Yesterday's sentencing and immediate deportation of 10 suburban Russian spies has me hot under the collar.  At first, I actually started to believe what Moscow was saying when the spies were initially caught - that this was all a major misunderstanding blown out of proportion.  Why else would it take the FBI a full 10 years to dig up anything on these mild-mannered strangers, and even then, no formal charges of direct espionage and spying in the Cold War sense were ever leveled.

Even the Russians made us all look and feel a little foolish with our decoder-like accusations, immediately and incredulously criticizing our "police" as trigger happy keystone cops.

I guess I wanted to believe the Russians weren't so bold as to actively spy on our shores regarding items that many felt could have been collected via the Internet.  That they had learned their lesson from the Cold War -- America had kicked some serious Russkie butt, and they never wanted to repeat the mistakes of their failed, centralized form of government.  But boy, was I wrong.

These folks mean business.  And they still see the United States as Enemy #1.  And here we are as Americans, quietly going about our business, but not before we make sure we get our fair share in some sort of back-room swap.  Just who are the four we're trading the Russian 10 for?  I think we have a right to know.

There are far larger implications here.  Set aside the fact that the Kremlin has adopted its own form of heavy-handed government in the past 15 years.  Jailing the country's top entrepreneurs and private owners on trumped-up charges, followed by shuttering the major news outlets throughout the land.  These aren't exactly laudable examples of a flourishing democracy in the East, let alone one of representative government.

What worries me most are Russia's "friends."  Who's to say that the Iranians aren't behind this in some twisted way?  Or perhaps even Venezuela's Chavez?  He's so moronic, there's no way his country could implant foreign agents on U.S. soil.  But old habits die hard with Soviets.  This is less about trying to warm otherwise frosty relations with Russia's leadership, and more about concerns our intelligence agencies should have with these latest discoveries.

Our country's leaders would serve themselves and its citizens well if they chose not to see this spy case as an isolated occurrence.