Ana Montes (Cuban Spy in the Pentagon)

["Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

[Full story is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/12/international/americas/12CUBA.html and it
is well worth reading. NB the thing that the government considers most
offensive of all: she did it, not for money, but from conviction.

[The relative strengths of two social systems can also be judged by the
strength of the devotion they inspire in the nations that represent them. I
can find no more convincing proof that the United States is now a completely
hollowed-out shell than the fact that, as far as can be told, it does not
command sufficient devotion from ANY American as to motivate them to serve
as Ana Montes did.

[With the recent revelation of Al Qaeda "sleeper cells" --in reality, just
young men who thought Al Qaeda sounded pretty good and went to check it
out-- it has become clear that the case of "American Taliban" John Walker
Lynd was in no way exceptional. Probably any American kid, even without the
right "ethnic" background, could have walked in there and begun worming
their way up in this group.

[And there was plenty of good reason, from the point of view of the U.S., to
infiltrate Al Qaeda. They had attacked American targets repeatedly, and all
the information the intelligence agencies gathered pointed to yet more
attacks.

[Yet there is no sign that the American intelligence agencies even tried,
never mind succeeded, in infiltrating Al Qaeda. The thought that someone
might sacrifice a good portion of their years, and even risk their life, on
this kind of mission did not even occurr to them. There is, quite simply, no
one like that in U.S. intelligence agencies, no one who thinks that way or
feels that way.

[The United States may have been founded by revolutionary patriots who made
"Give me Liberty of Give me Death!" their battle cry, but they are long
gone. Even the blind-to-reality patriotism such as one may have found among
some of the soldiers who fought in World War II has disappeared completely:
the American patriot is an extinct species.

[Sure, there is a lot of "patriotism" around --it is, after all, the last
refuge of the scoundrel, and we have no shortage of those-- but the idea
that someone should sacrifice themselves for the greater good is now totally
alien to the American world outlook. The philosophy of individual
gratification and fulfillment, to be achieved through unlimited consumption,
reigns supreme. And under that philosophy there is precious little room for
self-sacrifice for the greater good, for, after all, one already IS the
greater good. --josé]

Pentagon Aide, a Cuban Spy, Is Described as Unapologetic

By TIM GOLDEN

A high-ranking Pentagon intelligence analyst who spied for Cuba because she
opposed American policies toward Latin America "in no measure apologizes for
her betrayal of the United States," federal prosecutors said in a court
document filed yesterday.

The analyst, Ana B. Montes, pleaded guilty to espionage last March,
acknowledging that for 16 years she provided Fidel Castro's government with
top-secret information, including the true identities of four American
undercover intelligence officers.

Law-enforcement and intelligence officials said that Ms. Montes had been
motivated by her political beliefs and apparently took no money from the
Cuban government other than the payment of some expenses for her travel to
meet with its agents.


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