Oh, c'mon guys, the US got caught spying. To defend it is unseemly. Why did the US spy when it had the opportunity. For the very same reason that bears s**t in the woods - nature (and no, I didn't mention wolves
) Seriously, nations spy on each other because the can, and must, and would anyway.
And no, in the modern day, defeating a nation in a war does not allow you to pillage their country of ideas, secrets, property, land, people, or anything else. Especially when all you did was "liberate" another country. Technically, the world's *justified* job in the Gulf War ended with freeing Kuwait, and the push further was *only* justified to the extent that it was to keep Iraq from doing the same again. This may not be what our view of the war is, and it may not be what the soldiers on the ground thought or felt, but under the rules of warfare this was the setting.
The US gets caught spying a lot by the way. I don't know if it's because the US is worse at it, has many more spies than other nations, or is just unlucky. But, since Powers got shot down, we've had more than our fair share of getting caught in the spy game. At least having the biggest guns means never having to say you're sorry.