My favorite thing to read as a kid was MAD magazine. It wasn’t for the fold-in page on the back cover, Don Martin’s obsession with bent feet or The Lighter Side. It was for Spy vs. Spy. The epic struggle continued with each passing issue. Even after the move to full-color page ads – forever ruining the mystique of MAD magazine – bombs were dropped, chainsaws whirred and my juvenile eyes gleamed with every decapitating cartoon murder. Ah, to be young. As a young lad, I also indulged, somewhat shamelessly, in trick-or-treating every year for Halloween, every house in uptown New Orleans lit up by neighbors waiting to give me Snickers. I never thought I’d see the day when one of these houses would grab the national spotlight. The Great One upstairs – no, not The Rock – had different plans. This past Monday, on the corner of Bordeaux and Baronne streets – literally four blocks from my childhood home – the FBI raided one of these homes to arrest Tai Shen Kuo, a 58-year-old furniture salesman and Chinese national currently accused of buying highly classified information about the U.S. military’s weapons sales to Taiwan. Kuo bought this information from Gregg Bergersen, a 51-year-old weapons systems policy analyst from Alexandria, Va., according to Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein. Let me adjust that – a former weapons systems policy expert. After allegedly buying said information, Kuo then handed it to 33-year-old Yu Xin Kang, a lawful resident also in New Orleans. Kang then allegedly gave this information to a spy for the Chinese government. The data, according to prosecutors, outlined every planned U.S. sale of weapons or other military technology to Taiwan for the next five years. China has been wary of our continued support for Taiwan, considering the People’s Republic fails to recognize Taiwan’s independence. Bergersen was formally charged with conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Kuo and Kang, however, are both charged with conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government, which provides automatic life imprisonment if convicted. This case, registering a 10 on my “What the Hell?!” meter, coincided with another espionage incident in Los Angeles. Dongfan “Greg” Chung was indicted on espionage, conspiracy and obstruction of justice the same day as Kuo, Kang and Bergersen. Chung has been collecting data on U.S. aviation, including the space shuttle and various military and civilian aircraft, according to CBS News. He had been the subject of an FBI investigation for nearly a year, being routinely tasked with collecting data beginning as early as 1979. These investigations have re-ignited the flame of scaring the bejeezus out of us by inflicting the two most subtly dangerous words in the English language. Cold War. “China and Russia’s foreign intelligence services are among the most aggressive in collecting against sensitive and protected U.S. systems, facilities and developmental projects. Their efforts are reaching Cold War levels,” said Michael McConnell, National Intelligence Director. He also asserted Lebanon-based Hezbollah’s potential mulling of attacks on the U.S. mainland were we to keep threatening Iran. Considering McConnell made these claims this past September, exactly five months ago today, it looks like we’re on the path leading to another almost “day of infamy.” China is seeking to cease this potentially explosive rhetoric. “The so-called accusation against China is totally groundless. We urge the U.S. to stop its Cold War thinking and stop groundless accusations but to do more to contribute to our mutual trust and friendship between our two peoples,” said Liu Jianchao, Foreign Ministry spokesperson, at a press conference this past Thursday. Unfortunately, these spy cases look like great news for the Bush administration, who been itching for the chance to have terror actually happen on our soil. The president was ready and willing to postpone a disingenuous trip to Africa in favor of pressuring Congress to pass legislation granting retroactive immunity to telephone companies cooperative in his warrantless eavesdropping program. Forget Darfur, Chad and the AIDS crisis – AT&T has been sued. These spy cases show the world exactly what America has become. Instead of coming together to find a common solution to a sticky situation, the proposed solution from our intelligence experts involves spying on American residents without a court order. If our current leaders keep their “don’t mess with us, or we’ll blow you back to the Stone Age” attitude, we won’t be the ones calling the worldwide shots. Yes, we’re the richest, most powerful country in the world. Without tact or sincerity, however, we’ll see what happens when many billions of people become enraged at all 300 million of us because of the actions of the representative few we elected. In the real-life version of Spy vs. Spy, we all lose.
—-Contact Eric Freeman Jr. at [email protected]