-bowl." But the defining lines were crisp & clear then: I was honest about what I believed, and they were honest about what they believed -- or were forced to serve.
Today, I expect more from the Medvedev-Putin government.
I expect an end to ridiculous, unwarranted & ultimately backward attempts to "infiltrate" America or "gather data" in contrived, convoluted ways when a simple visit to amazon.com will accomplish so much more.
And I expect efforts to be made by the Russian government, not to offer paltry cheap phrases & sentiment to the fascinating remnants of what was once a vibrant collection of survivors of the Russian Revolution, and their descendants -- but to Guarantee 100%, by being open & above-board in all your dealings with foreign powers, that there is no shame or suspicion attached to being a person who in all honesty acknowledges having Russian roots.
Because it is unconscionable, 90+ years after those tragic events, to still have people having to pay a personal price, in terms of injustices & humiliations endured, for having been born to someone who refused to die on Lenin's or Stalin's terms, and at their behest.
Four generations is three too many to have to have endured this kind of unrelenting affront to our honour.
Shut down these ridiculous programmes, instead of grousing at Clinton.
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106. At 5:29pm on 29 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
Re #95
"ukwales. There's more good news."
"Thanks to improved air conditioning/ventilation system in a Dreamliner a cabin pressure in 787 is going to be equivalent to that at 1500 meters rather than, as currently, at 2400 m."
____________
That actually implies quite a significant cost in terms of increased weight and increased fuel burn.
First, if I recall correctly, the pressure hull is designed to take 40,000 cycles. When you have cyclic loads, it is usually the peak fluctuating load that is the killer, and the relationship is usually logarithmic. Here, the amplitude of that cyclic load is increasing by close on 20%. Increasing the pressure differential means you either accept larger hoop stresses in the skin, or you increase the skin thickness. Increasing skin thickness over the entire pressure hull implies a significant increase in weight. Every pound added is there for the entire life of the aircraft. It increases fuel burn; and it decreases either payload or range, or both. Aircraft designers are usually very reluctant to do that.
Second, every pound of air that is fed into the cabin has to be compressed from outside ambient. Increasing the pressure differential means more work has to be done by the compressor stages of the turbines. The energy for doing that work can only come from the fuel. The more bleed you take from the compressor, the more fuel you burn. It may not seem like much, but it is usually viewed as an entirely parasitic loss, and the difference in compression is from roughly 3.5:1 to roughly 4.3:1 at 35,000 ft. That is quite a bit, particularly taken over the life of the aircraft. Again, aircraft designers are usually extremely reluctant to have that parasitic loss be any larger than the absolute minimum.
All in all, somebody is paying quite a price for that change in performance.
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DemocracyThreat,
Geeeez, so much vitriol against government employees which I'm not and stop blowing your cover. Stealing a nation's institutions and money to bring about some grand socialist dream is what's real and happening. It's called The New World Order. I'm not sure what your reality is?
And stop chasing me around the BBC!
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... money laundry hey??? This shows how connected are the criminal groups with Russian government. Thanks God for 2008 financial crises otherwise the Russian Mafia/Gov would've purchased the entire Europe. Probably these 10 spies were operating under direct supervision of some forgotten department in Moscow and Medvedev was probably surprised too.
For sure the hierarchical relations between the " sleepers" with Moscow are based on blackmail and extortion rather than military ranks.
Probably the biggest looser here was not the American government but the US Banks.
Cheers
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Re Spruce Goose...
So fly to Portland if that't where Disney moved from Long Beach.
[As I pointed out earlier there are direct flights from Europe to Oregon.]
Except, how does it change Howard Hughes' baby's parameters?
[Length: 218 ft 8 in (66.65 m)
Wingspan: 320 ft 11 in (97.54 m)
Height: 79 ft 4 in (24.18 m)
Fuselage height: 30 ft (9.1 m)
Loaded weight: 400,000 lb (180,000 kg)
Powerplant: 8× Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial engines, 4,000 hp (2,640 kW) each
Propellers: four-bladed Hamilton Standard, prop, 1 per engine
Propeller diameter: 17 ft 2 in (5.23 m)]
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Re #110 "I'd say the USA has about 15 years of life left in it. Enjoy it whilst you still can."
What can I say?
There were and, it seems, still are "well wishers" who have been predicting USA's demise for 200 years.
So I can only quote Mark Twain:
"Reports of my death have been greately exaggerated".
And re assimilation...
There was a time when China was ruled by Tibetans.
Now, although the opposite has been true for 60 years, it doesn't look lik you've managed to make Tibetans into Han completely, despite relocating as many Han to Tibet as possible.
Nota bene, and more importantly, it looks like Beijing comrades' efforts to forcefully assimilate feisty Uighurs have failed miserably. :)
[not that similar efforts vis-a-vis Mongolians have been more succesful]
So good luck in PRC-occupied East Turkestan!
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Re #114
ukwales.
Couple of years ago I spotted in a local liquer store a tripple-distilled vodka called "Gorbatchev".
Thinking it could be better than lousy Smirnoff I bought and sampled a bottle.
It's quite good; except it's turned out it has been produced in...Germany.
Just like orange vodka called...Rachmaninov. :)
[don't know what Rachmaninov himself drank;
Igor Stravinsky used to drink Polish vodka]
So here's mud in your eye with..."Finland".
[yes, still produced in Finland]
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In #115 clamdip lobster claws wrote:
"Oh mon dieu! If indeed Ann Foley the Russian is the same person as Ann Foley (Not her real name)that was a Mossad agent in Dubai that means that the supposed Russian spies are really Mossad agents?"
Do you happen to know what a real name of the former Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D) was? ;)
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Re #119 "I find Mr Putin's remarks disquieting. That is unusual for me."
Saw a former high rank GRU officer intervied by CNN in Moscow.
He was disturbed as well. Saying that SVR effort was not only counterproductive but, more importantly, unnecessarily provocative and potentially damaging to US-Russian relations.
[the man, btw., was identified as a Russian intelligence officer who used to spy on America in America for many years.
Not a defector to U.S.]
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Interestedforeigner wrote:
"Second, every pound of air that is fed into the cabin has to be compressed from outside ambient. Increasing the pressure differential means more work has to be done by the compressor stages of the turbines. The energy for doing that work can only come from the fuel. The more bleed you take from the compressor, the more fuel you burn."
The 787 uses bleedless engines.
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Re# 120 (Dremaliner's cabin pressure)
IF, the answer may be that 787's fuselage is not made of aluminum and steal but mostly from much lighter (and sturdier at the same time) carbon fiber composites and some (not much) titanium.
Also, its engines are much more efficient than the currently used.
[I hear, btw., that expanded B-747-8I is going to get four of the same turbines (787 having 2)]
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Powermeerkat,
No. Pray tell, what is Tom Foley's real name?
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Powermeerkat,
Don't tell me Ann Foley and Tom Foley are related? Are they?
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Re #128 ad #129 [Dreamliner using bleedless engines.]
What IF has somehow forgot to factor in is that bleed air is quite hot and when being used in the cabin or other low temperature areas, it must first be cooled or even refrigerated by the aircraft's environmental control system (ECS).
With cooling system drowing power from? :)))
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Re #131.
It was just a joke; repeat: just a joke.
IMO Tom Foley was a decent sort (for a congressman) although I did not share his political views.
[RIP]
BTW A most recent development is that some jihadists (citizens or residents of U.S. ) change their Arab/Pakistani sounding names to Anglo-Saxon ones.
To deflect attention not only of airport security services. ;)
P.S. Premier/pres. Putin's grandpa was Lenin's and later Stalin's trusted cook, so I don't think Vladimir Vladimirovich ever learned in his youth how 99% of ordinary Russians lived and what they ate.
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Re #131
Perhaps Annie Oakley would be a better choice for the Israeli agent.
Although from what I read, not for that poor Russian one.
[Actually original Annie Oakley's first name was Phoebe. :]
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@ 134 Meerkat, are you the resident commenter on this blog?
What was your nom de plume again on the old HYS?
Anyway i think you need to wash your mouth (or, to avoid trite phrases, your fingertips) with soap and do it real good.
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It proves only one thing:
Those game masters of the US have no fantasy any more, tired, underfunded or simply underestimate the public...
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This "Russian" spying case is extremely funny. Random couples chosen inside US by Russian spy-masters who gave them large sums of money to aid them in integrating themselves in political/scientific/military circle so as to gather information and pass it to Moscow. Then the FBI finding out about them and arresting them in the US but also in other countries (as far as Cyprus). What the ef???
If anyone believes all that he worths being publickly ridiculed. One also must note that US propaganda falls from the one ridiculous lie to the one more ridiculous lie.
Even myself, if I had bee ngiven the task of spying for info - even in smaller countries, let alone the US - I could not think of a worse plan. Paying irrelevant amateurs to integrate themselves and get info? I have seen it only in movies and they were B-movies.
No-one of you ever asked, how on earth FBI could do all these arrests in US as well internationally at this coincidential timing of the Russian president's visit, then none again asked how is it possible to having arrested this number of rookies based on tracking their activities and their contact via wifi with the Russian spy-masters.... yet no Russian spymaster was ever arrested... can it be more obvious than that?
There are many possibilities and being spies for Russians is the least as even rookie spy-masters would not think of such a bad plan (employing irrelevant people to integrate themselves in high-circles? improbable!!!). Most probably an US internal set up or a US drill to see the reaction of services in common espionage (they do such from times to times, the one service checks the effectiveness of the other), which is now used politically to undermine relations - hence the quite obvious answer of Putin who does not even go into the trouble of commenting the case saying only that "I hope that this will not affect seriously the efforts to built better ties".
People should get more critical over what the hear and should not jump up to the beat...
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"PM Vladimir Putin said US police had "let themselves go"."
Hmm, and I thought that it was former (?) KGB chief, gen. Putin who let himself and his minions go, believing he still lived and operated in 1960s or '70s.
Perhaps the pathetic bunch just arrested were simply disposable "red herrings" intented to turn FBI's attention away from the real Russian "professional" deeply burried moles.
[Lubyanka has done it before. And more than once.]
Re "washing my mouth real good" as a un unofficial spokesman for Beijing Polibureau has suggested.......
I was about to do that except I've noticed in the very last moment that a small print on my paste tube read "Made in China" and I hesitated.
I is not exactly a chicken but swallowing Chinese lead and melamine is not exactly my cup of tea, or more correctly - toothpaste.
[not that I like polonium-210 laced tea any better]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FORMER KGB AGENT" (Vladimir V. Putin)
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Russian spies penetrate for intelligence with style. They have fashion model looks and an overly-genteel attitude. The latest details of military operations fall to them while wearing high heels and french perfume.
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"""The arrests came just days after a US visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev."""
Really? So not at all coincidential eh? How interesting!
"""Sources in the US say the FBI had had to move because one of the suspects, reported to be 28-year-old Anna Chapman, was set to leave for Moscow."""
Oooooo what an explanation! I am impressed!
"""Ms Chapman has been painted as the femme fatale of the alleged spy ring, with several glamorous photos posted on her page on the Facebook social networking site."""
Ooooooo... femme fatale! Oh mon Dieux! ... It can't be more kitch than that! Russians employing the tall blonde... sorry, red-painted hair enticing the naif sex-hungry military nuclear scientists....
"""She was reportedly lured to a Manhattan coffee shop by an undercover FBI agent after which, in an intercepted phone call, she was told her cover may have been blown and she should leave the US."""
So if they caught her how on earth they did not catch the spy-master? Oh... let me guess, they have caught him but they remain secret on his arrest to question him on the waterboard, right? Should I start laughing now or later?
"""Assistant US Attorney Michael Farbiarz told Associated Press that Ms Chapman was "someone who has extraordinary training, who is a sophisticated agent of Russia"."""
Yes yes... she could make a computer with home-garden DIY stuff, she could drive an F-16 and she could fly up to the ISS and return on the Suyuz... what else are we going to hear?
Could it be more kitch than that?
"""The 11 were allegedly part of an operation where agents posed as ordinary citizens, some living together as couples for years. In security circles such agents are known as "illegals" or "sleepers"."""
Pffff... for years, how many years? Did they employ Chapman when she was 8 or something?... perhaps to pass secret info on the latest Barbie doll What about the others...
"""Investigators say some of the agents had been using false identities since the early 1990s, using codes and engaging in advanced computer operations, including posting apparently innocent pictures on the internet which contained hidden text."""
Early 90s? I am sorry but even the most incapable of secret services would not pay people 100,000s per month to provide that much and that quality of info these people are accused of as-if having provided to the Russian services.... I mean how much more "for granted" do they take US citizens?
Secret services do not work like that. They do not chose random people and train them to give them random information. That type of information can be taken even by Russian citizens visiting the US on passport as tourists, no need for spending that much and waiting so long. Secret services usually enter in the face of a private company, not random individuals, trying to have a professional reason to be near a place where pieces of interesting information may fly around. If really needing to employ someone local they won't present themselfs as
"Hi, my name is Dmitry, do you want to spy for me?" but they will use any other justification (depending on each case) and in the extreme case of having to directly deal they will present themselves as... local US agents needing a small information from their side. As simple as that. To imagine that Russian spy-masters would take the plane, arrive in the US to bribe with important sums local people who have no connections and no professions close to political, military or technological circles to spy for them over such a long time it is really extremely naif, in fact it is the most naif thing I have heard lately.
I find this whole story quite amusing.
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132. At 08:57am on 30 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
What IF has somehow forgot to factor in is that bleed air is quite hot and when being used in the cabin or other low temperature areas, it must first be cooled or even refrigerated by the aircraft's environmental control system (ECS).
With cooling system drowing power from? :)))
____________
I am not familiar with this aircraft's specific ECS.
However, in general, hot bleed is obtained somewhere - either from the engines or from an APU. (And if you are going to have a permanent APU installation, typically in the tailcone, then there's another heavy (and expensive) hunk of metal that the aircraft is going to lug around for its entire life.)
You don't really "refrigerate" bleed. That wouldn't be the right description.
Wherever the bleed comes from, it passes through an air cycle machine where the high pressure bleed expands, more or less adiabatically. These things are real screamers - they run at up to 60,000 rpm. If you reject heat from the bleed to ambient prior to expansion, an ACM can produce very dry, exceptionally cold air, e.g., -60 F, if you really want. Most often the ACM includes a heat exchanger that permits heat from the bleed itself to be used to warm the output, or to be rejected to ambient, as may be appropriate, and then you mix the ACM output flow with re-circulated air from the cabin to get some desired heating or cooling temperature.
The entire power for this process comes from the bleed itself, which, typically, might be anywhere from 25 - 50 psia, at perhaps 200 - 450 F, depending on where the aircraft is in its operational envelope.
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138. At 1:56pm on 30 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FORMER KGB AGENT" (Vladimir V. Putin)
____________
Huh? They don't have cemeteries in Russia?
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Powermeerkat,
Please elaborate. Tom Foley left Washington after they partially drained the swamp. Are you absolutely sure there's no connection?
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119. At 11:13pm on 29 Jun 2010, Maria Ashot wrote:
We all pretty much grew up "stateless." If we were lucky, as I was, to obtain citizenship by birth or naturalization in the free world, we still had to endure a lifetime of taunts and suspicions. And yes, it did damage our career prospects, and our chances at living decent lives. I promise you, had I been born "Mary Smith" in Amarillo, Texas, your bookstores would be full, by now, of my collected published novels & poems.
Come on Lass,with Russian back ground,you are twice as interesting as
"Mary Smith".Its never to late,you have a beautiful turn of phrase,let
rip with those novels & poems.Hope you enjoy this other Lass with Russian
back ground...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7uoC-YTQy8&feature=related
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144. At 8:43pm on 30 Jun 2010, ukwales wrote:
119. At 11:13pm on 29 Jun 2010, Maria Ashot wrote:
We all pretty much grew up "stateless." If we were lucky, as I was, to obtain citizenship by birth or naturalization in the free world, we still had to endure a lifetime of taunts and suspicions. And yes, it did damage our career prospects, and our chances at living decent lives. I promise you, had I been born "Mary Smith" in Amarillo, Texas, your bookstores would be full, by now, of my collected published novels & poems.
Come on Lass,with Russian back ground,you are twice as interesting as
"Mary Smith".Its never to late,you have a beautiful turn of phrase,let
rip with those novels & poems.Hope you enjoy this other Lass with Russian
back ground...
*****
the phrase "free world" caught my eye... a peculiar little phrase and phrases like that interest me greatly... is "free world" synonymous with the US? Nah, of course, not it's far from free and the best part is that all these little American people living their limited poor lives don't even know it.
@ukwales
she's obviously Jewish (or of Jewish origin) as her name would suggest and what she probably means is that there is still -- strange as it may sound -- a lot of institutional antisemitism in America. Don't forget not so long ago they used to lynch Jews (Leo Frank was the first Jew to be lynched).
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10446390.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10446390.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10442223.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10459664.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10470198.stm
"""...home of "Richard and Cynthia Murphy", the FBI found the 27-letter password to a computer disc. This gave access to a programme in which a message could be stored in an image on a website and decoded at the other end. The incident shows a lack of long-term trust among the Russians
It is sophisticated but it fell foul of the old failing, human weakness. Who can actually remember a 27-letter password? So they wrote it down."""
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee what the... ? These were the professional spies? Imagine telling them to remember and writing down later on technical details of a nuclear bunker blasting bomb...
"""Some of the other evidence shows how little these agents had in fact integrated into US society. They had to be given large bags of cash, in one case allegedly by a Russian diplomat at the UN. And their achievements seem minimal. They were asked for quite high-level stuff - US tactics in advance of a visit by President Barack Obama in 2009, US nuclear weapons policy, US policy towards Iran."""
Yes, yes City-girl Chapman will tell you all about US policy towards Iran... meeeeercy please ... what else are we going to hear?
"""The court papers say a decrypted message sent from Moscow Centre to two of the accused in 2009 sets out their mission in the US:
"You were sent to USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc - all these serve one goal: fulfil your main missions, ie to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and send intels [intelligence reports] to Center.""""
- ... thie riever is Ried in Vuolguograd. Are yiou thie Ried Fox? Noou? Reelly? Oh! Soree!!!!
"""The suspects communicated with their Russian handlers using private wireless networks, the court papers say."""
Did they downloand illegal music too? I guess they were caught by Metallica...
"""One, Anna Chapman, is accused of sitting in a Manhattan coffee shop in January and using a laptop to transfer data to a Russian government official as he passed by in a people-carrier .... .... In March, the documents allege, Ms Chapman pulled a laptop out of her bag while in a Manhattan book shop. Meanwhile, a Russian government official was spotted across the street carrying a briefcase. He remained near the shop - without entering - for about 20 minutes. Again, an "ad hoc network" was detected by agents."""
"""A second suspect, Mikhail Semenko, is accused of using his laptop while in a restaurant to link up with a Russian official parked in the car park outside."""
"""In March, the documents allege, Ms Chapman pulled a laptop out of her bag while in a Manhattan book shop. Meanwhile, a Russian government official was spotted across the street carrying a briefcase. He remained near the shop - without entering - for about 20 minutes. Again, an "ad hoc network" was detected by agents."""
Cafes, briefcases. Couldn't it be more kitch than that? Mercy!
"""On 26 June 2010, the court documents say, an undercover agent phoned Mikhail Semenko and says: "Could we have met in Beijing in 2004?" Mr Semenko responds: "Yes, we might have, but I believe it was in Harbin.""""
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahh
- thie strieets in Lieningrad are wider than those in Paris... Are you the White Bear????
Ahahahahahah
"""Intercepted messages from January 2010 also set out how suspect Richard Murphy will recognise an SVR agent in Rome from whom he is to get a fake Irish passport. He is primed to use the phrase: "Excuse me, could we have met in Malta in 1999?" and look for the way his contact is holding a copy of Time magazine.""""
- No wie miet in Vuolguograd!!!!!!
Ahahahahahahahahaha
"""An 11th suspect, Christopher Metsos, said to be an SVR agent who repeatedly came to the US to meet the alleged spies and who is still at large, is accused of passing money to them."""
Metsos. A spy called Meeeeeeeeeetsos... ahahahahahahah!!!! Oh oh ... enough!!!
"""One of the alleged incidents was a "brush-pass", in which Mr Metsos and a Russian government official "each carrying an all-but identical orange bag" swapped bags at a station in Queens, New York, while passing on a stairway."""
Brush-pass... ahahahah ... no sorry I can't keep my laughter... my stomach aches...
"""In another "brush-pass" in 2009, a Russian government official is alleged to have dropped a shopping bag into a rucksack carried by suspect Richard Murphy as they passed each other on stairs at White Plains station in New York state."""
And another brush-pass!!!!... ahaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha
"""A decoded message to Tracey Lee Ann Foley, accused of using a fake British passport provided by the SVR, reads: "Very important: 1. sign your passport on page 32. Train yourself to be able to reproduce your signature when it's necessary. 2. Pls, be aware that you just visited Russia... If asked, we suggest you use the following story: you flew to Moscow on Mar 16 from London for example flight SU 211 to participate in business talks..."""
Right... he should not only say the number of the flight but to make it sound even more natural, he should add the number of the terminal, the name of pilot, co-pilot, air-hostesses as well as that of that policeman sitting next to the passport-control officer...
"""She is told to destroy the memo after reading."""
Ta Ta Ra Ta Ran Inpsector Gadget Ta Ta Ra Ta Ran Tan? Who!!! who!!!!
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And if you are not convinced I have here for you rare footage of Russian spymasters contacting their network:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmj6d6-y6S4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7iIHyF-NIs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDEq8igTLtM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjj3UQcS6ys&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRmYnLCN1aQ&feature=related
Oh... and the most rare one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS8EIpAZybg
It is all up there.... ALL!
Now you know why I can't stop laughing...
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2. At 10:37pm on 28 Jun 2010, LucyJ wrote:
"""Sounds like its straight out of a movie."""
No Lucy. Its Happy Trigger TV!!!!!! Dom Joly.
"""Glad they caught the spies!!! :)"""
Yes me too.... what spies?
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I've grown up stateless too and I'm American. What happened to the good ole' USA? I really miss it.
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Thanks Nic,
The u-tube videos are hilarious.
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I wonder how many spies or former spies blog on this website?
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Maybe they are not really spies. Maybe they are wannabe reality stars.
Just kidding.
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Thought it was a brilliant intelligence operation - letting the FBI catch on to this 'honeytrap in reverse'
Distract the good guys with a fake spy-ring scenario, watch and learn the FBI's tactics and methods of detection, whilst the real villains sneak in through the (open) backdoor.
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Well, at least the Foreign Ministry of Russia has owned up to the fact that all the arrested individuals are in fact citizens of Russia. TIME magazine asks why they would do that: seems to me part of the answer has to be that it would truly be criminal to encourage the calumny that there are "spies for Russia" who are citizens of the US of Russian ancestry working in perfectly innocuous jobs: schoolteachers, librarians, utilities company employees... There are quite a few hundred thousand American citizens of Russian ancestry, most of them US-born, who would fall into that category.
I know the government of Russia, for one, would face huge adverse publicity, not to mention have to field thousands of complaints & possibly even lawsuits, if they allowed the suggestion that these suspects employed, trained, planted & funded by their inept intelligence services were "regular US citizens" -- when obviously they were nothing of the sort.
Consider for a minute a person who has US citizenship but is also of Russian ancestry or antecedents. Why on earth would that individual choose to work for the dysfunctional & inept Russian intelligence service when they could instead work for the much classier US intelligence sector, more safely & probably more profitably?
The latest reports in the WSJ, for example, detail that the lead operative, "Mr Murphy" complained constantly to his superiors -- "as far back as 2002."
Which raises the obvious question for the American side: why did the FBI tolerate this operation for all those years?
Because there are legitimate questions to be raised about the timing of these arrests, and they should be raised by all parties -- including by Nato allies in Brussels.
Notice that, at least thus far, the Russian authorities have not reciprocated in kind by arresting US operatives in Moscow & St. Petersburg. Although I, for one, know plenty of those, as well -- and so, I am sure, do all journalists of note based in those cities.
Bottom line: these programmes are all lame, ignoble, and should be scrapped.
No. 151, Lobster: the blogosphere is a universe unto itself. The Internet, long before Mr Gore invented it, was a project of US military intelligence -- albeit inspired, I would venture to say, by French telephonic innovations that were both practical & intelligent.
Some imagine everything in this world is owned by "someone."
Others - myself included -- prefer to emulate the mythical, self-appointed "philosopher kings" who, like the minstrels of yore, sing it like it is while they wait for the sun to set, because Freedom is much more appealing than shackles -- even shackles of gold.
Not all knowledge can be bought.
Odysseus journeys back to Ithaca not because he is just another of the Suitors, but to put them away once and for all, because they have no right to be there. He is a king, yet he lives the life of a beggar and his kingdom has been ruined by wars he had no interest in. He is a Father who has not been allowed to see his son grow up.
Sometimes the more interesting life stories are the ones that follow the most obvious patterns. And these also exist, in the throng that engulfs us all.
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At 1:56pm on 30 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FORMER KGB AGENT" (Vladimir V. Putin)
____________
Huh? They don't have cemeteries in Russia?
Interested Foreigner, they do; except you're never sure who actually lies beneath the tombs, and KGB agents who are burried there are definitely not "FORMER" KGB agents.
[Just like gen. Putin will remain one even after his death]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
OLD KGB AGENTS DON'T DIE; THEY JUST FADE AWAY.
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"Powermeerkat,
Please elaborate. Tom Foley left Washington after they partially drained the swamp. Are you absolutely sure there's no connection?"
Im' pretty sure that Tom Foley is very dead.
And is buried when they say he's buried.
Now, where Nancy the Witch is going to be buried, I have no idea.
Even the Bard would not have guessed it.
[he was careful enough not even metion her name in "Mcbeth"]
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155. At 4:46pm on 01 Jul 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"... KGB agents who are buried there are definitely not "FORMER" KGB agents."
____________
I thought those ones spied for Transylvania, there having been much previous speculation on this blog that they sometimes live in trailer parks in New Jersey.
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I'm speechless!
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QUOTE 138. At 1:56pm on 30 Jun 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
....
Perhaps the pathetic bunch just arrested were simply disposable "red herrings" intented to turn FBI's attention away from the real Russian "professional" deeply burried moles.
[Lubyanka has done it before. And more than once.] UNQUOTE
Lubyanka? C'mon, comrade, there is no need for excessive secrecy.
To you and me it will always be Dzierżyński Square.
Salute, mon ami
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The only Russian I have actually ever met and the only Jewish person I have actually ever met is a Russian-Jewish guy who is dating one of my cousins. That's it.
There was a writeup in the local paper about a Russian man (name too hard to pronounce) who was working a job in Chicago, got injured, was uninsured, and could not find another job due to his injuries. Then, he wanted to go home to Russia to see his ill mother, but he did not have any money to go. He was in the coffee shop and happened to talk to a local Christian, who heard his story. The good Christian told his church, who had a fundraiser and raised enough money for the Russian man to go home. The Russian man was very grateful, as he said no one in Chicago would help him. He ended up in our town because he was briefly married to a local girl, then divorced, so he came here looking for help, as it was the only town he knew besides Chicago. His last quote was something like, "America is made for the small towns."
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Re #160 Lubyanka is a building.
At Dzierżyński Square. Not much has changed there.
Except Bloody Felixe's statue no longer stands in front of L.
[Although there was a talk of putting him back on the pedestal. :)]
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Re #161
Lucy,
Are you suggesting that if we collected enough dough for plane tickets for all those SVR agents working illegally in the U.S., they would not only go home but even be grateful for our Christian spirit?
[If you still have any community organizers left in Windy City's envirions perhaps they could be put in charge of such a noble effort.]
P.S. BTW. Interested Foreigner...
I've read that some of those recently arrested had not Romanian, but Canadian passports.
[None of them issued in Vlad the Impaler's name (Draculescu)]
Here's wondering whether Ottawa is going to be as outraged by the news as it was after you know what and protest just as strongly. :)
[no news about any Australian passports so far]
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Who would benefit by derailing US and Russian relations and all of it happening just as Obama is sitting with Medvedev munching on a juicy hamburger?
America is addicted to war, yet, friendship and warming relations with Russia might put an end to those huge military contracts. Hmmm. Then there's Israel and Iran's nuclear reactor. I wonder what others would say?
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"Juan Lazaro, whom US prosecutors said had confessed to living under a false name, slouched against the court bench, arms folded, sitting nowhere near his wife Vicky Pelaez."
That's what happens when you out your wifey.
"In between the couple known as the "Yonkers Conspirators" sat Richard and Cynthia Murphy, supposedly a suburban couple from New Jersey[...]
They didn't respond when the judge told them he was rejecting their application for bail, because the court didn't know who they were."
(BBC News).
Another case of stolen identity, perhaps? :)))
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A British man who claims he was married to alleged Russian spy Anna Chapman has been speaking about their relationship.
Alex Chapman told the Daily Telegraph he met Ms Chapman at a party in London and married her five months later in Moscow, in 2002.
He also said he believed her father was a senior Russian diplomat.
Ten alleged members of a Russian spy ring were arrested in the US and one in Cyprus after an FBI inquiry. Bail hearings are currently taking place. [BBC News]
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"The BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera said MI5 and the FBI were in talks and the "key question" was whether Anna Chapman [reportedly a daugher of a senior KGB officer "in old Russia", Vasily Kushchenko] had been active as an undercover Russian agent in the UK."
Now, now, it seems that Anna has been indeed a Wonder Woman and our dear cousins will have to be involved as well.
As for this bag man Mestos, who's escaped while released on bail in a Greek part of Cyprus...
What were those guys from SVR thinking?
An agent posing as Greek AND distributing money rather than taking it?
Of course it was bound to arouse suspicions. Especially recently.
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168. At 11:46am on 02 Jul 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
And during my visit to Poland last year (among other Central/East European countries) I've found that not only all Dzierżyński's statues (errected under Soviet occupation) have been destroyed and streets bearing his name renamed, but also, that even most nationalistic Poles are not happy that Bloody Felix managed to kill ca 3 million Russians.
...
****
No, no, he didn't manage anything as dramatic as that (sorry to disappoint you).
Also, thank you very much for your kind words and please allow me to reciprocate by saying that the nazis managed to kill ca 9 million Poles but even the most hardcore anti-Polish persons anywhere in the world are not happy about that.
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Two of the 10 suspected spies held in the US have admitted they are Russian citizens, prosecutors say.
Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills say their real names are Mikhail Kutzik and Natalia Pereverzeva, court papers say.[BBC and news wires]
Slowly but surely, slowly but surely. :)
P.S. I apologise to all legitimate Greeks with a name of Mestos for misspeling the name of a KGB/SVR paypaster, who's sneaked out of Cyprus after posting a bail.
Its Chris METSOS.
[an assumption being he's now safely back in Moscow]
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Someone please riddle me this.
If Obama and George Soros are pushing their socialist, New World Order agenda, what difference does 10 Russian spies make? Why would the FBI even care? Unless of course, there are deep divides developing within America's political parties? Will they just get a slap on the wrist and be sent back to Russia?
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Re #175
Eight of them- perhaps.
However, 2 are also accused of money laundering.
And that's a much more serious offence these days than spying for Moscow.
[one can spend up to 20 years in jail for that, versus maximum 5 for being merely a "foreign agent".]
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This whole spy story is a tactic by the American government to dumb down the protests of Russia to the missile shield base agreement that established a permanent missile shield base in poland. The agreement was just recently signed under the watchful eye of Hillary Clinton.
With this spy story causing such an uproar, Russia is in no position to fully voice its protests against American attempts to limit its influence via the missile shield.
Its so obvious...
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"Russia is in no position to fully voice its protests against American attempts to limit its influence via the missile shield."
Well, it seems it is, after all. :)
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Yeah AAron,
It finally made sense the next day when the Polish missile shield pact was declared. Don'tcha just love politics?
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It's beginning to sound like a big Russian con trick! America's spent ten years (and a lot of resources) tracking a spy ring it descibes as inept. But what if the Russians knew their agents were being tracked? What if they were planted there just to get attention? What better cover for the real spies!
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(179) and (178)
yea its obvious. :)
events in the world are just dots on a page. Got to connect those dots to see the big picture. sometimes its pretty much impossible to connect the dots but there is always a connection, especially when it comes to politics. Its a shame most of the public is blind to it.
I forgot who but someone once said:
believe half of what you see and nothing that you hear.
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But everything your warning systems tell ya about Russan SAM's locking on your Blackbird. :)
[that's why they'be never been able to shoot even a single SR-71 down, although they tried more than 100 times]
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however, the most successful foreign spy to penetrate America was the Pole Marian Zacharski.
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There's nothing like swapping spies for the spies!
It's the great spy swap!
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Well... Maria Ashot, you make a number of interesting and valid points.
At the time I'm writing this, the news in the U.S. is that all the Russian 'spies' and their children have been exchanged for three or four physicists who'd been jailed in Russia for allegedly spying for the CIA. Tonight, in fact, I saw a former CIA operative on a news channel gloat that we Americans had 'gotten the better deal' from the exchange. It seems to me that Moscow, being fairly new to capitalism and bartering and such, was establishing an exchange rate; so were ten unproductive American CIA agents using false identities in Russia (or within Russia) to be arrested, Moscow now has a case to ask for one or two American physicists currently in jail, or blacklisted for this or that (if not actual espionage), and the CIA and FBI would be hard pressed to decline the trade. If this were the case, and assuming the Russians know the American physicists were deeply and sincerely unhappy with how they'd been treated by their own Government, the Russians could end up with a golden ring, so to speak.
(it's kind of like trading players between European football clubs... Russians & Brits and Germans all probably know how to evaluate certain kinds of talent way better than Americans, who don't really care much for football/soccer. Whereas a club like Manchester U might want the highest reimbursement ever to let player x go to a Russian squad, if player X were American and lacked ANY contract with ANY club whatsoever, in the U.S. or otherwise, the Russians or any European side could sign player X after paying only a token fee to the U.S. over the exchange... but maybe sports analogies aren't really apropos to discussions of physicists or spies.)
Best,
A. Scott Crawford
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185. At 06:32am on 11 Jul 2010, AlexanderCrawford wrote:
“Well... Maria Ashot, you make a number of interesting and valid points.
...maybe [my] sports analogies aren't really apropos to discussions of physicists or spies.”
Your post was entertaining and interesting, itself, and sports analogies are as appropriate as any other kind. Though being American I didn’t understand it very well, it’s being about that unknown to Americans sport and all.
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