The Good Old Days

And who said spy craft was dead? Just when we’d started growing oddly nostalgic of the good old days, the days of invisible ink, dead drops, and cloak and dagger passwords, it would seem we are once more revisiting a time largely forgotten by the Twitter, Facebook, and lady gaga generation.

I’ve been getting a ton of e-mails about the Russian spies masquerading as upstanding, taxpaying, American citizens, and all I can say is these are just the ones who got caught. What is not at all surprising is Vladimir Putin’s reaction to eleven of his deep cover agents getting burned, because let’s face it, a guy who had been in the KGB or the newer, less threatening sounding name FSB for twenty five or so years knows the cost of training an agent, stationing them in another country, and waiting patiently for his investment to yield returns.

It’s funny how shocked some Americans are by the fact that there are spies within the US. Just because we want to form a great big love circle and sing 60’s hippy songs with the world, it doesn’t mean the rest of the world shares this utopian vision of peace on earth and shiny, happy people everywhere. It is naïveté bordering on willful ignorance to think that we have no enemies, or that there are nations in this world who don’t hate us or wish us ill.

Personally, I think it is the narcissistic personality so many have adopted nowadays that compels them to believe the world must love them, the world must embrace them, and the world must bend to their will.

Surprise! There are nations in the world who don’t want to talk it out, there are nations in the world who don’t want to hug it out, who don’t want to see the world through your eyes, or understand your perspective.

Absent God, and the love of God, there is nothing on this earth more sustaining than hatred in the heart of man, and there are certain peoples on this earth that have long memories, whose traditions, experiences, slights, and enemies are passed down from father to son, whispered in their adolescent ear like some love song or sonnet. Such people learn to mask their hatred well enough, but deep in their heart the stories of their fathers and their grandfathers burn bright and fuel their desire to bring down the one enemy that vanquished them, and robbed them of their nationalistic pride and dignity.

I come from a people with long memories. There are still family feuds in certain villages that go back four and five generations because some great grandfather kicked mud on some other great grandfather’s dance hall suit in a time long forgotten by all but the families who still carry on the foolishness of feuding. Although I do not practice it, I understand it, and one can only understand it if they have lived it.

America is a young country, and as such in many respects it is an endearingly innocent and naïve country. We do not understand the notion of blood feuds, blood oaths, or the fact that when contemplating vengeance patience is an indispensible virtue. We’re still putting flowers in our hair, hanging out at the mall on Saturday nights, and wondering which outfit to wear to the family picnic, while others are plotting and planning, scoping out our weaknesses and formulating their next move.

This is not the last you will hear of foreign operatives being apprehended on American soil, because quite frankly, Russia is not the only nation that has spies within our borders.

On a completely unrelated matter, please keep Romania in your prayers. In the last week there have been 22 confirmed dead, 7000 displaced from their homes, and the rain has not stopped. The current flooding in our area has broken all records, and towns which were never under any threat of being flooded are now being evacuated. Thank you in advance for your prayers.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.