Spying American Spies

IN THE MEDIA lately was a story about an American man who vanished in Iran some time ago, after traveling there several years ago. The man was supposedly a retired government worker, possibly in the intelligence gathering community. The man was wearing a long beard, and looked like Moses, or Walt Whitman, allegedly grown while in Iranian captivity. The American media claims that this man was spying on the Iranians for the United States at the time of his disappearance. The U.S. government itself hasn't said very much about this, fueling a suspicion that the whole story is a planned plant by the government, for the purpose of giving the world, and in particular the Iranian government, the impression that the United States is actively infiltrating and spying in Iran. The first question is: is this the sort of thing that the U.S. government, or some part of it, would do, to perpetuate such a hoax? Why, of course. Anyone who has ever read a David Baldacci or John Grisham novel realizes that. Perhaps a more important question is: why would it? Why would any of America's fine upstanding spy agencies, of which there are multitudes, feel the need to persuade everyone that it has spies inside Iran, when in fact American spies have not been in Iran since teh Shah was power? Why would they feel the need to? Hell, anybody with a brain just automatically assumes that American spies are everywhere among us, and certainly Iranians have brains. And we Americans can spy with anyone.