If you want to see the word “traitor” flung about with gay abandon, take a ride on the Paleocon side: “Isn’t there something on the citizenship

application form about approving of treason? It’s amazing that they let

Derbyshire, an immigrant from Britain, into the country, let alone making

him a citizen.”

To the best of my recollection — I don’t have my citizenship application to

hand — there actually isn’t. Furthermore, to say that I assume that all

nations, including friendly ones, spy against the US is not the same thing

as saying I “approve” of it. I regard it as a sort of natural phenomenon,

like the weather, that we ought to protect ourselves against as best we

can — I own several umbrellas — but is not really in a zone where

“approval” or “disapproval” operate.

The moral status of espionage is an interesting topic, which I will leave to

be commented on by colleagues with a better religious or philosophical

education than I had; I just take it as a regrettable fact about the world,

and reserve the right to laugh out loud when I read of someone being

shocked, shocked, to learn that it goes on, even between friendly nations.

(“Nations don’t have friends, they have interests”–forget who said it.)

Incidentally, on the topic of spying by friendly countries, an

e-acquaintance who lives in Japan & knows the place well tells me:

“Japan doesn’t spy or does very little spying for the simple reason that

there is no government agency charged with that function.

“Japanese associate spying with war and in their current pacifist condition

spying is politically incorrect.

“Having said that, I’m sure the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does its share

of informal information gathering, which the Japanese are very good at,

because it is a necessity domestically as well.”