Posted on 11/20/2010 9:01:47 PM PST by Nachum
‘Post’ told of new bid for jailed agent’s release on 25th anniversary of his arrest, with support of notable American and Israeli officials involved in Pollard's arrest.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the US to release Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard as part of a series of gestures made to Israel in an effort to restart peace talks with the Palestinians, sources with knowledge of the talks told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend.
Sunday is the 25th anniversary of Pollard’s arrest at the gates of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He is serving a life sentence in prison in Butner, North Carolina, for passing classified information to an ally, a charge that normally carries a sentence of no more than 10 years.
When Army Radio first reported last month that Pollard’s name had been raised in talks with senior American officials about restarting the settlement freeze, Israeli officials denied that his fate was on the bargaining table. But sources confirmed that Netanyahu and American officials had discussed whether Pollard’s release could persuade Israeli ministers to accept another moratorium.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Contrary to the BS from anti Semites and the just plain ignorant, Pollard did not harm the United States.
He broke the law and he should have been punished.
The information he gave Israel was concerning Arab countries and assisted Israel in attacking the Iraqi nuclear facility which Israel destroyed and potentially saved American lives in Desert Storm. None of what Pollard gave Israel reached the Soviet Union as has been rumored. He was blamed for the spying of Robert Hanssen and others.
Pollard was railroaded by Casper Weinberger who hated Israel.
If you have an iota of fairness, read these links with an open mind.
If you don’t, if you respond with rote unthinking rants, I’ll take your anticipated criticism with the contempt it deserves.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111906488.html
http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2010/092710.pdf
ESTHER POLLARD and her husband s other supporters are mistaken in believing that Jonathan Pollard caused no significant damage to American national security. Furthermore, according to senior members of the American intelligence community, Pollard’s argument that he acted solely from idealistic motives and provided Israel only with those documents which were needed for its defense was a sham designed to mask the fact that he was driven to spy by his chronic need for money.
Before Pollard’s plea bargain, the government had been preparing a multi-count criminal indictment that included-along with espionage, drug, and tax-fraud charges — allegations that before his arrest Pollard had used classified documents in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the governments of South Africa, Argentina, and Taiwan to participate in an arms deal for anti-Communist Afghan rebels who were then being covertly supported by the Reagan Administration. F.B.I. investigators later determined that in the fall of 1985 Pollard had also consulted with three Pakistanis and an Iranian in his efforts to broker arms. (The foreigners were quietly deported within several months of his arrest.)
Had Pollard’s case gone to trial, one of the government’s major witnesses would have been a journalist named Kurt Lohbeck, who had a checkered past. He had served seven months in prison after being convicted of passing a bad check in New Mexico in 1977, but by 1985 he was under contract to the CBS Evening News. Lohbeck, who now lives in Albuquerque — (he received a full pardon from the governor of New Mexico two years ago), acknowledged in a telephone interview that he was prepared to testify, if necessary, about his involvement in Pollard’s unsuccessful efforts in 1985 to broker arms sales for the rebels in the Afghan war. At one meeting with a foreign diplomat, Lohbeck said, Pollard posed as a high-level C.I.A. operative. Lohbeck, who was then CBS’s main battlefield correspondent in the Afghan war, told me that Pollard had provided him, and thus CBS, with a large number of classified American documents concerning the war. He also told me that Pollard had never discussed Israel with him or indicated any special feelings for the state. “I never heard anything political from Jay,” Lohbeck added, “other than that he tried to portray himself as a Reaganite. Not a word about Israel. Jay’s sole interest was in making a lot of money.”
Lohbeck went on to say that he had also been prepared to testify, if asked, about Pollard’s drug use. “Jay used cocaine heavily, and had no compunction about doing it in public. He’d just lay it in lines on the table.” In 1985, Lohbeck made similar statements, government officials said, to the F.B.I.
Pollard, told by me of Lohbeck’s assertions, sent a response from a jail cell in North Carolina: “My relationship with Lohbeck is extremely complicated. I was never indicted for anything I did with him. Remember that.”
The documents that Pollard turned over to Israel were not focussed exclusively on the product of American intelligence — its analytical reports and estimates. They also revealed how America was able to learn what it did — a most sensitive area of intelligence defined as “sources and methods.” Pollard gave the Israelis vast amounts of data dealing with specific American intelligence systems and how they worked. For example, he betrayed details of an exotic capability that American satellites have of taking off-axis photographs from high in space. While orbiting the earth in one direction, the satellites could photograph areas that were seemingly far out of range. Israeli nuclear-missile sites and the like, which would normally be shielded from American satellites, would thus be left exposed, and could be photographed. “We monitor the Israelis,” one intelligence expert told me, “and there’s no doubt the Israelis want to prevent us from being able to surveil their country.” The data passed along by Pollard included detailed information on the various platforms — in the air, on land, and at sea — used by military components of the National Security Agency to intercept Israeli military, commercial, and diplomatic communications.
Well they’ve got the president in office most likely to turn the SOB loose.
He hasn't been punished enough.
Let me guess, you would prefer he had been "punished" with Zyklon B.
And just for good measure, maybe anyone who believes a miscarriage of justice has occurred in his case, for them the same punishment is warranted.
Nazi references. Cute. How about when he's served his entire sentence then he's been punished enough?
And just for good measure, maybe anyone who believes a miscarriage of justice has occurred in his case, for them the same punishment is warranted.
No need. Those who think that this whole thing has been a miscarriage of justice are welcome to their opinions, no matter how idiotic they may be.
How about an American “patriot” like you acknowledging that Casper Weinberger’s fraudulent ex parte influence on the judge, depriving Pollard of his Constitutional right to Due Process, was an act more egregious then what Pollard ever did?
Ah, no. Not interested.
Just shocking.
For a moment there I thought you were expressing opinions based on crime and punishment and the deliverance of justice.
But it seems that you are simply motivated by knee jerk hatred of (a) Jew(s).
Again, I’m just shocked. /s
No, just a knee-jerk hatred of spies and traitors.
Your blubbering about Pollard might have more moral standing if Israel hadn't locked up Mordecai Vanunu for close to 20 years for less than what Pollard had done.
All well and good but Pollard was passing these secrets on to Israel which is an ally not an enemy. This little detail seems to have escaped you. Take Bill Clinton who passed on MIRV technology to China. Take our other major spies who gave the USSR information and were sent to prison
Oy vey. So you like Mordecai Vanunu? lol lol lol. He’s a hero of the left for “exposing” (cue the spooky organ music) Israel’s atomic secrets. I’ll bet you think Iran should have nukes because Israel does.
And got 18 years for it after a closed-door 'trial'. Pollard got life for his espionage after an open trial. I'm sure that Vanunu served his full sentence, I expect the same from Pollard. You can have him back when his life sentence is completed.
So you are a commie/symp who objects to closed door trials and military tribunals for Al-Queda types. You get all weepy and gooey when a democratic nation uses closed door trials to protect itself against barbarian Muslims.
How about your typical Muslim nation. Everything is corrupt and closed door there.
So you are a commie/symp who objects to closed door trials and military tribunals for Al-Queda types. You get all weepy and gooey when a democratic nation uses closed door trials to protect itself against barbarian Muslims.
How about your typical Muslim nation. Everything is corrupt and closed door there.
Did Bobby Ray Inman unilaterally shut off the intelligence spigot, or not?
Casper Weinberger: YIMACH SHEMO!
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