"the Russkies have gone and kicked out 30 Peace Corps volunteers on suspicion of espionage"
Saturday, January 04, 2003
SPIEL
As was reported in Pravda and in a few major papers here in the States [note: CSM got it, if you consider them a major news source. Besides, it's covered up in some fuzzy analysis about spying]. ANYWAY, point of the story is the Russkies have gone and kicked out 30 Peace Corps volunteers on suspicion of espionage. The rationale, from the head of the FSB, is as follows:
Some of them are people who collected information about social, political and economic situation in the Russian regions, about officials in the government and the state departments, about the course of elections in Russia, etc.
Good to know. When I head to Bulgaria (another formerly communist country, btw), I'll be sure to avoid looking at any newspapers, reading any tourism brochures, and making conversation with any heads of business there. Wouldn't want to get the whole crop of my PC peers kicked out for spying, you know, just bad sportsmanship all around.
My beef is this: Russia says they don't need the Peace Corps around anymore -- fine. They're a perfectly responsible country these days, they can make these decisions for themselves. But don't give me this espionage stuff, because, as Michael told Carlo, "It insults my intelligence." The situation has changed since 1992, and while "Russia doesn’t need cooperation with the Peace Corps so much," Russia can't go around groundlessly accusing American citizens of spying either. Notice, no charges are being pressed, no one is being held. They're all just being sent home with a pat on the rump and a vague "thanks for the decade of help."
If Russia doesn't feel as if they need the Peace Corps anymore, just thank us for the service and send the good folks home at the next available opportunity. Don't give us this spying stuff when we're supposed to be allies and working together to end terrorism and all. It's just sad.
Addition: Okay, just re-read the article and a new sentence ticked me off. Granted, it is Pravda, but this is just ridiculous:
The Peace Corps is by no means the number one organization collecting information for the CIA. If we look deeper into the Russian and Soviet history, we’ll see lots of interesting facts, about activity of the American Relief Administration (ARA), for instance.
This is, of course, backed up by 2 paragraphs bashing the ARA, with little evidence. But how about a little objectivism here, please? Instead of intimately linking The Peace Corps and CIA, maybe we can mention something about PC volunteers assisting nations around the world since the sixties, many of which the CIA had absolutely no concern with. And for ten years the Peace Corps helps keep Russia going (Something the ARA did very well, also, but seeing as that news is three quarters of a century old, I don't think we need to go there), and what does Pravda say? "Oh, we knew it was just bogus spook plot all along. Damn Americans, always keep you on toes, for instance." Ri-frickin-diculous.
