Scapegoat. Anyone can see that.

Wen Ho Lee was the American government's effort to shift blame from itself onto someone else, preferably a foreigner. Interestingly, Wen Ho Lee is Taiwanese, and it is unlikely that he would side with China as a spy. In any case, the media had a field day with this whole story, publishing story after story of China's "devious" attempts to infiltrate America. Ironically, the CIA, along with MI5, were responsible for dozens of incidences where they supplied arms and funds to rebel terrorists inside China to aid them in their sabotage of Chinese installations. When they failed because the promised air support didn't show up, they left the rebels out to die, then denied involvement. Bay of Pigs, anyone?

Here's a good question. If Wen Ho Lee was guilty, why wasn't he charged with espionage? That was before the plea bargain, right? He was instead charged with minor infractions which wouldn't have got him too much time in the slammer, and certainly not execution. Also, why wasn't he arrested years ago, when the government claimed to have began gathering evidence against him. So apparently, while he was in Bejing, supposedly handing over the stuff to China, they were wringing their hands helplessly? Something amiss there.

The whole deal about Chinese spying sickens me. When Hughes Corporation, in the early 1990's, was accused by ABC's 20/20 of passing on ICBM technology to China, the entire media started spouting BS on China being the next Evil Empire. When Hughes started blasting ABC, they retracted their statements and apologized. But it didn't matter, the media continued it anyways. When Lockheed Martin, two years later, was accused of helping China with their missile technology (supposedly, they were helping with satellite launch rockets), it was the same stuff all over again. The corporation threatened to sue, the press apologized. Not that it mattered, by then China-bashing was in vogue, and everyone was doing it. Now this bullahoo.

While USA Today publishes disgusted stories on China testing another long-range missile and sees threats to America's "security", America tests a missile defense system and proclaims its protection of Taiwan, an obvious meddling of Chinese affairs. People then say "those evil commie Chinese". False on two counts. Really, if the press is going to write about China, maybe they should get a clue first.

In addition, if their own security sucks, please don't use a scapegoat. The FBI have still yet to concretely prove his involvement, hence their hesitation in laying charges. But it doesn't matter, because the press is already whipping the nation into a state of race-hate anyways. Down with the Chinese! Spying bastards!

CIA? What do they do? Help the FBI right?

On Wednesday, September 13, 2000, Wen Ho Lee was released from federal prison. He pleaded guilty to one of the fifty-nine counts charged against him, the rest of which were dropped by federal prosecutors. The single charge (using an unsecure computer to download a document relating to national defense onto a tape) was punished by a sentence of nine months in solitary confinement, time served.

The judge's comments are available here.

As part of the deal, he signed an oath stating he never intended to harm the United States and never passed the secrets he copied to any third party.

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