I’m sure SSS and Llpoh can find some justification for Pollard’s crimes against us. Both of them put the US above Israel, right?
Just Punishment
Jonathan Pollard was one of the worst traitors ofthe 20th century. He deserved to languish as long as he did.
Jonathan Pollard, who’s been in prison the past 30 years for selling secrets to Israel, will be released on parole this November. Two things are worth noting. First, contrary to many skeptics, his release is not a political ploy to relax Israel’s opposition to the Iran nuclear deal. Second, contrary to claims by Pollard’s supporters, his punishment has been completely justified; he ranks as one of the 20th century’s most appalling American spies.
The first myth is easy to puncture. Pollard’s life sentence came with a mandatory-parole clause after 30 years. He started serving time in November 1985. So, 30 years is up in November 2015. It’s math.
The second myth takes longer to unravel. At his sentencing hearing, Pollard, who’d been a U.S. Navy intelligence official, painted himself as a devout Jew who’d stolen classified documents dealing only with Arab military might in order to help Israel stave off an invasion; none of his actions, he claimed, harmed American security.
Judge Aubrey Robinson Jr. called Pollard to the bench, showed him a classified affidavit that the Department of Defense had submitted, listing the range of sensitive secrets that he’d stolen, pointed to one of the items, and said, “What about this?” Pollard was silenced. Robinson sentenced him to life.
We now know (and M.E. Bowman, a senior counterintelligence officer who was working the Pollard case, has since confirmed) that the item in question was a National Security Agency manual called the RASIN, short for “Radio Signal Notations.” The RASIN was a guide to the physical parameters of every radio signal that the NSA was intercepting—a guide on how the NSA was tracking military communications, not just Israel’s but any and every country’s, including the Soviet Union’s. The RASIN was 10 volumes, and Pollard gave his Israeli handlers every single page of it.
An article by Seymour Hersh, in the Jan. 18, 1999, issue of the New Yorker, titled “The Traitor,” listed some other beyond-top-secret documents—among the tens of thousands—that Pollard had stolen and sold. They included the “National SIGINT Requirements List” (SIGINT standing for Signals Intelligence), which revealed which communications channels of which military powers, in which regions, the NSA was intercepting in what order of priority. In other words, it would give the reader a heads up on where and what actions the U.S. military might take next.
Pollard also provided a year’s worth of memos by intelligence officers in the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet, recording all their observations of Soviet planes, ships, and submarines in the Mediterranean Sea. He provided documents on how Navy intelligence was tracking Soviet submarines. He provided material revealing that one of America’s most highly classified photo-reconnaissance satellites could take pictures not just straight down but from an angle: Israeli or Russian or some other country’s officers might think they could take a missile out of hiding once the satellite passed over, but no, the satellite was still snapping pictures—and now, thanks to Pollard, they knew this, too.
In other words, much of this material would be of use to more countries than just Israel. And Hersh quoted senior U.S. intelligence officials saying that some of these documents made their way to Moscow, perhaps through a KGB mole in Mossad (who was also later arrested), perhaps by Israeli officials who gave the Soviet Union the documents in exchange for letting more Jews emigrate to Israel. Officials have told me, in the years since, that they suspected such an exchange but never found hard evidence. Nonetheless, senior officials told Hersh that Pollard’s handlers had asked him to get certain types of documents that seemed of little use to Israel but of great value to the Soviet Union
Hanssen was much worse, along with Aldrich Ames, but the relevancy of this article is that Pollard is being freed after serving his prison term..
Zara
If Pollard sold secrets to Iran …. I’m betting you would love him.
SSS and Llpoh
Should you want to defend Pollard, you can begin and end your search right here —- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/ ….. you can keep Zara busy for months.
Stucky says:
Zara
If Pollard sold secrets to Iran …. I’m betting you would love him.
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Yeah. Probably.
Those people will cash in on almost anything, no matter who’s side you think they are on.
More hate stuff towards Jews.
The United States spies on its allies, Israel included, along with most other countries in the world.
These things usually just get a bit of diplomatic fuss, what makes the Pollard case so special?
yahsure says:
More hate stuff towards Jews.
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What if I told you that I’m a jew?
Anonymous says:
The United States spies on its allies, Israel included, along with most other countries in the world.
These things usually just get a bit of diplomatic fuss, what makes the Pollard case so special?
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Pollard sold volumes of highly sensitive information about CIA intelligence operations with the Soviet Union and its’ allies. Israel in turn sold this to the Soviets. Nobody knows how many lives of US operatives this caused.
Think of Pollard as a reverse Edward Snowden.
Zara
I don’t give a shit whether or not you’re a Jew.
The article is bullshit. Pollard gave the information to the Israelis, not the Soviets, who were bankrolling Israel’s enemies. Is this a new version entitled “The friend of my enemy is my friend”? Get fucking real.
SSS says:
Zara
I don’t give a shit whether or not you’re a Jew.
The article is bullshit. Pollard gave the information to the Israelis, not the Soviets, who were bankrolling Israel’s enemies. Is this a new version entitled “The friend of my enemy is my friend”? Get fucking real.
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Did Israel trade Pollard secrets for emigres?