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The news out over the weekend that Israel's attack plans against Iran have been leaked by our government and/or European governments ought to be a major scandal and cause for a serious criminal investigation, but in fact the real story to be followed may be much worse: is anyone asking whether Iran has penetrated our government—either with spies inside our intelligence agencies, or agents of influence in the State Department or even the White House?
This seemed like a good excuse to revisit the groundbreaking research on Soviet penetration and influence on American policy during the Cold War, and whether a similar thing is happening now with regard to Iran. This episode recalls the work of M. Stanton Evans on this topic, which he published in his book Stalin's Secret Agents (with Herb Rommerstein) and explained in an excerpt from a talk he gave about the book 20 years ago. I think listeners will spot the parallel, and agree with the conclusion—time for recriminations!
John Yoo
'Lucretia'
Steve Hayward
Discussion (3)
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Remember the real reason the Eastern Elite didn't like Nixon because he proved that one of their own (Alger Hiss) was a Soviet spy.
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Interesting. I think if Iranian agents had that much control on the current government they might be less... prideful.
Realistically though I'm less worried about people acting at the behest of foreign governments than I am of them acting at the behest of some damn fool self-destructive ideology. I'm less worried about someone sincerely trying to advance the interests of Iran as I am about Americans sincerely trying to destroy America because the believe that's for the best. Folks like that, they have their pick of ideologies to justify it.
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Re: the immigration form question, I'm in favor of it. Perhaps we can strip out the provision about Nazi Germany at this point. You have a terrorist coming through immigration (like a sucker; the border is wide open) you ask him that question, he's forced to lie about his intentions. If you don't ask, he never has to lie. Maybe that doesn't make a difference, but maybe it does.
An analogous problem, why vote if they're going to steal the election anyway? Because if you don't vote, they won't have to steal the election. It's better for you to force them to cheat than to let them get away with the mere threat of cheating. In a legal sense the cheat may be detected and prosecuted, where the lack of cheating cannot be. People are complex too; maybe someone, somewhere might balk at committing the crime.
In a moral sense there's a difference between sinning and not sinning. If you force someone to make that choice it's harder for them to hide from themselves that they are doing wrong, and a greater chance that they will be led thereby towards repentance. That's worth a stupid question on a stupid form.