Posted on 06/04/2009 9:39:21 AM PDT by Avi Kane
The wife of Jonathan Pollard read a letter to American President Barack Obama appealing for her husband's release during a protest rally opposite the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem Wednesday night.
The demonstration was aimed at Obama’s “cold shoulder” towards Israel. Pollard is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison for spying for Israel.
“Mr. Obama, my husband Jonathan Pollard has now served more than six times the usual sentence for the offense he committed," Esther Pollard said. "After more than two decades of the harshest afflictions in prison, including seven years in solitary confinement, it is time to release him, before it is too late for America to make amends before the Almighty G-d of Israel."
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
a traitor is a traitor - he got off easy
I don't get it - what did he do wrong?
As others write, Pollard is a traitor and deserves far worse than he got. From my perspective as an American, he should have been hung or shot for his treason. Rotting in jail for the rest of his pathetic life is second best.
Sorry, a traitor is a traitor. A spy is a spy.
My support for Israel is strong, but Pollard has nothing to do with supporting Israel.
The protest organizers lose a little credibility when they allow Pollard’s wife to interject her unrelated claims.
Like, I'm sooo sure 0bama will like, totally pardon him, yaknow?
Israel does not necessarily have the same foreign policy
as the US. If trading info stolen from us to China or Russia
were in Israels interest, they would do it. Its easy to get the impression that they are one of the 57 states instead of an independent and somewhat stiff-necked country.
This is one good treason for keeping Pollard in the cells.
Pollard gave information on many things...not just the Iraqi nuke site...he was also caught giving info to SAfrica and to Pakistan.
No, he is where he needs to be.
I’m actually very curious as to why the Israeli government is so interested in him. He wasn’t purely ideological, he did it for money and he spied for Muslim countries as well.
He was not a citizen of Israel until after he was caught spying.
I would have waterboarded him long ago to find out what else he disclosed.
If I had my druthers, every single person who betrayed American secrets to a foreign power - ANY foreign power - would either receive a death sentence or life with no parole (save trading them for one of our people that got caught).
HOWEVER, that’s not what we do. As Mrs. Pollard mentioned in her letter, we usually let these people off considerably earlier. We do, for example, let people off who spied for (otherwise) friendly powers (or non-hostile ones, whichever term you prefer) in a considerably shorter period of time than those who spied for outright hostile powers like Russia, China, etc. But even spies for hostile powers serve, on average, far lighter and less harsh sentences than Pollard already has served. Again, I don’t like those light sentences, but facts are facts.
Which brings me to my conclusion: if there is to be anything approaching “Equal Justice Under Law” (you know, that phrase that is supposed to actually mean something, and which is carved into the front of the Supreme Court), then Pollard must be released immediately. Frankly, he should have been released a long time ago. Virtually equal treatment for virtually equal crimes - that’s what “Equal Justice Under Law” means.
Another factor to be considered here is that there was a deal between Pollard and the US government before sentencing, under which Pollard would provide as complete an account of what he took and how he did it, in return for a recommendation of a lenient sentence. Pollard abided by his part of that agreement...but the government did not. First off, there was no recommendation of leniency made. Second, and very disturbingly, Caspar Weinberger (then Secretary of Defense AND AN AGENT OF ONE OF THE PARTIES TO THE CASE) met with the judge ex parte (i.e. by himself, outside of the courtroom, and without the knowledge of the other party) and made a very strong recommendation that Pollard be given life without parole. Aside from the horrible impropriety of the action itself (and Weinberger was a highly intelligent and experience attorney, so he KNEW better - and should have been disbarred for doing this), is the fact that he was descended from Jews...and had, throughout his career, bent over backwards to prove that his family history had no effect on his job, policy positions, etc. While otherwise admirable, in this case his own insecurity has led to the excessive punishment of a person who had nothing to do with Weinberger’s imagined problem (”imagined” because I’m not aware of any problem he ever encountered regarding his family history). So you have excessive punishment combined with extremely bad faith on the part of the government - Pollard should be released, since his continued incarceration is a stain on our system.
“then...Pollard must be released immediately”
We know he spied for Israel, SAfrica, and for Pakistan...
...due to secred classification, we the public, do not know the extent of what he released.
He is where he should be but if anybody let’s him go it will be a weak on security President like Obama, who will be hardline on Israel and then throw them a bone with Pollard.
What Pollard knew is 24 years old - and of little or no consequence now. The fact that he is still in prison reeks of either anti-Semitism OR a vendetta (or both).
I don’t give a damn who releases him - such a release will end a serious injustice.
Again, as I stated in my first post on this thread, it is my absolute preference that anyone who spies for any country against this one be executed or put away for life without parole. But we MUST be consistent. Pollard, for all the wrong that he did (and he DID do a lot of bad things) does not deserve this treatment while others who did similar or worse are freed in 1/3 or less of the time. More importantly, WE do not deserve a judicial system that can abuse human rights to such an extent.
Free Pollard. NOW!
If believe that if Pollard had been a Muslim terrorist, he would have been released already.
Why?
Maybe this has something to do with it.
“Ron Olive, the agent in charge of counterintelligence for the NIS at the time of Pollard’s arrest, published a book about the case in 2006. Olive told the BBC that the incident was “one of the most devastating cases of espionage in US history” during which Pollard stole over “one million classified documents”.[13]
Sentencing and incarceration
Pollard was sentenced to life in prison on one count of espionage on March 4, 1987. The prosecutor complied with the plea agreement and asked for “only a substantial number of years in prison”; Judge Aubrey Robinson, Jr. imposed the life sentence after hearing the statements of the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, and other U.S. government officials (plea agreements are not binding upon judges).[23] In 1987, Pollard began his life sentence, which he is still serving. Pollard’s wife, Anne, was sentenced to five years in prison but was released after three and a half years because of health problems.
At the time of Pollard’s sentencing there was a rule that mandated parole at thirty years for prisoners like him if they had maintained a clean record in prison. That parole date would be November 21, 2015. Also, Pollard was eligible to apply for parole after eight years and six months, though he has never done so.[24]
Pollard is federal prisoner #09185-016 and is incarcerated at the Butner Federal Correction Complex in Butner, North Carolina.
A sane country would’ve hanged this pucker.
As it is, we’re spending too much money keeping him alive.
Why inject anti-simitism into Pollard’s treason? How does this apply for his spying for Pakistan and South Africa?
BTW, rather than reducing Pollard’s sentence because others got lighter sentences, why not seek similar just sentences for others found guilty of treason against the US?
While his case is certainly not a shining example of American justice, the fact is he did the deed as evidenced by his guilty plea, and got the maximum sentence. Not what he expected, but that's life, which he gets to spend in prison.
Call me biased but I could give 2 shits what the wife of a traitor and Israeli spy has to say about our country
That is the crux of the problem. The Justice Department and the NIS have acknowledged for years that all information in the Weinberger pre-sentencing letter has been declassified. But they refuse to declassify the letter itself, or let his lawyers, who have the necessary clearances, to see the letter. It should be declassified, then we can see what he did, and what he didn't. Particularly significant given the fact that the damage assessment, which Weinberger relied on, was written by Aldrich Ames. Who obviously would have motivation to cast blame on someone aside from himself. Better to do it now when, if he was sentenced based on Ames crimes, he could be released after serving a reasonable sentence than waiting 30 years and finding out he was sentenced based on faulty information.
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