Posted on 09/13/2004 2:58:26 PM PDT by quidnunc
Q: I read this morning about the alleged Israeli spy in the Pentagon. Up until now, I had planned to vote for President Bush and I am generally favorably disposed toward Israel. But I see this as potentially damaging to President Bush's chances for reelection. If true, the highest officials at the Defense Department would have to resign (I'd hate to see Rumsfeld leave) and it would seriously call into question the basis for the Iraq war, giving new life and meaning to the word "misled." I know we will need to learn more, but what's your take?
Hanson: Don't believe anything like that — at least not yet. The so-called suspect is a principled scholar, gifted linguist and expert on the Middle East. He is hardly an Israeli spy. This is an election year in which our sense of balance is all out of kilter: a former National Security Advisor walks out with top secret documents stuck in his pants that may have been later "lost" and we shrug; mention "Jewish" sympathies and we have a full-blown spy-scandal. I have met a number of officers and civilians in the Pentagon and none of them were patsies for Israel; they were among the finest people I've encountered. I'll leave you with a disturbing thought: at a time of war, going to Paris and freelancing with Viet Cong representatives in 1970-71 should have been a felony; being a midlevel analyst and perhaps talking too much about what we should do in Iran is not even a misdemeanor. So let us wait for the facts to come out. We are only now getting the full story of the so-called Joe Wilson escapade, and it looks worse for him each week.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
Liberals lie without a thought, don't they?
It appears there are some people in the U.S. beauracracy that want us to let Iran's nuclear bomb development be and they're pissed at the hawks and Israel for making a fuss. With such animus they would have a reason to spread these inneundos against Franklin, the Jews; etc.
What does his scholarship have to do with anything? Alger Hiss was no doubt a gifted scholar as well.
I am more than willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, but it makes me more suspicious when I see this kind of pre-emptory disingenuousness.
Every nation in the world has spies in the US. They would be fools not to. That said, when we catch someone in the act, we must do everything in our power to punish him.
He's described as a <>Bprincipled (i.e., very honest) scholar.
David Frum had a great piece on this whole shoddy issue late last week on Natl Review Online...its his diary of Sept 10, entitled Blowback; skip down a bit to his section called Answers Please. This whole episode has smelled like a phony blame-Israel witchhunt to me from the start, and Frum [and many many others] agrees
here is a short excerpt:
"Answers Please
Finally, a footnote to yesterday’s thought experiment. I underscored the absurdity of the canard about an Israeli spy ring in the Pentagon by restating the same facts as they would appear if the allegations involved any other allied country: Japan, for example. Without the anti-Israel animus of some in the bureaucracy--abetted by the anti-Bush animus of many in the press--this whole story shrivels to nothing: just one official sharing his personal thinking in ways that may have broken rules about the handling of classified documents but that created no national-security risks and that involved nobody other than himself.
It’s now beginning to appear that many in law-enforcement are coming to see the so-called spy case in exactly the same way. There seems to be some reason to think that over the past week the whole demented investigation has fizzled out--and is about to be quietly shelved."
Frum thinks the investigation should not simply and quietly be "dropped" especially after the hyperbolic press coverage of the "leak" of the FBI's intent to maybe arrest someone for something which morphed into a Vicious Israeli Spy Ring in the press. Frum thinks the leakers and their motives need to be fully aired out for all to see.
here is the article: http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp
The Bush haters have
an ultimate theory of
everything that sez
Bush and the powers
behind him want to grab land
all over the globe
to rule the planet
and most people that we see
are just their facades . . .
Their world-view is that
Zionists and Nazis are
just evil stage craft . . .
"I am more than willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, but it makes me more suspicious when I see this kind of pre-emptory disingenuousness."
Same sentiment here.
Yikes. Dude save that one for Art Bell.
CS: What does his scholarship have to do with anything? Alger Hiss was no doubt a gifted scholar as well.
You have confused "gifted" with "principled." People that exert effort to be above suspicion in the integrity of their work tend to be honest elsewhere. That was Hanson's point.
For further details, consult your father.
Well now that would depend. If for example if he said water is wet, or today is tuesday, I'd be inclined to believe him.
I stopped reading when I saw Hanson play the "anti-semite" card against anyone who dares to take these allegations seriously, a tactic akin to Al Sharpton's playing the race card.
Hanson: I don’t know whether I qualify as a neo-conservative; I certainly was never a radical leftist who became disillusioned and went Republican. Mexifornia did not endear me to neoconservatives. If you look at books like Fields Without Dreams, The Land Was Everything, or Who Killed Homer?, instead I think you can detect a consistently socially conservative but still populist theme, whether wary of agribusiness subsidies, open borders, or elite academic culture.
I don’t feel comfortable in either New York or Washington and as someone who farmed for a number of years am no fan of corporate agriculture. You err when you employ the term “blind faith”—as if all these Bushites thought New England would sprout up in a few weeks outside of postbellum Baghdad.
Trying to offer reform in the wake of the war was the least bad of very bad alternatives. We left Somalia, fled Lebanon, let the fanatics take over Afghanistan, didn’t go to Baghdad in 1991 and ended up with rogue, failed states and September 11. Anytime we stayed on—Germany, Japan, South Korea, Panama, Nicaragua, or the Balkans the prospects were much better. Let us see what Iraq looks like in 3-5 years, versus what either leaving now or leaving Saddam in power might have been like.
I don’t want to get into Reconstruction, but someone like Grant, who was no wild-eyed liberal, felt that after a decade there of Federal troops there was gradual progress, and the election of 1876 was a travesty in American history, leaving a wound open that would not heal until the 1960s. There are no good choices when it comes to war and its aftermath, only bad and worse alternatives. We should remember that in Iraq and beyond.
Hmmmmm. That's a familiar tactic. Is "Stahl" French or German?
More likely you saw the title and hit the post button without reading at all. Here's what Hanson wrote. Read it. How is he acting like Al Sharpton or attributing antisemitic beliefs or actions to anyone?
.............
Hanson: Don't believe anything like that — at least not yet. The so-called suspect is a principled scholar, gifted linguist and expert on the Middle East. He is hardly an Israeli spy. This is an election year in which our sense of balance is all out of kilter: a former National Security Advisor walks out with top secret documents stuck in his pants that may have been later "lost" and we shrug; mention "Jewish" sympathies and we have a full-blown spy-scandal. I have met a number of officers and civilians in the Pentagon and none of them were patsies for Israel; they were among the finest people I've encountered. I'll leave you with a disturbing thought: at a time of war, going to Paris and freelancing with Viet Cong representatives in 1970-71 should have been a felony; being a midlevel analyst and perhaps talking too much about what we should do in Iran is not even a misdemeanor. So let us wait for the facts to come out. We are only now getting the full story of the so-called Joe Wilson escapade, and it looks worse for him each week.
All fine and good. But simple denials and assurances of character from one's political allies do not make for an effective defense.
If this bureaucrat is innocent--as I hope he is--then he will be owed apologies by many. But let's have the investigation rather than simply relying on VDH's pre-emptive vouchsafing, ok?
Ok.
That's what he essentially said, too. I understood him only saying that he does not viewed the wrongs as likely.
I do think, considering the timimg especially, that this "leak" was politically motivated. Are you as adamant about Sandy Berger?
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