Posted on 06/11/2011 10:42:34 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
Pollard? F him.
“Should an American who spied for Hitler have been freed and forgiven because the Third Reich ultimately fell?”
30 years later, maybe. It depends. What specifically did he do for the Third Reich? Out US agents? Sabotage US ships? Reveal battle plans causing major reversals with ships sunk and servicemen killed? Or just tell the Nazis, during nominally peaceful times (before Pearl Harbor, to work within the confines of your analogy) how the US Navy manages to keep track of their nuclear subs, causing the US to do more R&D to find a new way? The latter is what Pollard did for the Soviets. At the same time, he also made sure that Begin’s Israel had enough information to take out Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi nuclear program, saving perhaps millions of lives, both American, Israeli, and Arab. The first deed was dastardly enough. The second, however, more than compensated for the damage he did with the first.
Stuff and nonsense.
.....
He’s a traitor and a spy. He can rot in his medium security prison for the duration of his sentence.
An intelligence agent is not a spy. An intelligence agent works for his country, to gain information about foreign countries.
Condee called for spying. She didn’t say “let’s recruit more intelligence agents and register them with the Israeli government.” She wanted spying. Nothing personal, I’m sure. America spies on its allies and its enemies. So does everyone else. Some have been caught spying on Israel, and sentenced to less than a decade of prison. This is the ordinary way of doing business. Furthermore, the information that Pollard passed to Israel, regarding, for example, Syrian poison gas programs, Iraqi nuclear programs, were highly relevant intelligence that the US had agreed to provide Israel, but which his superiors were ordering him to withold for nefarious reasons. I don’t say that he wasn’t a spy. But that’s not unusual in intelligence work, and ultimately, the good that he did by committing that crime outweighs the harm, and “mercy becomes kings more than their crowns.” Of course, if you insist on your pound of flesh, well...
I posted the article without comment for a reason. My initial impulse was to at most let him see his father, probably along the lines you speak. As for freedom for the man, I was neutral at best, but inclined to oppose. You guys tipped me, though. Something in me recoils at eternal vindictiveness. It’s a saccharin substitute for vigilance, and isn’t even emotionally, let alone intellectually, as satisfying. Now I’m for freeing him.
I am not altogether against freeing him, but not in my country.
Send him to Israel and banish him forever from coming back to the country he sold out.
I’d agree on that. His malfeasance wasn’t the vicious stuff of John Walker Jr., Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen (See http://listverse.com/2010/07/04/top-10-traitors-in-us-history/ [Pollard isn’t on the list; Hannoi Jane is]), but he still was a spy, and if he were freed it would be the height of chutzpah to hang around the US afterwards.
It’s no secret that we spy on everyone and they all spy on us. I am a large supporter of our only real ally in the middle east, Israel, but it’s hard to forget the USS Liberty. Pollard sold us out for ideological reasons, as far as I know. He gave that document to the Israelis and one of them passed it on. It ended up on the internet, for all the world to see. It definitely weakened our SIGINT attacks on everyone. So, ideologic or not, he committed treason and the slam is the place for him. Consider one Ronald W. Pelton, a former colleague of mine. He’s in the federal slam now, has been for about 25 years and will probably die there. He contacted the USSR Embassy in Washington and met with the KGB officers. He sold us out, no ideology involved, just plain greed. And he sold us out cheap, too. He received about $35,000 for some vital information (GOOGLE Ivy Bells).
I'm curious as to which conflict of interest is motivating your obfuscation of Pollard's crimes, your attempts to excuse his inexcusable crimes, and your offering of bad advice to the United States regarding the release from prison of a dishonest, disloyal spy and traitor.
Why do you not ask for the release from prison of Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen?
What agenda are you pursuing that would be served by the release of one scumbag spy, and not others?
I’m a citizen of both, having been born in the US and immigrated to Israel. As for the rest of your questions, read my posts and don’t ask me to rehash it all. Life is too short.
Thank you for the honest disclosure.
I've already read the rest of your posts ... I think you're being deceptive regarding your "transformation" from being "neutral" regarding pollard to now wanting him released.
I think releasing him, as you desire, would be bad for America's interests ... spying (even for an "ally") is evil. Your attempts to excuse his malfeasance fall flat; the idea that one act of dishonesty and betrayal somehow made up for another is repugnant.
Whether releasing pollard would be good for Israel is of absolutely no interest to me.
“I’ve already read the rest of your posts ... I think you’re being deceptive regarding your “transformation” from being “neutral” regarding pollard to now wanting him released.”
I think when you accuse me of “being deceptive,” the conversation is over. ‘bye.
Didn’t notice this post until just now. If he was in fact giving over information to Red China, that would tilt me back to opposing his release. You said “was in the process,” so I presume that means that the transaction was not consummated, but am curious to know more.
What? Pollard sunk the USS Liberty? The fiend!
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