Spying

Submitted by Mozere (United Kingdom), Nov 16, 2013 at 03:32

My dear sir you are conflating information gathering and reporting by the visiting officers and the embassy staff, whose first loyalty is of course to their native land,with the cloak and dagger spying a la Lawrence.What do you think millitary atteches are for?First is considered legitimate if done openly and within limits while the second would get you shot.

In the 19th century not only Istanbul but also Paris,London,Berlin and Moscow were crawling with spies and saboteurs.This is how the world is and has been since Sumerians.We have to deal with this by setting up strong and reliable counter intelligence and also by addressing citizens grievances so they willnot be abused by the foreign spies.

As for the christian missionary activities the percieved negative effects should never be used as a pretext to curtail religious freedoms and choice of religion.A lot of first class schools eg the Robert College among others were bequeathed to the country as a result of this activity.

A bit less paranoid blaming the rest of the world for the middle easts ills and a bit more organisation and rational thinking will do the middle east nations good.Just look at S Korea and Egypt in 1950 one a war ravaged country under the heels of US imperialism,as the leftists say and the other a relatively prosperous country where you harvest three times ayear.and who told the US where to go Fast forward 60 years Egypt is an overpopulated country which relies on the likes of Saudi and the US to feed itself and S Korea with its Samsung,need I say anymore.

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