Traitors abandon reason

Our traitors used to be some kind of good guys. At their trials they claimed that they betrayed, snooped, lied, cloaked and daggered their twisted way toward a better world. And if they didn’t really contribute to that brightly wonderful future, they certainly, no matter how mistakenly, really thought they did.

In their apologies, they let us know that, maybe in a perverted sick way (they say that now), they believed in furthering the ultimate good. They confessed to taking evil all the way ’round to where they could find nothing wrong with it.

They passed perfectly good secrets to Nazis because they believed in a Hitler-guided brave new world. They delivered classifieds to Stalin because they thought Communist kids would not grow up in ghettos. They blew up ships or crashed into embassies to bravely conduct a holy war against capitalist, egotistic supremacy. Or they were simply good anarchists, bombing the Internal Revenue Services of the world so that we don’t have to do miserable paperwork come March and April. Nihilists unite, we have nothing to lose but out-dated institutions.

The clean slate.

Bad guys used to have good reasons.

Now look what happened.

Robert Hanssen, longtime trusted government agent (the FBI, itself, recently purged of cross-dressing and bedding down with organized crime), son of a policeman, married to a devout Catholic Morality teacher, father of six promising kids, gives the game away for a few grocery cartons stuffed with small bills and a handful of mediocre stones.

Our game. The good game. The “things are getting better every day” game that we play in the United States, in Western and, lately, some of Eastern Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Israel (they were spying on us, too, not all that long ago). The good game is spoiled, seriously, “experts close to the situation” tell us, by this nice man, in a tie and a jacket and a color ID pinned to his all-American chest. This pleasingly smiling regular guy (his picture is all over the place now) has, for years, been telling the Russians how FBI counterintelligence works.

As George Carlin keeps asking – what happened to our values?

Wait, it gets worse. Thanks to Hanssen’s unreliability, Russian agents – who we, the good guys in this ever two-sided world – convinced that they should pass their secrets to us, got exposed by Hanssen’s blabbing and were arrested by the Russian secret service and jailed. Some were killed, we are told.

Ideally misguided, right? The man believed in balancing things out perhaps? If both sides are equally strong, they won’t go to war so easily. Maybe Hanssen believes in equality? Share everything, even secrets, so heavily armed parties can glare at each other but nobody wants to play chicken? That’s the wrong ideology, because good (we) should be stronger than bad (they) but, even though this lost brother will spend the rest of his life in prison, we do, somewhat sympathize if he would only produce a rationale like that.

No such luck.

Hanssen has neither good ideals – nor bad ideals that he believes to be good ideals. He is just what he looks like, a regular guy. He did it for the money, only. The dough helped pay off three cars, two not new, one definitely old. It took care of some of the mortgage. It took a bit of a bite out of the kids’ school bills. No trace of cigarettes, not even another sixpack every other Friday. There were the outrageous grocery bills to be sure, lots of staples, and all the house brands. Seven hundred thousand Judas coins paid directly over 15 years, that’s a mere $46,666 a year, about what a rookie cop makes before he moonlights. Sure, Hanssen collected a salary, but does that make a six-kid household affordable during 15 years of unrelenting inflation?

There is Greenspannic denial, there is The Wall Street Journal daily lullaby, and there is the cleaning lady who keeps upping her wage, the car repairs that somehow keep growing, the buck-and-a-half gas, the repairs that start with 60 bucks for saying “hi,” the everlasting ever-costlier upkeep of whatever it is we can’t live without in the age of gadgets. Six kids need six computers, six televisions, six CD players.

So it is just money now. Greed if you will. But maybe you will not. Russia is no enemy, what on Earth was it thinking when Hanssen kept handing those precious secrets over? Did they need our know-how to right obsolete warships heeling over in Arctic ports?

It seems Hanssen thought his so-called treachery was a joke – getting grocery and gas money for handing over blah blah blah? His notes to Russian counterparts are lightly written. “This is a crazy world, man. I pass you some nonsense. You help me with the kids.” (He didn’t literally say that, but the undertone is there.)

Could it be we read too much drama into another episode of senseless posturing and confrontation? It sure is a pity that Russians spying for us got in bad trouble. Let’s have no more of that. Vladimir Putin seems nice enough; can’t we just talk to the folks in Moscow? Suggest that, instead of silly secrets, we exchange some good music, art, interesting – maybe even useful – inventions? Maybe make a joint movie? Can we please have Russian kids stay with us next summer? How about a kayak race on the Volga, and then again on the Hudson?

It’s still a perfectly good planet. Let’s ask the future Hanssens to enjoy the good life, and to please quit handing out all that silly paper. And, please, not to have so many kids. The human numbers don’t go well with ever-increasing inflation.

Maine author Janwillem van de Wetering wrote this commentary for Newsday.