Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 23:43:40 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The end of a Washington mystery
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 10:50 PM 6/2/05 EDT, MarkLFischer at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 6/2/2005 7:41:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>yahoo at omniphile.com writes:
>
>>Hmmm...I wonder if going to the Soviet Union and engaging in  protests
>>against the United States during the Cold War years would fit  that
>definition?
>
>Guidelines on this subject are fairly clear.  Political expression,  even
>political expression that an enemy might like to hear, does not qualify as
>treason.  "Aid and comfort" means *actual* aid and comfort, not
ego-stroking.
>Buying film for your friend the spy qualifies, wearing an  "Up With Saddam"
>t-shirt does not.

I agree with this...the question is, is giving propaganda material to an
enemy government, in the enemy country, "actual aid and comfort"?  It's a
bit more than "ego-stroking", though not as bad as selling plans to our
weapons to the Chinese.  If, say, Truman, had gone to Germany in 1943 and
appeared in a pro-Nazi film, talking about how corrupt and bad the USA was,
would that be "actual aid and comfort", or just "ego stroking"?  Should he
have been elected later if he'd done that?  Granted, a declared war and a
cold war are a bit different in legal terms, but the Soviets were no less
our enemy at the time just because the shooting was happening either
through proxies or in secret, and the morality of the action is similar
enough.  If Clinton had just wanted to protest the war to our government,
he could have done that in D.C..  He didn't.  He didn't do the protest in
London either.  Or Brussels, or any other friendly country...he went to
Russia instead, and their status as our foe was involved in the decision.

-- Mike B.
--
You can fool some of the people some of the time, and that is sufficient.