After 22 Years, It's Only Right To Free Jonathan Pollard

[Purveyor]

President Bush's visit to Israel this week, like all top-level US-Israel summits since the end of the first Gulf War, raises hopes that the United States will finally put an end to Jonathan Pollard's imprisonment.

"When can we stop punishing a man who broke the law to expose a massive, malignant and malicious arms buildup so that a beleaguered people could defend themselves from weapons of terror and mass destruction?" That is how Ted Olson, Mr. Bush's solicitor general between 2001 and 2004, summed up the Pollard affair nearly 14 years ago when he was Jonathan's counsel.

Jonathan, a former civilian naval intelligence officer, is now in the 23rd year of a life sentence for passing to Israel classified data about the weapons systems and capabilities of Iraq, Syria and other Arab states, including evidence of Iraq's development of chemical weapons. Just a few years before Jonathan's arrest in November of 1985, the US routinely shared such information with Israel. Ironically, this vital intelligence flow was severely curtailed following Israel's destruction of Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981.

OVER THE years, prominent Americans from across the political spectrum have decried the US government's conduct in the Pollard case.

In June of 1992, Pat Robertson, speaking of the Pollard case, declared: "Every time there is a miscarriage of justice in our system, it will eat like a cancer at the credibility of the rest of the system of justice we love in this country." Similarly, in a 1993 letter to President Clinton about the Pollard affair, Benjamin Hooks wrote, "As a lawyer and a minister, as well as a former judge and CEO of the NAACP, I have rarely encountered a case in which government arbitrariness was so clear-cut and inexcusable."

---EOE---

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517327339&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. it is NEVER alright to release a traitor that caused so much damage.

in fact, had there been a death penalty the, we should have used it on him.


Anyone who shills of AIPAC like that should think long and hard exactly what his crime was.

Olsen is an ass, a shill, and absolutely unreliable on this point.

[dbackjon]

5. And another reason why we need to win in November

Olson's, and his cronies should be nowhere near power in DC.

Olson is a 9ui11ani advisor.

[LeftCoast]

2. He should do every bit of the time

Pollard is a spy and a traitor.

[Howardx]

6. amen

but watch the pressure to release him increase among the pro-i's here at du.

[Benhurst]

3. Bullshit! Throw away the key.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. it is ok to spy on america for some foreign nations, eh?

The release of data to the Soviet Union caused direct harm because of Pollard.

He damaged America. This crap simply places Israel's pseudo interests above America's. I say bullshit. I may repeat it a few times.

[northzax]

7. Had pollard given this information

to the New York Times, he would not be in jail, that's called whistleblowing. Giving it, in secret, to a foreign nation while in the employ of the people of the United States is called treason and should be rewarded with a lifetime as a guest of those same united states in the facility of our choice. (during a period of active war, death should be on the table, but it is basically a bargianing chip to gain cooperation.) enjoy your stay, mr. Pollard.

[sendero]

8. No it isn't..

.. he should rot in jail. Fuck that traitor.