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Victor Davis Hanson comments o the alleged Israeli mole in the Pentagon and the Plame affair.
VDH Private Papers ^ | September 13, 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson – 'Response to Readership'

Posted on 09/13/2004 2:58:26 PM PDT by quidnunc

Q: I read this morning about the alleged Israeli spy in the Pentagon. Up until now, I had planned to vote for President Bush and I am generally favorably disposed toward Israel. But I see this as potentially damaging to President Bush's chances for reelection. If true, the highest officials at the Defense Department would have to resign (I'd hate to see Rumsfeld leave) and it would seriously call into question the basis for the Iraq war, giving new life and meaning to the word "misled." I know we will need to learn more, but what's your take?

Hanson: Don't believe anything like that — at least not yet. The so-called suspect is a principled scholar, gifted linguist and expert on the Middle East. He is hardly an Israeli spy. This is an election year in which our sense of balance is all out of kilter: a former National Security Advisor walks out with top secret documents stuck in his pants that may have been later "lost" and we shrug; mention "Jewish" sympathies and we have a full-blown spy-scandal. I have met a number of officers and civilians in the Pentagon and none of them were patsies for Israel; they were among the finest people I've encountered. I'll leave you with a disturbing thought: at a time of war, going to Paris and freelancing with Viet Cong representatives in 1970-71 should have been a felony; being a midlevel analyst and perhaps talking too much about what we should do in Iran is not even a misdemeanor. So let us wait for the facts to come out. We are only now getting the full story of the so-called Joe Wilson escapade, and it looks worse for him each week.

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Israel
KEYWORDS: israel; israelispy; vdh; victordavishanson
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1 posted on 09/13/2004 2:58:27 PM PDT by quidnunc
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To: quidnunc
Up until now, I had planned to vote for President Bush

Liberals lie without a thought, don't they?

2 posted on 09/13/2004 3:06:04 PM PDT by Glenn (The two keys to character: 1) Learn how to keep a secret. 2) ...)
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To: Glenn
I knew from the start that this whole non story was another bogus tale from CBS (Lesley Stahl reported it) to make Pres. Bush seem like a tool of the Jews.

It appears there are some people in the U.S. beauracracy that want us to let Iran's nuclear bomb development be and they're pissed at the hawks and Israel for making a fuss. With such animus they would have a reason to spread these inneundos against Franklin, the Jews; etc.

3 posted on 09/13/2004 3:19:14 PM PDT by Stepan12
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To: quidnunc
Is this fella joking? I don't know about any of you, but my troll-detector is buzzing like crazy. That means hold your nose and put on your waders. Who really takes this Israeli spy stuff seriously?
4 posted on 09/13/2004 3:21:23 PM PDT by camboianchristmas (Please feel free to blame my poor spelling on the public school system)
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To: quidnunc
The so-called suspect is a principled scholar, gifted linguist and expert on the Middle East. He is hardly an Israeli spy

What does his scholarship have to do with anything? Alger Hiss was no doubt a gifted scholar as well.

I am more than willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, but it makes me more suspicious when I see this kind of pre-emptory disingenuousness.

Every nation in the world has spies in the US. They would be fools not to. That said, when we catch someone in the act, we must do everything in our power to punish him.

5 posted on 09/13/2004 3:23:08 PM PDT by cicero's_son
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To: Stepan12
You know one day they accuse Bush of being in bed with the Saudis, and the next he is a whore for Israel. Why can't the just make up their mind and be done with it?

FYI: Do not believe anything Joe Wilson says.
6 posted on 09/13/2004 3:24:47 PM PDT by camboianchristmas (Please feel free to blame my poor spelling on the public school system)
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To: cicero's_son
What does his scholarship have to do with anything?

He's described as a <>Bprincipled (i.e., very honest) scholar.

7 posted on 09/13/2004 3:26:08 PM PDT by Poohbah (If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room.)
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To: quidnunc

David Frum had a great piece on this whole shoddy issue late last week on Natl Review Online...its his diary of Sept 10, entitled Blowback; skip down a bit to his section called Answers Please. This whole episode has smelled like a phony blame-Israel witchhunt to me from the start, and Frum [and many many others] agrees

here is a short excerpt:

"Answers Please

Finally, a footnote to yesterday’s thought experiment. I underscored the absurdity of the canard about an Israeli spy ring in the Pentagon by restating the same facts as they would appear if the allegations involved any other allied country: Japan, for example. Without the anti-Israel animus of some in the bureaucracy--abetted by the anti-Bush animus of many in the press--this whole story shrivels to nothing: just one official sharing his personal thinking in ways that may have broken rules about the handling of classified documents but that created no national-security risks and that involved nobody other than himself.

It’s now beginning to appear that many in law-enforcement are coming to see the so-called spy case in exactly the same way. There seems to be some reason to think that over the past week the whole demented investigation has fizzled out--and is about to be quietly shelved."

Frum thinks the investigation should not simply and quietly be "dropped" especially after the hyperbolic press coverage of the "leak" of the FBI's intent to maybe arrest someone for something which morphed into a Vicious Israeli Spy Ring in the press. Frum thinks the leakers and their motives need to be fully aired out for all to see.


here is the article: http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp



8 posted on 09/13/2004 3:29:30 PM PDT by UncleSamUSA (the land of the free and the home of the brave)
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To: camboianchristmas
>You know one day they accuse Bush of being in bed with the Saudis, and the next he is a whore for Israel

The Bush haters have
an ultimate theory of
everything
that sez

Bush and the powers
behind him want to grab land
all over the globe

to rule the planet
and most people that we see
are just their facades . . .

Their world-view is that
Zionists and Nazis are
just evil stage craft . . .

9 posted on 09/13/2004 3:35:06 PM PDT by theFIRMbss
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To: cicero's_son

"I am more than willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, but it makes me more suspicious when I see this kind of pre-emptory disingenuousness."

Same sentiment here.


10 posted on 09/13/2004 4:00:11 PM PDT by Fedora
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To: theFIRMbss

Yikes. Dude save that one for Art Bell.


11 posted on 09/13/2004 4:16:10 PM PDT by camboianchristmas (Please feel free to blame my poor spelling on the public school system)
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To: cicero's_son
The so-called suspect is a principled scholar, gifted linguist and expert on the Middle East. He is hardly an Israeli spy

CS: What does his scholarship have to do with anything? Alger Hiss was no doubt a gifted scholar as well.

You have confused "gifted" with "principled." People that exert effort to be above suspicion in the integrity of their work tend to be honest elsewhere. That was Hanson's point.

For further details, consult your father.

12 posted on 09/13/2004 5:10:59 PM PDT by TopQuark
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
13 posted on 09/14/2004 8:14:21 AM PDT by SJackson (If you're listening to a rock star…on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are, A Cooper)
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To: camboianchristmas
FYI: Do not believe anything Joe Wilson says.

Well now that would depend. If for example if he said water is wet, or today is tuesday, I'd be inclined to believe him.

14 posted on 09/14/2004 8:24:01 AM PDT by Valin (I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.)
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To: Glenn

I stopped reading when I saw Hanson play the "anti-semite" card against anyone who dares to take these allegations seriously, a tactic akin to Al Sharpton's playing the race card.


15 posted on 09/14/2004 8:26:54 AM PDT by Captain Kirk
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To: quidnunc
More
Why do neo-conservatives like yourself have such blind faith in the ability to install democracy by conquest? The American South was as thoroughly smashed in 1865 as Germany was in 1945, but Radical Reconstruction still failed.

Hanson: I don’t know whether I qualify as a neo-conservative; I certainly was never a radical leftist who became disillusioned and went Republican. Mexifornia did not endear me to neoconservatives. If you look at books like Fields Without Dreams, The Land Was Everything, or Who Killed Homer?, instead I think you can detect a consistently socially conservative but still populist theme, whether wary of agribusiness subsidies, open borders, or elite academic culture.

I don’t feel comfortable in either New York or Washington and as someone who farmed for a number of years am no fan of corporate agriculture. You err when you employ the term “blind faith”—as if all these Bushites thought New England would sprout up in a few weeks outside of postbellum Baghdad.

Trying to offer reform in the wake of the war was the least bad of very bad alternatives. We left Somalia, fled Lebanon, let the fanatics take over Afghanistan, didn’t go to Baghdad in 1991 and ended up with rogue, failed states and September 11. Anytime we stayed on—Germany, Japan, South Korea, Panama, Nicaragua, or the Balkans the prospects were much better. Let us see what Iraq looks like in 3-5 years, versus what either leaving now or leaving Saddam in power might have been like.

I don’t want to get into Reconstruction, but someone like Grant, who was no wild-eyed liberal, felt that after a decade there of Federal troops there was gradual progress, and the election of 1876 was a travesty in American history, leaving a wound open that would not heal until the 1960s. There are no good choices when it comes to war and its aftermath, only bad and worse alternatives. We should remember that in Iraq and beyond.

16 posted on 09/14/2004 8:28:28 AM PDT by Valin (I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.)
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To: Stepan12
I knew from the start that this whole non story was another bogus tale from CBS (Lesley Stahl reported it) to make Pres. Bush seem like a tool of the Jews.

Hmmmmm. That's a familiar tactic. Is "Stahl" French or German?

17 posted on 09/14/2004 8:50:07 AM PDT by Stultis
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To: Captain Kirk
I stopped reading when I saw Hanson play the "anti-semite" card against anyone who dares to take these allegations seriously, a tactic akin to Al Sharpton's playing the race card.

More likely you saw the title and hit the post button without reading at all. Here's what Hanson wrote. Read it. How is he acting like Al Sharpton or attributing antisemitic beliefs or actions to anyone?

.............

Hanson: Don't believe anything like that — at least not yet. The so-called suspect is a principled scholar, gifted linguist and expert on the Middle East. He is hardly an Israeli spy. This is an election year in which our sense of balance is all out of kilter: a former National Security Advisor walks out with top secret documents stuck in his pants that may have been later "lost" and we shrug; mention "Jewish" sympathies and we have a full-blown spy-scandal. I have met a number of officers and civilians in the Pentagon and none of them were patsies for Israel; they were among the finest people I've encountered. I'll leave you with a disturbing thought: at a time of war, going to Paris and freelancing with Viet Cong representatives in 1970-71 should have been a felony; being a midlevel analyst and perhaps talking too much about what we should do in Iran is not even a misdemeanor. So let us wait for the facts to come out. We are only now getting the full story of the so-called Joe Wilson escapade, and it looks worse for him each week.

18 posted on 09/14/2004 8:51:34 AM PDT by SJackson (If you're listening to a rock star…on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are, A Cooper)
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To: TopQuark
Alger Hiss' supporters made the same claims on his behalf: "Why this is a man of principle! A pillar of his community! He would never betray his country."

All fine and good. But simple denials and assurances of character from one's political allies do not make for an effective defense.

If this bureaucrat is innocent--as I hope he is--then he will be owed apologies by many. But let's have the investigation rather than simply relying on VDH's pre-emptive vouchsafing, ok?

19 posted on 09/14/2004 10:14:57 AM PDT by cicero's_son
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To: cicero's_son
But let's have the investigation rather than simply relying on VDH's pre-emptive vouchsafing, ok?

Ok.

That's what he essentially said, too. I understood him only saying that he does not viewed the wrongs as likely.

I do think, considering the timimg especially, that this "leak" was politically motivated. Are you as adamant about Sandy Berger?

20 posted on 09/14/2004 10:42:26 AM PDT by TopQuark
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