The Eye of the Needle

When I was young, I used to devour history books. Nowadays, I am quite taken with sci-fi and dystopian stories and sagas. I still enjoy historical pieces but I like to glance into the abyss of our Future and ponder its Futility.

Some twenty years back, I found this spy novel called The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett. It told the story of a German WW2 spy operating in England who seduces the wife of a crippled RAF pilot while trying to send vital military information back to Germany.

The book consecrated Ken Follett and also advanced Donald Sutherland’s career when the eponymous movie came out in 1981.

An interesting thing this spying business. Most people do not realize that countries continue to engage in espionage even during peace time. This means that wartime intelligence operations are even more prominent.

As it happens, the world today is mired in an acute state of War. The East and the West are at blows for world domination. While their arms harvest a mighty deadly crop all over the world but particularly in Ukraine, globetrotting diplomats crisscross the world looking to secure new alliances, trying to confound their enemy and make their camp stronger.

Case in point: the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, is currently (mid April 2023) in Brazil trying to enchant its president Lula into declaring for the West. Despite the Romanian President’s best efforts to bring Brazil to side with Ukraine, Lula only condemned the violation of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty by Russia.

At the same time, Russia’s top diplomat is touring Venezuela, trying to secure it for the East. The language Lavrov used was even more brutal. He invited Caracas to join a union against Western blackmail. This alliance would oppose Western blackmail attempts and illegal pressure.

So you see how acute the struggle grows with each passing day.

And this is just the visible part of the ‘iceberg’. For the larger unseen side, we must scour the news for clues. We must examine the subtext and dig deeper into the fine print if we are to understand the world we live in while we are alive. And to do that we need to look at the naked facts.

For instance, when the Russians arrested Evan Gershkovich for espionage in March 2023, the West cried foul.

Evan Gershkovich is an American journalist of Russian extraction who had the misfortune of trying to ply his trade in Russia during the Special Operation in Ukraine. Or perhaps I should say during the War in Ukraine.

When the FSB, which is Russia’s foremost intelligence agency, took Gershkovich into custody, the Western media raised a mighty roar in defense of journalists’ rights. They said this showed exactly how brutal Putin’s regime was and so on and so forth.

Now, Swiss online newspaper Tribune de Genève mentioned in an article published on April 18, that Gershkovich had appeared in court the previous day wearing a smile. And pardon me for saying this, folks, but a reporter who’s arraigned on charges of espionage in Putin’s Russia has no business smiling. Well, unless he’s a moron or I guess, a spy.

But even a caught spy with a sense of irony should think twice before engaging in gratuitous demonstrations of self-levity. But since this Wall Street Journal reporter is a cool customer, he goes about maintaining his innocence with a smile.

The article continues to say that Russian authorities claimed he had engaged in acts of espionage in Russia without offering any evidence to support their accusations. As if spy trials are conducted under full public disclosure rules anywhere in the world!

The immaturity of this TdG article begs a few questions. First, are we, the audience, required to suspend our disbelief and lap it all up as if this were the Gospels?!

And if not, what are we expected to take away from such a poorly written piece of pseudo-journalism?

Because the truth ain’t on the menu, eh. And it hasn’t been for some time now. But rest assured that with a little bit of focused attention we shall get to the bottom of things.

This ‘incredible’ article goes on to say that the odds the court will side with the reporter are inexistent.

It also says that the US ambassador had had the occasion to visit Gershkovich while in detention. You see, the Russians are toying with the Americans. This is like twisting the knife in the wound. They are sending a message to US intelligence: this is what happens when you try to poach in our preserve – Stay Away!

For what could the Ambassador do? Close to nothing. But these couple of visits tell us everything. How do we know this? Easy. We compare apples with apples.

Back in December, Andrew Tate, an American-British double national, was arrested in Romania. Nobody from the Anglo and American embassies, nobody, visited him while he was in jail. And the self-made millionaire was locked up for a trimester. That’s three months spent in jail without a formal indictment, nada, nothing, zit. They say that you shouldn’t do the crime if you ain’t ready to do the time! But I bet you they don’t say nothing about prosecutors asking judges for arrest warrants based on fact-less ungrounded suspicions.

But Evan Gershkovich, a WSJ reporter, gets scooped up and suddenly the ambassador visits him twice in a fortnight. That’s very interesting, eh. Quite revealing.

The article concludes by letting us know that no Western journalists were arrested in Russia, in decades. It also admits that this outstanding reputable journalist is risking a 20-year sentence if found guilty.

And now the kicker. It discloses that there are talks about an eventual prisoner exchange between Russia and the USA that would include him. And this last line says it all; this is the key to decrypting the message.

Evan Gershkovich is not a journalist: that’s his cover. He was caught red handed by the Russians. The American ambassador went in to try and make a determination of how big the intelligence coup was. The Russians didn’t allow any direct exchange. Because they are not stupid, see. She came back for his arraignment. Both he and she put on a show and pretended they didn’t know one another.

Since both sides are working to do a prisoner swap that will include this guy, it goes to show Evan Gershkovich is a spy. And a big one at that. And you know how we know this? Again mighty easy! Look at the same comparadors.

Paul Whelan, a former US Marine, is currently serving a 16-year sentence in a penal colony in Russia, after being caught spying by the Russians. The man served his country twice: as a Marine and as a spy. And what did he gets out of it? 16 years in a Russian prison. Nice!

But Whelan was ignored by the Biden administration when they decided to trade Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer captured by the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok on an American international warrant, for a lesbian basketball player dealing illegal narcotics on the Sheremetyevo Moscow international airport, namely Brittney Griner.

So, basically the Russian got back a valuable merchant of ‘death’ while America got back a stupid junky who got caught trafficking narcotics in an international airport. Now how imbecilic is that!? I mean one must be either below cretin level to get caught like that but since Griner is a ball player, she must have been under the influence.

The moral of the story is this – unless you are a stoned lesbian of mixed ethnicity, don’t get caught dealing drugs in Russia. Or spying for that matter. But if you do, you’d better manage to get some intelligence before they catch you if you want to be exchanged. Cause otherwise, it’s bye bye Miami for you, and hello Siberia!

To recap: the Americans lost another spy in Russia. But this time, he must have gotten something big, because they are willing to do a swap that will involve him and his intel payload.

But you wouldn’t be able to tell this from reading the news now, would you?! The best deal the media can give you is throwing you some facts, that you need to unpack, and compare it against some other facts, procured from another source. But that’s a lengthy process. And frankly most people don’t have the time, resources or inclination to take on such an intellectual trek while also dealing with their regular 9 to 5 schedules.

Luckily, being born in Eastern Europe allows me to draw from my childhood memories of watching Communist news. These were ‘wonders’ choke full of Marxist BS, sprinkled with the local brand of totalitarian false narratives and hidden agendas. That’s why back then, people had to read between the lines all the time.

I highly suggest you folks start doing the same thing. Because I have some big news for you:

We are being lied to by the media. We are being lied to by them all the time.