[Shalom Israel]

How could you possibly know that...

You raise a good question: how could you possibly know what Pollard gave Israel?

It is a matter of record, however, that the method of counting "compromised" documents included at least: the entirety of any document of which Pollard got so much as one sentence; the entirety of any document referenced in any way by anything Pollard got. So, for example, a single page might be counted as "compromising" several 500-page volumes. In this way, eleven bundles, each able to fit in a briefcase, were deemed to have "compromised" several moving-vans full of material.

As for the claims that Pollard compromised agents in Russia, the accusation came from none other than Aldritch Ames and Robert Hanssen--who were spying for Russia, and were the ones actually guilty of this crime. Pollard did not have the "blue stripe" clearance necessary to access names of agents.

To give Cap Weinberger his due, it appears that he believed Pollard was responsible for the crimes of Ames and Hanssen, who had not yet been caught.

[Sabramerican]

To give Cap Weinberger his due, it appears that he believed Pollard was responsible for the crimes of Ames and Hanssen, who had not yet been caught.

Although he may have believed it at the time, now, after those others were caught, he doesn't consider Pollard all that important.

Asked in an interview why he omitted the incident, Weinberger casually replied, “Because it was, in a sense, a very minor matter but made very important.” Asked to elaborate, Weinberger repeated, “As I say, the Pollard matter was comparatively minor. It was made far bigger than its actual importance.”

[Alberta's Child]

You raise a good question: how could you possibly know what Pollard gave Israel?

I don't have to know -- I'm just refuting your point. YOU are the one who thinks Pollard's crimes weren't serious enough to warrant his punishment in the U.S. Federal justice system, and I simply pointed out that you can't possibly know that.

The fact that Israel's extensive lobbtying efforts in the late 1990s couldn't even get a pardon for Pollard from Bill Clinton -- about as cheap a whore and as unprincipled and mentally dysfunctional a politician as anything the U.S. has ever seen -- is a good indication that the damage Pollard did to this country is far more serious than anyone seems to realize.