LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Russian espionage as prevalent as ever

OPINION:

Last week, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney called Russia America’s No. 1 geopolitical foe, but Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. echoed the Obama administration’s view that there is no threat to the United States from Russia. Mr. Biden is wrong. At present, there are as many or more Russian spies operating in America as there were in the Soviet Union’s KGB days. Under the Obama administration, arrests and criminal proceedings have simply stopped.

Even when presented with massive evidence of blatant espionage, the Obama Justice Department refuses to take legal action and looks the other way. It has been 11 years since the last Russian spy was arrested inside the U.S. government; we had nine major spy cases in the 1980s, seven in the 1990s and one, the Robert Hanssen case, in 2001. During 22 years of secretly spying for Russia, FBI agent Hanssen revealed some of our most sensitive state secrets, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and the lives of many agents and supporters.

Mr. Obama’s lack of interest in these matters was demonstrated in the 2010 arrest of 10 Russian spies, living here under deep cover as a part of the largest peacetime espionage ring in U.S. history. Instead of intensive interrogation of the illegals about Russian operations in America, the administration had the spies returned to Moscow - before they could be fully debriefed.

As American counterintelligence continues to lose ground, Russian global intelligence operations under dictatorial President Vladimir Putin view the United States as the main target. We are losing the Cold War while many in the Obama administration do not even know that it exists.

LT. COL. DOMINIK GEORGE NARGELE

U.S. Marines, retired

Arlington