Will Obama pardon the traitor Pollard?

"The linkage to Obama’s reelection bid is obvious. Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yonah
Metzger brashly stated that releasing Pollard would
be good for Obama’s reelection campaign. But what makes Pollard worth
expending such formidable lobbying and political capital?  Why have Israel and
its Western lobbying organizations made Pollard a key issue, almost on the same
footing as massive US taxpayer-funded aid packages and confronting Iran?  The
Israel lobby effort is trying to achieve much more than simply putting Congress
and a sitting president through their paces.

Pollard’s ongoing imprisonment has uniquely and singularly defied Israel’s
doctrine of accountability.  Israel’s history is replete with demands that it should never
be held accountable for any act committed anywhere — including in the US — that
is perpetrated in the name of Israel’s national security.  "  Antiwar

-------------------------------

I was on the damage assesment board that looked at what Pollard had done for Israel and to the US.

Most of the purloined material had nothing to do with the ME and everything to do with the Warsaw Pact.  The Israelis wanted the material for "trade goods."

Pollard was 150% Israel's guy then and now.  The Israelis once again betrayed our trust.  Any "American" who wants Pollard pardoned should emigrate to Israel with him if he is released.  pl

http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2012/06/08/why-obama-will-free-jonathan-pollard/

Comments

[Jackie]

Pat,
Hear, hear!!! I salute Israel with my middle for this bit of chutzpah.

Israel has done alot to be held accountable for.

[CTuttle]

Any "American" who wants Pollard pardoned should emigrate to Israel with him if he is released. pl

Amen, Col., Amen...! ;-)

[Cal]

"Something happens..then you make a choice and take a side"..
Grahma Green "The Quiet American"

I'm telling ya boys,the day is coming when Americans are gonna have to recongize Israel as the real US enemy.Take it to the bank --that day will come. Israel will push us that far. They are 65 years old psychopaths,they've passed the point of being reformable.

[John]

OT slightly but... Yesterday June 8 was the 45th anniversary of the fatal attack on the USS Liberty. Those who unnecessarily died back then are still remembered.

http://tinyurl.com/d3d45dr

http://tinyurl.com/c6clloe

[kao_hsien_chih]

I for one think we should finally let Pollard go back to Israel, in about 6 pieces not attached to one another.

[Alba Etie]

Pollard-the traitor should stay in jail . The BHO administration will not pardon Pollard . This administration is not beholden to the Likud either here or in Tel Aviv .

[rjj du Nord]

Clinton can remind him how the Marc Rich pardon was repaid.

[russ]

Pat,
Well said. I had the opportunity to review for classified material some of his letters from prison. Delusional only begins to describe them....
Russ

[jr786]

How can pardoning this creep be in the best/any interests of this country?

I can't believe anyone is even considering this. The BBC world had a long report about this a few days ago, including the usually overlooked fact that the israelis first lied about their connection to the traitor.

[Fred]

BHO should worry less about the 'Jewish' vote he will gain and more about all the others he'll lose. No need to mention principle when his over-riding one seems to be re-election at any cost. (One trait he seems to share with Romney).

[AnonAF]

I recognize the damage assessment board findings were (and presumably still are) classified. However, is there any open source account you would be willing to reference as to what Pollard revealed? (My understanding is that, among other acts, Pollard revealed US intelligence activities in the USSR, which the Israelis bartered in exchange for the release of refuseniks, etc.; the agents whose names were revealed, died.)

Thanks
AnonAF

[JerseyJeffersonian]

May he rot in the supermax as an example to potential emulators.

Justice for the U.S.S. Liberty: will it ever be seen?

With friends like these...

[steve]

Unfortunately--and obviously--no politician from the "other" party would challenge Obama on this.

[Stephanie]

This article by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker is a good place to start:

http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1999-01-18#folio=026

Hersh also appeared on the Charlie Rose show some time ago discussing Pollard. That interview should be available online.

My understanding is that Obama isn't the first president to waffle on Pollard but the intelligence community has always put its collective foot down.

[SEH]

To release Pollard would be to show that America really is nothing more than a puppet of Israeli political and monied interests. It would reveal the true degree of our lack of direction as an independent nation. In fact, it does, in a way, reflect the Israeli confidence in their ability to control the direction America will take. We need to wake up and break loose from this disgusting strait jacket.

[b]

A recent BBC Interview with the man who caught Pollard

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00sqwb8

They get it wrong about the stuff Pollard has stolen.

[HankP]

I thought spies were traded, not pardoned. Obviously Israel either doesn't have anything worthwhile to trade for him, or isn't willing to do so.

[toto]

What the US wants from Israel is a freeze on colonization. The current Israel government will not do that - not for Pollard, not for anything, maybe not even under threat of US funding withdrawal (which wouldn't happen anyway).

Pollard sits at the uncomfortable level on the priority scale which is high enough to raise a fuss, but not high enough to match anything the US might ask for in a trade.

[Colin Murray]

There is more than one kind of spy. Pollard wasn't a spy in the sense of being a foreign national formally in the employ of a foreign government engaged in espionage against the United States, e.g. Anna Chapman. He is an American, ONE OF US: that makes him a traitor, not just a spy.

All the whiners who claim that keeping Pollard in prison is antisemitic have it 180 degrees backwards. Treating American Jews engaged in espionage against the US on behalf of Israel as Israelis by default and trading or repatriating them 'back' to Israel would be antisemitic.

It appears that many Israelis don't care if we go down that path because the long-term security of American Jews in America is not one of their priorities. American Jews are, after all, by definition 'unascended' in Zionist doctrine.

[YT]

Colin,

The Eagle gave one look at the arrow that had entered his heart and saw in that single glance that its feathers had been furnished by himself. "It is a double grief to me," he exclaimed, "that I should perish by an arrow feathered from my own wings."

[Medicine Man]

Thanks for that link.

[William R. Cumming]

rjj du NOrd! How as the Marc Rich pardon repaid?

[rjj du Nord]

shock, indignation, outrage, condemnation by the people who had lobbied for it and their allies in the commentariat.