The news story about the 10 Russian deep cover spies arrested by the FBI yesterday explains quite a few things that have gone wrong in the US during recent years. Apparently we now have proof that US economic and foreign policy have been directed by the Russians. So despite what is reported in today’s NY Times, these spies have been very crafty and effective.
What better explanation for the economic meltdown of 2007-2010 than economic decision making at the hands of Soviet style economic planners? The laissez faire philosophy toward regulation of the housing and financial sectors look like nothing so much as a cartoon version of capitalism cooked up by some left over Marxists at the Lomonosov State University in Moscow. So now we know it was all a plot by the Russians to undermine our economy. Now that the ring has been broken we could quickly enact the financial reforms needed to protect ourselves from any further moles cooking up schemes to weaken our country.
These spies must have also deeply burrowed into the circles of decision makers on US foreign policy. How else can you explain the continued quagmire of our involvement in Afghanistan, eight years plus and running? After all, the Russians are the experts in being tied down there in an unwinnable war where you wish your allies had the tenacity shown by the other side and you can barely face the returning troops because of the waste in human resources and treasure. It must be a foreign plot, otherwise we couldn’t possibly justify the use of deficit financing for the war effort and not for dealing with long term unemployment of working people. Besides, Moscow must relish the turnabout after our aid to the Muhjahadeen cost them so much in the 1980’s.
Where else are we going to find the mark of these spies? Perhaps strong counterintelligence efforts will show us how our weak energy/environmental policy and growing dependence on fossil fuels are as a result of Russian hopes to deepen our dependence on foreign oil. Or our weak health care reform which was designed to empower insurance companies to bankrupt us? I feel better that the FBI has captured these master infiltrators. Their work was apparently much more effective than John LeCarre could have ever dreamed.
I feel better now, don’t you?