If it's mostly all true, and it can't make it to the MSM, what does that tell us about the state of affairs in the US?

Strobe Talbott????

You're not kidding, are you? This is the first I've heard of it. I'm amazed, and then I'm double-amazed that this hasn't been widely discussed.

I look forward to reading more.

Hmmm... could it be that the MSM's giving him the benefit of the doubt due to his political affiliations, or is it that they simply see this as "Dog bites man", aka something so expected and expect-able (I know it ain't a word) that it's simply not newsworthy?

If a fellow with a name like Strobe Talbott III was a for real spy for the Russians, someone might say "isn't it about time to release Jonathan Pollard and go after the real enemies of the country?"

Can't have that, now, can we? That would be justice.

The only problem with Pollard is that they didn't hang the bastard.

Lou, the only problem with your logic is that Pollard was never convicted of anything close to treason. He accepted a plea bargain which the government reneged on at the last minute.

If you want Pollard hung, get him convicted. If you go on such a campaign, you'll find yourself in the filthiest of company.

In the meantime, he is a hero here in Israel. Lots of us understand who our real enemies are, and they understand that our real enemies infest the White House and State Department like so many cockroaches. If you don't believe me, start from this story, and then go to my analyses of events in the Middle East, about ninety-five articles worth. The real reasons that Pollard rots in jail are that Jew-haters in the American government want vengeance, and people who benefit from his imprisonment, like Shimon Peres, want him there.

In the meantime, I'd stick with going after fish that really stink - like this Talbot character.

Pollard was caught being a traitor to the US. Period. He confessed to being a traitor to the US. Period. Plea bargain doesn't equal innocence. He's a traitor to this country. I don't care what you think of him outside this country, but the fact that you consider him a hero says a lot about where your loyalties lie. You're Israeli, I would expect you to be loyal to Israel. Yet you expect me not to be loyal to my country. Pretty hypocritical, aren't you, Ruvy?

No, Lou, I don't expect you to be loyal to your country. But being loyal to your country means, in part, respecting the principles of due process that are inherent in its governance. Had Pollard been convicted of treason, he ought to have been hung, or given the sentence that the law provides for.

But he wasn't. And he served the time he was supposed to serve for what he did confess to. Unlike other spies who confessed to similar crimes, he yet rots in jail. What I think of him is irrelevant to the fact that Pollard rotting in jail is not a triumph for your justice system.

You're obviously refusing to deal with reality, Ruvy. The guy was caught. He confessed. What part of that don't you understand?

You say the US didn't stick to their side of a bargain. Well, neither did he. He took an oath when he took his job. He crapped on his oath.

And a famous Chief Justice of our Supreme Court said something like, "The law is what you get in the courtroom. Justice is what you get in the alley."

I never said that Pollard was a wunderkind or an angel. He crapped on his oath, like you said. For that, he deserved jail time.

It is not even clear that what he did was done out of belief. Unless, I am wrong, he was on some kind of drug, and his Israeli handlers were happy to "pay" him. His initial impulse might have been patriotic, but evidently there was more than mere patriotic motives behind his behavior.

As I said, Pollard was no angel.

He cleaned up his act in jail, but that is not the point. The sentence he was given was not proportionate to the crime he was convicted of AND OTHER SPIES CONVICTED OF SIMILAR CRIMES, HAVING PLED DOWN FROM TREASON AND HAVING DONE WORSE DAMAGE TO AMERICAN SECURITY, are now walking free.

That is reality, Lou, whether you like it or not. And this reality is a perversion of justice - a perversion of American justice. Or, if you consider justice what is meted out in the back alley, his continuing to rot in jail is a perversion of the American legal system.

I don't expect you to be loyal to your country. That shoulda read "I don't expect you to be DISloyal to your country."

This discussion is pointless. Have a nice life.

You started an argument, and walked away in a huff because you couldn't argue me down.

You made my day, Lou. Thanks!!

Have a nice life.

Nobody can argue you down, Ruvy...

Nobody can argue you down, Ruvy...

From you, Chris, that is a compliment - even if you didn't mean it to be...

Thanks!

No, Ruvy, it's not.

I'll let you "win" that "argument", Chris....

Heh.

And now back to the evil spies for the Russkies.

Laters!

Ruvy, I'm wondering if Lou's unwillingness to continue your argument is because it would involve him saying things he cannot say.

DD,

A lot of things stink about the Pollard imprisonment, especially the fact that other spies who did far more damage than he did are now walking around free.

Pollard did wrong, and should have been imprisoned. But in the end, it was Caspar Weinberger, a Jew-hater as well as a bad policy maker, who insisted on the government breaking its deal to imprison him for however many years the plea bargain called for. He and a clique around him in the government insisted that Pollard rot in jail.

Israeli leaders themselves are not sainted heroes in this mess either. Peres, now state president, was the prime minister of the unnamed country in the Iran-contra scandal of the eighties and he made money off information that Pollard sent him.
So, guess who else wants Pollard to rot in jail?

But none of this is relevant to Lou's present article - except that double loyalties are now quietly imputed to American Jews, partly over the Pollard affair, and partly over the "sting operation" by which Dr. Lawrence Franklin was supposed to incriminate two AIPAC employees by feeding them information at the behest of the Feds. For whatever reason, Franklin dropped out of the deal and had to take the fall - now he is in jail.

But it appears that the Russian spy is a good ol' WASP - just liked a couple of others who really damaged American intelligence when they were uncovered.

There is indeed more here than meets the eye.