Everybody seemed to be in a rush to dismiss those folks--especially that cute girl--as harmless dingbats.
Doubtless, the Obama administration soft-pedalled the case so it wouldn't throw a spanner into the U.S.-Russia reset. Also, of course, Russia was holding some of our spooks, and we didn't want to see them thrown into the meatgrinder.
But spies are spies and Russians are Russians. They were our sworn enemies for half a century, we spent the next 20 years containing them, relations have been warm for all of, what, 3 months?, and we shouldn't believe that they are going to be our buddies forever. Once President Medvedev finds out his new iPhone4 keeps dropping calls, the Cold War will probably be on again.
You'd think we'd be sure to wring those spies dry of useful intel before we handed them back.
Where's the conservative pundit invoking Kipling's famous parable warning of lurking Russian treachery in a period of rapprochement, The Truce of the Bear?:
"Two long marches to northward, at the fall of the second night,
I came on mine enemy Adam-zad all panting from his flight.
There was a charge in the musket - pricked and primed was the pan -
My finger crooked on the trigger - when he reared up like a man.
"Horrible, hairy, human, with paws like hands in prayer,
Making his supplication rose Adam-zad the Bear!
I looked at the swaying shoulders, at the paunch's swag and swing,
And my heart was touched with pity for the monstrous, pleading thing.
...
Nearer he tottered and nearer, with paws like hands that pray -
From brow to jaw that steel-shod paw, it ripped my face away!
...
Over and over the story, ending as he began: -
"There is no truce with Adam-zad, the Bear that looks like a Man!"
I hold no brief for torture, bigotry, or paranoia, but they seem to be staples of American security discourse.
For some people at least.
Now, I wonder what would have happened if the Justice Department exposed, for instance, a Muslim sleeper cell.
Do you think we'd send those brown people back to their country with a dismissive pat on the rump?
Nope, neither do I.
For a look at what America does when it's serious about interrogation, here's a repost of a piece on the torture--and there's no ambiguity about the word, the Department of Defense called it torture--of the so-called 20th hijacker, Mohammed al-Qahtani, at Guantanamo (follow the link to the original post for all the links):
